2008 Week 3

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Rolled out my system and saw the plays. Doing my own capping and comparing it to the system to see what makes the final cut this week. This week is a tricky one, in that of the 16 games, only 1 is a home dog. It is also the first week of games prior to the bye weeks starting, so you have several teams heading into bye weeks after this game.

Further affecting things is that two of the 16 games feature "victim teams" of what I'll call the "ghost bye week" in Bal and Hou. Most teams spend their bye week getting healthy (a few days off), focusing on their next opponent in 2 weeks, and then installing new packages or scouting for future opposition.

Bal and Hou finished Week 1 focused on one another. Their "bye week" was spent focused on a team they thought they'd face. They did not take any time off, nor did they start thinking about Ten and Cle (their week 3 opponents). Bal spent last Thursday preparing Flacco for the crowd noise in Houston's Reliant Stadium, and decided to travel to Houston on Sunday due learning on Thurs that the game was postponed to Monday. It wasn't until Saturday that both teams realized they would not play one another this past Monday. So they started out this week preparing for Ten and Cle. So nothing was "bye" about the week at all except for the lack of a brusing 60 minute game (which is still something to be thankful for if you are a player, but I'm sure you'd rather have a few weeks in a row of that brusing than just 1 game and now it is 15 weeks straight)

Not exactly what you want from a bye week and this completely ignores the fact that Hou players may have been dealing w/ the Ike aftermath during the week.

All these factors combined present a lot to think about when capping these games.

I hope to have my plays out tonight, but there is a strong chance I wont have them out until Saturday AM. Usually I will try to get things out Friday night, and will still aim for that, but you may not get the e-mail until Saturday AM, just to give you a heads up.