We all love to engage our mental prowess in the NFL whether it’s through office pools, fantasy football or bets sitting at the local watering hole. At SportsJourney Broadcast Network, the tradition of pitting football players against football lovers takes place every week and so our Week 7 NFL picks are now on the board.
Results from previous weeks indicates that just because a guy is a professional football player, doesn’t mean he can necessarily pick other teams’ fortunes. That’s okay. It’s not like wide receivers Terrence Austin and Anthony Armstrong; linebacker Ryan Kerrigan and fullback Darrel Young don’t have other things going on right now.
Monday night opened the procuring of selections as Austin made his picks for the week during his show at Bungalow Billiards down in Arlington, Va. He, Lake Lewis, Dr. Wendy Jacobs of Jacobs Chiro (show sponsor), Jarman Gantt (SideLine Haters) and I all played NFL Nostradamus for Week 7.
During this and the other players’ shows, there was much discussion about the loss against the Philadelphia Eagles last week and the coming game at the Carolina Panthers.
“I definitely think [the loss to the Eagles] was a combination of things,” Austin said. “We met today. We looked at the film. There was a lot of mistakes that we made. We hurt ourselves with a couple of penalties and some crucial situations.
“I don’t really think we came to beat [the Eagles] down,” he continued. “I mean, we knew that we had to beat them – we knew what we wanted to do – but we didn’t really come into the game tostop them by putting our foot on their throat. That’s something we really need to be thinking about doing during every game.
“I don’t want to speak for the whole team because I wasn’t out there on defense… but I know offensively, the first drive we came out and we did pretty well. But we have to realize that in order to be a successful football team, we gotta go full go and not stop and not give anybody the opportunity to come back on us at all.
“I think that that’s what happened. With the addition of some other things – some turnovers, some missed opportunities we had, some penalties – we hurt ourselves.”
The game against the Carolina Panthers feels like a pivotal one for Washington. Long-time Redskins fans know that a couple of years ago, Washington could go to Charlotte, N.C. and lose to the Panthers. Carolina is 1-5 and the Redskins of old never seemed to be able to put teams away that they should beat. Losing this game could start a downward spiral difficult to stop.
The Redskins’ defense need to harass Panthers’ quarterback Cam Newton mercilessly and the offense needs to score touchdowns, not field goals. Carolina must be defeated to avoid a real backslide on the season.
“That would be good because they’ve been playing some tight ball games,” Armstrong said on Tuesday night during his show. “They’re the most exciting 1-5 team and they’re extremely dangerous. I know that on their defense, they’ve got a lot of high-paid guys I know that [linebacker] John Beason is out. I work out with that guy so I know how hard he works so it’s beneficial for us that he’s not in there. He’s their quarterback on defense. They have [cornerback] Chris Gamble who’s been there for years and then they just paid Charles Johnson at D-end so…
“I mean, apparently they’re a talented enough defense that to kind of keep their teams in games or is it the offense that’s doing a little bit more of the work?”
“But either way we just need to come out there with a fire,” the receiver stated. “We need to come out attacking. Either we’re going to attack by running the ball or attack by throwing the ball down the field but we need to come out and make a statement and stick to it and stick to our guns. We need to make the defense play to us versus us determining what we’re going to do off of them.”
Tuesday night Kerrigan was a guest on Armstrong’s show and we added his picks to the sheet.
Wednesday night, Young offered up his predictions and they finalized the Week 7 picks.
Not surprisingly, the Redskins’ quarterback situation was a topic of conversation throughout the week. Lewis brought up a point I hadn’t heard yet.
“Rex has something that no quarterback outside of Eli Manning in the NFC East has,” he said. “Rex has been to a Superbowl. I think that Rex has an opportunity to, perhaps, school John Beck.”
Even with the frustration Grossman is experiencing, he has said that he wants the Redskins to win and he will do what he can to that end, including helping John Beck do what he needs to do as the starting quarterback.
“I feel like Rex has handled the situation pretty good,” Darrel Young said Wednesday evening. “I saw him in the locker room after [the announcement was made that John Beck will start] and I said ‘You alright?’ He said, ‘Hey, I’ve been in a hole my whole career. It’s not something I’ve never faced.’
“I’m happy that they did give Beck a chance because he deserves it,” the fullback continued. “He prepares and stuff like that. And you know, if not now then when? He’s been in this league for a long time.
“We’re excited about where Coach Shanahan is trying to go with this team. He’s said that he picked 53 guys for this roster for a reason. He picked the best available 53 guys and put us in the best situation to win. At the end of the day that’s all it’s about – winning and losing.”
Getting back to the picks… there are a few upsets on the list. Maybe someone knows something Vegas doesn’t? Lake and Darrel picked Atlanta to beat Detroit, and Anthony and Darrel both picked Kansas City over Oakland. And I don’t know what I was thinking when I picked the Jaguars to defeat the Ravens. Baltimore is favored by nine.
Last week Terrence and Lake tied, picking 10 correctly. I had eight correct and Jarman had seven. There was much bragging going on during the shows, needless to say.
At the last minute, we decided on Wednesday to take a shot at predicting the final score of the Redskins – Panthers game. All of us picked the Redskins to win (of course).
Lake: 23-14, Jarman 27-17, Duck (Sideline Haters): 30-17, Diane: 27-24, Darrel: 30-16.
Hail.