NFL Week 2: Cincy Jungle staff picks for every matchup

I'll be honest, picking Week 1 was a little rough. At least for myself. Five of our 11 esteemed contributors who are participating managed to go over .500 for the week. That's not exactly Las Vegas shark-esque predictions. But hey, Week 1 is tough! Now that we have actually seen all of these teams play this season, we're taking what we've learned and applying it to Week 2.

I would like to give a special mention to Jason Marcum, as he is the only person to pick San Diego this week. Your punishment awaits you in the comments section.

The three games the staff is most split on this week are New England at Buffalo (NE -1.5), Detroit at Minnesota (MIN -3), and Atlanta at NY Giants (NYG -2.5). Unsurprisingly, these games have three of the four closest spreads in Vegas. Each game has seven staffers picking the road team, and four picking the home team. St. Louis and New Orleans are the only two consensus picks amongst staffers.

Buffalo looked Strong with a capital "S" in Week 1 against Indy. Many had tabbed the Colts as being early Super Bowl contenders with a team that looks stacked on the offensive side of the ball. Unfortunately for them, the defense looked pretty soft as Buffalo hung 27 points on them with Tyrod Taylor at the helm of an offense that wasn't expected to do much coming into the season. Taylor was efficient both through the air and on the ground while Rex Ryan's defense frustrated Andrew Luck and Frank Gore all day. On the other side, New England also looked good against Pittsburgh despite letting them claw back into the game late. Tom Brady was stellar, hooking up with Rob Gronkowski for three scores. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, never count out Touchdown Tom.

In Week 1, our collective love for Mike Zimmer caused every staffer to pick that game incorrectly. The Vikings got handled by the 49ers, a team I expected to be among the worst in the league this year. Don't worry, it's not too late. San Francisco can still suck. Detroit hung close with the Bengals' Week 2 opponent, San Diego, in Week 1, thanks to a second-half rally that was ultimately futile.

Only Dadio McDuck correctly picked Atlanta to win last week. However, using last year as a lesson, Atlanta can be a dramatically different team after a couple of weeks of regular season football. Any way you slice it, this is a team with talented offensive weapons and a competent quarterback. The exact same can be said for the New York Giants, but they did not show it in Week 1. The Giants displayed some horrendous clock management which only became more stupid as we learned the details.

Here are our Week 2 picks: