KGs week 7 picks!

Well, I was 10-4 last week, for a season total of 53-37. Of course, on my best week, A-mac also had her best week, going 11-3. Well, here's hoping that I can keep the spread between us. Week 7!! Let's do it!

Jacksonville @ Kansas City: Jacksonville got absolutely smoked last week, so we know that they are going to want to come out and put their best foot forward. Kansas City is coming off a heartbreaking loss to Houston, a game they really should have been able to put away. But that's what happens to teams while they are learning to win. I'll take KC bouncing back at home in this one.

Philadelphia @ Tennessee: Kevin Kolb is playing very well, and the Titans may have to go back with Kerry Collins again. Not that that is a horrible thing, we know Collins knows how to get things done with that offense. And the Tennessee D is always in people's faces. This has the makings of a very good game, but I'll take Tennessee at home in this one.

Buffalo @ Baltimore: This isn't a tough one at all. I feel bad for Buffalo, they are going to get hammered in this one.

Cleveland @ New Orleans: New Orleans had a great game last week, and now gets another team with absolutely no secondary to speak of. This should be another route for the Saints.

Washington @ Chicago: Yeah, Washington's secondary isn't that great, but they have a very good pass rush, against a really, REALLY bad offensive line. Cutler will get to know Brian Orakpo pretty well during this game. I think we can expect another 7+ sack game for the Bear's offensive line.

Cincinnati @ Atlanta: This could be a good game, here. Cinci is struggling, but it coming off of their bye week. Also, chances are decent we may not see Dunta Robinson this week, as he is still recovering from his mutual concussion that he shared with Desean Jackson last week. That will weaken their secondary a bit. This is one of those swing games. I look for the Bengals to get back to .500 in this game.

Pittsburgh @ Miami: Steelers head into Miami, fresh off of James Harrison's sparsely attended pity party. She Said No had a great game last week, throwing for 3 TDs. Miami's D probably won't let him do that, but the Miami offense is going to have to be at their unpredictable best if they want to have any shot in this game. Again, potential for a hell of a game here, because Miami's offense can keep lots of people guessing, nonetheless, I'll pick the Steelers in this one. I wonder what the odds are that Harrison gets fined again, or suspended after this week is.

San Francisco @ Carolina: The Niners have a chance to win 2 in a row, and this is the team to do it against. Definitely need to keep giving Crabtree a chance to make the big plays, and Carolina doesn't have much of a run D, so that could open things up for play action and such. Niners win 2 in a row, and the heat continues underneath Mike Singletary's rear end.

St. Louis @ Tampa Bay: Hats off to St. Louis this year, they have definitely over-achieved. I don't think anybody expected them to do any better than they did last year, and now they're in playoff discussions (because the NFC west is really weak again). Tampa has done better than expected as well, but has still shown how bad they are at times. St. Louis still has a good running game, and that has really helped keep Sam Bradford comfortable. That will be the key again here, give me the Rams.

Arizona @ Seattle: Arizona is struggling, understandably so. They need to get that chemistry built up again between Anderson, or whoever is quarterbacking this week, and the wide receivers. Seattle is another team overachieving. Nobody expected anything from them, but they are also in playoff discussions. I think the Seahawks keep things going against the Cards.

New England @ San Diego: San Diego is favored in this one, though I'm not terribly sure why. San Diego has played the choke artist all year. Granted, that's all this team has really ever done, but still. These are probably the 2 teams that I like to see lose the most right now. Sadly, in this game, only 1 team can lose. I would love to see them tie, because I can only imagine the fit that Brady would throw after that. Well, Tomara Brady and her (sorry, it's the hair) Pats should win this one.

Oakland @ Denver: Well, Denver should win this game, but they have this weird habit of always looking past the Raiders, even when they are having bad years like this (the broncos) and getting beat by them at home. Again, they should win, but seem to usually find a way to lose. I'll still take the Broncos, but it won't shock me if they choke this one away. I'm still wondering what week they will quit on McD this year.

Minnesota @ Green Bay: Well, we're still waiting for the Packers to be the clear cut NFC leaders that everybody expected this year. I think they need to give themselves more balance before that will happen. Favre is old, and nowhere near as good. He will hurt himself and his team in this game once again. Packers.

NY Giants @ Dallas: I have the perfect solution for how the Cowboys can avoid those stupid celebration penalties they seem to keep giving themselves. Don't score any touchdowns. This team continues to beat itself, and then wonder why they lose. Until they grow up, they'll just continue to spiral downwards. And the G-men have definitely risen back up to where they should have been all year. Look for Romo to get beat around in this one, and for a good Giants victory.

Here goes another good week!! Bring it on A-Mac!!

NFL and the Head Hits

The only thing that I can say here is wow. The players are going absolutely nuts with the NFL's newest points of emphasis here when it comes to the hits to the head. Now, this was an especially brutal weekend, as many people have brought up, where there were 4 pretty darn serious hits that would make any of us cringe a little bit. I was also watching Sports Center last night, and they were also reporting that, to this point in the season, there has been a jump of 14 concussion/head related injuries amongst players, from 21 to 35. Now that is pretty significant.

That jump, as well as the rather brutal weekend, led the NFL to say that they may begin to do more than just fine people for those particularly violent hits to the head. They may begin suspending players for this. So here's the long lasting, and very heated, debate that is going to be looming with players now. Is the league going too far in their punishment of these types of violent hits?

We certainly know where many of the players stand on this debate, as mentioned here by Yahoo Sports contributor Chris Chase. By and large, of course, the defensive players are going to be more riled up, as you see with Urlacher's comments in the article above. James Harrison has even threatened to retire because he isn't sure how to play football anymore. The players certainly have hit the right note of overly dramatic reactions to this whole situation.

The players are insinuating that the NFL is trying to take out one of the inherent attributes of football, the big hit. They are saying that people should expect injuries in football, that it is violent by nature, and to take this kind of a stand on hits to the head is analogous to, as Urlacher said, just putting flags on everybody and making it the National Flag Football League instead of the National Football League.

Now, I teach high school, so I am very familiar with the concept of people blowing things out of proportion when it doesn't work for them. Personally, I'm with the league on this; and I have a feeling that if the players think about this, instead of going with their initial, emotional reactions, then they will see this as well. The NFL is not out here saying, don't tackle hard, don't make big hits, don't make the play that you've always been taught to make in this situation. The NFL is saying respect your fellow players, and don't go for the kill, so to speak. There is a difference, no matter what the players say, between good, hard tackling that adheres to the fundamentals everybody is taught, and trying to hurt people.

Look at that hit that Brandon Meriweather put on Todd Heap on Sunday. That hit is exactly the kind of thing the NFL is trying to get rid of. That is an incredibly dangerous hit on a play where Meriweather had to have seen that the ball was already out of Heap's hands and the pass was incomplete. Then there was the Dunta Robinson hit on Desean Jackson. I understand the flag during the game because it was bang bang, and if you see the hit, you see Jackson's head fly back, as if his head got nailed. But the fine for this one, I have to believe, will be overturned because he clearly lead with his shoulder, not his head. This type of hit is the one that is not illegal, and that people are not trying to get rid of.

Then there's James Harrison. I feel that the announcers do a good job of differentiating why the hit on Cribbs was not flagged, versus why the hit on Massaquoi was. Here are both of the hits. So, people against these new points of emphasis are to tell me that Harrison wouldn't be able to make a legal tackle that doesn't involve him driving his forearms through Massaquoi's chin and still prevent him from making the catch? Really?

Now, let's also be realistic about this. The NFL has made these types of hits a point of emphasis in the last few years, doing more fining and flagging things like this more often. Yet, as I said at the beginning, there has been this spike of head injuries on these types of hits. What is the NFL supposed to do, just allow it to continue? Here's why I think the NFL is in the right on this. People say that this is what makes football exciting. Well, in my opinion, if the excitement comes from the types of hits that can end people's careers, or even their lives, then there is something wrong in the sport. If there aren't people willing to play the sport, because this injury gets out of control, then there won't be a game at all. Your players are what make the game exciting, and the NFL is doing the absolute right thing in protecting them.

I am open to other's opinions on this, so please share away!