King Kaufman's Sports Daily
NFL Week 4: Teams just don't win or lose four in a row, do they? Except the Patriots, that is.
Oct. 1, 2004 | In today's NFL, it takes real effort to pick a 3-0 team to win its fourth game, or an 0-3 team to lose again. This is the week I start thinking teams are going to win or lose just because of their record.
Three teams enter the week 3-0, not counting the idle Seahawks. Even if the Jaguars, Falcons and Eagles were playing the Central High six-man team, I'd be looking at their games and thinking, "They're not going to go 4-0, are they? Not in the NFL, where it's so hard to put together a winning streak, where it's not that uncommon for a bottom team to jump up and beat a top. Four in a row out of the gate?"
I'd be thinking this fully aware that Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of the last time the New England Patriots lost a game that counted.
The same goes for 0-3 teams, which means the Chiefs, Dolphins, Cardinals, 49ers and Buccaneers. They're not going to lose their first four, are they? I don't know what it is about four in a row that makes me think this way.
Because the problem is, 3-0 teams win quite a bit, since they tend to be pretty good, and 0-3 teams lose pretty often for the exact opposite reason. Over the last three seasons, teams that started 3-0 have gone a combined 8-7 in their fourth games. Last year they went 5-1. Teams that started 0-3 have gone a combined 6-10 since 2001.
What we have here is a way of looking at the NFL that is intricate, precise, nuanced, and almost totally worthless. But that won't stop me from looking at the 3-0 Falcons and going, "The Falcons? 4-0? Ya think?" -- an approach that figures to be successful about as often as flipping a coin.
Speaking of which, I mentioned the other day that in my pool o' NFL game-picking experts -- which I still lead, incidentally -- I had Ron Jaworski of ESPN at 26-20 after three weeks, but ESPN.com listed him at 25-21. A source at the Web site confirms that 25-21 is the correct count for the champion of last year's pool, meaning that he's a mere one game ahead of a certain 1-year-old whom I've been mentioning too much lately, who picks game by flipping a coin.
Worthless analytical tools at the ready, we dive in to Week 4, with predicted winners in capital letters.
Cincinnati (1-2) at PITTSBURGH (2-1): The Bengals have been getting outplayed up front, which is where the Steelers are strong, especially on defense. If rookie Ben Roethlisberger, making his first start on dry land, can avoid being forced into big-play mistakes by what figures to be frequent blitzing, the Steelers should be looking at 3-1, with crippled Cleveland on the schedule next week.
INDIANAPOLIS (2-1) at Jacksonville (3-0): The Colts are amazing to watch, but they're beatable. If you can disrupt their passing game the way the Patriots do, and you have an offense that can exploit their weak defense, especially their secondary, you've got a good chance. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's not impossible or anything. The Jags should be able to run on Indy with Fred Taylor, but the way Byron Leftwich has been playing, it's not likely they'll be able to make hay in the air. And anyway they're not going to stop the red-hot Peyton Manning, so there goes one 3-0 team.
Next page: The Pats actually used to lose once in a while! Plus: Hot-weather upsets