Admittedly, we’ve been slacking off a bit with the picks post. We started to figure, why post something that proves we’re experts? We don’t need to prove anything. We’re smarter than the average sports fans, this is known. Obviously.

Despite that and after some encouragement from our EIC, we put the post together again because it “drives traffic.” Whatever that counts for when we have no advertising. But I digress …

The last few weeks in the NFL have been great, but I can already sense the tears coming to my eyes as we near the end of the season. True, the playoffs are still ahead and, of course, the Super Bowl but the end is near. That said, we’re going to enjoy these last remaining weeks of the regular season as it becomes clearer and clearer which teams are contenders and pretenders. Some teams like the Denver Broncos seem to really be gelling and separating themselves from the rest of the pack in the AFC. This is great news for those of us that have seen their fill of the Steelers and Ravens, though Big Ben is allegedly coming back this week and I can’t imagine he’ll be very happy after having missed so much time, which probably means bad news for his opponent this week, the lowly San Diego Chargers.

We just launched our NFL Power 5 for this week and we saw some familiar and some not so familiar faces in the rankings. The top two remained the same as they have nearly all season (the Texans and Falcons), but both have proven recently they can be beaten. That’s why the home stretch of this season is going to be a doozy. Some teams are already wrapping up playoff berths, like the Broncos, while others have their sights set on home field advantage. Or, if you’re the 49ers, you’re busy dicking around with the starting quarterback role and inviting a bunch of unneeded tension and attention into the locker room.

On to the picks. Enjoy Week 14!