Blog
Friday, December 21, 2007
The Posedown - NFL Week 16
Last Week
Bill 10-6
Van 11-5
Season
Bill 136-82
Van 141-77
The poor, poor Falcons. Will nothing go right for this team? It’s bad enough that the franchise QB is doing a stretch in Club Fed. It’s worse that the head coach bolted for the hinterlands of Arkansas with three games left in a dismal season. Now comes word that Bill Parcells, having said in the media that he was going to become the president of football operations in Atlanta, did an about-face and told the Falcons “thanks, but no thanks.”
Turns out that Parcells was also chatting with the equally-dismal Miami Dolphins about becoming their president of football operations. Turns out that Wayne Huizenga made Parcells a better offer than Arthur Blank did.
Turns out that Parcells has done this to Rich McKay before…when McKay was the G.M. in Tampa Bay and Parcells walked the Bucs all the way to the altar, only to pull a Julia Roberts and bolt.
Bill: Interesting thing about men and their words. Part of being a man is the self-important dogma that one’s word means something. After everybody in the football community gets their turn with Arthur Blank, I am not sure what they tell themselves about their manhood.
(Insert Deity/Higher Power of choice) hates the Falcons. Period.
And Bill will lose to me again. You can read his gloomy forecastings here.
Yippee-ki-yay, mother@*#&%…
Pittsburgh @ St. Louis
Bill – Pittsburgh
Van – St. Louis
There is absolutely no reason for Pittsburgh to lose this game…which is precisely why they will lose this game. For a team that is supposed to be tough, they got shoved around like a nerd at wrestling practice last weekend by Jacksonville…in Pittsburgh, no less. That is just not supposed to happen. Getting punked by a division rival in your own house is not the way to build momentum for the playoffs, just as losing on the road to a bunch of stiffs in St. Louis is not the way to gain confidence. By the way, apparently The Loincloth benched FS Anthony Smith…and I’m thinking ‘barn doors and escaped horses…’
Bill: Anthony Smith – is that the guy’s name? It is never too late to bench a guy who can both play in the NFL and get beat by more than ten yard multiple times in a single game. A guy like that cannot even be let out on his own recognizance. Does a guy like Anthony Smith even have recognizance? Pittsburgh is a hard team to watch. As they limp toward the playoffs, they do everything like a lefty – that is, in such a way that they look like they need your help. They will struggle with the pointlessly adrift Rams, but ultimately the Rams will be unable, and stop me if you have heard this one before, to make any plays on defense and will consequently lose.
Dallas @ Carolina
Bill – Dallas
Van – Dallas
It had to happen. After laying an absolute turtle egg at home against Philly (!!), T.O. sounded off, putting the blame on Jessica Simpson. Apparently, just her being there in a pink Tony Romo jersey was enough to cause him to play like a Chicago QB. Apparently, T.O. doesn’t want ol’ Jess coming to any more games, because he thinks that it distracts Romo from the business at hand. Me? I think T.O. doesn’t want her around because, well, there’s only room for one diva in Romo’s life, and it damn well better be The Original 81.
Bill: Jessicagate was a fantastic watershed issue in the football media. Everybody who thought it was Jessicagate is babbling, drooling idiot (not to flog an obvious point, but this would include T.O.). Meanwhile, everybody who thought Tony Romo’s injured thumb with which he could not hold the freakin’ ball was an issue might also be an idiot, but was right at least once.
Kansas City @ Detroit
Bill – Detroit
Van – Kansas City
Don’t ask me why I picked either one of them, because I don’t know. I had to pick one. I didn’t want to pick either of them. I tried asking the Magic 8 Ball and I got “Kiss My Butt” ten times in a row. There is no reason to pick either team, no applicable standard of measurement that will find one superior to the other. Kansas City wins because it’ll be funnier to laugh at Detroit going from 6-2 to 6-10. There. Crap.
Bill: The Leos beat the Broncos by 37, the Broncos beat the Chefs by 34, and it’s an exponential rather than a linear function, so Detroit wins this game by 182 points. I think. I have a theatre degree, after all.
Philadelphia @ New Orleans
Bill – New Orleans
Van – New Orleans
Drew Brees doesn’t have any hot girlfriends to distract him, and Reggie Bush ain’t hanging around in the backfield missing blocks and being too small to do anything useful. Marques Colston, after being in a coma for the first month of the season, is back to being one of the best receivers in football, and the defense is playing soundly because they think they can sneak into the playoffs. Philly? It’s just about time for Bad Donovan to return to form. It sez so right here that this game gets ugly and New Orleans runs away with it.
Bill: I want to take a cheap shot at Andy Reid here…why? Don’t like the guy. The flesh reflects the glutton within. I don’t have any particular cheap shot to take, but it does seem to me that any situation that depends on his character (like, say, preparing a team to play once their season is over), deserves no benefit of my doubt. New Orleans righted the ship jut a week late, but appear to own the tiebreaker with Minnesota, who is only a game ahead of him. Both of these teams are unreliable and inconsistent, but on intangibles, Philly loses by a ton.
Green Bay @ Chicago
Bill – Green Bay
Van – Green Bay
It’s bad enough that the Packers are one of the better teams in football, because it’s in every Bear fan’s DNA to hate the Packers. It’s worse that Dallas lost last weekend, giving Green Bay a reason to keep playing hard: the possibility of an NFC Championship game on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. Whatever heart the Bears had left, it got broken last weekend in Minnesota. Green Bay makes a mess out of my beloved Bears.
Bill: I keep watching the Bears and they keep getting worse. I e-mail Van on a semi-regular basis while suffering the Chicago “offense.” After cycling through every backfield guy on their roster and finding that not one of them can play football (save possibly Garrett Wolfe, a change of pace back without a pacesetter – like a one-pitch guy who only throws a changeup), the time has come for the Bears to hold somebody accountable. Either the personnel department cannot properly identify the Black guy at the Klan rally or the coaching staff is developing these guys with fried foods, Animaniacs and Scientology. Whatever the case, it is somebody’s fault, yes? Stop them before they kill again.
Atlanta @ Arizona
Bill – Arizona
Van – Arizona
Oh, goodie, I get to pile on the Falcons some more. Here goes: remember Chris Redman? In the wake of Bobby Petrino running off with the milkman, and in the midst of the deserved bile from the team and owner, Redman was giving Petrino big, sloppy kisses for giving him a job. Apparently, that went over real well with the O-line, because every play Redman called turned into the old “Red Sea Split.” Yup, every time the ball was snapped, the offensive line parted like Charlton Heston was pointing sticks at them. It gets no better in Arizona. Kurt Warner might throw for a 1000 yards in that game, just because he can.
Bill: Wu-Tang is playing in Denver tonight (I have not looked it up, so have no idea which of the guys are on the tour – probably not ODB, although that would be worth the ticket price by itself), so every time you say Redman, I think Redman, know what I’m sayin’? Either Redman could start under center for the Ol’ Dirty Birds and the result would be the same. I just want to hug poor Arthur Blank, because it should never, ever, ever get to the point where a guy has to sit around thinking that owning a football team sucks.
Tampa Bay @ San Francisco
Bill – Tampa Bay
Van – Tampa Bay
Neither team has anything to play for, what with the Bucs already having their division sewn up and the Niners already on the clock, but someone has to win and Tampa Bay has better players.
Bill: The Niners are not on the clock. The Patriots own this pick. And this pick just looks better and better every week.
Baltimore @ Seattle
Bill – Seattle
Van – Seattle
It’s official: you can call this game The Fraud Bowl. Never were two franchises more exposed than last weekend. The Seabass can complain all they want to about not getting respect from any media east of the Mississippi, but that’s what happens when you go to Carolina and get your heads handed to you. And as for Baltimore….gaaaaah. They let the worst team in football off the mat. Every man in that organization should get publicly caned for that. How do you let anyone just run through the middle of your defense like that? How do you not go for the winning touchdown in regulation? How do you miss the winning field goal in OT? How…Gaaaah…
Bill: Each and every week, I have to find some way to restate that I do not like the Seahawks. This has to be almost a xenophobic thing – I hate what I do not understand. The ‘Hawks may be 9-5, but I am 5-9 picking them. I have no idea what these miserable bastards are going to do from week to week, and this week they welcome to town my pre-season Super Bowl pick who is somehow starting Buckeye Smurf at quarterback. Wow, do I want both of these teams to lose, entirely for personal revenge.
Washington @ Minnesota
Bill – Minnesota
Van – Minnesota
This game will be fun to watch. Both teams have shown some real heart and resiliency, especially the Redskins in the wake of the Sean Taylor tragedy. Neither QB is good enough to win this game, but both defenses are, and both running games are rock-solid. I’ll take the Vikings at home, but only because they are at home. If this game were in D.C., I’d take the ‘Skins.
Bill: Wow. This is such a dead-on accurate capsule of this game that I may have to rethink my opinion of Van. There was a time in Week Three where he was also right. You can look it up.
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