NFL Turkey Week Picks

Ha. . .a lousy 1-5 vs the spread last week, 34-35-2 for the year. . .

Here's this week's rushed Holiday Edition. . .probably have better picks that way, anyway. . .

Philadelphia EVEN at Detroit: Hard to believe, but the Eagles have been playing worse than Dee-troit the last couple weeks.  Chip Kelly is a genius, say the football experts.  So how come all his personnel decisions seem like they were made by a 10 year old transgender boy who plays with Barbies all day and gets squeamish before going to gym class?  The Lions are the National Football League's only franchise who anger their fan base by winning games, as their two game win streak frightens fans into envisioning shitty head coach Jim Caldwell winning 5 or 6 games and saving his job while simultaneously costing the Lions a shot at Joey Bosa or Robert Nkemdiche.  This one will probably be full of turnovers, poor clock management, dumb penalties and even dumber zebra calls.  In overtime: Detroit. 

Carolina +1 at Dallas: Tony Homo comes back, the Cowboys beat a mediocre Miami team, and now they are favored over the undefeated Panthers?  No respect for Ron Rivera.  Carolina.

Tampa Bay +3 at Indianapolis: Lovie Smith finally has Tampa winning a few games.  Rapist Jameis Winston is improving as the season goes along, and Doug Martin is piling up the yards again.  Tampa's actually a better team than the Colts, and they're getting 3 points.  EZ pick:  Tampa Bay.

New York Giants -2.5 at Washington: No way a team coached by Jay Gruden wins a division title, even a shitty division like the NFC East.  Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning vs Jay Gruden and Kirk CousINTs?  EZ Pick:  New York. 

Minnesota +2.5 at Atlanta: Vikings looked flustered in their first game as an NFL heavyweight last week.  Mike Zimmer will fix their nerves. . .but what can he do about tiny QB Teddy Bridgewater, who looks like he's about to break every time he gets sacked?  Atlanta had a disastrous collapse against the ancient Colts, and rookie head coach Dan Quinn is watching a 5-0 start and sure playoff spot slowly slip away.  But check him out in his post game press conference.  He don't seem to realize what just happened.  He talks about the loss like he just had a nice meal and a glass of wine:

I don't know, maybe I'm too old school.  Maybe I seen too many Tom Coughlin pressers, where after losses like the Falcons just suffered, Coughlin would seem exhausted and depressed, weary, full of suicidal sighs and dread at the task of having start all over again on Monday.  Maybe it's because Quinn is a rookie, maybe you got to have 5 or 6 of these kind of losses before they start to wear on you.  But just maybe he seems a little too OK with the loss? And, unlike the impression he wants to convey, maybe he really don't know exactly what went wrong and maybe he really don't know how to fix it?  Maybe Quinn wants to appear confident to his players, doesn't want to seem down or desperate.  But the Falcons better start playing desperate. The Giants usually do after Coughlin hits rock bottom.  Anyway, this game will go a long way to telling whether Quinn's been rightly confident, or blindly delusional.  I'm betting #28 carries the day for the Vikings and sends Quinn and Atlanta straight back to Square One.   Minnesota.      

St. Louis +10 at Cincinnati: After starting 8-0, the Bengals have lost two in a row, with signs Andy Dalton is starting to get skittish, again.  If he was unnerved by J.J. Watt calling him a Toy Red Ryder B.B. Gun, how's he gonna hold up against Jeff Fisher's *dirty* Rams? The Rams are my pick for the NFL's most disappointing team.  They got Todd Gurley going, won some games and got to 4-3 with a real shot at a WC, and then they lose 3 in a row, the last two to the shitty Bears and the shitty Ravens.  And to make matters worse, Fisher pulled a Brady Hoke by claiming not to have seen his QB getting his brains scrambled at the end of the Ravens contest, leaving him in there to fumble away the game.  This looks like the beginning of the end for Fisher.  Bengals will win, but won't cover.  St. Louis.  

Pittsburgh +4 at Seattle: The Steelers are the only AFC team that can keep New England out of the Super Bowl. . .as long as Ben Roethlisberger can stay healthy, but that's no sure bet, as old Big Ben is beginning to look like the Reggie Bush of QBs.  Seattle's held form all year, beating the 5 crappy teams they've played and losing to the 5 good teams they've played.  Nothing changes this week.  Pittsburgh. 

Baltimore +2.5 at Cleveland: Nobody gives a shit about this game, but it provides us a chance to mock the Browns head coach.  One week after stating the midget was his QB for the rest of the season, Mike Pettine looks like the idiot he is, as he has to bench the midget because the midget is, and always will be, a joke.  Why Pettine would trust his team to a joke is beyond me.  Pettine has fucked up the Browns two years running, and he'll be the next coach fired.  What is this, Pettine's 10th QB change in two years?  The Browns are 2-8.  There are no 2-8 talent teams in the National Parity League, teams are 2-8 because of poor coaching, and poor coaching decisions.  As for this turd of a game, on paper the Browns look to be the sure winner: the Ravens lost Joe Flacco, and now have to play Matt *Pick-Six* Schaub, while the Browns actually upgrade from the midget to Crybaby McClown.  But the game won't be played on paper or in some computer simulation.  Pettine will actually have to coach against John Harbaugh.  I'm betting Harbaugh can beat Pettine, even with one Matt Schaub tied behind his back.  Baltimore.    

NFL Week 11 Picks

2-3 vs the spread last week, 33-30-2 for the year. . .

Tennessee +2.5 at Jacksonville: Ha ha ha. . .this is what the

National Football League is all about: 8 tiny divisions to keep almost every team a *contender* all season long.  The *winner* of this NFL bum fight will remain in the *race* for the AFC South *crown.*  Jacksonville is better across the board, and if they had decent coaching, they could actually win the South. Blake Bortles has improved dramatically from his sorry-ass rookie year, and now has a decent running back in T.J. Yeldon to go along with a decent receiving corps.  Marcus Mariota looks like he's having a pretty good rookie season. . .on paper. . .in real-life, he looks like a nickel-and-dimer, cut from the Mark Sanchez cloth.  He'll start for two or three more years, then, like Sanchez, move around the League to whoever needs a back-up.  Jacksonville.

Oakland -2 at Detroit: The Lions ended a 24 year road losing streak in Green Bay last week in a game that said more about the sudden decline of the Packers than about any possible Detroit revival.  In fact, the Lions had their usual share of turnovers, dumb penalties, head-scratching coaching *strategies,* missed extra points, and yet another Calvin *Megaphony* Johnson end game fumble. . .but still somehow managed to *beat* the Bizarro Packers.  The Packers are a much easier match-up for Detroit's slow defense than the Raiders, as Derek Carr has a legitimate deep threat in Amari Cooper and a big-play running back in Latavius Murray, whereas GB has nothing but lead-foots at WR and RB.  Grab all the Raiders in Fantasy Football, they will light up the Lions.  Oakland.

Indianapolis +6 at Atlanta: The Falcons need to win this game if they want to stay in the WC driver's seat. . .this is the EZist game left on their schedule, as the Colts have a lame duck coach and a lame QB, 40 yr old Matt Hasselbeck. . .and RB Frank Gore has more miles on him than a Paris ambulance.  The Falcons have lost 3 of their last 4, and need to get back to business: run the fucking ball.  They gave up way too early on the run against the 49ers, and tried win with Air Ryan--the dumb strategy that cost Mike Smith his job.  Hopefully rookie coach Dan Quinn used the bye week to regroup and get his mind right, otherwise the Falcons 5-0 start will go up in smoke.  Atlanta.

Denver +1 at Chicago: Something named Brock Osweiler replaces Fantasy Football legend Peyton Manning for the Broncos.  Whatever a Brock Osweiler is, it has to be an upgrade over Manning, who is missing more body parts than a Paris suicide bomber.  John Fox has a horrible Bears roster at 4-5, just a Falcons stumble away from being back in the WC race.  And it's not unreasonable to expect this largely talent-less team to make a playoff run, because Fox has QB Jayne Cutler playing the best football of her career.  They say you meet the same people on the way down as you met on the way up--that's true for the Broncos this week, as they get beat down by their former coach.  Chicago.  

Dallas EVEN at Miami: Tony Homo is back for the Cowboys, and he ain't in much better shape than Peyton Manning. . .and he's about to face a Donkeykong Suh who is starting to play like a 60 million dollar defensive tackle.  And that's the only interesting thing about this match-up between two teams going absolutely nowhere: will Suh make Jerry Jones regret his stupid decision to rush Homo back onto the field to play in a meaningless game?  Let's hope so.  Miami.

Green Bay +1 at Minnesota: 6-3 Green Bay will only win one or two more games this year, because last week they lost at home to Matthew Stafford, who has NEVER won a road game over a team that finished the season with a winning record.  NEVER.  Anyway, the Packers are in a stunning free-fall, no longer looking anything remotely close to the Super Bowl pick many had them as just three weeks ago.  Defenses are finally realizing that without Jordy Nelson, Aaron Rodgers has nobody who can get open more than 10 yards downfield.  Even the shitty Lion defense was able to sit on Rodgers, and choke down the GB run game.  There is NO HOPE the Packers can figure a way out of their boxed-in offense against a disciplined Viking defense. Mike Zimmer has taken the last place Vikings and moved them past the North's perennial champion in only a year-and-a-half.  The guy has a very effeminate and passive-aggressive personality, but he may be the best fucking coach in the National Football League.  I've watched more than a few Vikings games in the last 2 years, and other than the inexplicable opening dud in San Francisco this year, they've always been ready to play, made the best half-time adjustments, and played mentally and physically tough football for the entire 60 minutes.  If this guy ever gets a Big Time QB, look out. He can go on a Belichick run.  Minnesota.

NFL Week 10 Picks

3-2-1 vs the spread last week, 31-27-2 for the year. . .

Detroit +11.5 at Green Bay: Green Bay lost the last two. . .on the road. . .to playoff caliber teams. . .not alarming. . .the Packers are still a good team. . .but they ain't a great team, either.  Eddie Lacy is fat and falls down EZ, they don't have a deep threat in the passing game, and even Aaron Rodgers was underwhelming for 7 of the last 8 quarters, and then made an uncharacteristic end game screw up.  The Packers even had a couple sideline scuffles. . .clearly, they ain't used to losing. The Lions, on the other hand, have 60 years of experience at losing, and their sideline is the living embodiment of the downtrodden's twelve step prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. . .Green Bay. 

Dallas +1.5 at Tampa Bay: Ha ha ha. . .who would have bet before the season began that Tampa would have a better record than the Cowboys, and would actually be the favorite in this game?  And, look, it's not that Tampa still ain't crappy, they're 3-5. . .but the Cowboys can't win without Tony Homo. In the NFL, it's the quarterback, stupid.  But if there is a game the Cowboys can win with Matt Cassel, it's this one. The Bucs had so many dropped passes, fumbles and penalties against the Giants last week, it looked like they threw the game.  Lovie Smith's running a fucking country club down there, he's probably got white women giving lap dances to the players at half-time. Can't take 'em seriously.  Dallas. 

Chicago +7 at St. Louis: There has never been a 300 yard rushing game in the NFL. . .it could happen here, as the Bears awful rush defense has to try to stop Todd Gurley.  St. Louis.

Minnesota +3 at Oakland: The Raiders had a chance last week to take a step up, but blew it against the Steelers, giving away the game with 4 turnovers and a horrible defense that couldn't even stop backup Pittsburgh QB Landry Jones. . .a brutal loss.  No way they can play that sloppy again and expect to beat the Vikings, the National Football League's most disciplined team.  

Mike Zimmer's done a helluva job in his year-and-a-half in Minnesota, and he had a big win last week against the St. Louis Gurleys, but he came off like a fucking pantywaist in his postgame press conference, whining about a *cheap shot* that knocked Teddy Bridgewater cold. It wasn't a cheap shot.  It was obvious the Ram defender was trying to glide over the sliding Bridgewater, but just didn't get his elbow up in time.  But Zimmer acted all prissy about it, and then made some passive-aggressive comment about Ram defensive cooridinator Gregg Williams *scandalous* New Orleans bounty program. Hey, Zimmer, you look like half-a-fucking-sissy talking tough to a bunch of reporters after doing nothing when you had the chance on the field.  But anyways, this should be a helluva game. . .in a tight game like this, I'll take the team less likely to make critical mistakes.  Minnesota.

Arizona +3 at Seattle: The Seahawks have played four bad teams, and beaten them.  They've played four good teams, and lost to them.  The Cardinals are a good team.  It's as simple as that.  And they're getting 3 points. C'mon.  EZ.  Arizona.

NFL Week 9 Picks

5-2 vs the spread last week, 28-25-1 for the year. . .Shane Morris came to the University of Michigan as a 5 star high school blue chip QB recruit.  Since his arrival, he's had more concussions than touchdown passes, and new head coach Jim Harbaugh opted to trust his first year at U-M with a fifth year senior transfer that Kirk Ferentz ran out of Iowa, a ham-and-egger named Jake Rudock.  When Rudock got injured late in the Michigan-Minnesota game last week, Wolverine fans expected that second string and former high school hot shot Shane Morris would come into the game. . .no.  Harbaugh passed him over, and went with a borderline 3 star recruit named Wilton Speight, who had never completed a pass in his Michigan career.  Mind you, this was not for mop-up duty.  The game was on the line.  Michigan was trailing a fired-up Gopher team trying to win one for their old coach, Jerry Kill, who announced his retirement three days prior to the game because he could no longer control his epilepsy.  The *Jerrysota* crowd was in a frenzy all night long, and here was Michigan, down 5 points late in the game, and now without their mediocre starting QB.  And Harbaugh passes over the big name second stringer and calls on zero completion Wilton Speight.  After the game reporters asked Harbaugh to explain his thinking:

He has been performing really well in practice. It just struck me a couple of weeks ago, when Wilton was throwing the ball, I wasn't nervous anymore about where it was going. I can't say exactly when that happened. I used to be nervous when he threw the ball, where it was going to go, if he was going to make the appropriate throw, and if it was going to be accurate. He just kept improving and improving. I was confident when he went back that he was going to make the appropriate throw. I felt like he had earned it and he was good to go.

Speight misfired badly on his first three throws, then was picture-perfect on his last three, including the game-winning TD toss.

I bring this up because Harbaugh is the only coach I have seen in 40 years of watching football who has any clue about QBs.  Other coaches, even otherwise great coaches, can't tell one quarterback from a bucket of shit, and they damage their teams by sending the bucket of shit onto the field.  Look at Mike Pettine last year, how he ruined a possible playoff Browns team by imagining the midget was better than Brian Hoyer.  Look how Jay Gruden has created chaos in Washington, imagining Kirk Cousins and Colt McCoy are better than RGIII.  Look how Bill O'Brien torpedoed his Texans, imagining Ryan Mallet was better than Hoyer. Jason Garrett (or Jerry Jones) imagined weenie-armed Matt Cassell was better than Brenda Weeden.  In the college game, look how Mark Richt hasn't a clue at Georgia as to which QB to play.  The list would be endless, and goes back decades.  Hell, I remember when Dick Vermeil, certainly one of the better football coaches, wept like a fucking baby when his hand-picked, personally-groomed big free agent signee Trent Green blew out his knee in an exhibition game, and left Vermeil to face a season with only some stumblebum named Kurt Warner to take the snaps.  Dick Vermeil, successful both at the collegiate and professional level, had no fucking idea after watching a summer's worth of practices, that Kurt Warner was 20x the QB Trent Green was.

Even Urban Meyer, the most successful coach in the college game, has trouble sorting out QBs, as his flip-flopping of J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones shows.

When football coaches start switching QBs, disaster usually follows. . .except in the case of Harbaugh.  In his first year at Stanford, he switched QBs for the USC game, and as a 40 point underdog somehow snapped USC's 35 game home winning streak in one of college football's all-time biggest upsets. . with the 49ers he was winning big with Alex Smith. . .but he saw in practice that Colin Halfernigger was better, he risked upsetting the apple cart to win even bigger with Halfernigger. . .and he pulled it off.  Now that Harbaugh is gone, Halfernigger is the biggest joke in the NFL.  

How is it that Jim Harbaugh is the only coach who can pick the right QB?  Is he the only coach who actually watches his QBs throw the ball in practice?  Is that possible?  

Green Bay -2.5 at Carolina: The Panthers nearly choked one away to the crappy Colts on Monday night, but survived in OT and are now the NFC's only unbeaten team, while the Packers suffered a shocking loss in Denver for their first defeat of the season.  What was shocking was not the defeat itself, after all Denver was also undefeated and playing at home. . .not, what was shocking was the Broncos holding Aaron Rodgers under 100 passing yards.  It's true Rodgers has been a nickel-and-dime QB this year without Jordy Nelson, but that was the first time I've seen A-Rodg get totally shut down.  Carolina looked like they were going to do the same to Andrew Luck, until late in the game, when their secondary suddenly sprang leaks all over the place. . .it seemed like Luck picked up 200 yards in just the last 5 minutes of the game.  But the Panthers survived the bizarre breakdown, and now get Green Bay at home with a chance to take a 2 game lead over the Pack for the NFC's #1 playoff seed.  Can Rodgers be shut down two games in a row?  The *experts* don't think so, as the Packers are a road favorite.  But I like the Panthers to keep on winning ugly.  Carolina.

Tennessee +8 at New Orleans: How great a QB was Kurt Warner?  So great, he almost won a Super Bowl despite being coached by Kunt Whisenkunt, surely one of the worst head coaches in the modern era of the National Football League, and loser of 31 of his last 35 games. . .even the Dee-troit Lions never had a coach who stunk that fucking bad!  Well, the Titans made a colossal error when they hired this guy, and then made an even more colossal error when they idiotically brought him back for a second year, even after his players quit on him and lost their last ten games in 2014. But after watching Whisenkunt leave an injured Marcus Mariota in the Dolphins game a couple weeks ago, they've finally admitted their mistake, and shit-canned Kunt after their depressing 1-6 start (and before he could totally wreck Mariota).  And Hell, even at 1-6, now that they've got rid of Kunt, the Titans are still in the race for the AFC South *crown,* trailing the other 3 South *teams* by only 1 game in the loss column.  Drew Brees and the Saints offense has come back from the dead in their 3 game winning streak, hi-lited by Brees' 7 td/500 yd performance last week against the Giants.  The Saints looked over-the-hill in the season's first 5 weeks, but Sean Payton must have found the fountain of youth for his decrepit 2009 Super Bowl leftovers (or maybe he just jacked off on Marie Laveau's grave). . .but whatever, the Saints look ready to climb back into the Wild Card race.  New Orleans. 

Miami +3 at Buffalo: Two very disappointing 3-4 teams playing an elimination match.  Rex Ryan's defense has been terrible the last two weeks. . .have the players tuned-out this quintessential *players coach* after just half-a-season??  *Tomato Can* Campbell got his ass whipped last week by a real professional football team, the Patriots, and to have any chance to keep his job past the remainder of 2015, he has to win this game.  I don't think he will.  The Bills get Tyrod Taylor back this week, and I don't think Donkeykong Suh and his mates feel up to chasing him all over the field for a Manpower temp coach.  Buffalo.    

St. Louis +3 at Minnesota: Big game in the Wild Card race as the NFC's #6 and #7 seeds square off.  Mike Zimmer has done a remarkable job rebuilding the Vikings, and with very little notice.  The improvement has been on an almost weekly basis for a year-and-a-half, now.  The pass rush is beginning to rival that of the old Purple People Eaters, and while the offense still doesn't scare anybody, they have #28 to chew up the clock, and a short passing game to protect Teddy Bridgewater's weenie arm.  The Rams are back in the Wild Card race for one reason, and one reason, only: Todd Gurley, who has been sensational, breaking Billy Sims' 35 year old record for most rushing yards by a rookie in his first four starts.  Believe me, I been watching football since the days of that white woman killer, O.J. Simpson, if this kid Gurley's knee holds up, he'll go down as one of the All-Time Greats. . .he's the best running back to enter the League since Barry Sanders in 1989.  Gurley is so good, he might end up making Jeff Fisher look like a good coach, again.  St. Louis.

Oakland +4.5 at Pittsburgh: Last week the young Raiders offense destroyed the League's best defense, the Jets, in an AFL Glory Days Rivalry throwback game.  This week they get another old AFL Glory Days throwback game against the Steelers.  I'm gonna stick with the hot team, the Raiders, as Big Ben looked a little out-of-sorts in his return against the Bengals, and the Steelers lost Le'Veon Bell for the rest of the year (though DeAngelo Williams is certainly a more-than-adequate replacement).  Oakland.

Atlanta -6 at San Francisco: So Jim Harbaugh's old team is now resorting to that same failed panic move I discussed at the beginning--the old quarterback switcheroo.  True, Colin Halfernigger has been terrible. But, take a look at the new QB:  Modesty Blaise Gabbert.  Ha ha ha. She was run out of. . .Jacksonville!!  Hey, maybe by some miracle the 49ers do win this game. . .but that miracle ain't gonna be Modesty Blaise Gabbert.  It'll be the Falcons kicking the fucking game away by some NFL version of college football's recent run of crazy kick-sixes.  Modesty Blaise Gabbert ain't gonna run and pass the 49ers to victory, and she ain't no upgrade over Halfernigger.  And, anyway, there ain't gonna be no miracle victory for Jim Tonsils or whatever and the 49ers.  Dan Quinn knew how to beat the Niners when they were good. . .and they ain't good no more. Atlanta. 

Bonus College Game of the Week:

LSU +7 at Alabama: While Mark Richt fell on his face yet again, and new coaching flavor of the year Gus Malzahn has forgotten how to win, and even old reliable Gary Pinkel fucked up his quarterback spot so bad Missouri is as horrible as they should be, and negro wonder boy coach Kevin Sumlin still can't break through against the big boys, and Bret Bielema can't remake Arkansas into Wisconsin South, but, well, lookie here: it's the old Mad Hatter, Les Miles, written off nearly every year as a fluke-and-luck coach, still standing, once again, as the SEC's One True Threat to Nick Saban and Alabama.  Les still don't have a good QB, but he does have college football's best player, army tank running back Leonard Fournette.  The LSU run game has been so good, as a team they average 6.7 yards per carry, they've made Brandon Harris practically a pressure-free QB. . .in fact, LSU hasn't thrown an interception all year (it makes me a little nervous, picking LSU. . .out of the sheer law of averages they might be due for 3 picks against Bama).  Somehow a one-loss Alabama team that barely squeaked by Tennessee is ranked higher by the CFP than unbeatens Michigan State, Baylor and TCU. . .what the Hell?!?!  This is a good Alabama team, but not one of the old Monster Alabama squads.  They'd be in the Playoffs if the season ended today?  Ridiculous.  Anyways, Saban's had the best of old Les in recent years, winning the last four. . .but I think this year Les has the better team. . .and they are getting a whopping 7 points.  LSU.