Julies Peppers is massive addition to that defense. If Urlacher can stay healthy and return to anywhere near his old form, I think Bears defense is going to be NASTY strong!

Grabbed them in all my fantasy leagues. They are usually 8th or 9th defense off the board, they will finish Top 2 if they don't suffer any serious injuries.

I personally don't think the Packers are going to make the playoffs. They'll score loads of points but that defense is a trainwreck and they got the secondary banged up with Harris and Bigby hurt right now. Also very little depth defensively and on their O-Line, that team is walking on eggshells.

The Vikings are stacked all over the place. I can't even envision a scenario where they miss the playoffs. Even if Favre goes down that team can win 10 games.

They had 4th worst yards per rushing attempt against. They yield 2300 yards rushing last year. They didnt force many fumbles they had very few interceptions. They gave up a 90.6 passer rating (24th). Yes they were above average in sacks. However when they didnt sack the qb, their defense didnt have many other disruptive plays.

Go to any siite and bey heavily on Minnesota over 9.5 wins if you feel this way. I took a small position of Minny's under before the recent surge of under bets.

I would like the bears to do well, but I dont know where your confidence comes from.

You have discredited yourself as far your sports knowledge is concerned. You don't have a clue as to what you are talking about. You talk like the guys that I make a fortune on selling parlay cards to every year

Bills, Browns, Jags, Bucs, Rams, Seahawks

Lions or Raiders gonna ruin most imo.

I'm booking this left and right with 7 teams. Hope you're math is good.

Bears, Lions, Rams, Bucs, Browns, Bills

Delhomme was one of the worst.

DA and Quinn were the worst.

Actually quinn had a better qb rating than delhomme last year. Delhomme had the 2nd worst int rate of qbs with at least 200 pass attempts last year. He was very bad.

I know its preseason, but Delhomme looks good so far. Brady Quinn couldn't throw the ball 10 yards past the line of scrimmage and was by far worse than Tebow and Orton.

You act like if a guy has a bad year he can't possibly straighten it up in the offseason and figure it out.

The guy was an 85-90 passer rating QB over the previous 5-6 seasons. He has one off year and he's done for life? He also was battling a busted finger on his throwing hand the 2nd half of they year and some other ailments earlier in the year.

Smart money is overwhelmingly on him to turn it around and get back to his form. To claim that he's not a massive upgrade over Quinn or Anderson is just foolish.

k. go bet browns at +1600 to win the division. Look I really dont care about this that much, but to pretend that they are the obvious cellar dweller from the previous year to make the playoffs is a reach.

+1 on this imo

This is just like a 7 team parlay of deep favourites. Those never lose. These have roughly an .8^7 chance of winning (27%) so booking at even odds is very ev imo. Public would love these.

bjornb.. offered another guy the 7-teamer yesterday, and he's like "are you out of your mind? I can bet whatever I want? even money?" He's dumbfounded that I'm offering this to him. He's talking about throwing a couple hundred down.. he usually plays $5 parlay cards with me.

I never actually posted my 6 but this is what I think. There's only 3 100% golden locks here that I'm willing to use. Buffalo, Detroit, and St. Louis. St. Louis isn't there yet and Buffalo and Detroit are in nasty divisions.

Outside of that I think its wide open for anyone of the other "obvious" picks to crash the party. Including the Browns, Bears, Chiefs, Cardinals, Seahawks, etc.. One of them is going to improve enough and catch a hot hand and win 9 or 10 games.

Thinking outside the realm of those "obvious" picks. I think the Jets, Steelers, and Broncos will have uphill battles to reach the playoffs.

Expectations too great for the Jets, they couldn't possibly live up to the hype. This is a team that luckboxed into the playoffs last year and Sanchez looks like crap. Calvin Pace is gonna miss a pile of games, he was a bigtime defensive playmaker for them. Revis has his head in the clouds. New England and Miami will be very good IMO.

Steelers could find themselves 1-3 before Ben even steps onto the field. 3 of those first 4 won't be easy at all. After that they have some tough non-division games vs Miami, New England, and New Orleans.

Broncos defense will be nowhere near as good as it was last year without Dumervil. That was a crippling loss. Orton will have to do more than just manage the game this year and he's not capable of that. Both KC and Oakland got better from last year in that division.

If you're trying to win this bet, I say show some stones and throw those 3 into your mix.

I will book anybody who wants to take this bet at $20 per person.

anyone want to give me 4-1 if i include jets

shhh. The jets arent going to suffer any negative variance in defensive or running game performance this year. They are great. No, really.

I'd be shocked if the Jets make the playoffs. They are the same mediocre team they were last year except with much higher expectations.

Catching up with this article on the Freakonomics blog via my RSS reader last night made me immediately think of this bet.

At first glance looks like an outside possibility that Buffalo might be the team that kills everyone's six this year, at least that's one of several interesting observations that jumped out at me re: this analysis.

-P

That was a great article. Thanks.

I'm running the same bet, just w/ 8 teams. my side ftw!

nice one... you should crush

Following up on that NYT Football Outsiders article on the Bills... Just gazing over my FO Almanac 2010.. In-terms of injuries, the Jets had the healthiest offense in the league last year. Denver had the healthiest defense.

Washington had the most banged up offense.. Detroit the most banged up defense.