So the first weeks' come and gone. Now, it's time to review how I did picking games. I think I did fairly well for not following much of the preseason.

• Indianapolis 24, New England (-3) 27: I saw most of this game. Neither of these teams seemed to have great defenses. It was disappointing to see this one come down to a missed field goal by Mike "Money" Vanderjagt. TMQ (who you should read if you want real NFL insight) called the Vanderjagt miss. If you doubt it, search his archives for "You'll Rue The Day You Didn't Miss". This one met the spread, which for my purposes is a wash - doesn't count for or against.
• Tennessee 17 (-3), Miami 7: Didn't even see anything about this game, but from what I heard, it looks like at least Miami won't blow their playoff hopes in December this year! It'll be far sooner than that!
• Oakland 21, Pittsburgh 24 (-4): The Bus had a pretty big game, and yet, he remains on the free agent list in both of my fantasy leagues. No one believes he'll continue, including me. But at least the Steelers are using him early in the season for all he's worth. Now if just they'd hammered in a couple of two point conversions, they could have covered.
• Tampa Bay 10, Washington 16 (-2.5): Tampa Bay has fallen a long way from two years ago. Last year, they lose to Carolina in the opener, and this year, it's Washington. Carolina went on to the Super Bowl. Can the Redskins be far behind?
• Baltimore 3 (-3), Cleveland 20: Here's my other reference to last season. Remember how New England got blown out by Buffalo (a rival) in the first game, then went on to the Super Bowl? Well, this is the same type of thing. Can a Baltimore / Washington Super Bowl be far behind?
• Jacksonville 13, Buffalo 10 (-3): Fred Taylor did nothing, but Leftwitch played well. And Buffalo doesn't appear to be good. At all.
• Cincinnati 24, New York Jets 31 (-4.5): I knew I should have started Curtis Martin over Taylor. But no!
• Detroit 20, Chicago 16 (-3): The road streak finally ends, as the Lions win one for the first time in three years. Now, Charles Rogers has played how many games and made how much? I need a job like that. Without the whole broken collar bone thing, though.
• Arizona 10, St. Louis 17 (-10.5): I ignored one of my "Ross Codes" here: never go with a team who's favored by 10 or more. I'll work on some data to back this up soon.
• Seattle 21 (-2.5), New Orleans 7: The Seahawks are predicted to be in the Super Bowl by some. They look good, but can you really just factor out the whole Washington logic? I don't think so.
• San Diego 27, Houston 20 (-4.5): I told you it was too early for Houston to be a favorite. With a guy like Tomlinson, you can never count the Chargers out.
• New York Giants 17, Philadelphia 31 (-9): Uh oh. Looks like Owens has something to prove. And he started proving it Sunday. If I'm any team in the NFL, I'm scared of the Owens / McNabb combo (that's a passing and running attack wrapped into two guys).
• Dallas 17, Minnesota 35 (-4.5): Of course, before you fear Owens / McNabb, you have to consider what happens when Culpepper matures (which I think may have happened). 5 touchdowns, but that wasn't what impressed me the most. It was the way he directed traffic while the play was going on.
• Atlanta 21 (-3.5), San Francisco 19: Maybe the 49ers aren't as bad as I thought.
• Kansas City 24, Denver 34 (-3): Quentin Griffin is making losing Clinton Portis much easier in Denver. How do they do it there? When was the last time you saw Denver field a bad running back? It was before Terrell Davis, that much I know.
• Green Bay 24, Carolina (-3) 14: With a healthy Ahman Green, Brett Favre will always be a dominant player. We'll have to wait to see how Carolina pans out this year.

Here's a summary of how I did this week.

Not too bad for the first week, I guess. I'll get next week's picks up on Thursday again.