This past week I went 11-5. (Although my pigheaded/reverse karma choice of picking against the Skins cost me a much more repectable 12-4) My season record is now 50-24, not bad but I fell like I should have done better.
In fact here is where I went wrong with my misses:
Green Bay losses to Chicago. I've never been a big Brett Favre fan, but I still believed in his Soldier Field winning streak. The Bears defense is good, but I still stand by my list of simply AWFUL offenses they have played.
Denver losses to Kansas City. I still believe in Denver, and it helps that Mike Shanahan seems to understand Jake Plummer, considering he doesn't exactly trust him when the game is on the line.
Pittsburgh losses to Cincinnati. I coped out last and picked an easy game (Skins vs. Rams) as the "bite me in the butt" pick. I should have gone with this one. Remember how I reiterated my feelings from the beginning of the season: that the Steelers aren't that good? Well Cincinnati still might not be experience enough for the rest of the league, but they are good enough against a Steelers team who just might not make it into the playoffs.
New Orleans losses to Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay barely beats a team that I am now (way too late) making the Saints a "dog." Tampa should show their true colors in the next few weeks though... but they'll probably still get one of the wild cards.
St. Louis losses to Washington. Going into the 4th quarter this past Sunday, the Redskins led a sorry St. Louis Rams, 10-7. Surprisingly, they decided to keep the lead this time and actually add to it, making the final score 24-9.
Finally here is why this win is good, but not exactly all that good:
Towards the end of every season, your team will fit into one of 3 categories: playoff teams, playoff miss teams and bad teams. (each category has it's own subcategories, but for this explanation, these will do.) Right now the Redskins are looking like a playoff miss team. Normally this wouldn't be very good because that would mean a pick in the 20s. But since the Redskins traded away their 2006 first round pick, it doesn't matter. So this year, I can truly root for them to win, so the pick (now owned by the Denver Broncos) will be later in the first round.
If they still owned the pick I would have rooted for their losing streak to continue in hopes of getting an earlier first round pick. This "rooting against" your team so they get a higher draft pick is one of the weirder parts of being a sports fan. (I made a mention of it in an earlier post and Bill Simmons write about it in his picks for week 13.) They even name the race for last place after the likely #1 pick, using terms like this year's Reggie Bush Sweepstakes and 1996's Peyton Manning Bowl featuring the NY Giants vs. NY Jets (although Manning stayed another year at Tennessee and ended up going to the Colts in 98).
Some might argue that you should never root against your team, and there is a point to that belief. Great teams can be built with a little luck and good front office decisions, the Patriots being the poster child for this. But consistantly picking in the mid teens to upper 20s doesn't leave much to look forward to.
Just ask the Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans, Oakland Raiders, Kansas City Chiefs, Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles, and Pittsburgh Steelers. Each one of these teams have spent the past 10 years, barely missing the playoffs or making them only to be beaten by a better team. Some have had bad years, but not consistently. (The Eagles and Steelers have gone the farthest but have had the same results as the rest.)
I think there is something to be said about how the winners of the last 6 Super Bowls (Patriots, Buccaneers, Ravens/Browns, and Rams) have all come from being consistently bad teams to Super Bowl champions. You have to go back to 1999's Denver Broncos to see a team that won after years of being good.
So finally, having said all that, even though the Skins don't have a first round pick next year, I see them continuing this "okay/good" team rut. And that is just not good, because they'll need something drastic to get over that hump.
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