Week 1 Picks

STEELERS AT RAVENS (-1)
Last year these 2 AFC North archrivals slugged their way thru 2 low scoring taffy pulls in the regular season. The Ravens won by 3 at Pittsburgh, and the Steelers won by 3 at Baltimore. The Steelers won the rubber match 31-24 in the AFC Wildcard round. That tells me the Ravens have been training Rocky in Russia style all offseason long to avenge the is defeat, and will avenge it in Week 1, followed by an existential crisis and colossal letdown in Week 2.
RAVENS 23, STEELERS 20

LIONS AT BUCS (-1)
Oh the sexiness of these 2 preseason sexy sleeper picks! The Lions ranked 20th or worse in Y/A on both offense and defense against both the run and the pass last year. They are good how? Then again, the Bucs got gashed by Maurice Morris of all people for 100+rushing yards when the Lions beat them 23-20 in OT late last season, and Cal Johnson went bonkers for 10 catches and 150+ yards. Irregardless, I'm way more on board with the Bucs than I am with the Lions.
BUCS 27, LIONS 17


FALCONS (-2.5) AT BEARS
I've never been a huge Lovie Smith fan, but the smoke and mirrors he used to get a very ordinary Bears team playing the NFC Championship game at home last year convinced me he's a really good coach. Luck has a way of running out though.
FALCONS 23, BEARS 10

BILLS AT CHIEFS (-4.5)
The line on this game has dropped from 6 1/2 to 4 1/2 since it opened. Apparently people are hedging on the Chiefs. But still, the Bills people. Worst run defense in the league last year facing the 4th ranked run offense, on the road. I'm betting both kidneys on KC.
CHIEFS 30, BILLS 17

COLTS AT TEXANS (-9)
The last time the Texans faced Kerry Collins, Collins threw 2 TDs and the Texans lost 31-17. If I lose my kidneys on the Bills/Chiefs game, I will win them back plus a liver on this one.
TEXANS 23, COLTS 20

EAGLES (-4) AT RAMS
Are Rams male Goats? I took my son to the petting zoo yesterday, he was pretty afraid of the goats and I have to say I agree with him. I take that as a sign.
RAMS 27, EAGLES 17

BENGALS AT BROWNS (-6.5)
The Browns are favored by 6 1/2? In their last 32 games the Browns have won by 7 or more points 5 times. The laws of probability are not in their favor here.
BROWNS 17, BENGALS 13

TITANS AT JAGUARS PICK 'EM
Icky.
JAGUARS 30, TITANS 24

GIANTS -2.5 AT REDSKINS
Rex Grossman claws his way out of the sarcophagus to become an NFL starting QB again, and now he's listed as doubtful? I am doubtful of my will to live.
GIANTS 20, REDSKINS 10

PANTHERS AT CARDINALS (-7)
GARY SINISE LOOKALIKE READY TO QB CARDS TO 7 WIN SEASON
CARDS 27, PANTHERS 9

SEAHAWKS AT NINERS (-5 1/2)
Much like the Browns being favored by 6 1/2, I can't figure out why the 49ers would be 5 1/2 points against any team where most of the players have their high school diplomas.
NINERS 23, SEAHAWKS 21

VIKINGS AT CHARGERS (-8 1/2)
The Chargers favored by more than a TD in September? I'm going to be taking a golden shower in a golden bathtub after I collect all my winnings this week.
CHARGERS 27, VIKINGS 24

COWBOYS AT JETS (-6)
I might be missing something but Dallas looks bad to me.
JETS 27, COWBOYS 13

Opening Night Rubdown

So it's only been what, like 11 months since my last post?

In that time I've been finding out how hard it is to be a parent, changed jobs and danced ever so delicately on the fine line between sanity and not sanity. But football season is now back and so am I, and after last nights 5 star opener between the Packers and Saints, I feel re-invigorated.

Last night's matchup between the previous 2 years Super Bowl winners had it all. If "all" does not include defense, which it did not include at all. Of course, in this day and age where Fantasy Football is more important than real football, and people want to tune in to see their imaginary team members put up lots of touchdowns, Thursday Night's 42-34 Green Bay win over the Saints was exactly what football fans salivated for over a long sweltering summer where it was unsure if we'd ever see NFL football before the Mayan Apocalypse.

The game came down to a final untimed play, when an AJ Hawk PI penalty in the end zone gave the Saints one chance to punch it in from the one and thus earn a potentially game tying 2 point conversion attempt. Sean Payton made the interesting choice of putting the game in the hands of a rookie RB, Mark Ingram, who had averaged barely 3 yards a carry in an unimpressive pro debut, rather than the Pro Bowl QB who had disemboweled the supposedly good Packers defense for 419 passing yards, or even the veteran running back, Pierre Thomas, who had run effectively for 31 yards on just 5 carries. Ingram was stuffed for no gain in what may have been the only play from scrimmage in the whole game that didn't pick up at least 10 yards, and the Packers held on for a shaky win.

I admire the Saints pluck and tenacity in bringing a game which looked on numerous occasions like it would disintegrate into a blowout all the way down to the last play. However, remember the last time we saw them, their defense was getting 41 points hung on them by the mighty Seahawk juggernaut, and in this opener that defense was still non-functional. That's a problem they have to resolve.

The Packers, meanwhile, looked unbeatable according to what Mel Kiper Jr. said on the radio this morning. What? Unbeatable? They were 1 yard away from losing..how is that unbeatable? I missed idiotic football commentary almost as much as I missed football itself.

NFL Playoffs Week 1

New Orleans at Seattle

I know that the logical choice is to pick the Saints, especially since, well, Seattle is the first team to make it into the playoffs with a losing record, but I'm picking Seattle. 1) I want to look super smart if they win and 2) Seattle's home field averages 2 false starts per game. Okay, and 3) the ref will rig to make up for what happened to them in the Superbowl.

NY Jets at Colts

Indy is 5-1 vs Rex Ryan and it's at Indy. Easy pick. Indy.

Baltimore at Kansas City

Kansas City sucks. Stop thinking they're good. They played shitty ass teams twice to win their division. Baltimore wins by a lot.

Green Bay at Philadelphia

Everyone's picking Green Bay, but I think Vick is going to drop nuts on Green Bay. Green Bay can toss up big numbers, but the reason they barely made the playoffs was because of their defense. Aaron Rodgers is also super overrated. MVP? REALLY? If he's MVP, so is Philip Rivers. Wait, you have to win to be MVP.

Eagles Tuesday Game and TCU WORLD CHAMPS

Two thoughts:

First, lots of crying going on when the Eagles/Vikings game had to be moved to Tuesday because of possible snow. You got officials and players and announcers and your fucking mom crying that the league is super pussy now. Apparently, real men play in the snow, which is fine, but all the fans that have to trek through the dangerous weather better be real men too if they want to live to get to the game.

The main argument against the move was that if the Eagles don't clinch a bye, they'll have to play three times in ten days. Can't real men play three games in ten days?

Second, on Sportsnation, 52% of the voters believed that TCU deserves a piece of the national championship. Initially, I was going to say bullshit, but then all the reason I thought were bullshit, weak schedule, small conference with no automatic bid, and being a fuck face were all bullshit reasons in of themselves because the whole system is bullshit. You can't cry bullshit about TCU's claim for a piece of the title if the system bullshits a National Champion.

I mean, think about the argument of the BCS: The two best teams will play for the title game and whoever wins that is the best. Okay, how do you determine the two best teams? We look at a bunch of shit including schedule, losses, how many times you got caught doing weed, celebrity sex tapes, and how many times you got caught hitting your wife. Alright, just the first two. Okay, so even though you're arguing that a team has to have a perfect season to be the best - which AMERICAN SPORTS HISTORY SHOWS THAT'S BULLSHIT - so what happens if you have more than two undefeated teams? Uhh, well, strength of schedule. What if the strength of schedule is the same? Uhhh, if you're an automatic bid school or an unrecognized conference school. Wow, that's some elitist shit. TCU had the same fucking strength of schedule and record as Oregon, but TCU gets assed out because they're at an unrecognized conference? Uhh, well, you can only pick two, so someone gets assed out. No, fucko. That's my motherfucking point. Teams that are worth it to give a chance, should have a shot. Don't cry that TCU is making a bullshit argument because the BCS Championship is a bullshit argument.

Dog Catcher

Real Madrid Conspiracy

In the Real Madrid vs. Ajax Champions league game, Xabi Alonso and Sergio Ramos got Red Cards winning 4-0. How is that possible? They refused to kick the free kick.



Fast forward to 5 min to see them both.

You may be wondering what happened. Well, here is photo evidence of what happened:

MLS Final Sucked Shit

The MLS Final between Colorado and Dallas FC got a whopping .4 rating (about 700k viewers). This is down from .7 (about 1.1 mil). Here are the top ten trending tweets that I found about the MLS Final:

1.
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That's right! No one fucking talked about it because nobody wants to see youth players from Colorado play some assholes in Dallas in soccer. You have stars in Donovan and Beckham in LA and Henry and Marquez on NY Red Bulls. That's four very recognizable names from four different countries. You could have had audiences from England, America, Mexico, and France watching. But instead of rigging the finals like any smart company like the NFL or NBA does, they play it fair and have shitty people play shitty people.

Who the fuck wants to spend time watching the MLS Final between Colorado and Dallas? Some of you assholes would cry, "BUT PATRICK, SNIFF SNIFF, YOU DIDN'T EVEN WATCH THE MATCH!" Yeah, that's exactly it. I was not one of the 700k people wasting their lives watching youth prospects from Colorado and Dallas play a meaningless final. THEY'RE NOT EVEN FEEDER TEAMS TO ANYONE. Here are things I would rather do than watch the MLS Final:

1. Put pubes in my salad to make it crunchy.
2. Eat bacon covered shit.
3. Get pregnant and then kick my own stomach.

These morons competed with an NFL game instead of scheduling their final during the World Series. Why would you do that? Want a clue on how to get ratings? Rig your championships and go against the World Series.