What Does This Bird Have To Do With Our NFL Week 1 Picks?

That’s easy. Everything. The wise and distinguished looking creature pictured above is called a Brown Fish-owl. The Brown Fish-owl is indigenous to tropical South Asia, which is too bad, because it would be cool if we had one of these guys perched on our shoulder today while we rooted up for the Browns and the Fish -- our two picks of the day. Not only is the bird's name perfect, but look again at how wise it looks. Surely it would have some insight into the late games, or even next week's action. Plus, the Brown Fish-owl has some interesting and potentially useful eating habits: "From three to thirteen hours after consuming a meal, the owl's muscular stomach will compress the undigestible hair, bones, feathers, exoskeletons etc... into a compact pellet which is regurgitated." Think of what we could do with these pellets!  Not only would these be safer, but undigestible hair, bones, feathers, and exoskeltons would surely send a stronger message than your run-of-the mill plastic beer bottle. And we wouldn't have to waste a drop of beer.

But enough on what can't be. Let's pick the ballgames. We’ll start with the Brownies first because a brown fish is way better than a fishy brownie.

The Browns are 6 point underdogs today at home against the Dallas Cowboys. The honeymoon was short for our guys in brown and orange. They’ve gone from upstart darlings of the NFL schedule to everybody’s popular pick to bust this season. Bill Simmons and Gene Wojciechowski are in on this act over at ESPN. Wojo has the Brownies down for one of his “AFC Flops,” and one of Simmons’ 12 bold NFL predictions for this season is that “Cleveland will stink.” The folks at Covers.com are in on it too, along with Peter King at SI, and the overwhelming percentage of players at sportsbook.com. Even with Dallas moving from a 3 point favorite, all the way up to 6, 87% of the action is on the Cowboys.

We’re the first to admit that the Browns didn’t look so good during the pre-season, and we’re nothing if not skeptical of Player’s Coach Crennel, but something about the way everyone is ganging up on our guys is a little too much for us. So we’ll start a new trend here, by taking the Browns to cover today at home. First, and again, it’s hard to read much into the pre-season -- no matter what they tell the media, we simply don’t know what the Browns’ agenda was. And we do know that a number of our starters were resting injuries, and will be back today. Another thing is that, while the Browns might not live up to expectations this season, they’re not going to be an NFL doormat. The Browns have a solid roster, and 6 points is a lot to give such a team at home in the NFL.  Finally, anything can happen when the karma of folks like Jerry Jones, Jessica Simpson, and Terrell Owens is so closely tied to the outcome of your ballgames. So we’re not going to get swept up in the anti-Browns hype just yet. Not to start the season, anyway. Not with what’s going on in the Muni Lot right now. We’ll take the points and go down with the ship if we must. The Pick: Browns +6 over the Cowboys.

As for the fish +3 over the Jets, a whopping 93% of the action at Sportsbook has been on the Jets all week, yet the line hasn’t budged from 3. Something is up here. In addition to the Jets being a popular "sleeper" pick for this season, we think folks are overemphasizing the Dolphins' 1-15 2007 season when they went 1-15. But that team played a number of close games against tough opponents, including the Giants, Redskins, and Steelers. And this year’s Dolphins should be vastly improved. In addition to adding new coach, Tony Sparano, they’ve strengthened their offensive line with first-round pick Jake Long. Ex-Jet Chad Pennington takes over at quarterback for the much-maligned Cleo Lemon (and must know something about the Jets), and the Dolphins’ young defense, anchored by linebacker Channing Crowder, made some waves in the pre-season and looks like it might be tough. Finally, Ricky Williams is back for the Dolphins after serving a one-year suspension for marijuana use, the profound justice of in depriving a man of his livelihood for a full year for what he did to himself with a plant being something likely not reflected in the line for today's game.  Also, Ricky does yoga.  We love the Dolphins today. The Pick: Dolphins +3 over the Jets.


Enjoy the games today, everyone. We’ll be back soon with a breakdown of the weekend’s college and pro action -- and maybe a Monday Night pick.