11 Picks For NFL 2010 Week 12, Jaguars at Giants
Published Saturday, November 27, 2010 at 07:00:00 AM
After the Patriots beat the Colts this week, we have a method that's in sole possession of first place. And it is... the Accuscore computer prediction. It doesn't get more boring than that.
This week's game is the upstart Jacksonville Jaguars -- who keep finding crazy ways to win and seem to be getting all the bounces -- at the erratic New York Giants. The opening line was Giants -7, but we're all just picking the game straight up.
Future edit: The Giants ended up winning this game on a last-minute drive.
This list was published on Saturday, November 27, 2010 at 07:00:00 AM under the category NFL Picks.
It currently has View Comments.
Published Saturday, November 27, 2010 at 07:00:00 AM
After the Patriots beat the Colts this week, we have a method that's in sole possession of first place. And it is... the Accuscore computer prediction. It doesn't get more boring than that.
This week's game is the upstart Jacksonville Jaguars -- who keep finding crazy ways to win and seem to be getting all the bounces -- at the erratic New York Giants. The opening line was Giants -7, but we're all just picking the game straight up.
Tecmo Super Bowl simulation. (7-4) I faced the same issue earlier in the season when I used the Carolina Panthers -- neither Carolina nor Jacksonville were in the original Tecmo Super Bowl for NES. They didn't exist in 1991. Fortunately, thanks to the undying ingenuity of the old school video game enthusiast, I was able to find a hacked version of TSB online featuring 1997's rosters and teams. So I simulated the game using that.
And the game was all Mark Brunell. He was gunslinging and hit Jimmy Smith for three touchdowns. Sadly, the Jaguars didn't make heavy use of the player with one of my favorite names in sports -- Natrone Means -- but still won handily, 35-20.
Madden 11 simulation. (4-7) In the Madden 11 simulation, there was significantly less action than in the Tecmo Super Bowl game. Between lots of long drives ending in punts and others ending in turnovers, there was no scoring until the fourth quarter.
Finally, Jacksonville scored... but then missed the extra point. On cue, the Giants finally mounted a drive and actually made their extra point, taking it to 7-6. It looks like that would do it... but Jacksonville broke off a fast, huge drive and won the game with a 52-yard field goal as time expired. The pick is the Jaguars.- Laska, my parents' dog. (6-5) Being in Cleveland for Thanksgiving I got to witness Laska making her pick this week. And she definitively went for the Giants. Didn't even glance at the biscuit representing the Jaguars. I guess that constitutes a blowout. (I tried to take a picture of her during the process and she wanted absolutely no part of it. She was focused on her New York Giants biscuit and not whatever it was I was trying to do.)
Accuscore. (9-2) After 11 weeks, Accuscore's computer simulated predictions are in sole possession of first place. Which, as I mentioned up top, is so disappointing. Anyway, it definitively sees a Giants win this weekend with a huge margin of 72 percent to 27 percent. That missing one percent is the ghost of Philip Rivers.
- ESPN's Sports Guy. (6-5) To his credit, he's going with the Jaguars this week. (Well, technically, he picked the Jaguars +7, but the rhetoric accompanying that pick makes it seem like he believes the Jaguars will win outright. So we're going to go with that.)
- 11 Points Reader Battle. (6-5) This might've been the easiest week on this ever -- I didn't have to go hunting any of the readers down, they all sent me picks within three hours. It was glorious. Also, @JNBernstein is on a hell of a winning streak... I haven't gone back but this has to be at least five weeks for him on here...
@jnbernstein: "I am going with the Jaguars, I don't think the Giants are very good"
@AtTheStars455: "Hurts to pick the Giants (still bitter about SB XLII), but I think the Jags' recent luck runs out & the G-men get back on track."
@natelopez53: "NY is on a skid & the Jags are on a streak, that seems weird. The NY off is broke but the Jags aren't good. I say NYG 21 Jags 17"
Good picks, good variety. I like these guys. With two fairly reluctant votes, the Giants are the reader pick for the week.
Internet psychic. (5-6) Each week I contact this $1.99/minute online psychic for a pick. But since he won't predict something as concrete as football, I have to disguise the pick as a fluff question. For this week...
Our spiritual guide for the season.
"Quick one for you this week, Psychic Love Guru 7. Which one of these is better for someone's sex life: Buying a Jaguar or having a giant... you know... osiumenyiora in the pants?"
He totally knew what I was getting at and went with the Giants in under a minute. Huge money savings. Apparently he values getting the penis questions over with.- Randier cheerleaders. (6-5) I didn't spot anything spectacular one direction or the other on the Jaguar cheerleader photos -- nothing too trashy or wholesome anywhere. Until I spotted their full team photo...
Who's that on the left? (Yes, I'm sure it's the coach. But still, there's a fine line between a Jaguar and a cougar.)
Meanwhile, the Giants don't have cheerleaders, just boorish New Yorkers cheering them...
Thanks to the randy older Jaguars cheerleader -- and by the two sweetest words in the English language, de-fault -- they get the pick. - Turnover margin. (5-6) So far, the turnover margin method hasn't been that strong. The Giants have 30 giveaways and only 22 takeaways for a shaky -8 turnover ratio. But... last week, the Jaguars gave it away a billion times (and still somehow managed to beat the Browns), which skewed them ever worse. 24 giveaways, 13 takeaways, a -11 ratio. In a battle that looks like it could be sloppy, the Giants are the weak pick.
- Higher team salary. (6-5) I didn't even have to look at the data to know which team is going to run a higher payroll, New York or Jacksonville. It's the NFL's biggest market against one of its smallest.
But for sport -- Jacksonville has a 2010 team salary of $88,770,579, with the largest chunk going to Eugene Monroe. (He's an offensive tackle. I actually didn't recognize his name, which is saying something.) New York has a salary almost $40 million higher, at $124,657,048 with Eli Manning getting the largest chunk. The pick is the Giants by a landslide. - The opposite of my pick. (8-3) Conventional wisdom says the Giants should win this. Jacksonville's wins have been fluky. The Giants seem like, despite an unpredictable and rocky season so far, they could pull away and actually make some real noise well into January. The game is in New York. All signs point to a Giants win. And therefore, my pick is the Jaguars.
Future edit: The Giants ended up winning this game on a last-minute drive.
This list was published on Saturday, November 27, 2010 at 07:00:00 AM under the category NFL Picks.
It currently has View Comments.
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Read more about 11 Points and Sam here.
For information about reprinting 11 Points content, or for quotes/interviews for your newspaper, magazine, website, TV program, or radio show, contact Sam via e-mail at
