in NFL Free Picks

Ho hum. Another 2-2 week last week and all I can say is that at least I am consistent. Congrats to Ox, who pulled of a perfect 4-0 record last week and congrats to Martin Gramatica, who made it back into the NFL fold, albeit for a short period of time, under Bill Parcells. I hope everyone is enjoying the early games now! Good luck to all this weekend.

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS -6 AT CLEVELAND BROWNS +6

This is a great matchup for the Chiefs and a very, very bad one for the Browns, even without all the infighting and finger-pointing going on. Green has been efficient at controlling the game since his return from injury and Larry Johnson has continued to blossom as his role has increased and the shadow of Priest Holmes faded away. This team is rising at just the right time to make a run for a playoff spot and even the AFC West title if San Diego slips up. Cleveland, on the other hand, has remains on the list of disgruntled, wayward NFL teams with little hope to be had for the near future. In a game where the Chiefs should enjoy a whopping time-of-possession advantage and at least one Charlie Frye interception, the Browns don’t stand much of a chance.

PREDICTION: Chiefs to cover

DALLAS COWBOYS -4 AT NEW YORK GIANTS +4

Vandershank is gone. Where he went, nobody knows, but I’m sure the most accurate kicker in NFL history won’t be out of a job for long. Let me look into my crystal ball for a second, here. Yup, just what I thought. Daniel Snyder is in there staring me back in the face. I think I just puked in my mouth a little. Anyway, Gramatical errors aside, the Cowboys are a team that has Parcell’ed away the nagging off-field issues that looked, early on, like they might be causing too many distractions. Tony Romo’s amazing rise to prominence has made up for the games the Cowboys lost due to TO’s touchdown and first-down drops. At least TO leads the league in one category, again. The Giants, on the other hand are a team in disarray. The players rip the coaches, the coaches rip the players, the players rip the media for trying to create stories, and the media rips everyone involved with the team because, well, it is just so damned easy. I would personally like to thank Coach Coughlin, Tiki Barber, Jeremy Shockey, Plaxico Burress and Michael Strahan for making this such an easy pick. Let the circus begin.

PREDICTION: Cowboys to cover

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS +4 AT DENVER BRONCOS -4

Either the oddsmakers know more than what I know they know, or they really, really trust Mike Shanahan’s decision to pull Jake Plummer and replace him with the much-ballyhooed rookie Jay Cutler. Not to say it is a mistake; just that, for a rookie to be starting against the other conference’s Super Bowl participant the previous year, in the middle of the season, with the team at 7-4, fully in the playoff hunt, in the Sunday night game? That is asking a ton out of the youngster, especially since the Denver running game seems positively grounded this year. Everyone has lauded the Denver running game this millennium but, what if Shanahan had actually kept a runner around for a few years? What might they have been able to accomplish then? Perhaps Shanahan has done his players quite the disservice by not allowing them to fully gel as a unit. Maybe they would be sending offensive linemen wholesale to the Hall-of-Fame. Who knows? On the other side of the ball, the Seahawks have not impressed anyone, except the very bad Green Bay Packers in the second half of last week’s game. OK, maybe the Giants were impressed, too. But the Broncos won’t be. Nope. Not at all. I picture dropped balls and stuffed runs and a lot of frustration on both sides of a close game.

PREDICTION: Seahawks to cover

CAROLINA PANTHERS -3.5 AT PHILADELPHIA EAGLES +3.5

Stunningly, I am going to have to go with another road team and that will make it four out of four. To win, that is, not to cover 3.5 points. The Eagles defense still has a ton of pride even if the offense can’t keep up anymore. Carolina seems to forget who they are every second week or so and you never know which team is going to show up. These guys vacillate between greatness and pedestrian more then Bush does on his foreign policies. At least the Panthers don’t lie about why they are playing. I’ll give them that. But that is all.

PREDICTION: Eagles to cover

Blake Butterfield is a freelance columnist and regular contributor to the BetUS.com Locker room.