It's Back: The Return of the Hair's picks

After a one week hiatus from the Tony Kornheiser show (because of Yom Kippur) and a two week hiatus for this blog (because of laziness), Mel Kiper Jr. has returned to make his NFL picks of the week.

In case you were wondering, Mel is just as big of a joke on the radio as he is over the television. He probably suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, but since all he does is cover football his OCD is more comical than sad. Mel takes the picks far more seriously than any living person should, to the extent that he will call up Andy (who works on the Tony show) Sunday morning to change his pick if a certain quarterback is injured.

Now the running joke each week is the way Tony tries to get Mel to pick against the spread, even though Mel threatened to not return to the show if forced to pick against the spread. What Mel has not figured out is that Tony has only been giving him games to pick where the spread is three points or less, and then asking Mel how strongly he likes each team.

For example, when picking the Giants-Broncos game (with a two point spread) Tony asks Mel, "Do you think the Giants could win by one?" or "Do you think Detroit could come with one or two?" Mel has slowly figured out what Tony is doing, but he hasn't quite fully caught on.


Kansas City (+1.5) at Miami: Mel, for whatever reason, actually called the Tony show after he got done giving his picks to let Tony know this game is being moved to Friday (tomorrow) night, in lieu of Hurricane Wilma. Also, Mel has a weak vote for the Chiefs.


Denver (+2) at New York Giants: Even though Mel thinks the Giants have a weak pass defense he picks the Giants to win. Mostly because he has a friend who works for the team.


Pittsburgh (Even) at Cincy: Mel actually switched his pick for this game while talking to Tony. He started out liking the Bengals (because it is a bigger statement game for them), but then switched to the Steelers (since they are coming off a loss).


Buffalo (+3) at Oakland: Matchup should favor Oakland so Mel picks the Raiders to win.


Detroit (+2.5) at Cleveland: Mel calls this the "worst game of the week" and gives a weak vote of confidence to the Browns.

Dallas (+3) at Seattle: Mel likes teams going into a bye week so he picks Seattle but that is a side point here. When talking about the Cowboys, Mel said, "Dallas is playing good." Maybe I'm just crazy but nothing bugs me like people who use good instead of well. And you find people in sports misusing this word all the time, and not just the idiot athletes. Announcers are guilty of this grammatical sin just as often as the players they cover.

I could care less if some NBA star is wearing 10 pounds of bling, a t-shirt and a backwards hat, but you really come off as an idiot when you continually misuse the word good, when you are supposed to say well. Actually, now that I think about it maybe I'm the one with OCD.

Tennesse (+3.5) at Arizona: Picks Arizona since they are coming off a bye week.

Mel refused to pick the Baltimore-Chicago game since he lives in Baltimore.

And since Mel is the "College Football Expert" I guess it's worth mentioning that Mel thinks Reggie Bush will win the Heisman this season. When it comes to the NFL draft, either Leinert or Bush will go number one depending on what the worst team in the league needs.

Personally, I think Leinert will go number one, and if the team with the number one pick does not need a quarterback (highly unlikely) it will trade down. Leinert is the Tim Duncan of this draft, the biggest lock in the last couple of years. Teams will be willing to give up a fortune to draft him.