I lost money on the Chargers. I made a mistake. And, I’m not too optimistic about this week (especially because my betting partner, Tony, took a look at the spreads on Thursday and said to me, “Screw this week. The NFL is loopy right now.” He’s right, but I must trudge on).
I lost money on the Chargers. I made a mistake. And, I’m not too optimistic about this week (especially because my betting partner, Tony, took a look at the spreads on Thursday and said to me, “Screw this week. The NFL is loopy right now.” He’s right, but I must trudge on).
Anyway, some highlights from last week at the local pub:
The Buccaneers defense looks like it's back to its Super Bowl season caliber form. They won that game for us, despite the fact that Brian Griese was trying to lose it. I would call another NFC championship for the Bucs, if it wasn’t for the fact that our starting quarterback is Brian Griese and our backups are Chris Simms and Luke McNown. Someone pointed out to me, while I was openly begging Brian Griese to figure out what the hell he was doing, that Griese is no worse than Brad Johnson, with whom we won a Super Bowl. That may be true, but Griese is also very inconsistent. You just never know with him. One play, he’s John Elway, the next play he’s the second string QB from “Any Given Sunday.” Coach Gruden could work with Johnson because he was consistent and didn’t fluster, which is to say that it was easy to build a system around Johnson. It’s difficult to get a QB into your system when you can’t figure out what your QB is capable of. Long story short, I’m not ready to put money on the Bucs yet.
At the Local Pub, during the game, I high fived a teacher named Mike and some guy named Almondo. I didn’t know either of them. But for about .7 seconds, we were family. I even hugged Almondo at the end of the game (after he called the interception that clinched the game). Almondo and I will probably never see each other again, we had never seen each other before, and we hugged. How beautiful is that? Football: bringing people together for no fathomable reason.
The Local Pub was definitely Good Busy. I yelled, “Hey” to Frank, Happy and Ingrid (who I hadn’t seen in six months). And yes, I know a football starved, stat machine of a female named Ingrid. Life: kicking my imagination’s ass on a daily basis.
Onto my pick:
For whatever reason, the football hype artists are putting faith in the Arizona Cardinals this year. I saw a little of their game against the Giants and they did not look good. Furthermore, Kurt Warner’s career ended three years ago and he’s the only one who doesn’t know because his wife keeps telling him he’s great (I assume because she loves riding the NFL paycheck gravy train). The St. Louis Rams, though obviously hindered by a coach who (putting this mildly) overcomplicates things, and a special teams unit that looks like it really is special (in the short bus way) is very pissed. They just lost badly to their division rivals and they are ready to get violent. The Cardinals are giving 1, and I’m taking the Rams and placing another $50. My juice is $2.
Total Yearly Earnings: -$4
Total Record: 1 – 1
College Football Note: Ian H, who reads this blog when he should be working, has pointed out to me that I have neglected college football. I feel bad about this, so I’m gonna do a USF Football update at the end of every NFL entry. You see, Ian? You’re making a difference.
For those of you who may not know, The University of South Florida has a football team. They started in 1997 as a Division 1-AA school. Since then, they have been a non conference Division 1-A school, a Conference USA school and are now in the Big East. Now you’re up to speed.
USF lost its first game against Paterno’s Nittany Lions and then routed Division 1-AA Florida A & M. In a few hours, I will be at Raymond James Stadium watching South Florida take on Central Florida. They’re calling this the I-4 Corridor Game (the schools are 94 miles apart and most of those miles are on Interstate 4). I don’t know if I’m reading these spreads right, but it looks like USF is favored by 7.5. I’m not actually betting money (the payers don’t get paid, so why should I?) but I’m pretty sure USF will not cover this spread. I still think the South Florida Bulls will win because the UCF Golden Knights are on a 17 game losing streak. When a team is on a streak like that, well, they find ways to lose. So, against the spread I’m taking UCF; to win the game I’m taking USF.
And for the record guys, I will not be writing about high school football.