NFL PRE-SEASON WINNINGPOINTS



Kansas City* over Houston by 13 (Saturday)
This is the home debut for Chiefs’ head coach Todd Haley. His resume
includes six years working for Bill Parcells. . One of the things that Bill
Parcells was famous for as a head coach was winning and covering the
spread in pre-season games to instill a fear of losing (games, and their jobs)
into his players. On pedigree, that gives the Chiefs an edge. It’s a team
with many young starters, which added many veteran free-agents. Lots of
jobs are open, which creates competition, which creates that fear of los-
ing. Oft-injured Houston QB Matt Schaub is unlikely to be exposed much,
and with decent, experienced back-up passer Sage Rosenfels now in
Minnesota, the rotation behind Schaub features two of the biggest brain-
flatulence busts the NFL has ever seen at the position – ex-Bear Rex
Grossman, and ex-Lion Dan Orlovsky, both in their first year in the Texans’
offensive system. Houston does that zone-blocking thing in their running
game, something that Kansas City’s defense has been accustomed to
defending against when they’ve played division-rival Denver, the team that
Houston has been patterned after since their GM and head coach came
from there. KANSAS CITY, 23-10.


Cleveland over Green Bay* by 7 (Saturday)
The Browns’ rookies were in camp a full week before the Packers’ rookies,
so the newest Flying Manginis might be better off in the second half than
the Little Cheeses will be. Last Friday, a week after the Green Bay veterans
reported, the team’s annual intra-squad scrimmage under game-like condi-
tions was canceled due to heavy rain and lightning. No make-up for the
‘work’ will be scheduled between then and this game. Two days after that
cancellation, the Cleveland team scrimmaged Brown vs. White in a simulat-
ed game with a full crew of NFL officials. The visitor has a quarterback
competition with Anderson and Quinn. The home team does not have one
of those. The teams will meet again October 25 in Cleveland, so this fig-
ures to be a relatively vanilla outing all around. But the Packers missed
their first opportunity to hit and be hit under game conditions, and this
defense wasn’t exactly loaded with tackling machines last season. The
offense isn’t as good as the team’s point totals might have indicated, given
that the defense intercepted six passes for touchdowns in ’08. Therefore,
we wouldn’t expect that unit to do much business when Aaron Rodgers
isn’t behind center. CLEVELAND, 24-17.
**PREFERRED