Carolina (+6) at Atlanta
The Falcons are coming off a "was that legitimate?" win over the Dolphins (if you saw my power rankings, I think that the Dolphins will disappoint this year with teams quickly figuring out how to stop the wildcat) while Carolina got embarrassed at home by a good but not great Eagles defense - not great because they are missing Stewert Bradley for the year and are starting a rookie CB at safety to replace Brian Dawkins. I'll take Carolina to win outright since they will be coming in with a chip on their shoulders and I see Delhomme redeeming himself against a more conservative Falcons D.
Pittsburgh (-3) at Chicago
It will be interesting to see how Cutler can bounce back from a Delhomme like performance (4 picks). How long will Bears fans put up with him acting like a spoiled teenager who just heard "no" for the first time from his parents? I say longer than they should since they are so excited to have a QB with an IQ above caveman (remember Cade McNown?) and that can throw the ball farther than 25 yards without gale force winds at his back (Kyle Orton). As for the Steelers, maybe they can run the ball against the Bears with Urlaucher out (wait a minute... am I drunk? there's no way they'll run effectively with that offensive line against a good Bears front 4). I never thought I would see a Steeler team that threw more than they ran after the "Tommy Gun" era came to a close. Speaking of Tommy Maddox, I don't think there has ever been a QB that combines the foot speed that I have when getting chased by someone in a nightmare (which, for the record, is slower than my 85 year old grandmother can move with her walker) and the pocket awareness of a blind man (my blood pressure just rose a few hundred points). I'll take the Steelers.
New England (-4) at New York Jets
I see Rex Ryan giving the Patriots a bunch of different looks, enough to upset the flow of the Patriots offense that looking surprisingly pedestrian until the last five minutes of the Buffalo game. Tom Brady will be better this week but I think that Thomas Jones and Leon Washington will give the Pats D fits - especially since now the Patriots will be without Jerrod Mayo. Buffalo and their awful offensive line ran all over the Patriots. The Jets will do it too, but better. I'll take the Jets in the upset along with the coldest handshake this side of the Belichick-Mangini-post-spygate handshake.
Giants (+3) at Cowboys
I can see this being a long and boring game with Romo throwing alot of incompletions in the face of a good Giants rush as well as Eli being Eli and spreading around some dying ducks. The Giants will control the clock with their running game but I think the Cowboys will win their home opener with a defensive stand in the final minute when Eli is unable to complete a pass and the last ditch effort stalls out. On a side note, what's the over under on number of balls that will hit the scoreboard? I say 2.5 and I'll take the over. My prediction, 2 punts and one throw to stop the clock and get a replay of down (see my week 1 power rankings post under the Cowboys where I talk about why it's a good idea to throw at the scoreboard).
Cardinals (+3) at Jaguars
Even though west coast teams were something like 1 - 10000 last year when playing a 1:00pm game on the east coast, I'm going to take the Cardinals and the points in this one (see Will, I don't hate the Cardinals that much...). I can't bring myself to go with an offense that just can't score, even though the defense was able to hold the Colts to 14 points (not sure how big a deal that was considering Peyton only had 2 people to throw it to with Gonzalez going down for up to the next 8 weeks). Also, it's tough to lay points against a team with Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, and Steve Breaston. One, if not all, of them is going to make a big play that will contribute to the win.
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