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Friday, October 5, 2007

The Posedown - NFL Week 5

Bill: 5-9
Van: 7-7

Season:
Bill: 32-30
Van: 39-23

The lead is now seven games…I think you see where this is headed. Just like Michael Strahan’s teeth, the gap is widening. And just like Michael Strahan’s divorce settlement, Bill has no chance of getting anything back this season, or anytime soon, if ever.

See, unlike Bill, I can dispense with all the preamble and prologue, because I am winning and don’t need to explain myself…heh heh heh…

Bill: Actually, I was glad you explained the Cthulhu thing.  Otherwise, yeah, you are more tolerable when you are quiet.  For a look into the real crystal ball, check out my picks here.

Onward!

Atlanta @ Tennessee
Van’s Pick: Tennessee
I don’t care that Atlanta beat Houston’s second string last weekend; did anyone notice Matt Schaub throwing for over 300 yards to the ball boys? Tennessee is healthy, coming off a bye, and at home. By the time it’s over, we may be reminded of Sherman’s march to the sea…

Bill:  Well, no.  Sherman was on the road and the Titans are at home.

Miami @ Houston
Van’s Pick: Miami
I’d love for Houston to be healthy for this one, but Miami comes in and wins with a hot running back and more hands on deck, this despite persistent rumors that head coach Cam Cameron is considering pulling a Nick Saban and bolting for the college ranks after this season.

Bill: Everybody wants to talk about how many quarterbacks the Fish have deployed  since Marino retired, but relatively speaking, their burn rate on head coaches since Shula is probably worse.  My boy Fuzzy is a serial dater.  He brings his new love interest to events, but she’s always a different love interest than you met last time.  After a while, you cannot see putting any energy into getting to know the new girl knowing that you will never see a return on that investment.  By this same token, I have not yet made any attempt to judge Cam Cameron’s performance.  He won’t be the Dolphins’ coach in 2009, so why hurt myself over it?

Jacksonville @ Kansas City
Van’s Pick: Kansas City
If you haven’t read Bill’s longwinded jeremiad on my site, let me boil it down for you: Dwayne Bowe. (sigh) Blind squirrels and random acorns…

Bill:  Ahem.  Jeremiad.  Noun.  A literary work or speech expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom.  If you will excuse me, I need to go change the heading on my website from “writer” to “righteous prophet of doom.”

Arizona @ St. Louis
Van’s Pick: Arizona
If Gus Frerotte were any more of a journeyman, he could sing “Open Arms.” He’s basically the NFL version of a test pattern while engineers scramble to figure out what happened to the network feed. Arizona comes in with their two-headed quarterback monster and still barely escapes with a win.

Bill: The righteous prophet of doom says that Frerotte does something stupid, like throw an interception to a defensive tackle or knock himself unconscious head-butting a concrete wall.

Cleveland @ New England
Van’s Pick: New England
Cleveland at home? They’ve exposed two teams. Cleveland on the road? They cure whatever ails the home team. The problem is that there is nothing particularly ailing the Patriots, except the occasional galling punt, or the defense occasionally giving up a meaningless score. My only question isn’t whether New England wins, but whether their offense scores on every drive, and whether their defense plays more than four downs in a series in the whole game.

Bill: That’s all you got?  A game that requires no analysis whatsoever and all you can give the people is this rot?  You found seven superheroes to defeat Cthulhu but could not even come up with an inventive way to describe a game with so little intrigue that it might get cancelled?  You are writing a werewolf novel with prose like this?  Screw this.  I’m going home.

Carolina @ New Orleans
Van’s Pick: Carolina
You’re kidding, right? I haven’t had a reason to pick New Orleans all year, and I’m not going to start now. Who’s the running back? Perennial scout-teamer Aaron Stecker or the vastly-overrated Reggie Bush? If Sean Payton lines Bush up in the backfield for more than one series, it sez so right here that he gets broken in half. And give A.J. Smith in San Diego credit for this much: he might have missed by a season, but he sure looks right about Drew Brees. Carolina beats these guys with their junior varsity.

Bill: Whoa.  I’m back.  You know the Panthers’ JV quarterback is David Carr, right?  The same David Carr who never figured out how far the beach was from Houston?  Funny, I thought Carr was a pretty good addition as a backup, but now that it comes time for him to actually play, it turns out I have not forgotten a five-year career in which he got progressively and steadily worse.  By the way, before you go handing out pardons to the undeserving, have you seen Phillip Rivers lately? Every time I have to defend picking the Saints, the only thing going through my mind is, “I picked the Saints?”

New York Jets @ New York Giants
Van’s Pick: New York Giants
ASSOCIATED PRESS, NEW YORK -  Jets fans were stunned by the sight of starting quarterback Chad Pennington in a full body cast and on oxygen at the Wednesday practice session, at which time he declared himself unequivocally OUT for this Sunday’s tilt against the New York Giants, this despite declarations to the contrary from team doctors who found nothing wrong with him after last week’s loss in Buffalo. “I went and got a second opinion,” Pennington said, “and I just need a little time to heal up.” Team sources were quick to deny rumors that Pennington’s second opinion came shortly after he’d watched film of the Giants defense pillaging a Philadelphia offense with problems similar to those of the Jets – a wafer-thin offensive line and an immobile quarterback being chief among them. Backup quarterback Kelly Clemens wept unexpectedly at the presser before recovering to say all the right things while glaring at the beaming Pennington, and third-stringer Marques Tuiasosopo immediately excused himself and has been missing ever since.

Bill: Wow.  You’re right.  That is where Tuiasosopo ended up.

Seattle @ Pittsburgh
Van’s Pick: Pittsburgh
Okay, so Pittsburgh lost a game against their former offensive coordinator and former assistant head coach. Apparently, I was wrong for thinking that Mike Timlin might have at least changed one or two plays before going to Arizona. Here’s hoping that he’s learned his lesson against Seattle.

Bill: The righteous prophet of doom warns of a great darkness descending upon the Seahawks.  A coach with the power to build a flawed team.  A wide receiver who has never proven his ability to make plays without Tom Brady.  The best guard in football – ffffft – gone.  A quarterback who is *gasp* bald.  I’m just glad to have a pass this week on my stubborn disrespect for the Seahawks.  Now if the Saints would pick up a game against Chadron State or somebody…

Detroit @ Washington
Van’s Pick: Washington
Detroit is a fraud that can score a lot of points against bad teams. Washington is not a bad team. Detroit will get exposed. Washington will make everyone wonder how a team this bad ever beat Chicago last weekend, only to find out the Bears really are that bad that quickly.

Bill: I see that you suffer absolutely no doubt for your convictions regardless of their merit.  Are you a Republican?

Tampa Bay @ Indianapolis
Van’s Pick: Indianapolis
Boy, the way the gore-crows are circling this game, you’d think Frank Kush was coaching the Colts again. Have we all forgotten who the quarterback for the Colts is? Have we all forgotten that Tony Dungy has instilled a necessary grit in this team that simply did not exist prior to his arrival? Even with their injuries, I’m surprised that anyone thinks this game will be close. It might have been close on the road, but not in Indianapolis. Colts dominate.

Bill: Umm, what?  Is this the grit that led them to the league’s worst rushing defense last year or the grit that lost six straight games in Foxboro?  The fact that there was no grit prior to Dungy’s arrival (it’s hard to grit your way to multiple 3-13 seasons) does not logically mean that there is now.  Nobody’s forgotten – we just understandably have not noticed.

San Diego @ Denver
Van’s Pick: Denver
I have a simple rule that I can share, now that my lead is nigh-unto-insurmountable: sorry teams, sorry coaches, and sorry QBs get the short shrift with me. Until I see something dramatically different, Norv Turner is easily the sorrier of the two coaches prowling the sidelines this weekend in Denver, and his team is so bad that LaDainian Tomlinson is mouthing off. Denver ain’t much better, but they are better than that dysfunctional mess in SoCal.

Bill:  OK, this sucks.  We disagree on exactly two games, leaving me here with that pit and the pendulum choice of cheering either for my boys or for Van Freakin’ Walker.  The French were right about the cruel duality of life or whatever causes them to write morose books and loathe tourists.

Baltimore @ San Francisco
Van’s Pick: Baltimore
I might have been premature in my trumpeting of San Francisco and Houston this season, although Houston has only been beset with injuries; San Francisco is succumbing to mere ineptitude. Trent Dilfer ain’t throwing to Jerry Rice and John Taylor, but to Darrell Jackson and Ashlie Lelie…damn. Baltimore wins an ugly game.

Bill: Here it is – the DirecTV game of the week.  Much as I got a concussion watching McNabb take his beating, I felt old, really old, Old Testament old watching Steve McNair last week.  McNair looks strangely like the heroic last stand of Craig Morton, except that Morton was never athletic to begin with.  Anybody who can score gets a free pizza, a trip to Honolulu, and a week 5 win.

Chicago @ Green Bay
Van’s Pick: Green Bay
Remember what I said earlier about my sorry theory? It applies to the Bears in every category. At some point, someone has got to hold the head coach responsible for his failure in developing any sort of NFL-caliber quarterbacking, defensive renaissances notwithstanding. Someone has got to be held accountable for drafting a gutless running back. Someone has got to be held accountable for an offense that has yet to discover the forward pass. The NFL is as much about confidence as it is about competition. When a team believes it can and should win (see: Green Bay), they do. When a team believes that its best chances to win are sabotaged when any of their quarterbacks line up under center, it does one of two things: it makes people try to do too much to make up for the QB’s lack, which leads to mistakes, or, quite honestly, it takes the bit out of their mouths, because it seems like no good effort is ever justified by points on the board. These guys have a better chance of scoring if they let Green Bay score so that the Packers have to kick off to Devin Hester all afternoon.

And yes, I am bitter about it.

Bill: Glad you cleared that up, because I was about to ask.

Dallas @ Buffalo
Van’s Pick: Dallas
Remember Dallas slapping Buffalo around in two Super Bowls some years back? Don’t expect the same thing. Buffalo has caught lightning in a bottle with Trent Edwards, because Edwards seems to know that the idea is to get the football into his guys’ hands as often as possible. Dallas’ defense is not all that good, and they get exposed this weekend, even though they win the game.

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