1. Falcons and Patriots – I picked the Falcons because I couldn’t get myself to root for the Pats. Why? I don’t know. Why do some people hate Lakers or Yankees? It may be the Epic Fumble Fail from the Bills – Pats game – or the fact that Tom Brady had people shot at his wedding. Somebody tried to convince me on Twitter, that Tom Brady is kind of girls’ favorite, but I didn’t buy it. C’mon, he always looks so bored during the games, with his cold stares and perpetual screaming at his receivers! I wouldn’t let anybody scream at me! Unfortunately, either the screaming helped or his bored face was just a poker bluff as Pats pulled out the win 26-10, which meant 0-1 for Kat’s picks.

2. Saints and Bills – I have made it no secret that the Bills are my team, I really like them. Did a little research, saw several games already and read a huge Football Preview magazine, so I knew, what we were facing. Drew Brees appeared as a fantasy football player’s wet dream, so I figured he would be scoring loads on the Bills. But as the Saints’ defense wasn’t the best I trusted that we might out-shoot them somehow. (Do you say ‘out-shoot’ like in basketball?) So I expected lots of touchdowns, and lots of fun. And I simply believed that I could just WILL the Bills into victory. Non-surprisingly Saints scored a TD in first 2 minutes and not long after that Bills got theirs. That was fantastic – they basically faked a field goal and planted a TD on surprised Saints. And then, I felt that something clicked, when my mild interest in the game started turning into love… Of course it had to turn into bitter tears in the end, as it was also the last good moment for the Bills, who decided to fold after that. Although they stopped the magical powers of Brees, they had no answers for the running back Pierre Thomas. Or should I say – flying back, cause it looked like that. Terrell Owens didn’t catch a single thing for the first time since his rookie season and Fred Jackson’s 71 yards didn’t help very much. Saints 27-7, Kat 0-2.

3. Colts – Cardinals. I don’t really like the Colts, so I didn’t root for them. But, after watching them for the second time, I figured out that Peyton Manning is simply a wild beast. I wonder if they only release him for the games and cage him in-between, because he is scary. He threw for 4 TDs! C’mon! Colts 31-10, Kat 0-3.

For the games I didn’t actually watch, Sunday looked like this:

1. Lions over Redskins 19-14. Well, Lions deserved a win, finally.

2. Packers over Rams 36-17. Packers are my second favorite team. Poor Aaron Rodgers had been sacked about 10 times heading in. Good for them.

3. Vikings over 49ers 27-24. Wow, saved by Grandpa Favre’s heroics and his TD pass with 2 seconds left. I saw the end of this game and it had the basketball buzzer beater quality. Freak-tastic!

4. Jets over Titans 24-17. I liked the Jets in this match-up. They are likable, Sanchez is likable. Look at this rook – he started his first 3 games and won all of them, like nobody else before. I was informed via Twitter that Jets were like 14-0 in the first quarter, then my source became quiet, so I guess the Jets blew they lead. But they held on long enough to pull out the win.

5. Eagles over Chiefs 34-14. Eagles are a better team, even without McNabb. Vick didn’t even have to put any significant numbers on the stat sheet. Talking about Vick, I found this in Sports Illustrated: ‘An animal-rescue group will donate five bags of dog food to a Washington D.C. shelter for every time Michael Vick is tackled when the Redskins play the Eagles next month.’ Beware, Mike!

6. Giants over Bucs 24-0. Giants are pretty good, Bucs are not. But to completely shut them down? Wow.

7. Raven over Browns 34-3. Browns are a really bad team. But, hey you can always cheer for Cavs when you’re form Cleveland!

8.  Jaguars over Texans 31-24. Jaguars wanted their first victory and Texan’s horrible defense delivered it to them.

9. Bears over Seahawks 25-19. Cutler debuted miserably, so he had to show up to redeem himself.

10. Bengals over Steelers 23-20. Not having Troy Polamalu and his curls must really suck for Pittsburgh.

11. Broncos over Raiders 23-3. No Cutler, no problem. Orton can make it – Denver is 3-0 already.

12. Chargers over Dolphins 23-13. Dolphins suck. 0-3 for the third time in six seasons.

For Monday night I am picking the Panthers over Cowboys. I cannot like anything George Bush thinks is good.

Anyways, it was the second Sunday of the regular season, but the first one I could really appreciate because of terrible migraine that blurred my last week’s experience. So first things first – I got a football jersey – and this was just the beginning of fun. It didn’t fall down to my knees like some of the basketball jerseys I have (like the Garnett’s from Minnesota, which I usually use as a bathrobe), but seemed to be broader in the chest, although certain ‘female attributes’ still looked rather funny, but who cares?

Next picking up the games. I’m not such a vet like in basketball to watch 4-5 games in the same time and know what’s going on. So one game at 1pm, another at 4, and last at 8. Also, not all of them are available – so I chose: Patriots – Jets, Bills – Buccaneers and Cowboys – Giants. As a freshman I knew I could pick any team to root for in each match-up, with an unbiased, cold judgment. So:

1. Jets over Patriots. Reason? The bitter taste after the Bills’ loss to the Pats last week. I was so sure Bills were going to win, and the loss was just heartbreaking! And on the top of that I read that the Buffalo’s losing streak against NE is 12 games! I hated the Pats straight away! By the way, Sanchez looked for me more likable than Brady – so why shouldn’t they win? And I was completely right – NY won 16-9, and Brady looked kinda bored during this game.

2. Of course Bills over Buccaneers! Bills are my favorite team! There was a moment of doubt – the Bucs defense line looked so big – maybe it’s their colors, but they somehow looked twice bigger than the Bills. Poor skinny Trent Edwards… But they did it! They did it! And Terell Owens got his first TD with Buffalo. The final score was 33-20.

3. Cowboys – Giants. Difficult choice. But then I noticed Mr Bush watching the game and he was certainly rooting for Dallas, which meant I couldn’t do it. Adding Tony Romo dating Jessica Simpson – NO WAY! Giants had to win. And again my pick was correct – 33-31.

I knew it. I should have gambled a dollar or two on the outcome of the games. Somehow, without reading the statistics and in depth analysis I managed to pick the winners correctly. But seriously, I am gonna read a little bit more about numbers before next Sunday, so I’ll be able to make serious recaps.

• Vikings over the Browns: Adrian Peterson puts up a stat line of 25 rushes for 180 yards and Brett Favre makes the headlines?? Sports stations need to stop riding his jock and focus on the real story. Peterson has all the makings of the best we have ever seen but lets see how far he can take it before going into LT mode.

• Saints over the Lions: 6 TD’s for Drew Brees! It was against the lowly Lions but still quite the feat. He passed the ball to whoever was in sight keeping the Lions on their heels. It was a WOW performance and puts him on pace to shatter his performance from last season which was great in itself.

• Colts over the Jaguars: The Colts were expected to win this but it wasn’t pretty. The Jags held their own but it was Peyton’s Day. Peyton Manning tied the franchise record for victories and Jim Caldwell won his NFL debut as a head coach. The game came down to two defensive stops in the 4th and the Colts defense pulled it out. Now lets just hope they can build on that performance and back up what the offense is doing on the field.

• Eagles over the Panthers: The birds were thrown an assist in this one thanks to the colossal choke job performance given by Jake Delhomme. The Panthers worked the phones quickly and word is they are bringing in ex-Eagle, A.J. Feeley to run their QB spot. There was a casualty from the game and it wasn’t Delhomme’s ego but rather Donovan McNabb’s rib. McNabb took to his blog on Yardbarker to speak of his injury and the addition of an old counterpart in Jeff Garcia.

• Cowboys over the Buccaneers: The Cowboys beat the Buc’s handily after getting off to a shaky start. Thing is, they are supposed to beat teams like the Bucs who got a feel good performance from Cadillac Willaims. The real test for Romo and the team will be come next week when they play at their new home v/s the Giants.

• Jets over the Texans: The Texans are many people’s sleeper pick this year but Rex Ryan and the Jets made quick work of them in week 1. Sanchez looked like the real deal making something of not much. On the flip side, Schaub couldn’t put together anything even though he has one of the best WR’s in the league- Andre Johnson, as a target.

• Broncos over the Bengals: This game was a snooze-fest until Gus Johnson woke us all up with a call that will be remembered as much as the catch by Brandon Stokley that prompted it.
  

• Ravens over the Chiefs: Flacco showed he has what it takes last season but had to perform in Week 1 to prove he is legit. Mission: Accomplished! He threw over 300 yards and was helped out by the Baltimore D that only gave up 188 yards to the Chiefs. Considering I am expecting the Cheifs to end up last in the NFL when all is said and done, putting up a 28 spot against the Ravens was pretty impressive and maybe they will pull out a few upset wins along the way.

• Falcons over the Dolphins: It didn’t take Tony Gonzalez long to have an impact on the Falcons, catching five passes including a 20-yard TD. The Dolphins didn’t do themselves any favors by coughing up the ball 4 times as the offense looked flat for the entire game. Very uncharacteristic of the team that had the lowest number of TO’s last season, the Dolphins were one of the surprise team from last year and may be too hung up on that instead of looking at what they need to do this year.

• Seahawks over the Rams: I picked Seattle in my survivor pool this week and was expecting the Rams to put up some kind of fight. Instead.. they laid an egg and failed to get on the scoreboard. Matt Hasselbeck looked really good after 2008 was a write off due to injury. Jim Mora’s new approach paid off early and should continue to do so as this team should easily win their division building on games like they had in Week 1. As for the Rams, the problem starts at QB and the answer is not Marc Bulger.

• Giants over the Redskins: The Giants may be good enough to beat the Redskins but that will be hard to replicate against the other teams in their division. Didn’t see much of this game but I did catch the rumble that Santana Moss got in. With all the physical play in football its actually surprising you don’t see more of this…
  

• 49′ers over the Cardinals: Probably the biggest upset of week 1, the Card’s rolled over and looked nothing like the team that went to the Super Bowl this past season. Their offense seemed off but their D showed some promising signs. The 49′ers on the other hand can take away a lot of positives form this game and build on them this season which should be one of their best in years.

• Packers over the Bears: New team but same Jay Cutler that ended the season in Denver. He was an interception machine with 4 of ‘em in the opener but the team managed to stay in the game right til the waning moments. Favre Who? Aaron Rodgers set the tone for the season with a 50-yard rainbow to Greg Jennings to seal a come-from-behind victory and assure Packer fans that there is more to look forward to than booing Brett when he returns to GB

• Patriots over the Bills: It was too good to be true as the Bills came back to reality on a blown return. While all eyes were on Tom Brady for his first game back, the Bills dominated the game without much help from star WR Terrell Owens. Brady may have looked shaky but once the Bills gave him an opening it was over. The game was nothing like what most may have expected but the outcome was exactly as planned.

• Chargers over the Raiders: The second game of MNF double-header kept the excitement from game 1. Both teams struggled to do anything to start and were trading turnovers for the most part. The second half picked up and the Raider fans definitely played a part in urging their team on as it remains one of the craziest home crowds in the league. Tomlinson was a no show for the Chargers but it was no problem as Darren Sproles and Rivers did their thing and just enough to squeak out a win.

*BONUS* – Suzy Kolber races Tom Brady to the Locker Room

*BONUS* – Johnny Lee Higgins has some crazy Helmet Head going on….

• Neither team could get into a rhythm early and Ben Roethlisberger looked like he thought he was still participating in an episode of Shaq v/s ?
• Rob Bironas, one of the better kickers in the league struggled all night and missed two kicks that would have dramatically effected the outcome of this game. Blame it on the hold or the field, that was a game changer and a few more of those will have him standing in the unemployment line.
• Rookie WR Kenny Britt had an impressive debut for the Titans. Even with a few mistakes he managed to catch some key passes for 85 yds including a 57 yard bomb that helped the Titans get down field for their only touchdown.
• Pittsburgh was unable to do much on the ground as the Titans, sans Haynesworth, managed to limit them to 36 rushing yards.
• The Titans brought the pressure on Roethlisberger getting 4 sacks, but as the game went along it seemed he had enough time to braid Polamalu’s hair before he had to make a throw out of the pocket.
• Uncharacteristically, Hines Ward coughed up a fumble at the Titans 4 with 51 seconds left in regulation and a tie game. He is probably still kicking himself for trying to get the touchdown but the Steelers made quick work in overtime.

Troy Polamalu came down with one of the sickest interceptions I have seen in a while but the bad news is, the Steelers will have to find ways to win without him. Call it the Madden curse (rather EA curse), as Polamalu went down with a knee injury in the first half of tonight’s game. He went off the field on his own power but tests revealed that he suffered a MCL sprain which will keep him in street clothes for the next 3-6 weeks.

Random Thoughts:
Why do people talk about how old Favre is when Kerry Collins looks old enough to be his dad?
Why has the NFL tried to put in a rule for everything but still haven’t come up with a better solution for overtime?
Its only the first game but I really missed Madden calling it. What did you think of the job Cris Collinsworth did?

From September through January – Sunday is my HOLY DAY
I am glued to the couch, screening my phone calls and am forever apologetic to people who choose to host weddings/baby showers/birthdays on that day since I never attend.

When it comes to football, my allegiance lies with the Philadelphia Eagles. I lived 15 minutes from Gillette Stadium 10 years ago but never took a liking to the Patriots. The man in my life at the time turned my attention to the Eagles and it was pretty much love at first sight. Even though said man is no longer in the picture I remain loyal to the team that made me fall in love with the game.

Here at Heels in the Huddle, I will be ….

- Ranting and raving about my Eagles
- Doing fantasy football posts (which will reveal my love hate relationship with Jay Cutler)
- Telling you about my adventures in sports betting
- Recapping Games

You can follow me on Twitter @Nat77