5. Win your fantasy football league
If everyone else in your league is actually watching the games you have no chance of picking up the next big thing the day after they put together an amazing performance on Sunday. If you want to have a chance at winning your fantasy league this season, and in the future, watch the games.

4. Your team has a chance
No matter how bad your team might be out of the gate it still has a chance in today’s NFL. Just ask the Giants, who went 0-2 (and an awful 0-2 by the way) last year and still went on to win the Super Bowl.

3. Manning commercials?
Who’s going to have the most commercials, Eli or Peyton? The total number of watchable commercials is a whole other story.

2. Big games
There’s at least one big matchup on the schedule each week this season, including Philadelphia at Dallas in Week 2, Jacksonville at Indianapolis in Week 3, and Minnesota at Tennessee in Week 4.

1. All the kids are doing it
Isn’t that reason enough?

It’s the start of another NFL season. Everything is beautiful at this time of year, because everybody can say that his team is in first place, undefeated.

Sixteen teams will get a rude awakening this week. Figuring out which ones is more difficult at this time of year, simply because the data isn’t there to evaluate. Last year’s numbers only give us a hazy picture of what might happen in 2008. Change comes in the form of new coaches, draft picks, preseason injuries, and players whose careers are on an upward or downward slope.

If you judge these factors well, you’ll be ahead of the betting public. This is the heart of “value” betting. Look at the Kansas City-New England opener. Kansas City has quietly improved, especially through the draft, while the Patriots have the burden of expectations after playing amazingly well in 2007. The Chiefs have value, provided the betting line heavily favors the Pats.

Tom Brady, Stetson Man.

Tom Brady is one of the few elite players in the NFL who gets to be loved and hated at the same time. The love comes from his actual performance; the hate is more about his pouty GQ covers and his taste in supermodel girlfriends.

Now Brady is being accused of dogging it in the preseason. He hasn’t played a single down, claiming an injured foot – although Brady says it’s not the same injury that briefly put him in a walking boot just before the Super Bowl. In the glimpses reporters have caught of Brady in practice this month, he appears to be moving just fine.

The Patriots are notorious for withholding injury information. They won’t even confirm which foot is bothering Brady (early reports said it was the right foot). And Belichick has a history of, shall we say, circumventing the rules. If there’s something fishy going on, I doubt it has anything to do with Brady wimping out.

Football may be a team sport, but all those teammates (OK, except for special teams) are out there on the field to either help or harm the quarterback. Everything depends on the QB, which is why fans and handicappers alike spend so much time obsessing over them.

That obsession goes double for 2008. Here are 10 pivots who need our special attention, starting with the three men involved in the season’s biggest storyline.

1. Brett Favre, New York Jets
2. Chad Pennington, Miami Dolphins
3. Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers
4. Tarvaris Jackson, Minnesota Vikings
5. Rex Grossman, Chicago Bears
6. J.T. O’Sullivan, San Francisco 49ers
7. Trent Edwards, Buffalo Bills
8. Troy Smith, Baltimore Ravens
9. Chris Redman, Atlanta Falcons
10. JaMarcus Russell, Oakland Raiders

Many of these quarterbacks are in heated battles for a starting job. If they don’t deliver, those handicappers who have studied up and down the depth charts will have a major advantage.

In the much publicized case against disgraced Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Vick, US District Judge Henry Hudson Monday is expected to sentence Vick up to five years in prison. Vick’s co-defendants, Purnell Peace and Quanice Phillips, have already been sentenced to 18 and 21 months respectively for their roles in this brutal case of animal cruelty. But because Vick provided the money to stage the dog fight, many are saying that he could receive the maximum penalty.

If he receives less than the maximum and is instead sentenced to 18 months, that would give Vick enough time to suit up for the 2009 NFL training camps. However, considering the once beloved QB owes the Falcons $19.97 million in signing bonuses it’s not likely that he will be given another chance to play with the organization unless he coughs up the cash. And even then, his reputation has been so severely damaged that his presence will only hinder rather than help the club.

Without Vick, the Falcons are 3-9 heading into Monday night’s game against New Orleans.

The sports drink market is increasingly crowded, but none of the newcomers has been able to knock Gatorade off its perch. The latest contender isn’t even a drink at all – it’s one of those filmy strips like the ones Listerine makes.

The product is called Enlyten Sports Strips. Their president is Dan Kelly, brother of former Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly, and their first attempt at the big time was to call itself the “official electrolyte strip” of the Bills. League officials swooped in and banned any connection with NFL property in Enlyten’s advertising, presumably at the behest of Gatorade.

Enlyten has fired back with a lawsuit, claiming the Bills informed them that Gatorade’s exclusive sponsorship deal only included “sports drinks, bars and gels.” The suit also claims that Gatorade threatened to weaken relations with Duke University after studies at Duke Sports Medicine were favorable toward the Enlyten strips. It should only get nastier from here.

You would think the NFL would have an image problem, given the conduct of some of its players. Yet the mighty juggernaut rolls on.

In 2000, Ray Lewis accepted a plea bargain on murder charges and served one year of probation for obstruction of justice. Lewis was fined $250,000 by the NFL, but served no suspension.

Shawne Merriman was suspended for four games last year; it was leaked to the press that the suspension was for violating the league’s steroid policy. Merriman was voted to the Pro Bowl.

Nine Cincinnati Bengals were then arrested over the course of nine months for everything from spousal abuse to boating under the influence. Only Chris Henry and Odell Thurman were suspended.

These incidents were splashed across the newspapers and quickly forgotten. Meanwhile, Michael Vick’s about to walk the plank on dogfighting-related charges. Does being an African-American quarterback color the public’s perception? You be the judge.

It doesn’t get much better than being an NFL quarterback. But some teams have yet to choose their starters, and for those who fall down the depth chart, life isn’t nearly as sweet as it could have been.

Kansas City is witnessing a very interesting battle between Damon Huard and Brodie Croyle. Huard was outstanding last year (98.0 passer rating) in relief of Trent Green, earning himself a three-year, $7.5-million deal. But Huard is 34, and Croyle, who doesn’t have many weaknesses other than inexperience, is widely considered the Chiefs QB of the relatively near future.

Things are even more tangled up in Oakland. First overall pick JaMarcus Russell has yet to sign a contract, leaving Josh McCown as the starter. But recently added Daunte Culpepper has looked brilliant since joining the Raiders. Andrew Walter still has life pretty good, but I wonder if he’s a happy man these days.