2017 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 1

There are a lot of things I've enjoyed doing throughout my time with Confessions of a Sportscaster. I enjoy the annual Death to the BCS Playoffs and all of the work leading up to it. I've enjoyed watching the 1996 Chicago Bulls win two of three NBA Tournaments of Champions and the 2016 Chicago Cubs just win the MLB Tournament of Champions. But I think my favorite feature, and one that is now entering its sixth year in existence, is the Pigskin Pick 'Em series.

In my first full fall doing this back in 2012, this was something I wanted to do, and it's something I look forward to every fall, but it's not as much fun doing it alone. And so for the fourth straight year, my friend Adam Quinn will be joining me in this weekly feature. We'll make our picks based on any number of things ranging from actual football reasons to spite for Nick Foles (Adam) or bee uniforms (me) to, as will probably be the case two or three times this season, when Adam goes insane and picks based on either cheerleaders, reverse psychology, fantasy players he has, or letting one or both of his kids pick for him. I give him crap for this, but I may end up doing this with Matthew somewhere along the line too.

We're competing against the spreads set by ESPN and presumably Vegas, and we have a few other people joining us in this endeavor as well. My dad is back for another year of this, and Geoffrey Clark, a buddy from my North Central days and writer at Chicago Bulls Confidential returns after a one year hiatus. I will be tracking our picks in relation to each other here, and since the season doesn't start until this evening, you can join us or watch the standings unfold here.

If you were to open the Week 1 schedule on Pigskin Pick 'Em, you'll note that the Tampa-Miami game is still on there even though it's already postponed to Week 11. I've thus deleted our picks for that game. As we open the season, Adam and I disagree on six games out of the first 15. To my fellow competitors, good luck!

2017 AFC East Preview

It's taken eight days, but we're finally here. The final division, and the home of our defending champions, gets the final look in my series of division preview posts.

One final time as a shameless plug, I will be picking NFL games against the spread this season, featured in a weekly post with my friend Adam Quinn. It's an open group if you would like to prove yourself as smarter than either of us, which may not be that hard. You can join here.

And so one final time, here's the division preview.

The Tyrant Wins Yet Again

I wanted to wait on this one, and I was tempted to not even write anything about this topic. It's a crazy issue and a serious one, and I'm maybe not the most qualified person to speak on it. But when the lying tyrant Roger Goodell continues to get away with wielding his power for power's sake, I can't not say anything.

In case you've been living under a rock for a while, here's the basic rundown of what happened. Just over a year ago Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott was accused by an ex-girlfriend of domestic violence. Obviously, this is something that has to be taken very seriously, and it was; both the police and the NFL stepped in to investigate the claims. As it turns out, the police felt there wasn't enough evidence to go forward with a trial, and especially when the accuser failed to show up for the court date, the charges were dropped.

Photo from Getty Images (photographer uncredited)

Now the NFL is not the judicial system, and as we learned with their witch hunt of Tom Brady, they don't need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. They only need a "preponderance of evidence" to say, in essence, that it's "more probable than not" that Player X committed Offense Y. In the case of Elliott, they took over a year to investigate all of this, and felt that he did in fact commit the acts he was accused of. By virtue of the domestic violence policy put in place after the Ray Rice debacle, Elliott was suspended six games. He appealed, and yesterday the suspension was upheld, though Elliott will be allowed to play in this week's game against the Giants due to...legal technicalities? I don't even know.

Now, I've spent years attacking Goodell for being an incompetent, lying tyrant, but I'm going to play devil's advocate here. After the aforementioned Ray Rice debacle, the NFL put that domestic violence policy in place to at least give the impression that they give a crap about domestic violence. But last year, when the Josh Brown story broke, the league only suspended him for one game, though the Giants would release him a few days after he admitted to his pattern of abuse. Regardless, it showed that the league actually doesn't give a crap about domestic violence. The Elliott situation gave Goodell an out: he had a chance to try and show society that yes, the league takes these accusations very seriously and will stick to its guns when it comes to these situations. As far as PR stunts go, it's pretty effective.

Photo by USATSI (photographer uncredited)

Here's the problem though: we have to go back to the police investigation. Police obviously interviewed the accuser and went to fairly great lengths to verify her story. But they found serious inconsistencies between her account of what happened and other evidence (including some text messages that showed her trying to convince a friend to lie to extort money from Elliott). This is partially why Elliott's charges were let go. Now, while the NFL was doing its investigation, they also interviewed the accuser. The investigator who talked to her took her testimony and all the other evidence into account, and recommended that the league not suspend Elliott due to the same concerns police raised. Of course, Goddell in his infinite wisdom decided to ignore that and go ahead with the suspension because he's Roger Goodell and can do whatever the hell he wants. And unfortunately, that's why the arbitrator upheld the suspension. The CBA allows it. That's why Tom Brady's lawsuit was defeated in the Appeals Court. It's why I fear Elliott's lawsuit may not stand up either.

The precedent has been set, and it's a scary one. The NFL can do whatever it wants to its players, without evidence and without regards to the truth. Now, this is a more serious issue than the league not understanding the Ideal Gas Law. Domestic violence is a problem that does need to be dealt with, and offenders need to be punished harshly. But when the evidence to support the punishment is spotty, punishing them anyway reeks of evil totalitarianism. I'm not saying Roger Goodell is evil, because I don't think he is. But I would argue that he is incompetent and corrupted by absolute power, and without any safeguards to protect against his power, he will continue to bring unchecked poor decisions on the NFL, as he has done for years. And the owners are fine with this, because the league continues to bring in money and he serves as a perfect puppet. Goddell is an employee of the owners, and as long as he's around to bungle everything, no one will focus on their sins.

I said it last year when Brady's suspension was reinstated, and I'll say it again. The only recourse to save the NFL from itself is a players' strike. I will continue to advocate for it, even though I love football, because going without games for a while is worth it if the lying tyrant can no longer adversely impact the game in the false name of "the integrity of the shield."

2017 NFC East Preview

We've finally circled around geographically. We're in the east today, with just two divisions left to preview.

One NFC wild card remains up for grabs, which means an NFC East team will be going into January with one, at least the way I see the season going. Of course, the season rarely goes fully the way I see it going.

That doesn't stop me from prognosticating, which is something I'll be doing again every week with Adam Quinn as we pick games against the spread. You can join us in our quest here.

And with that, let's look at our penultimate division.

2017 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 2

One full week of college football is in the books. We had a few upsets to speak of, with four FCS teams getting paid to win, including Howard with the biggest Vegas upset in history. Those losses, along with every other result in college football, will be taken into account as we go along this season, but after one week it's too early to start looking at Playoff Points. That will come on Monday when we have two weeks of data to go through.

My focus on Tuesdays remains a look at non-conference slates across college football. These games mean something to some degree, mainly just my looking to see how tough teams are scheduling themselves outside of their conferences.

If my math is right, I counted 46 games against FCS competition in Week 1. It's a fair number, and as much as I decry these games, I understand why they're played. I just don't count them as positives when it comes to the Death to the BCS Playoffs, and I penalize teams in NCSS rankings. Playing multiple FCS teams though results in a one year postseason ban, and I haven't looked at schedules to see if this will end up happening yet.

The Houston-UTSA game was postponed last week for understandable reasons, so I've adjusted their respective NCSS scores from Week 1, and if and when they do reschedule their game, I'll make sure those changes get reflected. Not having looked at either team's schedule, I don't know if an FCS game is already on either slate, but if they add a second one to fill the schedule, they will be given an exception from the postseason ban.

Anyway, if you need a refresher on how these rankings work, you can view the summary back in my season preview post. This week's rankings and all to follow will include the conference's average NCSS score for the week, in total for the season, and where they ranked the week before. Let's get to it!

2017 AFC South Preview

Happy Labor Day! Come celebrate with another NFL division preview!

I took a break over the weekend, and in the interim I'll be back with a look at college football in the morning, but for now, we're continuing our trip around the country going division by division to preview the entire league. So far, one wild card in each conference has been claimed. We'll see if the second AFC one goes today or not.

With three days until the season starts, you're almost out of time to join in the fun of picking games against the spread. Adam Quinn and I will be doing this weekly, and you can compete against us here.

Without further ado, here are today's predictions.

2017 NFC South Preview

Happy Friday and Happy September! We're celebrating by moving on to the second half of our NFL prediction series for 2017.

I've worked my way down to the south now as I go division by division picking how I think the season will go. So far, only one wild card has been claimed, and that was yesterday in the AFC, so there are still plenty of spots up for grabs.

Speaking of spots up for grabs, there are plenty of those still in my annual Pigskin Pick 'Em contest. Adam Quinn will join me once again starting next week as we pick every game against the spread. You can join us here.

Let's take a look at the NFC South.