My favorite educator in elementary school was my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Marinis.  We played a lot of games in her class to study for tests, like baseball or basketball.  Get a question right and shoot a ball into a trashcan.  Miss a question and you strike-out.  It was perfect for my competitive juices.

Mrs. Marinis also had a great sense of humor which helped me feel completely at ease in her classroom.  I was comfortable expressing my opinion, cracking an occasional joke or even sharing a personal story. I was never afraid of becoming a teacher’s pet, but it often involved shifting my personality slightly to appease the taste of my teacher.  That wasn’t the case with Mrs. Marinis.  She and I were on the same wavelength and just connected.  As clearly evidenced by the following story.

Mrs. Marinis was a lot of great things, but she was not a very good artist.  She was fully self-aware and always quick to tell a self-deprecating story about how she could not draw (two more clear examples of why I loved her).  One afternoon she started drawing an undistinguishable figure on the chalkboard and after a couple of seconds, I jokingly blurted out from the back of the classroom, “that is the most beautifully-drawn witch I’ve ever seen.”  She quickly turned around to stare at me and I immediately thought I had crossed a line in our relationship.  To my surprise she said, “Luke, go to my desk and take every piece of candy you can find.”  Turns out, unbeknownst to me, she actually was trying to draw a witch and was rewarding me for the perceived compliment.  I’ll never forget that moment.

One other memory from Mrs. Marinis’ class was her punishment for forgetting to write our name on top of our papers – we had to stay inside during recess and write our full-name – in cursive – on a piece of paper 50 times.  Missing recess was the ultimate punishment for me and my group of friends, so my best friend Kevin and I decided we would never be penalized.  We proactively prepared by compiling notebooks that exclusively contained our full names.  At one point we each had more than 500 entries, meaning we could hypothetically not put our names on an assignment 10 separate times and we would be spared.  Of course, neither one of us ever forgot to put our names on top of our papers, but we were ready if it happened.

As we enter week three of the 2022 NFL season it’s important to be prepared for anything.  Teams we thought were good before the year started, (Colts, Raiders) may not be.  Teams we thought were bad before the season started (Jaguars, Lions), may not be.  It’s vital to keep an open mind at this early stage and try to capitalize against some lines that may be based in those pre-season evaluations.

My 3-2 week two record has me tied for 595th (out of 1598 entries), so a slight move towards the top.  Winning three games each week is the goal and will continually move me up those rankings as the year progresses.

Let’s see if I can establish some Mrs. Marinis-wavelength connections with these week three picks.

WEEK THREE PICKS

Pittsburgh @ Cleveland (-4.5)

After that week two debacle, I told myself I wouldn’t talk about the Browns for one week.  File it under the category of, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”

Taking Pittsburgh (+4.5) tonight for Westgate’s Supercontest.

— Luke Florence (@Luke_Florence1) September 22, 2022

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Happy to take one for the team.

The Pick: PIT (+4.5)

Baltimore @ New England (+2.5) – Cincinnati @ New York Jets (+5)

I’m a believer in the AFC North and I think the two best teams in that division can easily beat the two worst teams in the AFC East.  Yes, I know I just wrote about having to prepare for anything, but the Ravens and the Bengals are good enough to beat two non-playoff teams on the road.

I’ll give the points and take the better squads.

The Picks: BAL (-2.5) – CIN (-5)

Las Vegas @ Tennessee (+2)

Las Vegas clearly wasn’t ready for everything last week when they let Kyler Murray defeat them single-handedly.  They get a reprieve this week as Ryan Tannehill is not nearly the escape artist that Murray is, but I also think they will struggle going across the country to play a 1pm EST game against an angry Titans team.

The Pick: TEN (+2)

San Francisco @ Denver (+1.5)

Bill Simmons once famously created the Ewing Theory, where a team can actually get better once they lose their greatest player.  I’m not saying that Trey Lance is the 49ers greatest player, but I think they will be a better team with Jimmy G.  Certainly good enough to win a road game against the Broncos.

San Francisco’s offense tends to be on a more productive wavelength when Jimmy G is calling the plays.  See what I did there?  That’s what we in the biz label a call-back.

The Pick: SF (+1.5)

Peace Be The Journey.