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.