It's time once again to find out how bad I am at picking games, and how good some of you are at picking games.  This week we had a couple big upsets:

• 2/50 picked the Raiders over the Steelers. 
  
• 8/50 picked the Dolphins over the Patriots.

In the Against the Spread contest, we had a single winner, and he/she is ColtFanInHawaii, getting 12 games correct.  The trick must be to live in Hawaii.  I can live with that.  Leaderboard after 13 weeks:

In the Straight Up contest, we had 2 winners this week, getting 13 games correct:

• Ufanforreal
• Indy Lori

Congratulations to both of you!  The leaderboard after 13 weeks looks like this:

We, once again, are tied at the top.  Should be a great last 4 weeks to see the winner.

Below you'll see the full leaderboard.  Remember there is a game Thursday night, and you can place your picks for the Steelers/Browns here or in the FanShot I posted earlier today (only if you don't pick all the games before Thursday night). Also, I'd appreciate it if you don't get the Thursday night game pick in, please pick the loser.  It saves me a little work, and putting the winner won't get you the game correct.

Stampede Blue Prediction Contest Picks Week 13

Stampede Blue Prediction Contest Week 14, open until 1:00 ET Sunday

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More photos » by Michael Conroy - AP

Where's that #18 jersey again? (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

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Sorry again for the week off last week.  I finally have everything back to where it was, waiting to see if my data can be recovered from my dead hard drive.  I think what I have is correct, so we're going with it!

We're in the home stretch now of the season, and the Colts just keep right on ticking.  Sunday saw the Colts take it to the Titans once again, being extremely efficient on offense, and making the big plays on defense to get the Colts to 12-0, one win away from the #1 seed and guaranteeing the Road to Miami comes through the Circle City.  A few notes from the game:

• The Colts have now won 12 games in 7 straight seasons.  Only 7 other franchises have seven such seasons in their history!  The Cowboys come the closest in terms of straight seasons with 4.  The all-time record is 11 by the Cowboys, followed by the Colts' 10.
• It happened against the Texans, but Peyton Manning passed John Elway for 3rd all time in Completions.  Elway did it in 7250 passes.  Manning? 6420.
• Again from the win against the Texans (via Elias):
  
  

  The Colts rallied from a 17-0 deficit to post a 35-27 win at Houston. It was the fifth time that Peyton Manning led his team to a regular-season victory after trailing by at least 17 points, a new NFL record. (Manning and the Colts also won the AFC title game in January 2007 after trailing the Patriots by 18 points.)

  
  For comparison, they mentioned on Sunday night that Brett Favre has never come back from a 14 point deficit.  I'm just saying...
• We all know that the Colts have now won 21 consecutive regular season games, tying the record set by the Patriots just last season.  I'd really like the Colts to get one more.

The win over the Titans certainly looked very nice, but what do the numbers say?  Let's have a look:

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I'm back in the saddle (sort of).  I've successfully gotten the Prediction Contest back to its original state, but the Inside the Numbers probably won't be back until next week, with an outside chance of it being ready by Sunday morning.  Sorry about that everyone, and you all should have backed up your computer twice in the past week.

This week, since I didn't recognize the Week 11 Winners, we'll be doing both weeks, so the winner gets his/her due for being a weekly winner.  Let's start with the Against the Spread Contest:  For Week 11 we had 4 winners who got 11 games correct:

• bluegirl
• Cassieper
• shake n bake
• kubladawn

For Week 12, we had only one winner, MrNFL, who got 10 games correct.  Congrats to all of our winners from the past 2 weeks.  Overall the leaderboard looks like this:

Follow me after the jump for the rest of the winners and standings...

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More photos » by Nick Wass - AP

Who knew Tim Jennings was so intimidating? (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

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BBS showed us a dumb article by Paul Kuharsky, in which he claimed the Colts were outplayed by the Ravens.  I decided not to comment on this article until I looked at the "facts", or stats.  Well guess what I found...Paul was dead wrong.  In fact, the Colts played pretty well on both sides of the ball.  A couple notes first, then the stats you can wave in Paul's face:

• Elias via ESPN: With the Colts and Saints both going to 10-0, it is only the third time in NFL history two different teams have started the same season 10-0.  First was in 1934 (Packers and Lions), and the 2nd was in 1990 (Giants and 49ers).  For all you Tecmo Super Bowl fans, this was the season the game was made from, and it is impossible for both teams to start the year 1-0 in the game, as they play each other in Week 1.  LT would always eat Joe Montana for lunch.
• Also from Elias this week, on the Colts wins the last 4 weeks (emphasis mine):
  

  The Colts defeated the Ravens, 17-15, to continue their recent trend of extending their winning streak in closely-contested games. The Colts' three other victories this month had come by scores of 18-14 over the 49ers, 20-17 over the Texans and 35-34 over the Patriots, and as in their win over the Ravens, the Colts had trailed in the fourth quarter in each game. Indianapolis became the first team in NFL history to win four consecutive games after trailing during the fourth quarter in each of those games.

  The Colts became the first team in NFL history to win four consecutive games in the same season by a total margin of 10-or-fewer points. And they did it by filling an inside straight, having won those games by margins of one, two, three and four points. The previous record was set by the 1986 Giants: en route to winning the Super Bowl, Bill Parcells's team defeated the Cowboys, Eagles, Vikings and Broncos by a combined margin of 11 points.

• 19 and counting.  Only 2 left to tie the record, against divisional opponents.  

Join me after the jump for ammunition on the ESPN AFC South blogger...

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The Colts 35-34 victory over the Patriots last week made some movement at the top of our rankings, as both teams moved up a spot in the Adjusted Rankings.  The Colts moved up to #3, and the Patriots now take the top spot, with the 2nd best Offense, and 8th best Defense.

As in previous weeks, I have both the Adjusted and Raw rankings, as well as the Adjusted Strength of Schedule and Future Schedule.  Let's get to the rankings:

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Week 10 was a real struggle this week, thanks to quite a few unexpected winners:

• Only 1 person picked the Redskins to win (shake n bake, that bastard).
• Twelve people (out of 53) picked the Packers to beat the Cowboys.
• Fourteen people picked the Panthers, and only 14 picked the Jaguars.

As a side note, our "experts" from USA Today and Yahoo! were almost unanimous in picking the Patriots (only Skip Wood being smart).  I'm sure they also still think the Patriots are better, regardless of the final score.  And they get paid to think these things...

This week in the Against the Spread contest, we had one winner, sandsaver01.  He/She got 12/15 games correct, which is unbelievable (especially to me, who only got 4 right).  Great week.  Our leaderboard after 10 weeks looks like this:

In the Straight Up contest, we had four people get 12/15 games correct!  They are:

• bluegirl
• chano14
• EnSsRex
• enjyinlife

Congratulations!  The leaderboard for the Straight Up contest looks like this:

shoein still has a share of the lead in both contests, but he's falling farther behind Bill Simmons, who has bounced back from his horrible Week 8. 

After the jump you'll see the full leaderboard.  Remember there is a game tonight, and you can place your picks either in the comments here, or in the FanShot I posted yesterday.  I'm not sure what my availability will be on Sunday, but I'll to get the link posted for everyone's picks before the games start.

Stampede Blue Prediction Contest Picks Week 10

Stampede Blue Prediction Contest Week 11, open until 1:00 ET Sunday

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More photos » by Darron Cummings - AP

Manning asking Brady if he likes apples. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

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I, much like shake, had already started the "This is why the Colts lost" edition of Inside the Numbers in my head.  They had too many 3 and Outs.  They turned the ball over twice.  The drive stats, without actually seeing the numbers, felt bad.

I'm glad I didn't have to write that.

Instead, I get to write about how the Patriots "outplayed" the Colts, in terms of the Winning Stats, but didn't score more points than the Colts, and that's really all that matters in the end.  Some notes from the game:

• NBC flashed a stat at the end of the game...This was the first time in Bill Belichick's career as a head coach he surrendered a 13+ point lead in the 4th quarter.  The previous record was 12 points in 2000 against the Jets.
• They also flashed a stat that Tom Brady was 25-2 when throwing for 300 yards, which is well above average.  Well, he's 25-3 now.  Peyton Manning, for the record, is 34-21 in his career, and 8-0 this season.  As an aside, if you want a historical look at all QB's records when they pass for 300 yards vs. 100 yard rushers, check out the PFR blog from today.
• Dwight Freeney's consecutive games with a sack ended at 9, one short of the NFL record.  That rookie came to play, and on the couple plays he did get beat, he had some help.  Thems the breaks, but I don't think Freeney is too upset today about it.
• The farther I get from the 4th and 2, the more I think Belichick was correct in his decision.  The play call, however, was a classic Brady staple.  Remember in 2007, when Brady went to Troy Brown on 3rd and 4, with just over 2 minutes to go?  Bob Sanders knew (as did I) who Brady was going to, and what route he was running, as he almost picked off the pass and took it to the house.  I had little doubt, when I saw Faulk motion out of the backfield, that that was where he was going with the ball, and the same route.  Thankfully Melvin Bullitt was on top of things, and made the play of the game.

Let's get to those numbers...

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