Gambling With Sanity: Week 13

So, last week I said I would tack my picks onto the Thanksgiving post but obviously that never happened and so you can decry me as a liar and a scoundrel if you want, but fuck it and fuck you too!!! Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I mean, I kind of did, but let’s forget about it. Anyway, lines as usual come from the VegasInsider.com consensus, who instead of sponsoring me sent me a cease and desist letter on Thanksgiving, but if didn’t work for Alexandra Daddario, why would it work for them?

New Orleans (-7.5) at Dallas

The Cowboys have wormed their way to the top of the NFC East thanks to a convergence of factors: Alex Smith’s untimely death, the Eagles going Full Philadelphia this season and because the universe is bullshit and creepshow death mask wearing ghouls like Jerry Jones run everything. But fear not, because Jerry Jones is also incompetent and whenever anything is merit based (and the NFL is . . . barely, but come on, humor me here) dudes like him inevitably fuck up and embarrass themselves. Donald Trump’s teams would never win the Super Bowl either, you know? He’d end up ruining the league and forcing black players to lick his feet during the anthem, but still, no rings for that idiot. (Also, I’ve said it before: Jimmy Johnson built and won those Super Bowls for the Cowboys, things fell apart when Jerry Jones decided he needed to swing his three inch dick around and take control of everything, so THERE)

Pick: New Orleans

Indianapolis (-4) at Jacksonville

Goddamn, the Jaguars collapsed faster than the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane, or Fred Durst’s career. That may sound terrible, but it’s spiritually Correct for Jacksonville. This is who they are, what that godforsaken place is. No wonder my boy Al is a hopeless drunk. Love ya, buddy.

Pick: Indianapolis

L.A. Chargers (+3.5) at Pittsburgh

I’ve said more than once this season that Matthew Stafford is basically Philip Rivers. That’s an obvious insult, but at the same time, here’s ol’ Phil at 8-3 ready to take another shot at the playoffs, so is that really such a bad thing to be? Fast forward to January when Rivers is throwing his 5^th interception of the game and he’s stomping off the field with a sneer on his face like fucking Niedermeyer from Animal House. This is just who he is at his core, and it’s who Stafford is. That’s okay, I guess. I mean, that’s life. Life also sucks.

Pick: Pittsburgh

Carolina (-3.5) at Tampa Bay

The Panthers have begun their slide and the Buccaneers are basically as worthless as the Jaguars now, so who really cares? The Bucs should just let Ryan Fitzpatrick get drunk as fuck and start the game. That would at least be fun to watch. Someone get Cam Newton coked up and let him play the game in a fur coat screaming Ric Flair promos instead of the snap count every play. This is the only way to save this game and the NFL.

Pick: Tampa Bay

Baltimore (+1) at Atlanta

This is how shitty the AFC is this year: the Ravens have basically already decided to move on from John Harbaugh and Joe Flacco and to blow this shit up because it obviously isn’t working anymore, and yet the Ravens will probably get into the playoffs this season. That is a shitty ass conference right there. It’s basically a 3-team conference: the Patriots, Chiefs and Steelers. Who else is there? Philip Rivers is gonna fuck the Chargers, so forget them. Imagine the Ravens sneaking in and upsetting their way to a Super Bowl. They’ve done it before. And then imagine John Harbaugh getting fired anyway. lol what a league.

Pick: Atlanta

Cleveland (+6) at Houston

lol Baker Mayfield came out and said “Fuck Hue Jackson, that mongoloid idiot was holding us back, I’m glad he’s dead and also I fucked his wife.” That’s a direct quote. I didn’t make that up. You’re not allowed to lie on the internet. Anyway, it’s probably not a good thing when your rookie quarterback is willing to shit-talk people so openly and bury them out the door like that, but that was always the thing with Baker Mayfield. He’s an asshole. That’s fine, as long as things are going well and he can channel that asshole energy towards pissing off the enemy, but if things don’t go well, he can easily channel that towards pissing off his own dudes, and since this is the Browns, I think we know where this is inevitably headed. Dan, I can’t believe you support someone who uses hateful language like that . . . I mean, “mongoloid”? You should reevaluate some things.

Pick: Houston

Buffalo (+4.5) at Miami

Sad news to report: I have a family friend who lives in Buffalo. She’s one of the coolest and most amazing people I know. She’s overcome a lot and has a big family, including adopted kids and foster kids and all that, just a beautiful, gigantic-hearted woman who deserves all the best in life. Anyway, she just found out she has colon cancer. She was passing out and shit and had lost a lot of weight and they eventually found a big tumor on her colon. They removed it, but they couldn’t get it all and it doesn’t look good. She’s 38. Anyway, welcome to Buffalo.

Pick: Miami

Chicago (-4.5) at N.Y. Giants

Mitch Trubisky is still questionable, which is why this line is so low. Most places don’t even have a line on this game because of it, but those usurious vampires at VegasInsider.com (love you guys) gots to get their blood money. Anyway, the Giants stink and the Bears defense will probably get them through this. This just seems like one of those couple times a decade Bears team where their defense eats people and they win the division and then next season they’ll go 4-12, but then again Lovie Smith was last seen wandering around Illinois looking like Black Hobo Santa, so maybe it will be different this time.

Pick: Chicago

Denver (-4.5) at Cincinnati

It took a while, but Marvin Lewis eventually revealed himself as a worthless bozo just like I said he would. Andy Dalton is out for the Bengals too, so this should be ugly. On the other hand, John Elway has ruined the Broncos, so who is to say? The NFL is full of idiots who are in charge of things just because they are.

Pick: Denver

Arizona (+14) at Green Bay

There is a sense of finality, of incurable rot, hanging over the Packers right now. Or at least this version of them. It was like they were conducting some fucked up experiment to see how shitty they could get around Aaron Rodgers in order to see how deep his devil-pact truly run. It turns out even the devil can’t help you when it gets this shitty. Mike McCarthy has flatlined and everyone pretty much knows it’s over. But what the hell, it gets dark at like 3PM right now in Green Bay anyway, so it should be pretty easy for everyone just to get drunk and bitch at their wives like Red Foreman, although in Wisconsin it’s usually much more passive-aggressive than that and AT BEST it will just turn out like Fargo. They need the Packers, man.

Pick: Green Bay

Kansas City (-15) at Oakland

I have a dirty little secret that makes me look like an asshole: I actually don’t enjoy games like that 50 whatever to 50 whatever game between the Chiefs and Rams that everyone was jacking off to. It’s just mind-numbing tedium to me, football as basketball with no real meaning – oh hey look, the Rams just scored again and oh boy so did the Chiefs, this is really fun ho hum – I mean, when every drive ends in a touchdown, who really cares? I recognize that this is just a personal failing on my part, a weird quirk that shouldn’t be valued or encouraged, but I actually like brute-force concussion ball shit, at least on an aesthetic level. I’m not a good person.

Pick: Kansas City

N.Y. Jets (+7.5) at Tennessee

Tennessee might be the most boring team in the league. I never know what to say about them. I mean, who cares?

Pick: Tennessee

San Francisco (+10) at Seattle

Seattle is a lot like Green Bay in that they’ve sort of let things rot around Russell Wilson, but they do still have some dudes on defense, so it’s not a full Packering yet. These things have different stages: you have the Seahawks, who are headed towards terminal decay, but maybe they recognized it quick enough and can rebuild on the fly. Then you have the Packers, who never really recognized it, and now it’s too late and they have nothing but Aaron Rodgers and even he is starting to break down a bit. And then you have the Patriots, who should be the terminal version. Everything has fallen around Tom Brady, the defense gave up 10,000 yards and points in the Super Bowl, rumors of hideous infighting abound, and yet they’re still the Alpha Dogs because Tom Brady transcends such petty shit. It’s a reminder that as great as dudes like Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson are, Tom Brady is on a whole different level. It’s also a reminder that having a dude like Pete Carroll makes a huge difference vs having a dude like Mike McCarthy.

Pick: Seattle

Washington (+6.5) at Philadelphia

Man, things sure turned on the Redskins fast, didn’t they? It’s almost like you’re risking a spiritual curse by building your team on a goddamn Indian graveyard. Alex Smith is dead, and now they have their dudes sending out “apologetic but not really” word-soup press releases to justify signing a violent woman-beater like Reuben Foster. I mean, the whole thing basically could have been summed up like this: “We know this is fucked up, but we don’t care. This motherfucker might help us win a football game.” The end. It’s especially funny that the Redskins also lost Alex Smith and never even bothered to call Colin Kaepernick, which just frames the whole Reuben Foster thing so perfectly. “Yeah, this dude gave his girlfriend a series of shoot DDTs followed by a Stone Cold Stunner, but at least he’ll stand up for the anthem!” lol the NFL is so fucked.

Pick: Philadelphia

Minnesota (+5) at New England

What do you think a Tom Brady Thanksgiving looks like? I imagine it is a bunch of organic macro-biotic or whatever buzzword bullshit “food-like” sustenance products spread in order of their Soylent color around the table while Gisele berates the help and refuses to let Tom’s son he had with Bridget Moynahan out of his cage. “Just slip him some scraps along with the dogs” she tells Tom, or more likely, the Haitian houseboy who she won’t let wear clothes because “he isn’t to be made to feel human.” Tom’s parents are allowed to call him and speak for 2 to 3 minutes depending on the schedule, and when he says “I love you too, Mom” Gisele gets angry and tells him “Love is a wasted, useless emotion, Thomas” and then the phone dies and he loses his telephone privileges for the next month. Meanwhile, their child cackles because it’s actually a Hitler clone like in The Boys From Brazil and calls Tom “a useless ass” and the child and Gisele laugh while Tom fights off tears before he chokes them down along with the rest of his feelings and he smiles at them, a plastic, empty smile and tells himself that later he can let it all out during the Thanskgiving Hobo Hunt and Gisele told him he can choke one with his bare hands this year and his child with Bridget says “Dad . . . I still love you,” from his cage but Tom doesn’t hear him, Tom can’t hear him, and Gisele has the Haitian houseboy poke Bridget’s son with a sharp stick and every time the boy cries out in pain she gets more and more wet and she thinks “maybe I’ll let Thomas fuck me tonight” but she’ll probably just torture the Haitian to death instead.

Pick: New England