NFL Picks Week 11: NFC West Pessimist Edition

SB Nation suggested last week that I start doing an NFL picks column. "I will," I said, "but the NFL isn't really my area of expertise." So I'm all, "Sure, man, but am I really supposed to be using my cell phone on this airplane?"

They hung up there—I probably passed a tower—and as the plane is going down, I think, "Well, it's my job, and anyway things look pretty grim," so I turn on the data and do some research. But not a lot of research—the running lights are flipping on and off, and I'm in an exit row, and somebody's yelling at me to pull the slide lever. So here's NFL Picks, Week 11, episode two: The NFC West Pessimist Edition. 

Atlanta Falcons 31 at St. Louis Rams 14. Notorious dog-killer Michael—

Oh, the Eagles, now? He couldn't end up on a team without bird nickname? Notorious dog-killer Matt Ryan has put together his best season yet at 25, and Michael "The Turner" Turner has kept it together through age-28 despite rushing 376 times in his breakout 2008. 

The Rams are a fine team, and currently riding a strange home-road split. But the Falcons' defense and the Rams' struggling offense are going to be problematic. Danario Alexander will be injured in a—are you sure this isn't the one who made dogs fight? I was going to make, like a, with a dogfight, but—okay, Danario Alexander will be injured again when Matt Ryan does something similar to him that he did with somebody else, maybe even a dog. 

Sam Bradford will have a pretty solid game and then people will blame him for something, maybe. 

Seattle Seahawks 24 at New Orleans Saints 21. Drew Brees is on my fantasy football team and the New Orleans Saints are playing the Seattle Seahawks, and this is the NFC West Pessimist Edition. Matt Hasselbeck looked done and concussed a week-and-a-half ago, and then he went 22-for-34 for 333 passing yards against the third-place Arizona Cardinals. 

Nobody here fought dogs either, right? Look, I'm running out of material, here, and this flight attendant is telling me to push the tray-table up, and I don't know what's going on with that. The Saints and the Falcons are both better than the Rams and the Seahawks, and if either party of the second part beats either party of the first part it'll take some doing—and to predict it will take an optimistic or a pessimistic bent. 

Kansas City Chiefs a million at Arizona Cardinals a million. I don't trust either team to win this game, or lose it. The Chiefs just got throttled by the Denver Broncos, and the Arizona Cardinals have allowed 261 points to date, 32nd in the NFL, and haven't held a team below 14 points since—oh, the St. Louis Rams, in week one. 

When the Seahawks and the Rams finish the season tied at 5-11, the Cardinals, working on 1,000,007, will be named NFC West champions based on their impressive 3-6 record. 

Okay, I've got to close my laptop—apparently it cannot be used as a flotation device, and—geez, they always seat you in front of the little kids, right? This one keeps kicking my seat, which is making it difficult to concentrate. Also all the screaming. I'd like to dedicate my last story to the memory of all those horses Matt Cassel killed.