The Sportsballers

Week 7 might have been the worst week of picking games for our hosts, collectively. We’ve each individually had bad weeks from time to time, but I’d be surprised if we’ve ever before had a week where we went 1-7 in games the three of us picked the same team to win or cover. Our lone success in that department was Seattle (-7.5) vs Arizona. Our seven consensus misses were: Detroit (+3) at Baltimore [the Ravens blew the doors off the Lions] Las Vegas (-3) at Chicago [the Bears won outright] Buffalo (-8.5) at New England [the Patriots won outright] Washington (-2.5) at New York [the Giants won outright] Tampa Bay (-2.5) vs Atlanta [the Falcons won outright] Green Bay (-1.5) at Denver [the Broncos won outright] San Francisco (-7) at Minnesota [the Vikings won outright] Perhaps we were a little too heavy handed in picking road favorites this week.   Congratulations to  Sean Kennedy , who won our Week 7 fan contest outright. The fans had a similarly difficult week, but Sean stood ab...

Our second week of division matchups is in the books. We all have one division rival left to see, and that will come in Week 9. Stephen April and Alex Kincaid are both 2-0 in their games against AFL East opponents, so that Week 9 matchup will be a crucial one for both managers.   In the AFL Central, Alex Mayo is 2-0 against his division and is hoping he can avoid missing the playoffs for a third year in a row after winning at least five of his first seven games. This is also the third straight year Alex has had a winning streak of at least five games.   And in the AFL West, Brandon Saunders is holding things down with a 2-0 record against his rivals, including a win against Evan Ash that is currently giving him the tiebreaker with both managers sitting at 5-2 on the season.   Historically, teams above .500 at this juncture in the season do quite well. Teams that begin 5-2 make the playoffs in the AFL at a rate of 42.1% while teams that begin 4-3 are even more successful, ...