It’s the first week of the real NFL season. The only season in professional sports that really matters from the first game. The only season that ends for each team in a best of one series, on the field, at a neutral site. This is just one of the reasons that it’s taken over for baseball as our national pastime, and that the NBA will never come close as a sport or marketing sensation.

Here are this week’s picks.

Redskins
Bengals
Dolphins
Texans
Panthers
Jets
Seahawks
Vikings
Steelers
Giants
Chargers
Packers
Rams
Colts
Eagles

If we can take anything we saw in the four warm up games as factual, then the playoffs are going to shape up pretty much like this.

AFC North – Steelers
AFC South – Colts
AFC East – Patriots
AFC West – Chargers
Wild Card – Oakland
Wild Card – Bengals

NFC North – Vikings
NFC South – Buccaneers
NFC East – Eagles
NFC West – Seahawks
Wild Card – Redskins
Wild Card – Packers

Two teams on the bubble to become wild card teams are the Ravens and the Saints. The Ravens are at the mercy of a mediocre quarterback and the Saints will start strong on emotion alone, but finish up like the team they really are.

The Patriots looked really impressive against the Raiders on Thursday night, but I think that they were luckier than they were good. For starters, the Raiders always make too many dumb mistakes and they tend to make most of them when they should have a chance to score. The Raiders stayed with the Pats play for play through almost three quarters of football despite being less talented and less disciplined. That tells me that the Pats are ready to be taken down a notch or two by teams that are already on the same level as the Pats.

I don’t think Dallas will be very much improved this year. All of the key players (except at running back) are re-treads of Parcell’s wonder years and I don’t see him getting much true production out of them over the course of the year. The Redskins still have questions at the QB position but the rest of the team is ready for the playoffs. Gibbs seems to have made the right adjustments over the summer and this team is ready to go.

The Chargers won’t be quite as impressive this year as they were last because other teams will be taking them seriously now. The Colts will always have enough offensive talent to win once they decide that the Patriots don’t own them. The Eagles will finish strong if McNabb gets control of his team and Andy Ried wires what’s-his-face’s mouth shut. Favre has enough in the tank to get his team past a weakened Bears and crippled Lions. He just has to beat the Vikes once and he’ll get the Pack back to another playoff game. It will be his last season to be great, so enjoy him while you can.

Back with more later.