Blog
Friday, November 2, 2007
The Posedown - NFL Week 9
Last Week
Bill: 8-5
Van: 9-4
Season
Bill: 69-47
Van: 73-43
So much for the rally…heh.
Bill: So, is “heh” the abbreviated, less emphatic cousin of “heh heh heh”?
Someone left Bill alone with the schedule last week for just two minutes, and he was picking the Jets for, well, no one really knows why he was picking the Jets. And yes, Chad Pennington was playing for his job, as much as Eric Mangini was coaching for his. Both will apparently go out like Mr. Bryan, losers.
Bill: At the beginning of the season, I was thinking 6-10 for the Jets. Then I realistically reassessed the situation, taking into account new information and acknowledging the fallacy of certain old information (which I can do because I am not a Republican) and decided they were a 3-13 team. Looking at the big picture, I perused the Jets schedule, saw this home game against a sub-.500 division rival with the Jets’ key figures fighting for their livelihood and figured this was their shot to get one of their remaining two wins. See? Big picture pick. Now I have again reassessed and see no reason why the Jets cannot tie the Dolphins at 1-15, leaving Brian Brohm the victim of a coin flip between the two.
(Full disclosure demands that I admit that both of us are getting a mudhole stomped into us by Bill’s sister Marin for the season, but that’s cheese and whine for another day…)
To the Batcave!
Arizona @ Tampa Bay
Bill’s Pick: Arizona
Van’s Pick: Tampa Bay
And this game matters…because…? See, in truth both teams are playing for something called .500…BUT both teams really think that they are playing for something other than the right to beat each other. They aren’t good enough to matter later this season, and they aren’t bad enough to draft early, but play they shall though few shall watch. And if Ken Whisenhunt even gets most of his team to make the trip east, to say nothing of actually trying to win, given their season outlook, he’s my finalist for Coach Of The Year. So, we’ll indulge them this weekend, and then laugh out loud when they get slapped silly by the varsity later this season.
Bill: Please excuse Van, everybody. He was a reasonably bright kid, but mostly he was big, so he skipped the second grade. Consequently, he cannot read a bar graph, does not know the “I before E” rules, and does not know how to interpret standings. Both the Bucs and the Cards are in second place, a game or less out, in terrible divisions that .500 could win. Particularly in the NFC West, .500 matters a lot.
Denver @ Detroit
Bill’s Pick: Denver
Van’s Pick: Detroit
I just threw up in my mouth, because I realized that I’m actually expecting the Lions to beat the Broncos. That’s just wrong. When did this happen? How the hell did the Lions become a competent football team? Here’s what I do know: the Broncos let the waterboy rush for a million yards last weekend, and Detroit’s Kevin Jones is finally healthy enough to run wild through the league’s worst run defense (that’s right, Donkeys…you’re dead stinkin’ last in all of football against the run.). And having the league’s sixth-ranked pass defense means NOTHING when Dre Bly escorts Greg Jennings to the end zone for the gamer last weekend…and Detroit’s receivers are waaaay better than Green Bay’s. This one might not get ugly, but Denver loses nonetheless. And I just puked into my mouth again.
Bill: THIS is what it is to be a homer. I will lose no sleep over this pick. I will not agonize over it when it all goes wrong, lamenting that I ignored the little guy in the back of my head or some thoroughly obvious bit of analysis. Nope. None of that. I am picking the Broncos because they are my boys, because despite their inability to stop the run and despite missing their top running back, their top two receivers and two of their three best linemen, and despite running Defensive System A with Defensive Players B, and despite having the league’s worst coverage and return teams…ummm. OK, I’m picking them because they’re my boys.
San Diego @ Minnesota
Bill’s Pick: San Diego
Van’s Pick: San Diego
Ordinarily, this would be a matchup of the league’s most exciting running backs..except that Norv The Idiot Turner and Boo Boo The Fool Childress don’t seem to know what the rest of us know. The over/under for total touches between LaDainian Tomlinson and Adrian Peterson is 45, only because neither of these knuckleheads knows the Bum Phillips Rule for Stud Running Backs: “If you got a big gun, you shoot it.” The Chargers are utterly empty; the only teams that they’ve beaten (Chicago, Denver, Oakland, and Houston) are awful, which explains why they’ll win this weekend. Minnesota, on the other hand, is so bad at quarterback that Jeff George has been publicly lobbying for the job…apparently, Henry Burris and Akili Smith don’t have the AP’s phone number.
Bill: I’ll take the under.
Jacksonville @ New Orleans
Bill’s Pick: New Orleans
Van’s Pick: Jacksonville
I used to believe that the whole “AFC is superior to the NFC” thingy was a load of hogwash, until the Jaguars beat the Buccaneers with the third-string quarterback…who completed 7 passes for 100 yards…and a running back that barely rushed for 68 yards. The Jags are an afterthought in the AFC, but apparently they can beat the NFC with their junior varsity. And no, I’m not impressed with New Orleans’ recent surge yet. Should they beat Jacksonville as soundly as Jacksonville deserves, I might be convinced…maybe…
Bill: You thought the whole “AFC is superior to the NFC” thingy was a load of hogwash? What do you think “hogwash” means? How about “superior”? That said, this is not the best game to prove the theory. Marcus Stroud should begin his league-mandated month’s vacation before this game. So, through a combination of bad luck, questionable talent evaluation and CWHNIWTBOPI, the Jags’ 129 best players are either hurt, suspended, playing for another team or not who Jack Del Rio thinks they are. New Orleans right now believes, rightly or wrongly, that they can play football, which is enough to carry them through against the Jag’s seventh string.
San Francisco @ Atlanta
Bill’s Pick: Atlanta
Van’s Pick: San Francisco
This game might actually be fun, if only because of the possibility of open mutiny on both sides of the ball. On the San Francisco side, the safest place for offending, er, offensive coordinator Jim Hostler to be is waaaay up in the booth; that might give him a five minute head start after he calls something stupid and the players start looking for him. On the Atlanta side, Alge Crumpler and DeAngelo Hall might give Bobby Petrino a reverse Gatorade bath, where they grab him and hold his head inside a full bucket until the bubbles stop coming up. One problem is that both teams think that they know better than their coaches. The other problem is that, apparently, they’re right.
Bill: You had me at open mutiny. If this train wreck came with just a sprinkling of offense, I would order it, but I think I am going to have to ask the waiter for the specials again. Here’s where I think our disagreement lies – you are picking San Francisco because they should be better than the Falcons. They should smack the Falcons around and sew up the NFC West title. But they won’t. Because they suck. The Falcons should suck, but in reality only the Giants have beaten them decisively. Maybe DeAngelo Hall did, too. So, as usual, I am tuned into reality and Van is tooned into something else.
Dallas @ Philadelphia
Bill’s Pick: Dallas
Van’s Pick: Dallas
I’m not trying to say that the Eagles will be affected by head coach Andy Reid’s family troubles…but his oldest son just got popped AGAIN, failing a drug test while on home arrest awaiting sentencing. No, that won’t affect Reid’s laser-like focus at all. I’m sure he won’t miss any of the offensive meetings being conducted by bonehead-in-waiting Marty Morninghweg while he talks to his attorneys about his son’s future incarceration. Yup, these ’07 Eagles are the very definition of business-like…as long as the business in question is sub-prime loans…Meanwhile, the Cowboys appear to be the best of a bad bunch in the NFC.
Bill: I realize Marty Morninghweg is awful, from his tenure in Detroit to the whole Winston Justice debacle to his inexplicable H, but why can’t Andy Reid just take the year off? How come nobody does that? If ever there was a reason… (from the Associated Press):
A judge who sentenced Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid's sons to jail on Thursday likened the coach's home to "a drug emporium" and questioned whether his adult sons should live there.
"There isn't any structure there that this court can depend upon," Montgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill said before sentencing 22-year-old Britt Reid to up to 23 months in jail plus probation.
"I'm saying this is a family in crisis," O'Neill said.
Morninghweg is the perfect guy to leave in charge. He has head coaching experience and he is no permanent threat to Reid’s job. Go back and read the AP snippet again and tell me this is a guy who should be coaching. I do not know whether he is filling a megalomaniacal need or if he got his priorities hopelessly misordered, but the fact that you completely butchered a situation does not mean you continue to do so. I am not going to get self-righteously moral very often, but I have zero respect for Andy Reid as a man. Dude, what are you doing?
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