This week the Patriots travel to Cincinnatti to play the Bengals.  This should be a very tough game.  The Patriots offense is struggling as the new wide receivers are still getting acclimated to the system (and they’re often hurt).  In addition, the Patriots defensive backfield is hurting already too as CB Randall Gay was placed on IR this week and CB Ellis Hobbs did not practice all week.  The Bengals have looked dominant in all their games and their WR combo of Chad Johnson, TJ Houshmandzadeh and Chris Henry looked very strong against the Steelers.  Against our depleted defensive backfield it seems like they should have an easy time.  However, the Patriots do not take losing easily, I’m sure they will come back determined and fiery this week after their loss last week.  The Patriots have a 52 game streak of never losing two games in a row (3rd longest in league history) and there’s a good reason for it.  Can their determination and passion overcome their talent deficit?

There are also two great games this week between some serious Super Bowl contenders.  In the AFC the Ravens are playing the Chargers (I think the winner of this game is probably the favorite to go to the Super Bowl from the AFC, although the Bengals could do it as well).  Neither the Ravens or Chargers have really played anyone that good so far this year, but they have played very well.  I think the Chargers should win this one pretty easily, with their fast pressure defense getting to Steve McNair.

In the NFC, the Bears and Seahawks are playing.  The winner of this game is probably the favorite to go the Super Bowl from the NFC.  The Seahawks look really strong while the Bears D and Rex Grossman look good as well.  However, the Seahawks are coming off a dominant win against a pretty good team in the Giants, while the Bears have just beaten up on poorer teams.  I have to think the Seahawks are the better team and should win this one if they don’t have a let down after their big win last week.

Week 4 Predictions
Colts 27 - Jets 24 OT
Bills 23 - Vikings 17
Bengals 28 - Patriots 23
Ravens 27 - Chargers 20
Titans 28 - Cowboys 24
Texans 24 - Dolphins 20
Raiders 23 - Browns 20 OT
49ers 23 - Chiefs 20 OT
Eagles 31 - Packers 16
Jaguars 19 - Redskins 16 OT
Seahawks 26 - Bears 23 OT
Saints 23 - Panthers 21
Falcons 27 - Cardinals 17
Rams 28 - Lions 14
Last Week:
Picked winning team: 5-9, 0.357
Against the spread: 8-6, 0.571
Picking over/under: 8-6, 0.571

Week 3 Predictions
Patriots 28 - Broncos 20
Dolphins 27 - Titans 17
Bills 28 - Jets 23
Steelers 31 - Bengals 21
Ravens 24 - Browns 21
Colts 23 - Jaguars 20
Texans 21 - Redskins 20
Vikings 23 - Bears 20 OT
Lions 27 - Packers 17
Falcons 24 - Saints 21
Buccaneers 27 - Panthers 21
49ers 26 - Eagles 23 OT
Seahawks 27 - Giants 20
Rams 30 - Cardinals 27 OT
Last Week:
Picked winning team: 10-6, 0.625
Against the spread: 8-8, 0.5
Picking over/under: 7-9, 0.438

In the first two games so far this year, there have been some dominating defensive performances.  Four teams have given up fewer than 5 points per game while two more teams have given up less than 10 points in each of the first two games.  Here is a list of the top defensive teams so far:

1. Ravens: 3 pts/gm
2. Bears: 3.5 pts/gm
3. Chargers: 3.5 pts/gm
4. Falcons: 4.5 pts/gm
5. Seahawks: 8 pts/gm
6. Jaguars: 8.5 pts/gm

Obviously it has only been two games but its still very bizarre to have so many teams playing such dominating defense.  The top defense last year was the Bears, who gave up an average of ~ 12 pts/gm.  Of course this could be a case of teams playing against anemic offenses.  The Chargers and Ravens have both played the Raiders while the Ravens and Falcons have both played the Buccaneers, both seemingly terrible offensive teams.

In addition to the impressive defensive performances, the Chargers, Bears, and Ravens are also in the top five in points scored.  It looks like these are some impressive teams.  If I had to pick the Super Bowl teams right now, I would go with the Falcons and Chargers, with the Bears and Ravens close behind.  It should be an interesting year.

I have a bad feeling about this game.  The Jets looked much better last week than the Patriots did in their game.  The Patriots have no wide receivers to throw to.  And we’re playing our first game against a former Pats coach.  Mangini probably knows as much about the Patriots system and especially defensive schemes as anyone, it will be interesting to see how his knowledge is used on the field.

There is some bad blood between the Patriots and Jets.  This goes back a long ways.  In 1996 the Jets signed Bill Parcells away as their head coach and distracted him from preparing very well for the Super Bowl.  Then the Jets signed Curtis Martin from the Patriots.  When the Patriots wanted to hire Bill Belichick as their head coach from the Jets, they tried to prevent the Pats from interviewing him and then Parcells retired to try to force Belichick to take the job as head coach of the Jets.  This offseason the Jets took our defensive coordinator, Eric Mangini, and hired him as their head coach, apparently against the wishes of Bill Belichick.   Finally, this week the Patriots fired tampering charges against the Jets for releasing information on their trade offer for WR Deion Branch.

The matchup of the Jets offense and the Patriots defense looks pretty even.  The Jets offense looked pretty good last week, but in the second half of the game with the Bills the Pats defense looked great as well.  Ellis Hobbs was able to completely shut down WR Lee Evans.  If Bruschi is back then he should help a lot on run defense as well.  It remains to be seen what Mangini’s knowledge of the Pats’ defensive schemes will mean for this matchup.

On offense, there are a lot of questions for the Patriots.  Will Tom Brady have anyone to throw to?  If Chad Jackson and/or Doug Gabriel are healthy then that could help quite a bit in this game.  Also hopefully without the Deion Branch distraction Brady will play better.  If the Patriots can rush for 183 yards like they did last week then they should be in good shape.

I really think this game could go either way but I’m going to be optimistic and predict Patriots 17, Jets 14.

Week 2 Predictions
Dolphins 28 - Bills 20
Jets 23 - Patriots 21
Bengals 31 - Browns 17
Ravens 28 - Raiders 14
Colts 27 - Texans 17
Steelers 24 - Jaguars 16
Broncos 30 - Chiefs 27 OT
Chargers 28 - Titans 21
Eagles 27 - Giants 23
Redskins 23 - Cowboys 20
Saints 27 - Packers 24 OT
Bears 24 - Lions 17
Panthers 24 - Vikings 23
Falcons 20 - Buccaneers 14
49ers 26 - Rams 23 OT
Seahawks 34 - Cardinals 17
Last Week:
Picked winning team: 8-8, 0.5
Against the spread: 6-10, 0.375
Picking over/under: 8-8, 0.5

Today the Patriots traded Deion Branch to the Seattle Seahawks for a 2007 first round pick.  This was pretty much inevitable after the fiasco the Pats turned this negotiation into and we were lucky to end up with a first round pick.  The Patriots totally messed this up.  Between the negotiations (or lack thereof) with Vinatieri, Givens, and Branch, the Patriots have gone 0 for 3 and looked like they made a mistake all three times.  Here’s my synopsis of the Branch situation:

Back before the 2005 season, the Patriots tried to extend WR David Givens contract but would not offer him the amount of money he was looking for.  This offseason, when Givens’ contract was up, the Pats eventually offered him what he had wanted a year earlier.  However, now that he was a free agent he was able to get more money from Tennessee.  I think a lot of people thought that one of the reasons the Pats let Givens go was because they could not afford to keep both Givens and Branch at WR and they had decided to focus on extending Branch’s contract.  Branch had one more year left on his contract and the Pats and Branch couldn’t even come close on numbers for a contract extension.  So the Patriots gave Branch permission to seek a trade, possibly hoping that Branch would not find anyone willing to pay the price he was asking.  Instead the Jets and Seahawks both made great offers to Branch.  The Pats, although unwilling to pay Branch the money of a top WR, wanted to get at least a first round pick for him.  Branch was about to go to arbitration when Seattle did finally offer the Pats a first round pick.

I’m not sure what is going on with the Pats organization right now.  Perhaps their valuations of players’ values are too low or at least lower than the rest of the teams in the league.  Maybe they haven’t adjusted to the new CBA with the much larger salary cap.  But it seems like the Pats are unwilling to offer their players contracts even close to what they can get from other teams.

Well that was an ugly game, but the Pats got the win.  It looked like our passing game is really going to struggle if we don’t have any wide receivers for Brady to throw to (what a surprise).  The defense played poorly in the first half but stepped it up in the second half.

I thought the biggest positive from the game was the play of Laurence Maroney.  Maroney’s first two runs were for 28 and 22 yards.  He looked very impressive out there.  All told, the Patriots had over 180 rushing yards in the game.  If the Pats can keep running it like that with Maroney and Dillon then that will be awesome.

Well this will be a sad day for me, as this is going to be the first time I’ll have to watch a Patriots’ home game on TV.  Anyway, as for my quick preview: The Bills have a new head coach and will probably struggle against the Pats.  The Pats are perilously thin at WR with Chad Jackson and Doug Gabriel out.  That leaves just Troy Brown, Reche Caldwell, and Bam Childress.  It will be interesting to see how effective our passing game will be with that receiving corps.  That could mean a big role for TE Ben Watson.  I’m also looking to see what the balance in carries is between Maroney and Dillon.  I am curious to see how our linebackers do this game.  The middle linebackers were our biggest weakness last year and Bruschi will not be playing today.  That means we’ll have Vrabel and Seau in the middle with Colvin and Banta-Cain outside.  I am also waiting to see how Rodney Harrison looks in his first full game since his injury last year.  Prediction: Patriots 28 - Bills 17.

Week 1 Predictions
Patriots 27 - Bills 14
Steelers 27 - Dolphins 10
Browns 21 - Saints 20
Titans 24 - Jets 14
Jaguars 23 - Cowboys 14
Texans 21 - Eagles 13
Chargers 27 - Raiders 20
Chiefs 34 - Bengals 31 OT
Colts 24 - Giants 17
Redskins 21 - Vikings 13
Bears 24 - Packers 13
Seahawks 31 - Lions 16
Buccaneers 20 - Ravens 16
Panthers 24 - Falcons 16
Broncos 28 - Rams 21
Cardinals 27 - 49ers 17