The picker’s season record, for example, had fallen to 0-4 before this week. Last Monday saw him slumping noticeably in his chair even after he correctly chose Green Bay to lose at home on Monday night — and still lost the week.
After that, Ben went on vacation, but not before correctly picking nine games, including the Pack’s romp of the already storm-ravaged Saints.
In doing so, he sent Amy and me packing. The sun even shines on the picker some days. Next week brings new opportunities, however.
In Ben’s absence this week, you can challenge the substitute picker, including his prediction that Detroit keeps winning for at least one more Sunday. If they can win with Joey Harrington going 10 for 23 for less than 100 yards, they might find a way to win at home against Jake Delhomme and a decent Carolina team.
My apologies to my all-time favorites, the Jets, however. Vinny Testeverde can’t win too many games in New York, and he may have hit his plateau — six or seven years ago.
Hopefully Buffalo won’t be laughing so hard that they blow it.
Think otherwise? Send your selections my way to chris.eshleman@homernews.com.
My picks for this week:
Detroit over Carolina
Minnesota over Chicago
Tennessee over Cincinnati
Tampa Bay over Miami
Washington over Kansas City
Oakland over San Diego
Seattle over Houston
N.Y. Giants over Dallas
New Orleans over Atlanta
Baltimore over Cleveland
Pittsburgh over Jacksonville
Buffalo over N.Y. Jets
Denver over New England
Indianapolis over St. Louis
Best of luck.
We encourage you to add your comments. To prevent spam, comments with links are manually approved during the normal business day. Please be respectful of others with your comments, bear in mind anyone in the community may be reading your comments.






