Fuhbaw!

I LUV FUHBAW!

Seriously, I can't get enough of it. I feel blessed to have a teacher as cool as Phil Tuckett to bounce ideas back off when it comes to my thoughts on teams. For those who don't know, Phil Tuckett is more or less the man at Dixie State College when it comes to the film department. He worked at NFL Films for 30+ years and won 30 Emmy's during his time there so the guy knows his crap. I remember week 3, I asked him what his thoughts were on the Lions and he goes "I don't buy them because I don't buy their quarterback." Lo and behold, like unto a great prophecy on high, Matt Stafford has been obliterated the last couple of games. Defenses figured the guy out and yet again, he's proven to be brittle as he's got injuries piling up.

As I've kind of missed two weeks of predictions now, I'm not going to keep track of what's in the past and we'll just talk about next week.

PREDICTIONS WEEK 11

NYJ @ DEN:
I think this is a perplexing matchup. On paper, the Jets should crush. On paper, though. In actuality, I think Denver has a fair shot at winning this one. Jets defense hasn't played well on the road. The only game they won on the road all year is recently in Buffalo. Every other one, they've given up 30+ points. The Jets are coming off a loss on a short week against a team with an unorthodox offense. I am going out on a limb and I think Denver wins by 3. I don't buy either quarterback's arm, but I buy Tebow's legs at the very least.


CAR @ DET:
Again, I think this is an intriguing match-up. Carolina just can't seem to break the hump this year, while Detroit can't seem to break the hump as a franchise. Detroit HAS to win this game to stay in the playoff hunt and still have people consider them a contender. I'm making the emotional pick and saying Detroit wins by 7+. Luckily for me, it's also an intelligent pick simply because Detroit still has real weapons on both sides of the ball while Carolina is just high-powered offense.

OAK @ MIN:
Minnesota is so bad this year, and it's nonsensical. They still have fantastic weapons on the team, but can't seem to win a game. Oakland wins comfortably. The final score will be much closer than the actual game's spirit.

DAL @ WAS:
Geez, Dallas. Figure it out. One week, you get shut down completely by a bad team then you show up the following week with a QB performance of near perfection. It's so hard to pick Dallas games because the team is as Jekyll and Hyde as any in the last decade. Dallas should win this game. Should, being the key word. Washington looked good for a few weeks there early, then Shanahan did what he does best by micromanaging and bullying his own team to the point they quit on him.

BUF @ MIA:
Miami is streaking? Is that possible? The team has looked pretty decent since Matt Moore started. Give that guy some credit, people. He's played super well this year. It's revitalized Reggie Bush, who has looked pretty strong the last two weeks as well. And Buffalo is doing what Buffalo does well as a franchise, which is get too excited by a hot start and then quit playing well. I'm taking Miami in this one. Until Fitzpatrick can prove to me the early season win streak wasn't a fluke, I'm still not buying him as a QB.

JAC @ CLE:
Jacksonville has played the AFC North pretty well all year long. Cincinnati beat them in week 5 but the game was fairly close til the end from what I recall. The Steelers had an excellent first half against them but couldn't score again the second (luckily for me, it was still enough to win). They actually demolished Baltimore in what was the ugliest game all year. Now they are facing the worst team in the division. Jacksonville better win this one. Cleveland is awful. Prove you have the makings of at least a professional QB, Gabbert.

CIN @ BAL:
Baltimore only shows up during divisional games.  All 3 of their losses are to bad teams (Tennessee, Jacksonville and Seattle) and nearly lost the matchup against a 4th bad team in Arizona. Yet, they crushed the Jets, Texans and Steelers (and squeaked out a second one against them, those bastards.) This is another one of those on-paper matchups, Baltimore should win by a landslide. They've also got a couple bonus points from me for 1) being at home and 2) coming off a confusing loss. Baltimore has to win this game, right? Right? I'm still cheering for the Bengals though.

TB @ GB:
Thank god, an easy game to predict. Green Bay by a landslide. Do I even really need to explain it at this point? Aaron Rodgers and his bionic arm are unstoppable this year. Even if they give up 40 points, the team still wins. It's incredible.

SEA @ STL:
Oh man. This is tied with the Jacksonville/Cleveland game for Game of the Weak. Part of me doesn't even want to put in a pick for this game because, I mean, who cares? They are both so far out of first, it doesn't matter. If Seattle wins out the rest of the season and San Francisco loses the rest of the way, they still just barely win the division (and we all don't think that's going to happen.) I'm taking Seattle in this one just because why not.

ARI @ SF:
San Francisco just might be the best team in football this year and are returning home to a crowd who've been clamoring for a winning team since Jeff Garcia left. San Francisco wins by a bajillion. As much as I've been saying Arizona should have started Skelton as early as last year, that team isn't good enough to win this one.

TEN @ ATL:
Tennessee has the most overpaid athlete in the league this year. Period. Chris Johnson still hasn't got it going and it's time we all faced the fact he won't. Atlanta may have had some questionable playcalling this last week in overtime, but they are still playing decent football and have had the opportunity to win games against good teams. Atlanta controls the clock with a strong run game and therefore wins in a close one.

SD @ CHI:
Chicago is looking the best they have since Jay Cutler arrived, and they sort of made it to the NFC Championship game last year. If they keep up their current level of play, it's a scary team. They have the best linebacking core in the league. Chicago wins in a second-half come-from-behind victory. San Diego is going to look like a great team for about two quarters, then will choke. Phillip Rivers will still appear cheerful and unworried in post-game interviews. At some point, San Diego, relying mentally on past success late in the year is going to bite you in the ass. Oh wait, it already has.

PHI @ NYG:
The reason this matchup is interesting to me is because both these teams have this one Achilles' Heel. It's just bitten Philadelphia harder than New York this year. Both teams, when playing mistake-free football, are among the elitist of the elite. But they never just have a "kind of" bad game. It's always a total travesty of an effort, or it's a really awesome team we're watching. The Giants are going to win, as well as win the division. Eagles are just dysfunctional this year and with the whole fractured ribs thing Vick has yet again, it's just a bad situation for them. I say they should just go ahead and start Vince Young because I think they'll figure out some of their problems if they do that.

KC @ NE:
The thing a lot of people don't realize about this matchup is just how much of the Kansas City staff is made up of backroom personnel from the New England dynasty of the early 21st Century. If any bad team is going to make a surprising win against a good team, it's this game. Still, New England so rarely loses at home there's no way they lose to a bad team on Monday Night Football. Probably the second easiest pick of the week.

A week later and a year older

First off, sorry for not having anything at all last week. There's a myriad of reasons, the biggest probably being Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Stupid video games sucking away my soul.

The next biggest reason? I get seasonal depression real bad, and I think the catalyst for that is my birthday. Which happens to be today. That's right; I was born November 14th, 1985. Why is November 14th a funny day to have a birthday? Well let's do some basic math. Birthdays inherently involve being born, which means conception had to happen... So 9 months prior to November? We get February. Tee hee hee, my dad had a very good Valentine's Day in '85.

Anywho, I know most people find birthdays to be a reason to celebrate. It's not that I don't TRY to. Maybe that's part of the problem? I don't know. I just know I feel lonelier on my birthday than any other day of the year. It's a day I feel like people should say hi at the very least, and yet I usually sit alone in my house crying. I try every year to do something to bring me out of that funk and it just never works. Last year, I went mini-golfing with some friends and none of those people I even keep in contact anymore (though not from lack of trying on my part, trust me.) This year, I had a "party" on Saturday. Out of the 40 or so people I contacted, maybe 10 responded, and 4 showed up (a 5th would have but he's sick, so I wish him well. The flu sucks, especially when it's this cold outside.) 2 of those 4 were there for maybe 10 minutes just to say hi.

Now I don't want to mitigate what it means to me that these friends actually showed up. It means a lot, and they've been on my mind pretty much every second since. It's still very telling that I live literally across the street from campus, walking distance from a place everyone goes to every day, and couldn't get more than 4 "friends" to show up for my birthday. I know a lot of people I feel like I'm on friendly terms with drive past my house daily. Is it really that much of a hassle to say hello and offer any sort of message that conveys the meaning "I care about you!"?

Blah. Time to go shoot some more russians.  We'll talk football later this week.

It's the Time of the Season for Lov-- I mean Gaming

November is the greatest month in the year, as far as I'm concerned. Why? Here's a couple reasons.

First, candy is wicked cheap because all the convenience and grocery stores overstock it for Halloween and need to get rid of it to stock Christmas items, ASAP. Time to stock up on Reese's Pieces.

Secondly, my birthday. I entered this world November 14th, 1985. It'll be 26 years coming up shortly and while that makes me feel ancient considering everyone else I know was done with school and had a wife and kids at this age while I can't seem to find a job nor a woman who'll touch lips to mine. Still, birthdays are fun and y'all are welcome to come to my party next weekend.

Lastly, THE VIDEO GAMES, MAN! I've been interested in this particular hobby for quite some time and also worked part time at a video game store who shall remain nameless as I don't want to ever drum up business for those blood-sucking garbage feeders. Something I've noticed is the yearly cycle of video game releases. January through March, games trickle through and you tend to see a lot of family titles or blockbuster RPGs. That's when your Mass Effects and Final Fantasies typically come out. Summer, you start getting your action-platformers and there's always a surprise indie game to come out which blows everyone away. August and September tend to be slower simply because the really, really big name companies are still pushing for Holiday releases. 

October is when things start to heat up. That's when you get established franchises (or franchises game developers are confident will become established) which are generally well recieved but are not nearly as big as some of their competition. Hence Battlefield 3 being released in the later end of the month. It's when companies have to get their product out before the other guys just to try to draw away business.

Then we get to November. Every single year, the first two Tuesdays of that month are chock full of longly developed sexiness. Modern Warfare 3 is this year's big one, but in years prior we had The Orange Box from Valve, Dragon Age: Origins, other Call of Duty titles, etc. Go look it up. Seriously. November is kind of a big deal.

I plan on picking up Modern Warfare 3 next Tuesday. I am incredibly anti-Activision but at the end of the day, we play online games to play with friends. As much as I wish they'd all jump on the Battlefield bandwagon (I'm a much bigger fan of that franchise), the friends I have are all into Call of Duty. So, I'm just going to bite the bullet. I have a ton of games to play online, but absolutely none of my friends have the same titles. It's the curse of the indie gamer. We really enjoy things which challenge your mind, expand your gaming realities, and at the end of the day offer something new and unique. Clearly something the common denominator of consumers doesn't seem to really care for.

C'est la vie. Expect a review of it by Thursday. I'll tell you whether to pick it up for save your cash, assuming you haven't bought it as well already.

NFL Mid-Season: Where I was right and where I was dead wrong.

So, week 8 totally just happened in the NFL and it couldn't have been more exciting to me. I feel so validated on my pre-season picks. It's like I know something.

Let's talk division winners I initially had going into the season. In the AFC, I had the Jets, Steelers, Texans and Raiders. In the NFC, I had Dallas, Green Bay, New Orleans and Seattle. As turd sandwiches, I had a few teams listed that have turned out to be quite good (Cincinnati and Buffalo being the two big ones.) So far, I think a lot of those are holding up.

• AFC East:

Jets, okay they look bad at times. They are starting to gel now, though, which is the right time to do so. Patriots have just an utterly soft defense, too. The Bills with their surprising year look awesome. Biggest reason being their O is actually pretty good, and while they have some deficiencies on defense, they manage to get a lot of turnovers and that is how you win games. If I was going to say which team takes that division here at the midmark, I think I'm going Buffalo. They have the easiest schedule remaining of any of those teams, and I am a fan of opportunistic teams.

• AFC North:

The AFC North is looking like the new AFC division to beat. The Browns are surprisingly bad, but everyone else is great. Not saying the Browns were supposed to be good this year, but definitely better than they have played. Cincinnati is turning heads, though. They are using the prototypical gameplan for AFC North teams: Strong run game, at least one legit passing option, great defense. And, they are flying way under the radar. Steelers looked pretty bad early but Big Ben is playing out of his mind the last few weeks so they are back to the form I thought we'd see this season. The Ravens are a head-scratcher, though. Their record is good, but man that team looks terrible the last two weeks. They dropped just a mystifying loss to the Jaguars on MNF and by all means should have lost to the Cardinals this past week. That offense looks straight inept at times, and it boggles my mind because I like their QB, love their running back, and am a huge fan of at least one of their receivers (Anquan "I broke my face and returned the next week" Boldin). Still have the Steelers winning the division, though.

• AFC South

The AFC South is a mess, aren't they? Texans dropped a game or two in weird fashion, but when they look good, they look great. Tennessee was looking decent for awhile but then became what I thought they'd be, and that's an inept offense. The Colts are looking just... abysmal. It's amazing to me how terrible that team is just because number 18 isn't under center. Not much to say about the Jags, either, other than how their QB looks like the QB from "Remember The Titans." Texans should still win that division and get their first playoff berth as a franchise, so I'm excited for them.

• AFC West

The AFC West got a whole lot more interesting after this MNF debacle. Remember how I said the Chargers should win this division on paper? Well, paper it is. Team is choking hardcore, and my boy Phillip is in large part to blame. Yeah the rest of the team is looking poor too but he's still the one throwing bad passes and making mind-numbing mental errors like the one that cost them this week's game. The Raiders I think are the best team in this division with a huge asterisk now that Jason Campbell is down for the year with a broken collar bone. They better pray to whatever dark and mysterious gods that organization has worshiped the last 40 years Carson Palmer can get back to football playing form soon, because Boller is a joke. They'd be better with JaMarcus Russel than that hack. (Okay, not really.) And let's talk Chiefs for a second. I am baffled by how they looked like the most legit bad team in the league through the first three weeks. They didn't just lose; they got decimated. And now they've rattled off 4 wins in a row to be in that three way tie for the division lead. Totally amazing and that locker room better be proud of themselves right now. And I don't even wanna talk about the Denver Tebows right now because ugh.

• NFC East

Switching conference, I think the most interesting division in the NFC has got to be the NFC East. Redskins looked like they were contenders early for reals, and have totally collapsed the last few weeks. I blame Shanahan for benching Grossman after one bad game, which I think sends the wrong message to the locker room. The Eagles went on an impressive 4 game losing streak but are playing the way we figured they would lately, with an absolutely dominant performance against the next team, Dallas. Dallas can't finish, and in this last week, couldn't even friggin' begin. I am selling my Cowboys stock and I wish I hadn't bought any in the first place because eww, Cowboys. The only team playing consistently inconsistent is the Giants. Eli Manning is looking really good lately, despite having third stringers to throw to. Now that his brother is out for an indefinite time, he's stepped up into the spotlight. Oddly enough, I'm sticking with the Eagles. I know they looked epic bad for awhile but the win against Dallas was beautiful, and a statistic I think shouldn't be overlooked is their offense is the best in terms of yards per game in the NFL. In fact, they are on a record-breaking pace. Their Achilles' heel has been turnovers. They don't turn the ball over, they win and win big.

• NFC North

The NFC North is looking just like I imagined. Green Bay is tearing heads off people and sucking the gushing blood like freakish vampires, and Detroit is proving they can hang. Chicago is looking pretty decent, too, although they are a very Jekyll-Hyde team. One week, they rely on Cutler and get stomped. Then they rely on Forte, which ends up giving Cutler the opportunity to shine. Seems pretty obvious to me: Run the damn ball. The Vikings looked terrible til they made that change at QB. I'm suddenly a fan of Christian Ponder. I didn't think he'd fly well in the NFL but kid is legit. He's got an arm and has game presence I didn't think he'd pull off. Too bad for the Vikings they're in an inescapable hole.

• NFC South

The NFC South is just bizarre. One week, every team looks phenominal, and the next to a team look god-awful. How do you lose to Rams? How does that even happen? With a back-up QB no less. Still, New Orelans might have those weird bad mojo games like they did this week, but I expect them to bounce back and fully expect the other teams to stay middle-piddle-fiddles.

• NFC West

That just leaves the NFC West. All I have to say is San Francisco. Where the hell has that organization been the last decade? Gotta love their head coach. They didn't even really add any new talent, and are playing just exceptional football. They are good at all three phases of the game right now, and Alex Smith is playing like he was at BYU, how people expected he should have played the last couple of years. About time he lived up to his potential. Every other team is trying to figure out how to lose games fast enough to draft better quarterbacks, so I'm pretty sure San Fran is a lock to win that division and potentially a second seed when the playoffs roll around. I'm impressed.

-----
As for my picks last week, I went 11/13, and one of the ones I missed I'm pretty sure everyone did in that stunner upset the Rams pulled off. My other lost pick was because of just an inexcusable fumble to close out regulation, so I could have easily been totally correct this week.

Here comes the part you've all been waiting for: My picks for next week!

PREDICTIONS WEEK 9

Kansas City over Miami - Pretty easy call here. I doubt I pick Miami to win a game. They'll still manage it somewhere along the lines, but man they are pretty awful. I think Kansas City keeps their win streak up at least one more week.

Houston over Cleveland - Not a surprise, again. Cleveland is such a mess. Peyton Hillis going all diva and not playing til he gets a restructured contract is the death of that team. I am also really disappointed in Colt McCoy because he is just not playing worth a damn this year. He can't throw more than 20 yards downfield.

Atlanta over Indianapolis - This might be Indy's first win, but as I've stated previously I'm not going to take them in a game til they can actually put together a complete game. I'm still selling my Falcons stock, but I mean the Clots are just terrible.

Seattle over Dallas - I was able to pick one of Seattle's earlier wins and it was oddly enough against this division. Dallas was so epic bad this last week, I just don't think they can right the ship with only a week to go. Seattle seems to luck out with running into decent teams while they are at their weakest and manage to capitalize on it.

San Francisco over Washington - I think this had the potential to be a legit game if this was a couple weeks ago, but leave it up to one of the most dysfunctional franchises in the league to dysfunction all over again. San Francisco wins this one big, and I expect another monster game from Frank Gore.

Buffalo over New York Jets - If you read my mid-point message earlier, you already know why I'm going this way.

New Orleans over Tampa Bay - I know New Orelans got manhandled by a turd sandwich team this last week, but it was on the road. All of the Saints losses are on the road. They are still money and home and Drew Brees hasn't had two back to back crappy games in his whole career (as far as I know!)

Cincinnati over Tennessee - The Titans are starting to look like I expected they'd be all season. Also, the Steelers obliterated the Titans so I think the Bengals mimic the same success.

ADDITION 11/3/2011: Someone pointed out to me "Who has Cincinnati beat?" Excellent observation, because it hasn't been anyone significant. They beat Cleveland (division rival, and a team that is only 3-4 at this point), Buffalo (their only win against a legit good team as Buffalo sits at 5-2 currently), Jacksonville (2-6), Indianapolis (0-8) and Seattle (2-5). They lost to San Francisco, who have beaten just about everyone this year, and to the Denver Broncos while they were still starting Kyle Orton. So, one win against good competition and one loss against terrible competition. I'm still picking them to win this game to prove they aren't flukes, but don't be surprised if Tennessee bounces back from their two difficult prior weeks.

Denver over Oakland - This is probably my surprise pick of the week. I'm just unsure about what Palmer will bring to the table. If he plays like we know he can play, then I'm gonna get crushed on this pick, but Oakland's offense was just so terrible against the Chiefs I'm not sure they fix it in just the bye week. Tebow won't be getting Tebowed this game the same way he was in Detroit, either. But man, this was pretty:

Stephen Tulloch is my new hero.

New England over New York Giants - This should actually be a pretty good game, but you just don't pick against Tom Brady playing in Foxborough especially after coming off a loss like they just suffered. I give the Giants a fighter's chance but New England should win in the end.

Green Bay over San Diego - A team which can finish against a team that can't. Theoretically the Chargers should at least be able to make this a game, but dude they are so full of fail right now. I'm not sure I'd pick them against a BAD team, let alone the best in the league.

St. Louis over Arizona - This should be an interesting matchup just from the standpoint it's two utterly amazingly bad teams. Difference being St. Louis seemed to figure something out this week, while Arizona let one of the only good games they've played all season slip away from them. Then again, Arizona might have a big chip on their shoulder about that loss and might finally step up. This game is a toss up for me.

Pittsburgh over Baltimore - The Ravens just have no looked good the last two weeks. They lost and then almost lost to two bad teams, while Pittsburgh has hit their stride. As I usually say, pick the team streaking, not the team shrinking. Plus, you gotta give Pittsburgh the emotional advantage because these teams utterly despise each other and they're going to want to redeem the beatdown they suffered in week 1. Homefield, too, so keep your eyes out for yellow towels.

Philadelphia over Chicago - Philly is streaking finally. As I said, they have the most YPG in the league and can put up points against anyone. If they don't turn the ball over, they win and quite possibly win big time. Should be a great matchup either way, and it's one I'm going to tune into for sure. Good thing it's Monday Night so I don't need to worry about other competing games for my interest.