Sean's Week One NFL Picks

For the 2012 NFL season, I want to see how smart I really am.



While I spend significant time each fall watching football and following my fantasy football teams, I wonder how I would pick football games against the spread. This could be a running set of posts throughout the NFL season or it could turn into my irregularly scheduled Found In My Basement series. Anyway, let’s start by focusing on three games although you can click here for all of this week's odds.

Miami Dolphins (+12.5) at Houston Texans

Houston is coming off a season featuring an AFC South division title and has a healthy Matt Schaub and the consensus #1 fantasy draft pick, Arian Foster. Meanwhile, the Miami Dolphins are coming off a successful training camp thanks to HBO’s Hard Knocks and with new coach Joe Philbin, who may or may not one day reclaim his family seat on Live with Regis and Kelly and Michael Strahan. Here’s an inside statistic that you may not know: The Texans are 0-0 against the spread in week one home games versus a starting rookie QB that appeared on Hard Knocks with a very attractive wife and does not know the NFL divisions.



The Dolphins had the 15th ranked defense last season, so they’re not terrible. Plus, I’m likely watching this game with a Dolphins fan meaning that I’m choosing Miami to make things more fun.

Washington Redskins at New Orleans Saints (-7)

ABC’s Washington affiliate aired a special on Tuesday evening about the Redskins. The show started with a several-minute video featuring still pictures of new QB Robert Griffin III set to inspiring music. You can see a similar video at many Bar Mitzvahs or retirement ceremonies. Anyway, I worried that something tragic happened to RG3 and that the station aired some type of tribute. Fortunately, RG3 is fine. Unfortunately, he doesn’t play cornerback or safety because the Redskins secondary without Brandon Meriweather is not a good match-up against New Orleans.

Inside statistic: New Orleans is 17-1 against the spread in week one home games with an Interim Interim head coach. (This stat may not be accurate.) My pick: New Orleans

Pittsburgh Steelers (+1) at Denver Broncos

There’s a lot of talk about this being a rematch of last year’s Wild Card game. Although true, both teams are completely different from last season. Peyton Manning, Tim Tebow, Todd Haley, Bruce Arians...you get the idea. I haven’t heard much discussion this week about the fact that nearly the entire Steelers defensive line was injured during the Wild Card game. At one point, the Steelers played Joe Greene and L.C. Greenwood who are both in their 60s.

Inside statistic: The Broncos are 0-0 in games started by Peyton Manning.

I’m a homer, so I’m going with the Steelers.

Here are my other picks (in bold) for this week:
Indianapolis at Chicago (-9.5)
Philadelphia (-9.5) at Cleveland
Buffalo at N.Y. Jets (-2.5)
New England (-5) vs. Tennessee
Jacksonville at Minnesota (-3.5)
St. Louis at Detroit (-7.5)
Atlanta (-2.5) at Kansas City
San Francisco vs. Green Bay (-4.5)
Carolina (-1) at Tampa Bay
Seattle at Arizona (+3)
Cincinnati (+6) at Baltimore
San Diego at Oakland (-1)

Feel free to make your own picks in the comments section below and check out all of this week's odds here. Enjoy the first week of the NFL season!