NFl: Week 8 Review

Overall a good week: here's the review (my picks in italics, winners in bold).

Dolphins at Bengals
Jaguars at Cowboys (lock)
Redskins at Lions
Bills at Chiefs
Panthers at Rams
Packers at Jets
Broncos at 49ers
Titans at Chargers
Seahawks at Raiders
Vikings at Patriots
Buccaneers at Cardinals
Steelers at Saints

Week: 9-3
Year: 63-53
Lock: 4-4
Upset: 1-6

Still Upcoming:
Texans at Colts (upset)


To clarify, I did take the Texans. I realize that the end of my picks post could have been interpreted as a Colts pick, but I am taking the Texans as an upset.

Also, my fluke of the week didn't turn out to be that fluky, I guess. Fluke of the week probably should have gone to Green Bay / NYJ - who would have predicted that game?

In Fantasy Football, I'm going to win my fourth game in a row if Donald brown doesn't score 17 more points than Jacoby Jones tonight. I'm only at 72 points; I think I have a tremendous luck streak going. Look at it like this - I had Felix Jones, Randy Moss, Nick Folk, and Hines Ward starting. I think those four spots totalled 5 points. But then I got monster games from Marcedes Lewis and the Oakland Raiders Defense, and mediocre games from Kyle Orton and Darren Sproles (my backup backup RB). Weird.

NFL: Week 8 Picks

I'm having an up and down year. Two weeks ago, I went 5-9. One week ago, 10-4. This week, 4-10. Does this mean I'm due for another up week?

In fantasy, I started the season with a 4 game winless streak, and am now on a three game winning streak.This week, my MVP Roddy White is on a bye, along with "Matt good when Mike Martz remembers he's there Forte." So I've put in Jacoby Jones (definite underperformer this year, but NFL.com still predicts he'll get 15 points this week?) and Felix Jones. Dallas has to go to Felix with Romo out, right? Right?!?

A few things I'm thinking about this week, a few principles... The first and foremost is something Bill Simmons says. Don't be a hero - just try to win money. I'm not going to overthink my picks. The second principle? Don't back a crappy team on the road. If I had gone with this piece of common sense, I wouldn't have taken Jags, Rams, 49ers, Cards, or the Vikings. That's a five game swing.

On to the picks:

Dolphins at Bengals: I guess I'll take the Dolphins, who are pretty good on the road. Shrug. I'm also listing this as my Fluke of the Week. Who knows what will happen? But I think this is the game that has the most potential to have the weirdest outcome.

Jaguars at Cowboys: Jaguars are a crappy team, on the road. So I take Dallas. Also, Lock.

Redskins at Lions: Gonna take the Lions... Washington is a semi crappy team, and Donovan McNabb is secretly terrible this year; but no one notices because Washington is still doing better than expected.

Bills at Chiefs: Don't over think it. Take the Chiefs.

Panthers at Rams: Crappy team on the road. St Louis lost devastating last week, should rebound.

Packers at Jets: Two big principles in play: 1) when in doubt, take the home team and 2) when in doubt, take the AFC team.

Broncos at 49ers: I'm gonna break my rule already and take the Broncos. Geez, that sounds dumb. I wonder if I'm taking the Broncos so much because I have Kyle Orton in fantasy. But San Francisco is 1-6. Actually, I'm changing my pick right here to San Fran. Don't back crappy teams on the road. Say it with me!

Titans at Chargers: The Titans are bound to throw a game, and the Chargers are bound to win one by sheer talent, eventually, right?

Seahawks at Raiders: Repeat the mantra. I'm so tempted, because this is a classic let down game for Oakland, right? But Seattle can't win on the road. Unless they play Chicago. Who sucks.

Vikings at Patriots: Randy Moss is bound to have a huge game, but New England doesn't have the media ridiculousness (for once). This game scares me because eventually I think Brett Favre will singlehandedly win a game; I just don't know if it's here and now.

Buccaneers at Cardinals: Easy enough, because Buc's just won an emotional game on the last play or whatever, so they're due for a let down. I also think they're better at home then away.

Steelers at Saints: Remember for the GB/NYJ game when I listed two principles? They are at odds here... Home team vs AFC team. Ultimately, I think Pittsburgh realizes they escaped Miami barely and New Orleans is angry about losing to Cleveland. I think New Orleans can win this one.

Texans at Colts: And here we go... I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna play against Manning in a night game. I'm going to take the Texans as an upset. Screw that "don't be a hero."

Wisdom

As you may know, I work for a Skilled Nursing Facility. One of the other staff members is our chaplain, Dave Passey. Dave shared yesterday from James 3:17, and particularly 7 qualities of wisdom, which I have reproduced below:

1. · Pure: Untainted by selfish motives.
2. · Peaceable: Diffuses conflict and brings the peace of Christ.
3. · Gentle: Seeks to understand before judging.
4. · Willing to yield: Not insistent on its own viewpoint.
5. · Full of mercy and good fruit: Showing patience and willing to give others space.
6. · Impartial: Shows no favoritism.
7. · Without hypocrisy: Lives a life of integrity, i.e. walks the talk.

I chose to put this on here today because I feel it's important to meditate on, because there is a veritable difference between Intelligence and Wisdom.

One of the gifts I have is intelligence. There is no real way to say this and sound humble, but the truth I very rarely do not feel more intelligent than anyone else in the room. It actually throws me off my edge when I'm in the company of someone who is smarter than me.

But I definitely don't have much wisdom some times. I make lots of mistakes that should be easy to see coming. And I think that comes from a realm of dealing with people (wisdom) versus a realm of the physical world (intelligence). I think you can see that most of those points above refer to relationships with people, rather than relationships with things.

Here's what I mean: Intelligence can tell me that someone needs encouragement. Wisdom can tell me how and when to encourage them. In some ways, Wisdom makes intelligence superfluous. If you can successfully understand the people around you, you can go far.

Most successful leaders are people of wisdom. Most successful managers are people of intelligence. I think I would be pretty successful as a manager but not that successful as a leader.

So that's one of my goals; to go from doing well with the world around me to doing well with the people around me.

NFL: Week 7 Review

Shrug. I told you it was a pick em affair. I think next week I'll start a new type of pick, to replace the long forgotten x-factor - the Fluke of the Week (this week: Oakland!)

Bengals at Falcons

Redskins at Bears

Eagles at Titans

Jaguars at Chiefs

Steelers at Dolphins

Browns at Saints

Rams at Buccaneers

49ers at Panthers

Bills at Ravens

Cardinals at Seahawks

Raiders at Broncos

Patriots at Chargers (Upset)

Vikings at Packers

Giants at Cowboys (Lock)

Week: 4-10

Year: 54-50

Lock: 4-3

Upset: 1-6

NFL: Week 7 Picks

Quite the slate of weird games this week. I think it's entirely possible to misread the week and end up with another 6-10 or 5-11 week. 10 of the 14 games have spreads of less than 5 points. Ah randomness, to the picks.

Bengals at Falcons: See, this is a game I don't know about. I wonder if Carson Palmer could rebound. But I also think the Falcons could rebound. The line for the game is ATL +4; I think I'll take Atlanta. Homefield wins in case of doubt.

Redskins at Bears: Jeez, two games in a row. Raise your hand if you think the Bears are any good. Now raise your hand if you think the Redskins are any good. Washington lost a close one to Indianapolis; and the Bears looked horrible against the Seahawks. If I was to guess, I would think Mike Martz will do the smart thing and actually use Matt Forte again. But Washington has to see that coming.... BAH! I'll take Bears.

Eagles at Titans: Both teams came off impressive wins last week. But I still think the Titans may be a great rough team in the making, so I'll take them.

Jaguars at Chiefs: The first 8 teams so far have been maddeningly imprecise. Who knows in any of these picks? Seriously, flip a coin. A hometeam gets three points for being a hometeam, and ATL is +4, Bears and Titans are +3. And Chiefs/Jags are even. I'm going to pick the Jaguars though; big rebound game for MJD.

Steelers at Dolphins: Now we start to get some games that are easier to pick. Steelers. Miami hasn't beaten anyone of importance yet (Minn? Green Bay? Buffalo?).

Browns at Saints: Ooh, possible trap game? Or are the Saints back to form? This is a good litmus test. If the Browns stay in or win this game, I think we can probably safely write off New Orleans. Since I'm not ready for that, I'll pick the Saints. (Maybe the Madden curse is hitting the players around Drew Brees, huh?)

Rams at Buccaneers: Can you believe these teams are both decent this year? And the winner has a decent look at the playoffs? I'm picking St Louis. I think they're a more complete team.

49ers at Panthers: Homedog syndrome. So I'll take Carolina... Crickets chirp. Wait, that's a dumb idea. I'll take San Francisco.

Bills at Ravens: Championship teams blow out these sort of games. See what the Jets did to Buffalo a few weeks ago, now realize that the Ravens are better than the Jets. I pick the Ravens.

Cardinals at Seahawks: Does anyone know if either of these teams are even average? I guess I'll take Arizona; Seattle didn't win last week, Chicago lost.

Raiders at Broncos: Denver, by a mile. They're getting desperate. (Side note: are they perhaps the most fun team to watch right now? They basically run a Madden videogame offense and every game seems to end on the last play.)

Patriots at Chargers: I'm gonna maybe cheat a little and take San Diego as my Upset. Patriots are traveling across the coast and just won an emotional game against the Ravens.

Vikings at Packers: Armageddon. Is Brett distracted? Is he finally going to have a Favre game where he throws a ton of passes that miraculously get caught? I think I'll take the Vikings. They played a solid game and let Dallas beat themselves; and I think it will help their confidence this week.

Giants at Cowboys: Giants are getting a little too full of themselves, so I'll take Dallas as the Lock.

NFL: Week 6 Review

Woo! Let's take a look at the picks (mine in italics, correct in bold):

Seahawks at Bears

Dolphins at Packers

Chargers at Rams

Ravens at Patriots

Lions at Giants

Falcons at Eagles

Browns at Steelers (lock)

Saints at Buccaneers

Chiefs at Texans

Jets at Broncos

Raiders at 49ers
Cowboys at Vikings

Colts at Redskins

Titans at Jaguars

Week: 10-4

Year: 50-40

Lock: 4-2

Upset: 1-5

Heck yeah, what a good weekend. I went 10-4, won my Fantasy game by .8 points, and looked nearly prescient. My Denver as upset pick was my sole heartbreaker; and that I blame on the rest of the country jumping on my bandwagon and picking the same upset. Here's a rule: if 90% of the country thinks it's an upset, 90% of the time it won't be. So my upset got... upset?

Let's look real quick at a few other NFL predictions; I already detailed how well I'm doing having picked the division winners.

Best Prediction:

Overhyped: Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets, and one of either: Green Bay, Baltimore, San Diego. At least two of those teams will miss the playoffs, but they're all ranked in the top 8 of Sports Illustrated's Power Rankings.

I nailed that, huh? Dallas and San Diego for sure, and possibly Green Bay.

Worst Prediction:

Ultra Surprise Dark Horse: Ladies and gentlemen, the Cleveland Browns!

A swing and a miss!

Writing

I've been musing about writing again for some time. I've been thinking about what I should be writing; which is encouraging. Too often I fall into the trap of I should be writing and stop thinking about the why or the content.

I see it on this blog. Other than my NFL posts, which aren't what I consider writing, the blog has been pretty sparse. Occasionally I'll break through and write something meaningful, but I'll confess that sometimes it feels like pulling teeth.

I've long believed that life moves in cycles. Specifically, my creative impulses move like the tides - there is a definite ebb and flow. I will go through a period where I absolutely devour books; another time where I am literally writing so much for the blog that I have to plan it out and think about what meshes well; and other times I'm very engrossed in gaming and strategic thoughts. Certainly, I do all of these at the same time; but one of them will tend to dominate my free time. For example, just because I'm reading a ton, doesn't mean I won't be playing Warhammer.

I think the cycles each represent something for me:

a) Reading is my input cycle. I devour books when I'm in this cycle. It's not uncommon for me to hit up a used book store and bring home four books of different genre's and read them in the space of a single weekend. I think this is what opens me up to new ideas and new thought processes. I let thoughts and concepts enter my brain and soak in.

b) Gaming is my vegetative cycle. I'm shutting down the input and output sections of my brain and testing what I've learned. Sometimes this plays out on a tabletop or in a video game; sometimes it just plays out in my imagination and thought processes. This is a period of testing; of divination; of sorting out the wheat from the chaffe.

c) Writing is the output cycle. After learning and after testing, I can go through a period where I find new ways to express and create what I've learned. I pour out what's been rattling around until I'm empty again.

Right now, I feel myself pulling out of the gaming cycle and moving towards a writing cycle. I'll still 'game' and still read, but I think I feel major creative potential welling. I'm planning to take advantage of that and write something; perhaps something more than can be contained on this blog. A few projects that have been more or less on hold:

1. Ashram - Needs a rewrite to get to a third draft.

2. My Mom's Story - Only ever wrote two chapters.

3. 337 - Mostly defunct at this point. Would need a few other life changes to get back to this.

4. Various Fictional Ideas - No work done besides preliminary dreaming and basic plotting.

Writing those out, my gut leans towards writing more of my Mom's story. That's hard, but the other projects seem harder in my mind. And it would be good to have this particular story out of the way. I think my goal will be to have something new completed (first draft) by Christmas.

Anyway, that's a bit of a peak into the creative process for me and a bit of my thought process currently. I would appreciate any encouragement you have!