NFL 2013: Week 3 Picks

The ship has been righted – somewhat – after a rough first couple of weeks.  Picking the winners provided an 11-5 addition to our season record and a win in the Knockout Pool gave us some confidence.  But, there is still plenty of work to do in picking against the spread and the Gridiron Challenge.

You have heard some of our picks on the Sports With The StatMan Saturday morning show, “This Week in Fantasy Sports”, but here are all of our picks for the week.

JOIN US!

It is never too late to join and see how you measure up against me and other listeners who participate.  You can enter your picks and join the groups I created for the show.  The winner will be touted on the Saturday show and, if you top the charts, you could even call in to give me your picks!  Here is how:

Game	Goal	Where to Play	Group to Join
Eliminator Challenge	Pick 1 winner per week, no repeat picks (a.k.a. Knockout Pool)	ESPN.com	Sports With The StatMan
Pigskin Pick’Em (Straight Up)	Pick a winner for each game, every week	ESPN.com	Sports w/the StatMan-Str
Pigskin Pick’Em (Against the Spread)	Pick a winner against the point spread for each game, every week	ESPN.com	Sports w/the StatMan-ATS
NFL Gridiron Challenge	Pick a team of players with a $50 million salary cap	ESPN.com	Sports With The StatMan

KNOCKOUT POOL/ESPN.com ELIMINATOR CHALLENGE

I cannot remember the last time Pittsburgh looked this bad.  Cincinnati had a methodical win on Monday night to help us to our first Knockout Pool win of the young season.  It was a much safer pick in a Knockout Pool than asking the Buccaneers to win on the road, even if the opponent was the Jets.

This week’s pick: Minnesota defeating Cleveland

Now, we go to another downhearted team.  Cleveland, and the Cleveland fans, were starting to feel a little better about themselves, what with the new ownership group and coaching staff.  But, new owners and coaches do not have an allegiance to the players the previous regime drafted.  So, to get better later, the Browns traded second-year potential star running back Trent Richardson to Indianapolis for a first-round draft pick.  The jury will be out for years on whether that was a good move, but we all know it is a bad move for the 2013 Browns, which is what this year’s team is (or was) playing for.  Minnesota will win in a romp.

PAST PICKS

Week 1: Tampa Bay (L at NYJ)

Week 2: Cincinnati (W vs PIT)

GAME PICKS/ESPN.com PIGSKIN PICK ‘EM

Here are the game picks for this week.  We talk about the local games and the three of the other most important games, our “Big Games”, on our weekly This Week in Fantasy Sports segment on Saturdays, but we pick every game, every week here on the blog.  New this year is the listing of our preseason pick we made for our NFL Preview series on the show.  This will give you an idea on what I thought of each team before the season and what I am thinking of each team during the season.

LOCAL GAMES

RESULTS	Straight Up	Against the Spread	Preseason Pick
SEASON	3-4	1-6	4-3
LAST WEEK (Week 2)	2-1	1-2	2-1
WEEK 3 LOCAL GAME PICKS	Straight Up	Against the Spread	Preseason Pick
Kansas City at Philadelphia (Thursday night)	PHL	PHL (-3.5)	PHL
Tampa Bay at New England (Sunday 1pm)	NE	TBY (+7.5)	NE
N.Y. Giants at Carolina (Sunday 1pm)	NYG	NYG (+1.5)	NYG
Buffalo at N.Y. Jets (Sunday 4pm)	BUF	BUF (+2.5)	BUF

BIG GAMES

RESULTS	Straight Up	Against the Spread	Preseason Pick
SEASON	3-3	3-3	3-3
LAST WEEK (Week 2)	1-2	2-1	1-2
WEEK 3 BIG GAME PICKS	Straight Up	Against the Spread	Preseason Pick
Green Bay at Cincinnati (Sunday 1pm)	GBY	GBY (-2.5)	GBY
Houston at Baltimore (Sunday 1pm)	HOU	HOU (-2.5)	BAL
Indianapolis at San Francisco (Sunday 4pm)	SFO	IND (+10.5)	SFO

OTHER GAMES

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS	Straight Up	Against the Spread	Preseason Pick
SEASON	14-5	10-9	16-3
LAST WEEK (Week 2)	8-2	5-5	8-2
WEEK 3 OTHER GAME PICKS	Straight Up	Against the Spread	Preseason Pick
Cleveland at Minnesota (Sunday 1pm)	MIN	MIN	MIN
St. Louis at Dallas (Sunday 1pm)	DAL	DAL	DAL
Detroit at Washington (Sunday 1pm)	DET	DET	WSH
San Diego at Tennessee (Sunday 1pm)	SDG	SDG	TEN
Arizona at New Orleans (Sunday 1pm)	NO	NO	NO
Atlanta at Miami (Sunday 4pm)	ATL	ATL	ATL
Jacksonville at Seattle (Sunday 4pm)	SEA	JAX	SEA
Chicago at Pittsburgh (Sunday night)	CHI	CHI	PIT
Oakland at Denver (Monday night)	DEN	DEN	DEN

START ‘EM/ANTI-START ‘EM/ESPN.com GRIDIRON CHALLENGE

We are participating in the ESPN Gridiron Challenge on ESPN.com again this season.  The object is to pick the best team possible with a $50 million salary cap.  The salary cap moves up if the value of your players increases.  However, we have added another wrinkle.  The object of the ESPN.com is to buy low and sell high and the more you accomplish that, the more money you get in your salary cap.  My goal is to put together a nine-man unit (2 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 DEF) that is better than another nine-man unit at a similar price.

We are 0-2 in our head-to-head matchups between our Start ‘Em and Anti-Start ‘Em teams and while there was an improvement in our matching of lineup slots, our overall showing was worse in Week 2.  We scored 100 with our Start ‘Em team, but only 86 points in Week 2.  We did, however, pick the right person three of nine times with one push, compared to two of nine in Week 1.

WEEK 1: Head-to-Head – L, 100-137; By Position: 2-7

WEEK 2: Head-to-Head – L, 86-116; By Position: 3-5-1

SEASON: 0-2 W-L, 186 PF, 253 PA, 5-12-1 by position

Here is the Week 3 entry in the Gridrion Challenge, our “Start ‘Em” team, along with our comparable “Anti-Start ‘Em” team, which is our “opponent” for the week.

 (all dollar figures in millions)

Start ‘Em Team	POS	Anti-Start ‘Em Team
Matthew Stafford DET ($6.2)	QB	Tom Brady NE ($6.1)
Alex Smith KCY ($5.5)	QB	Russell Wilson SEA ($5.8)
LeSean McCoy PHL ($6.3)	RB	Alfred Morris WSH ($6.0)
Marshawn Lynch SEA ($6.2)	RB	Trent Richardson IND ($5.9)
A.J. Green CIN ($6.2)	WR	Brandon Marshall CHI ($6.2)
DeSean Jackson PHL ($5.7)	WR	Torrey Smith BAL ($5.3)
Julius Thomas DEN ($5.4)	TE	Tony Gonzalez ATL ($5.5)
Rob Bironas TEN ($4.3)	K	Garrett Hartley NO ($4.7)
Minnesota Vikings ($4.6)	DEF	Miami Dolphins MIA ($5.1)
$50.4 million	TOTAL	$50.6 million

Catch me on "Sports With The StatMan" on Wednesdays at 11pm ET and Saturdays at 11am ET. We'll break down these picks and look ahead to next week on our This Week in Fantasy Sports segment, Saturday morning at 11am ET.