Got a call last night from Floyd Mayweather's publicist, who was next to the welterweight fighter as he trained for his Sept. 19 fight against Juan Manuel Marquez in Las Vegas. She held the phone up in the direction of Mayweather in the middle of his workout session.

"Hear that?" she asked.

The cadenced rat-a-tat was the sound of Mayweather drilling the speed bag into a rhythmic pulp. About an hour later, I got Mayweather on the phone — he wanted to take a break from training to talk football with PFW — and heard that same kind of sound and tempo again: in his voice. Mayweather talks like he fights, in a relentless series of jabs and haymakers that roll from one word to another without much in the way of break. Although I am not the biggest boxing enthusiast, I suspect this is what has helped make him an undefeated pro and one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

When asked how the fight preparations are going, he paused and stuttered briefly before unleashing a sortie that transcribes roughly as: "Uh … uh … Everythingisgood. Everythingisgoingrealgoodrightnow. Wejusttrytokeepgoingonedayatatime. Actuallyweareinthegymtrainingatthisparticulartime, thisparticulartime," adding exclamation on the end, as if it were a knockout try.

Mayweather is a big football fan. Huge, he says. He also likes to get a piece of the action, when when in Vegas …

"Been betting … heavy . Betting heavy on football. Extremely heavy."

How heavy? Heavy . Mayweather estimates that his largest wager on an NFL game was "$70,000, maybe $100,000" on a single game. His largest take-home? "It was $190,000."

Mayweather grew up in Michigan, though he doesn't claim himself a Lions fan. (Shocker.) "When I grew up my flag football team was the Pittsburgh Steelers," he says. "I also used to like the Chicago Bears when Walter Payton was playing. And when Jerry Rice and Joe Montana [were] together, I used to like their team. There have been a lot of great players in this game, but a guy who has been a dominant force in this game has been Tom Brady. I also want to see Michael Vick do well."

He'd like to watch a few weeks of action before he's ready to back a Super Bowl favorite, and despite the fact that he has a big fight coming up, he says he doesn't plan to miss out on the Sunday games. "We got the [DirecTV] package," he says, ostensibly referring to his entourage. "We watch all the games."

And as it turns out, Mayweather is willing to take on more than one opponent at a time. He already has committed to his next battle — against me. Over about eight minutes on the phone, we talked about his Week One NFL picks, and he said he wants to give PFW his picks every week. I proposed an idea: Mayweather vs. Edholm, head-to-head picks every week, and without even speaking with his people, he agreed. Financial terms of the match have not yet been released.

So it's as simple as that. He and I will post our weekly picks here in this space, and at the end of the season a champion will be crowned. The games will be picked straight up, no spreads. (Perhaps he doesn't want to tip his betting hand.) I can tell you that my record as a pro is far from undefeated, so in no way am I taking this opponent lightly.

Onward with our Week One picks and Floyd's take on the games: