No, that’s not a snapcount. It’s a countdown to some key dates in the forthcoming NFL season.

In thirteen days the Bengals face the Cowboys in the Hall of Fame game. It’ll be the first chance to get a look at Dez Bryant, Jermaine Gresham and the other rookies. Antonio Bryant in a Bengals uniform and the always entertaining Chad Ochocinco.

In forty-five days, the mouth-watering matchup of the Minnesota Vikings at the New Orleans Saints. That’s a heck of a way to open the regular season and a game I suspect we’ll be staying up for it.

And in ninety-seven days we’ll be at Wembley (for the forth year running!) as the NFL comes again to the UK. This year the Broncos visit the 49ers. We get to see Alex Smith, Frank Gore and the rest of Mike Singletary’s 49ers as well as the Broncos. We’ll be keeping an eye on both of these teams in the build-up to October 31st.

Coming up in the next few weeks we’ll gear up for our in-season mode, which features predictions on every match as well as in-depth looks at three matches a week. Before then we’ll make our predictions on the post-season and keep our eyes on the big stories and how they’ll affect our predictions.

Keep visiting!

I did pretty badly with this last year, predicting that the Giants and Eagles would go into the post-season as winners and wildcard respectively. In the end, the Cowboys surprised and the Giants disappointed to swap places from my predictions. Unfortunately the ‘Skins did no better than I thought they would and were propping up the division.

Let’s see what’s happening for 2010…

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You must have heard the story by now. During a formal interview of draft candidates – which without fail throws up an eye-raiser or two each year – Jeff Ireland, the General Manager of the Miami Dolphins asked Dez Bryant if his mother was a prostitute. According to Yahoo! Sports’ Michael Silver – who put this out in the world – Dez was ‘really mad’ but managed not to show it.

I think there’s little arguing that it was a crass thing to ask to anyone, but moreso given Dez’s – and his mother’s – background and struggles over the years. However, can I see why it was asked? Absolutely. Here was a guy, of questionable character, being sounded out for a big contract. I’m sure in every interview to every draftee there were questions designed to raise their ire to see how the respond to it and how they handle it. The drafting process is lengthy and thorough. Also pretty unpleasant at times, it seems.
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For Graham and me, it came down to last night as we were both 9-4 heading into it and I’d gone with the Vikings where he had the Packers. So I beat Graham this week, as did John from TheBettingAdvantage – both of us on 10-4.

Two upsets this weekend, with the Jaguars sending the Titans tumbling to 0-4 and with the Broncos surprising pretty much everyone to go 4-0 over a Cowboys team that are looking bad. As a Redskins fan, I approve, but even I was embarrassed for them watching Brandon Marshall outwit the entire secondary for a 51 yard score. Anyway… I’ve included it here for the chuckles it gives me (and as a Redskins fan, I have to take pleasure wherever I can this season!)

The Broncos though! Like most (outside of Denver) we haven’t been convinced. They have two tough games coming up (Patriots, then travelling to San Diego) but we’re keeping a wary eye on them now. The Titans are surprising us just as much, but in the other direction.

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Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys finally got to enjoy a win in their new stadium, and while it has only been a week it must have felt like a long one.  A crowd of 90,588 watched them take a 21 – 7 win over the Panthers.

Miami Dolphins
More bad news for the Dolphins today as Chad Pennington may be out for the rest of the season with a dislocated shoulder.

The other Chad – Chad Henne will likely start on Sunday and has to step right in with the pressure of a much needed win on him.
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Plaxico Burress
Ex New York Giants star Plaxico Burress has started a two year prison sentence.  Burress was found guilty on fire arms charges after an incident in which he shot himself in the leg at a Manhattan night club.  Burress apologised to his family.

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So it all kicks off in a matter of hours! Week 1 is here, so this is our last chance to get our picks for the season published.

These are based on what we’ve been watching, what we’ve been following, some blind faith and our guts. These are are our predictions for the 12 post-season teams of the 2009 season.

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With NFL Training Camps just a few weeks away, we’ll soon be learning more about most of the teams.

These are four questions that I’m hoping to learn more about. Because they’re interesting, and because they’ll likely affect my NFL predictions.

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It’s pretty quiet from all quarters, so not a huge amount of news since my First Look. But let’s see if there’s anything happening that’s worth re-evaluating our position at all.

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Something a little different today…

Dallas Linemen Marc Colombo (vocals), Cory Procter (drums) and Leonard Davis (bass) are 3 of the 4-strong heavy metal band Free Reign who have now been signed to label Riot Entertainment and will have their debut album out later this year. Guitarist Justin Chapman sees out the lineup.

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