There is an episode of Cheers where Diane - who knows nothing about sports - wins the weekly football repeatedly using a method where she chooses a team based on which city has the better symphony or more dominant state flower.  Naturally, Sam bans her from participating any longer, stating that she's ruining the sport of football.  And then he steals her method.

I might steal it some point soon, too.  Logic certainly doesn't work.  Trending certainly doesn't work.  Might as well pick the teams based on which city has the highest per capita income or the best strip clubs.

All 3 of us went a blistering 5-9 last week, and BT missed his Executive Lock of the Week again (3-3 now) as the Ravens won but didn't cover.  YTD now looks like:  DJC 41.5-48.5, BT/Me 39.5-50.5.  It's scintillating.

So, in an effort to reverse my fortunes, I'm declaring Opposite Day and taking the opposite of each of my picks.

All odds are from VegasInsider.com:

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The next person who asks me if I’m disappointed that Mike Holmgren was run out of town on a rail by Jimmy Haslam before Holmgren could ‘finish the job he was hired to do’ runs a pretty solid chance of getting punched in the face. I’m not disappointed in anything other than the fact that Mike Holmgren didn’t have the class or decency to quit accepting a salary when he quit actually giving a damn about his job which, as far as I can tell, was before he actually took it.

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The Jimmy Haslam era as Cleveland Browns owner officially began this week with a unanimous vote by the rest of the NFL owners to approve Haslam’s purchase of the team from Randy Lerner.

“It’s obviously, a very exciting day for our family and I guess like a lot of families, it’s one that we have dreamed about for a long, long time,” Haslam said in his first press conference as owner. “What we’ve come to understand since Aug. 3 when we were introduced in Berea is that’s it’s made even more special by the fact that it’s the Cleveland Browns.

“I had always heard what a great football town and football area Cleveland and Northeast Ohio is, but what we’ve experienced since Aug. 3 has been nothing short of phenomenal. This is truly one of the great, iconic NFL brands and if you think back to Paul Brown and of course arguably the greatest NFL player of all time, Jim Brown, it’s a very special place.

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As we struggle to survive another season with the new-era Browns, one way we can try to get through it (besides alcohol or heavy medication) is to look back at the best individual weeks of the Browns’ new era to remember times in recent memory when this particular week didn’t suck.

Occasionally, from the outer reaches of the cosmos, there comes an NFL game so illogical it physically hurts to try to make sense of it.

Week 7 of the 2010 season provided one of these instances. And not surprisingly, the Cleveland Browns were involved.

True, there’s a high level of absurdity in any Browns’ win, but this one stands out as peculiar enough to warrant a congressional investigation. For on this particular Sunday, the Browns took a break from tumbling further into their do-it-yourself abyss to stand up and slobberknock the Super Bowl champs.

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