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 Week ten was by far the worst so far for me in picking games, as I got only 6 correct and 10 wrong. The overall record for the year now stands at a still respectable 93-53, and here are my choices for week eleven:

New York Jets at Denver – this week’s featured Thursday night game. The Jets have to follow up a crushing division loss to New England with a short week, cross country road trip to a tough location to play in. I can’t imagine Denver beating the Jets, however, using an offense in which Tim Tebow completes only 2 passes, as the Broncos did last week. The Jets will struggle, but they’ll win a low-scoring defensive battle.

Buffalo at Miami – these 2 teams are going in opposite directions, as the Fish have won 2 in a row while Buffalo has lost 2 in a row and not played well in either. Miami’s wins, however, have been against teams the Bills have beaten easily also. The Bills will regroup and win a game they have to win to keep their season from completely collapsing.

Cincinnati at Baltimore – the Ravens may be the most disappointing team in the league right now. They’ve beaten the Steelers twice, then lost to Seattle last week. I think they’ll use the rage from the Seattle upset to take down the young Bengals at home in a defensive struggle.

Jacksonville at Cleveland – a game that should turn out to be another typical field goal fest, which every Browns’ game seems to turn out to be. I’ll go with the Jaguars, who have a better defense and running game.

Carolina at Detroit – the Lions need to win this game to turn their momentum back around, but they could get caught looking ahead to the big Thanksgiving matchup with Green Bay. Detroit’s defense will contain Cam Newton enough to pull out a win that winds up a closer game than it should be.

Tampa Bay at Green Bay – the Pack is a juggernaut at this point, especially at home. They’ll beat the Bucs handily.

Oakland at Minnesota – Carson Palmer is starting to find his way with the Raider offense, and they need to keep winning to stay in the NFC West race. A close win for Oakland on the road.

Dallas at Washington – the Cowboys are rolling, while the Redskins are the worst offensive team in the NFL at this point. Dallas will win, but because it’s a division rivalry game, it will be fairly close.

Arizona at San Francisco – the Niners pretty much already have the NFC West title wrapped up, but they don’t appear to be the type of team to rest on their laurels. San Francisco wins at home.

Seattle at St.Louis – Seattle is an enigma, beating teams they have no business beating and looking horrible in their losses. The Rams are dangerous at home, and I’ll pick them to win here.

Tennessee at Atlanta – the Titans have had their moments this year, but this won’t be one of them. The Falcons will be highly motivated after a tough division loss to the Saints last week, and will win easily.

San Diego at Chicago – the Bears are peaking at the right time, while the Chargers are the AFC’s biggest underachievers. Chicago’s defense keys an easy win at home.

Philadelphia at New York Giants – the Eagles are the NFC’s version of San Diego, underachieving and certainly far from a “Dream Team”. Mike Vick has broken ribs and even if he plays, his effectiveness has to be limited. I’ll pick the Giants to win at home.

Kansas City at New England – the Patriots just don’t lose to teams they should beat. They’ll methodically dismantle the Chiefs and win easily.

One thing that has been aggravating about the surprising start to the 2011 season for the Buffalo Bills is that every time they’ve lost in the first half of the year, the national media “experts” have smugly dismissed them as a “fraud” and although they have gotten a lot of positive attention, mostly there has been a feeling that they would level off and eventually return to their losing ways. After Sunday’s 44-7 dismantling of the Bills by the Dallas Cowboys, those smug experts may turn out to be right. In my recent mid-season assessment of the Bills, I mentioned that the team’s new franchise QB, Ryan Fitzpatrick, needed to eliminate turnovers if the Bills were going to continue to stay in the playoff hunt. He threw 3 in the rout against Dallas, and Fred Jackson added a fumble in what was easily the most dismal offensive performance this year by the Bills. Jackson did manage to gain over 100 yards on the ground again, but his yardage came mostly in garbage time when the game was already decided, which on Sunday was probably some time midway through the second quarter. As bad as the Bills’ offense played on Sunday, I still think they are a good enough unit to contend for a playoff spot this year. The problem is the team’s porous defense, which started to show some progress recently, especially in the shutout win over the Redskins in Toronto. But they were awful in Dallas, getting streamrolled by the Cowboy attack that showed them absolutely no respect. The Bills’ D made Tony Romo, an erratic mess in most games this year, look like the second coming of Joe Montana, as he led his team on touchdown drives on their first 4 possessions. Once again, the team got zero pressure on the quarterback, in this case a quarterback who has melted all year long when rattled even a little. Romo was laughing and having a great time on the sideline as early as the start of the second quarter, never appearing to have any trepidation of being involved in a tough game. I really believe the defense’s inability to stop or even slow down the Cowboys’ attack is the main reason the team got hammered. In fact, Jackson’s rushing yardage is a sign of what the team could’ve accomplished had the defense done anything to keep the game manageable. There were 2 plays in the game that told the story of how one-sided it was. First, there was Dez Bryant’s touchdown catch over Leodis McKelvin on the ‘Boys opening drive. It was a great play, and McKelvin had pretty good coverage, but it foretold how much of a “men against boys” contest this was going to be. The other play was a simple throw and catch for a first down by Romo to his tight end, Jason Witten, on a third down on one of the many Dallas scoring drives. On the play, three Bills defenders stood in a line just behind the defensive line, apparently covering their “zones”, while Witten just ran a couple yards past them, turned around and caught the ball for the first down. The 3 Bills’ defenders, all looking bewildered, then turned around and converged on Witten to make the tackle. I’m not any kind of football defensive scheme expert, but I have to believe in any scheme that one of those players needs to be responsible for actually covering the opponents’ biggest third down receiving weapon. My point is that the Bills’ defensive coaches are either doing a terrible job of putting the players in positions to succeed, or they need to put players on the field who actually understand the scheme and don’t turn the game into an easy practice session for the opposing offense. Despite the rout, technically the Bills are still very much in both the division title and playoff races. At 5-4, they are in much better position than more bally-hooed teams like the Eagles or the Chargers, but unless they somehow come up with some answers on defense, they’re in deep trouble. Their next opponent, the Miami Dolphins, have gotten up off the mat and won 2 games in a row. They are starting to believe in their injury replacement QB, Matt Moore. Unless the Bills fix something by next week, it’ll look like a Dan Marino highlight reel.