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Well, five weeks in and I finally land my first push. Which is good news (and a little bizarre) I guess, since I still went 5-7-1 for the week. Which brings my astounding season total to 31-41-1. On the bright side, my Tungsten picks are 7-3, so if you've been placing your money ... actually scratch that. If you're wagering on my picks, you're a bigger loser than me.

But, I have been known to occasionally get warm. Streaky business this handicapping. Let's rock.

Oakland Raiders @ New Orleans Saints (-7)
You would think that the Saints could come off Monday night's debacle and piece together a decent game against the frigging Raiders. And I don't want Mantz accusing me of jinxing the Saints this week. Or did I just do that? Crap.

Saints -7

Baltimore Ravens @ Indianapolis Colts (-4)
Peyton Manning is like the Phil Mickelson of football and that should be self explanatory. (Loser turned winner goofball type.) Sage Rosenfels is still working on that transition so maybe Peyton doesn't deserve all the credit. Still, I'm not generally inclined to bet on Joe Flacco over anyone named Manning.

Colts -4

Cincinnati Bengals @ New York Jets (-6)
Doesn't this feel like a trap game? Cincy's horrible but they've at least been close in a few recent games. Jets favored by less than a touchdown, people teasing Brett Favre all over the place (No, not the "Nice painkiller addiction, wuss!!" type of teasing, you jackass.) And then BAM. Ryan Fitzpatrick gets all up in your bidness.

Bengals +6

Congratulations, Javon Walker, because you're in a class all to yourself. Unfortunately, in this case, that's not exactly a good thing for you, or Raiders fans. Clark Judge over at CBS Sportsline has a column up today where he breaks down The Good, The Bad, and the Javon Walker's of this past off-season's free agent class. Here's what he has to say on the Raiders' $55 million man after five weeks:

Al Davis won't pay his head coach, but he will pay stiffs like Walker to take up space on the roster. Mike Shanahan was right to cut this guy loose, especially with suckers like the Raiders sitting out there. They pay him a fortune, then watch him do precisely what Shanahan predicted -- zilch. Walker has four catches this season, which is a good series for Brandon Marshall, and he didn't exactly win over former coach Lane Kiffin. I knew there was a reason Lane had to go.

Don't hold back, Clark, seriously, just let it rip and tell us what you're really feeling here. Of course, I don't think there's really anybody in football land -- outside of Al Davis and Walker, of course -- who would disagree with his analysis. Is there?

This signing was a disaster from day one, when the Raiders were seemingly bidding against themselves for Walkers services. After getting off to a less-than-impressive start in training camp, he's opened the season by catching four passes in three games. He's on pace for, roughly, 16 receptions this year.

A man that was considered a "person of interest" in the murder of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams is in custody on first-degree murder.

Willie D. Clark is the 25-year-old that faces 39 counts, from murder to assault to attempted murder and even a weapon violation for the murder of Williams on a New Years Eve drive-by in 2007. Clark, who obviously had been in some trouble before, was already in custody in a different case when he became the first suspect named.

The altercation happened when Williams' crew and Clark's crew got in an argument outside a nightclub in Denver and Clark followed Williams' limo down Speer Boulevard and fired into the car, killing Williams and injuring two more.

Williams' mother, Rosalind Williams, said after finding out Clark had been indicted that it was the first step in a long process of justice.

"Oh, I got bittersweet news today," she said of her phone call from Detective Michael Martinez informing her of Clark's indictment. "There's still a long ways to go, a long trial ahead. And we have to make sure this doesn't happen to another family, too."

When the Chiefs knocked off the Broncos at home a week ago, more than one Chiefs fan probably hoped that the win would jumpstart the rebuilding process and provide a blueprint to a respectable 2008 season. That was wishful thinking. The Chiefs showed little fight against the Panthers in a 34-0 rout yesterday.

Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star reports, that may be because the Chiefs didn't seem too fazed by the whole ordeal.

And yet the Chiefs' locker room had a surprising and disconcerting chipperness after the game. I'm not saying anyone was happy, because it wasn't that. And I'm not saying that after games like this football players and coaches should lock themselves in stockades and allow quarterbacks with accuracy to throw tomatoes at them. But, from coach Herman Edwards on down, the Chiefs seemed three connecting flights away from reality.

Talk of learning experiences and growing pains are great for making it seem like you are making progress. Yesterday was a major regression, though, and, no matter how little talent is in the building, it should make your team upset.

Making it all the stranger is Edwards' presence at the helm. The coach who famously made "you play to win the game" part of the NFL lexicon presiding over a sanguine post-loss locker room makes for a difficult image to conjure. One wonders if he might not be thinking about how much easier it would be to talk about games like this on TV than live them in person.

Tony Gonzalez passed Shannon Sharpe for all-time receiving yardage for a tight end. That is the beginning and the end of the good news for the Kansas City Chiefs today.

The Carolina Panthers just drilled the Chiefs, 34-0, and took sole possession of first place in the NFC South.

The stat of the game isn't how the Panthers outgained the Chiefs 441 to 127. It isn't that this was the biggest shutout in Panthers history. It is the fact that Carolina held Larry Johnson to just two yards rushing.

Yep. Just one week after nearly topping the 200 yard mark, LJ gained just two yards on seven carries. He now joins quite a list of backs who failed to hit the century mark rushing against the Panthers: LaDainian Tomlinson, Matt Forte, Adrian Peterson and Michael Turner.

The Chiefs passing game was a joke, too. Damon Huard threw for just 86 yards before he was pulled for Tyler Thigpen. The Chiefs gained the smallest amount of yardage in 22 years.

Carolina couldn't relate to KC's problems since their offense was doing anything they wanted.

The Miami Dolphins won one game in 2007. In 2008, they've now won two in a row as they notched an impressive 17-10 victory over the San Diego Chargers, evening up their record to 2-2.

What is amazing is that they have beaten the two teams who played for the AFC Championship last year in consecutive games. In both games, they used the "Wildcat formation" where quarterback Chad Pennington lines up at receiver and running back Ronnie Brown takes the direct snap.

The Dolphins ran the play 11 times, gaining 49 yards and scoring a touchdown.

That will get the press, but it was the Phins defense that deserves a ton of credit. They shut down a potent San Diego offense to just ten points and 202 total yards. LaDainian Tomlinson was held to just 35 yards rushing and 22 yards receiving. They hounded Philip Rivers into 13-for-28 passing day for just 159 yards.

This was an offense that led the NFL in scoring average (34.5) heading into the game.

After the Miami Dolphins used direct snaps to Ronnie Brown to score four touchdowns against the New England Patriots two weeks ago, you'd figure that every NFL team would have worked on defending such a play.

You'd really expect the team who the Phins would face next to have spent a few minutes on it.

Maybe not, as the Dolphins had another direct snap to Brown who scored another TD. That score capped off an 11-play, 79 yard drive. They've used it several other times to pick up first downs.

If you didn't remember, Brown rushed for four TDs against the Pats -- three of which were on direct snaps. On another direct snap to Brown, he faked the run and threw a TD pass.

The entire NFL was talking about how well Tony Sparano and his Miami staff gameplanned in that game. Those same people were then saying that there is no way this can happen again as every other team will prepare for it. I guess not.

Miami currently has a 17-3 lead over the Chargers as they are nearing halftime.

Poor JaMarcus Russell. Here's a guy that's simply plugging away as the Raiders quarterback, minding his own business, trying to establish himself as an NFL player in the middle of a three-ring circus. Then, all of a sudden, without warning, he finds his name in the middle of the fray between Al Davis and Lane Kiffin.

It was during that bizarre press conference earlier this week when Davis, the 79-year old owner, let the cat out of the bag and informed us that Kiffin never wanted to take the LSU quarterback with the No. 1 overall pick. Russell seems to be taking the news quite well.

"It just kind of came out of nowhere. I really don't think myself or Coach Kiffin or anybody else were looking for that to come out that way." "I appreciate the opportunity he gave me to play in the National Football League. Wish for him to go out and get him a job because he's a good guy, a good coach."

Interesting.

Meanwhile, former Oakland defensive tackle -- and current dancing with the stars, uh, star -- Warren Sapp continued to make his voice heard on all things Raiders.

First things first: props to ESPN.com's Tim Graham for typing these words: "Al Davis, still in his Battlestar Galactica outfit, had some choice words on many subjects after Wednesday's bizarre news conference to announce he had fired head coach Lane Kiffin."

It actually makes sense, Al being a Cylon, and it goes a long way in explaining his increasingly erratic/paranoid behavior.

In Graham's post on Human/Cylon relations, he points out that contrary to Davis' earlier comments, Bill Belichick denies that the Patriots tampered with Randy Moss. This morning, MDS mentioned that Davis referred to the New England head coach as "What's his name" (which is better than "Belicheat, I suppose) while leveling these accusations, but ultimately concluded that the Raiders owner is bitter that the team gave up the best receiver in football for a fourth-round pick.

Well, Whatshisname responds, via a conference call:

"I've told the story about Randy many, many times," Belichick said. "The first time I ever talked to Randy was the Sunday morning of the second day of the draft last year. That is the first time I met him, the first time I talked to him. No, there was no workout. There was no other contact with him."

So that's that. And even if it's not -- even if the Pats did tamper -- nobody's believing Davis because, well, he's obviously insane. And now that the resurrection ship has been destroyed, he's not even guaranteed everlasting life. Bummer.

Great news, Lane Kiffin: when God closes a door, he opens a window. Or something. The second-year Raiders head coach is out of a job, and owner Al Davis has the freakiest press conference in NFL history to show for it. Ah, to be a Raiders fan.

To the madness: some choice bits from Davis' surprisingly coherent but still extraordinarily bizarre presser (click that handsome mug above for the moving-pictures proof).

"Maybe I didn't want to admit that I made a mistake ... to be quite frank with you, I'm firing him for cause now, I'm not firing him for anything else other than cause. ...

I reached a point where I felt the whole staff, we were fractionalized ... that the best thing to do ... was to make a change. It hurts because I picked the guy. I picked the wrong guy. This is regretful, but I thought it was best for the Raiders. And I wanted to make it work, because I want the Raiders to do great. Someone said to me the other day, a newspaper man, 'Why don't you tell us your side of the story? Why don't you tell us what's happening?' And I said to him, look, I don't want to win in the press, I want to win on the field"

Um, obviously? Of course, Davis then proceeded to ignore himself and try to win in the press. Or, at the very least, malign Kiffin in such a way that he comes off looking like a guy who's fresh off running a bed and breakfast. Davis read from a letter he had given Kiffin prior to the Week 3 Chiefs game that included this nugget of awesomeness: