I’ve been digging myself out of the early hole the last few weeks, though I’m still just barely under .500 overall — 14-16 for the Normal entries and 15-14-1 for the Ugly.

This week all my lines were close to the actual ones, so these picks are solely based on feel. Actually, it’s always that way — guessing the lines is just a pulse-taking exercise, not a diagnostic tool.

Normal 1 and 2

The Dolphins are a fun team, but my vibe on them is use against weak teams and fade against strong ones. The Eagles, coming off a loss, are the latter.

The Lions are arguably better than the Ravens, but this is just a feeling after they’ve played some weaker opponents.

The Packers are bad, but the Broncos are worse.

The Falcons are good except at quarterback. I think they go back to running the ball more and have success uglying it up.

The Patriots are terrible but getting eight at home is a ton, and the Bills were awfully shaky last week.

Ugly

The Colts getting 3.5 at home presumes Deshaun Watson plays, and that’s not a lock. Morever, even if he does, he might not be 100 percent.

The Giants showed up last week, and the Team is a sell high after beating the Falcons.

The Steelers are coming off a bye and play solid defense. The Rams aren’t bad, but they’re a slight sell high after last week.

I doubled up on the Falcons and Patriots because I have to make 10 picks and didn’t have much of a feel for the remaining games. And both certainly qualify as ugly.

This is going to sound bad, but bad is not against the terms of service here, only bullshit. Once again I watched only the five-minute highlights because as I type this at 6:44 am Portugal time, the good people at the NFL have not edited the game into the 40-minute version. This is the window I have to watch and write about it before starting my day, and so the five-minute version it is.

I’m happy to see the Jaguars covered — always nice to start off Friday morning with a W in the picking pool, and while I was aghast to see Travis Etienne score two TDs in the first quarter, he actually did not have a huge game otherwise.

Alvin Kamara’s volume is unbelievable right now — 17 carries and 14 targets! That’s RB1 overall type usage, though his efficiency is nowhere near what it once was.

Chris Olave got 57 yards on 15 targets — that’s not good. As I said I didn’t watch down in and down on, but I’m getting the sense Derek Carr did not play a good game, getting 301 yards on 55 attempts.

The reason I root so hard against Etienne is I traded him away in the RotoWire dynasty league this summer because I was desperate for a TE (there were none available, and no one would trade with me.) I moved him for Taysom Hill and Amari Cooper, and while that trade has been bad, it’s nice to see Hill get a rushing TD and four catches for 50 yards.

The Saints loss is also good for the Falcons-Saints preseason bet I made while drunk at the Steak League dinner. The NFC South is wide open.

Trevor Lawrence was questionable for the game with a knee injury, but he rushed for 59 yards, so it seems like he’s okay. He also had only 204 passing yards and one TD, much of which came on a 44-yard short catch and long run by Christian Kirk to win the game. (I saw that play.)

Remember when people were drafting Tank Bigsby! And also pushing up Calvin Ridley into the late second round! I was bragging about getting Ridley in the fourth early in draft season too and was upset he didn’t fall to 3.2 in my Primetime. (I took the great Devonta Smith instead.) I hope Ridley took the under on his season totals! (Too soon, I know.)

The only really annoying thing about this game is someone has Foyesade Oluokun in the Steak League, and he got 14 tackles, a pick and a TD — that’s 25 points from an IDP, which is just bullshit, unless it happens for one of my guys.

whenever my team (the Yankees) isn't in the playoffs, I just root for the worst World Series matchup for the league from a marketing perspective. Diamondbacks-Rangers would be ideal.

signed up for a high-stakes NBA draft because my 11-YO daughter is into it. She's been studying, but I have no clue about the NBA these days. Got six days to get ready. Might be a mistake.

Last week the Bills barely survived, and you got very lucky if, like me, you were on them, but as I’ve said many times, “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

Let’s take a look at Week 7:

If you have the Bills at 17.4 percent owned you’ll probably want to use them, but most people have burned them already, otherwise they’d be a lot more heavily owned.

Assuming that’s the case, it looks like we have our first pot-odds fade of the year. The Seahawks are nearly 58 percent owned, but only -335 (averaging both moneylines). That equates to 77 percent chance to win.

The 49ers and Chiefs (which many have also used) are 73 percent and 68 percent, respectively. In other words, the Niners are 27 percent likely to lose to the Seahawks’ 23 percent. But the payout should 58 percent of your pool get knocked out on Seattle would be massive.

So I’d probably take the Bills (even though I’m a bit nervous about them after last week), and barring that, I’d go 49ers, pending Christian McCaffrey and Trent Williams’ statuses, and then the Chiefs.

And that’s it. Had I used all those teams, I’d go Seahawks despite the huge upside in fading them. The remaining teams carry too much risk.

Things are looking up, but as with my fantasy teams, I did so much damage early on, I’m not sure I can dig out of the hole. Nonetheless I was working the shovel last week to go 4-1 on the Normal entries and 3-2 on the Ugly. I’m now 14-16 in the former and 15-14-1 in the latter.

Let’s take a look at this week’s games:

It turns out I was within two points on every single game, both my lines and the guessed lines, so nothing big is coming out of this. There’s also QB uncertainty with Trevor Lawrence Thursday night and Deshaun Watson. Just occurred to me, what happens when Watson needs body work now? Do they just assign him a masseur instead of a masseuse? Or can they chance it?

In any event, I don’t have any really strong leans right now, but by Friday night, after looking over the slate a few times, I’ll go with some feel picks as usual.

Right now, maybe the Falcons, Eagles and Patriots seem like plays, just based on the recent ebb and flow of the games, but I’ll have my final picks in a few days.

Week 6 Observations

I once heard Gilbert Gottfried tell a very bad joke that quickly became one of my all time favorites.

It goes something like this:

A woman gets into a horrible car wreck, is taken to the hospital. Her frantic husband rushes over as soon as he hears, finds the doctor.

Doctor says: “You might want to sit down for this. Turns out she’s broken dozens of bones, is likely paralyzed and also brain damaged, might not recognize you, will need round-the-clock care, perhaps for decades, and your insurance covers none of it.”

Man drops to his knees in despair.

“I’m just fucking with you, she’s dead!”

Okay, for those of you who have not yet cancelled your subscription, I am the man in this joke, the Giants are my wife, and the doctor was the game I watched this morning while having taken the Bills in Survivor.

You know you’re not supposed to be rooting against your own team, even if the circumstances are dire, even if it’s in your interest that they lose. That’s why I always tell Seslowsky (with whom I share a Survivor entry) that I don’t want to pick against the Giants. The problem isn’t if they get blown out, it’s if they’re in a close game, and especially if they win.

One other relevant detail: the 40-minute edited version wasn’t up yet this morning in Portugal, and after trying to fast forward through the full game using my shitty Apple TV remote for a quarter, I gave up and watched the five-minute highlights. So mercifully I didn’t see the details of how it got to that point, though I did watch a replay of the final Darren Waller target in the end zone, and he was definitely interferred with. (Thank God they didn’t call it.)

Seriously though, I feel disgusting, and part of why I settled for the five-minute highlights (in addition to thinking it would be a blowout) is watching is the problem more than the result. Once it’s over, you’re either through to Week 7 or not, but to watch is to undermine your bond with your team, play after play. When you let your fandom you’ve had since childhood be easily trumped by other ends, you’ve counterfeited the entire premise. For what is fandom, but an irrational and emotional attachment you perpetuate even if it causes you pain. To ditch your team for the meager prospect of a Survivor payout (and this isn’t even a high-stakes pool!) is to sell out a part of your humanity, like people who are ecstatic about their Raytheon stock pumping now that war is breaking out in the Middle East.

And I had the Dolphins available too.

. . .

After last week’s lineup-decision debacle I vowed not to make any last-minute changes barring a locker room murder-suicide before the game, and it mostly worked out — though I went with D’Onta Foreman over Saquon Barkley in my Primetime. That was a mistake, but given the matchups and the workload uncertainty — Saquon got 28 touches as a 15-point underdog his first week back and still had a modest output — it’s one I can live with. I also started Dak Prescott over Brock Purdy again, and as of right now, that seems like the right call.

There were a lot of key injuries Sunday — Christian McCaffrey, Justin Fields, Deebo Samuel, David Montgomery — but there were also scares with Garrett Wilson, DK Metcalf, Tyreek Hill, Davante Adams, Trevor Lawrence and Josh Allen, all of whom seem like they’re fine now. It was bad, but it really could have been a bloodbath.

I had Elijah Mitchell in the Steak League at one point, but dropped him when he was hurt. It’s always good to have the clear backup in an A+ situation, but now it’s not obvious whether he or Jordan Mason (who outplayed him Sunday) would get the bulk of the work should McCaffrey miss time. There are a few clear-backup, good-situation guys like Rico Dowdle who are available, and the time to snap them up is the week before the starter goes down, rather than dumping 80 percent of your FAAB on them after the fact.

QB1 is just getting to that competence threshold where Garrett Wilson can still earn his cost. Had Aaron Rodgers been healthy all year Wilson would have been a top-five WR. Wilson had another catch and run called back due to a penalty too.

I vowed never to watch the London game which is just an NFL psy-op to keep you chained to the sofa all day, but then I watched it anyway. Ryan Tannehill was pretty bad, but Malik Willis was even worse.

The Ravens have four first-round receivers, Zay Flowers, Odell Beckham, Rashod Bateman and Nelson Agholor, and no one can make a big play. You have to be able to pull away from teams like the Titans, and the Ravens rarely do.

At least Justin Tucker got to attempt some field goals this week, chip shots, though they were. They even let him try a PAT, but it was blocked.

Rich Eisen shouldn’t be calling games. He’s not a natural like Al Michaels, and everything sounds forced. Even Joe Buck is better.

I thought of this before, but it’s ridiculous Jaylen Waddle does a penguin waddle when he scores. He’s taking his last name literally!

I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m back with respect to ATS picks. I went 4-1 and 3-2, and I have my hand on the pulse of the league right now. (Definitely fade next week after I’ve said that.)

Kyle Pitts looks like the guy we thought he was heading into 2022. He’s not getting enough work, but he’s moving well and making plays again. Desmond Ridder is even worse than Tannehill. The Falcons can’t go on like this.

Bijan Robinson is in the role we had envisoned for Jahmyr Gibbs, and Gibbs didn’t even have that before he got hurt, but might if Montgomery’s out awhile.

I know they didn’t give up much, but what possible purpose did it serve for the Falcons to trade for Van Jefferson? He’s not even good, and they can’t even use the good players they have.

Somehow that trade (I guess because he’s now a Falcons receiver) reminded of the time a couple years ago when Bill Belichick traded a second-round pick for 30-year old Mohamed Sanu! What if Belichick was just a good defensive coodinator miscast as a head coach this whole time, but lucked into sixth-round Tom Brady? (To be clear, I think that’s very unlikely, but he seems totally out to lunch the last few years.)

I still can’t believe Raheem Mostert has 11 TDs through six games, and that’s with injured teammate De’Von Achane having seven and Salvon Ahmad scoring one yesterday too. The Dolphins were down 14-0, and it was like being down 3-0.

They showed 62-year old Pam Oliver on the sidelines, and I want some of that adenochrome she must be mainlining. She looks 35-40.

I still can’t believe Jake Moody missed that kick. It was one of those games where you just assume the good team with the ball at the end was going to win. George Kittle did nothing, I assume, because he had to block against that nasty Browns front.

The Jaguars offense was awfully inefficient for a team that scored 37 points.

I was worried about Dameon Pierce before the season having to split carries with Devin Singletary. Singletary just seems like one of those veteran “pros” who works hard and stays in the mix. It’s one thing if the starter is an established star, but a fourth-rounder like Pierce, who had a nice rookie season, isn’t that.

The Texans are pretty good, and they’ll probably get better as CJ Stroud gets more games under his belt. They could easily win the AFC South.

Jimmy Garoppolo’s health was always a risk for Davante Adams. The Raiders should deal him to the Jets in case Aaron Rodgers comes back in December.

I’m waving the white flag on my Kyren Williams-Cam Akers bet with Seslowsky.

With McCaffrey likely to miss time and Justin Jefferson on IR now, who’s the 1.1 for the rest of the year? Maybe Cooper Kupp.

Puka Nacua dropped an easy TD which hurt because I had Stafford going. I compared him to Robert Woods last week, but maybe I need to downgrade to Jeremy Lin.

Another JG (just a guy) Jared Goff had a great game. Mistake-free and efficient. I have him and Amon-Ra St. Brown on my Steak League team, so I was happy to see it. I might have to update my priors on Goff if he keeps it up against top defenses. But even now he’s ahead of Jimmy G and Jeff George.

I’m still grinding away, but my fantasy teams are not good this year. When I wrote up my portfolio, I had the following takeaway: There are five key players for me this year: Bijan Robinson, Darren Waller, DK Metcalf, Christian Watson and Chris Godwin. If four can outproduce their draft costs, it should be a good year. So far they’re 0-for-5, and that doesn’t include my two shares of Saquon Barkley or my picks of Barkley and CeeDee Lamb on the 1-2 turn in the Primetime.

Pam Oliver is 62 years old, looks 35.

Desmond Ridder is tough to watch

Mostert having 11 TDs through six weeks is the biggest surprise of the 2023 season.

This is seismic if he misses time. Carrying teams.

that's it younghoe -- bang it through!

Kyle Pitts 1.25 years later -- exactly what we expected.

Feel like I'm back -- picks are looking good early. Don't want to jinx, but games are unfolding more or less like I thought for the first time all year.

it's hilarious Jaylen Waddle, does a penguin waddle when he scores a TD.

gotta love Burrow throwing to scrub WRs no one has -- zero sum game

Spears with a huge play. Backdoor is in play.

was about to curse Harbaugh for punting instead of letting Tucker try the FG, then they get the muffed punt. Hilarious.

Ravens finally let Tucker try a PAT (only after a penalty) and it's blocked

Rich Eisen doesn't have the cadence to be an in-game broadcaster. Al Michaels is a natural. Even Joe Buck is better than Eisen.