Pick due by 12:30 p.m. EDT Sunday Last year, we cleared Week #1 without a single casualty. Most people took obvious losers, the few who went out on limbs didn't hear any suspicious sawing noises, and no hell money was used in tipping the waitstaff.

This year...

...one loser a week doesn't sound so simple any more, does it?

I bet a lot of things aren't simple right now. Like that whole 'pulse' thing. You never knew how complicated that was to keep going. Live and learn.

Or, y'know, the other option might work too. (Let us know.)

let Herman Edwards call the timeout

Iatovttotx78

too. much. coffee.

HobbsofMI

and in fact they did lose just to spite him

Bullzeye

bar-be-que, he and you, stinky, stinky, phew-phew-phew!

Jims02 (and what was last year's Casino, a preemptive strike?)

who knew lobster was the other state dish of Texas?

Colonel Zoidberg

Lawyered!

AyaK

this spot looked safe

Michel

Count the corpses. That's seven people out in Week #1 because certain teams just didn't feel like cooperating. Not that it would have helped if they'd known what was at stake. They're football players. It doesn't matter if you live or die: it only matters that your PSL rights revert to the stadium.

In the awards department, Samboohoo gets the Only Just trophy for breathing through the non-grace of the referees, who have just ruled her win doesn't count unless she can carry it for twenty miles without setting it down. And we're inaugurating a new piece of hardware today: Zipperhead is receiving the first-ever Death Defiance bowl (generally used for liquid hemlock) for boldly going where no one else even remotely wanted to go: Houston -- on the visitor's sideline. Now that's calling your shot. Or really asking for it. One of those.

This week's list of deathtraps:

Pittsburgh at Tennessee
Miami at Minnesota
Arizona at Atlanta
Baltimore at Cincinnati
Kansas City at Cleveland
Chicago at Dallas
Philadelphia at Detroit
Buffalo at Green Bay
Tampa Bay at Carolina
Seattle at Denver
St. Louis at Oakland
Houston at Washington
New England at NY Jets
Jacksonville at San Diego
NY Giants at Indianapolis
New Orleans at San Francisco

Kind of makes you wonder if we're gonna make it to midseason.

Time to buy another box of glass slides.