Week 6: Oh How The Mighty Have Imagined Themselves as Mighty
"They don't think it be like it is, but it do."
—Oscar Gamble
Ah, painful anguish. I’m trapped in a glass case of emotion. And I can’t pick football games anymore. My execrable performance in the MFSAFP(p!)! so far this season wounds me to the bitter, bitter core. Was it just a scant four years ago that my foul-mouthed compadres and I ran roughshod over a 55-player pool in Philadelphia? (Actually, no, it wasn’t – and we didn’t – but that sepia tone somehow washed out Irv Moses, who finished ahead of all of our stoopid asses.) It’s all memorialized in the world-renowned “Guac Bowl II: The Struggle For Comedy,” which Matty The K will get loaded onto the MFSAFP(p!)! site soon enough. Or maybe he’ll just get loaded. Such is life as a Redskins fan. (Or at least one who is dependent on an Eagles fan – and an alcohol-dependent one at that – who has to provide him with a copy of “Guac Bowl II: The Struggle For Comedy.”)
It seems like only yesterday that Matty, Dave and I conspired to overtake Squirrelly Moe From Office Services, all the while monitoring our blinding progress over free food and dollar drafts before 11 television sets every Sunday at a suburban tavern. Even Squirrelly Moe’s subversive tactics – asking me to help him move a file cabinet and then beating me over the back of the head with a crowbar when I wasn’t looking, for example – couldn’t hold back our inexorable charge. In the end – and after winning the playoff pool by being the only one of 58 players to predict that the Patriots would even MAKE IT to the Super Bowl – I was perched atop a pile of cash that amounted to more than $600, which I set aside to subsidize an Eagles Super Bowl jaunt in New Orleans that never came.
Side note: I set aside $400 of that cash for a rainy day – most likely I did this when I was intoxicated after a Sunday of football – and completely fucking forgot about it. I was cleaning out my house in preparation of my shameful move to Texas and found four crisp $100 bills stuffed into a sunglass case inside my old toy chest. (True story. I’m not so good with money. Nor booze, apparently. Or gambling. I’m not so good with anything, really.) Of course, that move amounted to a rainy day with $2,600 worth of rain, so I may as well have just wiped my ass with those $100 bills.
So what’s the difference between the world-beatin’ Billie M.F. Smalls of 2002 and the scuffling stumble-bum Billie M.F’d Smalls of 2006? I know more about football now. I know that the Panthers will improve because their third-down performance so far this season has been aberrantly bad. I know Roderick Hood is a better cornerback than Lito Sheppard, even though Lito played the game of his life last Sunday and has made a Pro Bowl. I know the Falcons can’t erase a two-score deficit no matter how much talent Michael Vick has. I know the Cowboys really did try to work their offense through T. Eldorado Owens last Sunday, no matter what Deion Sanders says.
But this has not made it any easier to pick a winner. If anything, all the extra information my feeble mind has to parse has made it harder to predict a winner. This is why I’m going to stop making my picks at mid-day Friday and do it at about 7 pm, after the Match.com on-site happy hour, when I’ve already mowed through a half-dozen beers and my brain is functioning at half capacity. I know two wrongs may not make a right (three lefts do!), but maybe if I do enough counterintuitive things all at once, they’ll cancel each other out.
That, or I’ll become the Raiders.
(Hey, how ‘bout that one-sentence paragraph! I’m a legit sportswriter now!)
Now, let’s get to it, you sons-o-bitches! A reminder that these picks are not to be used as an aid in any wagering, ‘cause if that’s what you’re using these for, you’re in a whoooole lot of trouble.
Buffalo at Detroit
-From the “Even a Blind Squirrel Finds an Acorn” Department: Peter King outdid all of us by dubbing disgraced Lions assistant Joe Cullen “Nude Rockne.”
Pick: Buffalo
Carolina at Baltimore
-From the “This Sounds Like a Rob Schneider Movie” Department: How do you turn an impoverished, hardworking small-school quarterback from the swamps of southern Mississippi into an overprivileged, senseless white-boy QB from California? Trade him to the Ravens!
Pick: Carolina
Cincinnati at Tampa Bay
-To paraphrase the great Ron Luciano, the Buccaneers are the second-best team in the NFC South – the other three are all tied for first.
Pick: Cincinnati
Houston at Dallas
-Which is the most unreasonable group of people?
A: Islamic Jihadists
B: FOX News producers
C: Cowboys fans
D: The Eagles still suck! We gave that game away! Get Romo in there! Jesus will save His favorite team!
E: Both C and D
Pick: Howboutthemcowboys!
New York Badly Trained Yappy Dog Giants at Atlanta
-As much as I would like to debate the relative merits of these two teams, I would rather listen to Tommy Wright repeatedly call Michael Vick a “chucklehead.”
Pick: New York I Like To Pick Them So I Can Make Up Crap To Write Here Giants
Philadelphia at New Orleans
-The Eagles still suck! We gave that game away! Get Romo in there! Jesus will save His favorite team!
-Oh god dammit, I gotta get out of Dallas.
Pick: Philadelphia
Seattle at St Louis
-With St. Louis seeking to re-establish its dominance in this division over the NFC Champion Seahawks, this matchup can’t help but remind me of the good old days… which, of course, never existed in the first fucking place.
Pick: Seattle comin’ off the bye
Tennessee at Washington
-These teams have had such ball-control issues that FOX will be debuting their new chip-implanted “Blue Streak” football for their broadcast of this game.
Pick: “Wahrshington”
Kansas City at Pittsburgh
-No Joey Porter, no James Harrison, banged-up Troy Polamalu, Big Ben hasn’t thrown a TD pass yet this year… seems like the perfect recipe for a Pittsburgh win, right, Deion Sanders?
-Steelers President Art Rooney, when asked about the impact of the loss of WR Antwaan Randle-El, said, “well, at least we didn’t try to bring in Brandon Lloyd to replace him.”
Pick: Pittsburgh gets off the schneid
News flash: Marco Scutaro is from Venezuela?! I thought he was from Bayonne!
Miami at NY Jets
-Jets fans already booing 2007 first-round draft pick.
-Joe Buck already booing 2007 Eagles fans.
Pick: Miami
San Diego at San Francisco
After a win versus Pittsburgh, Chargers fans turned on a dime away from running Marty “Failure Fairy” Schottenheimer out of town to debating whether their defense is good enough to deserve a nickname. While this reflects on a rather mindless fan base, I’d like to suggest “Nuts And Bolts.”
Pick: The Whale’s Vagina
Oakland at Denver
-Breaking News: Art Shell pronounced dead at St. John’s Oakland Hospital, then transferred to a non-accredited medical facility in a dank corner of Al Davis’ super-secret compound, where he was upgraded to “alive.”
Pick: Denver
Chicago at Arizona
Rumor has it that Edgerrin James, with his increasing frustration with Arizona’s offensive line, will wear a T.O. mask on the sidelines Monday night. (Theismann: “T.O. is at it again on the sidelines! This is just absolutely disgraceful! The Cowboys aren’t even playing tonight!”)
Pick: Chicago 36-0
Tune in next week, when we once again try to have a reasonable debate with a Cowboys fan, give up, and then drink half a bottle of tequila and pass out!
And as they used to say back in ol’ York Pennsylvania… AMF!
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