By Jack Healey
The Patriots picked a fine time to play their worst game of the year losing to Miami 27-24 and blowing a first round bye. Now the Pats will have a tough match-up against Tennessee in the Wild Card round and quite frankly the Pats could very well lose that game.
The offense and defense were both terrible against Miami, but the Patriots had the lead with 3:53 left and the Dolphins went 75 yards in 13 plays to win the game so the defense blew it. When you have the lead late as was the case in the two Patriot losses to the Giants in the Super Bowl, it’s the defense’s fault. I don’t care what happened the rest of the game. It’s what happens at the end. It’s no different than a closer blowing a game in the 9th inning in baseball. It doesn’t matter what happened before, it comes down to one inning or one out. One you have the lead all you have to do is keep the other team from scoring in the end.
I went 9-7 in my NFL picks and my mediocre regular season comes to close at 142-97. I will keep the picks going until the Super Bowl.
In my college football bowl picks through 22 games I stand at 16-6. I went with LSU and Ohio State in the national semi-final games.
Taking it the rest of the way:

On January 1st:
Auburn over Minnesota in Outback Bowl
Alabama over Michigan in Citrus Bowl
Oregon over Wisconsin in Rose Bowl
Georgia over Baylor in Sugar Bowl
January 2nd
Boston College over Cincinnati in Birmingham Bowl
Tennessee over Indiana in Gator Bowl
January 3rd
Nevada over Ohio in Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
January 4th
Southern Miss over Tulane in Military Bowl
January 6th
Miami/Ohio over Louisiana- Lafayette in Lending Tree Bowl
January 13th
LSU over Clemson in National Championship Game

Serena Williams and Lebron James are the Female and Male AP Athletes of the Decade. Great choices!