Gambling With Sanity: Week Dan

Our leader and superior, Neil, has been dealt a cruel psychic bombshell from the mortar of God this week. Even though the fans of Detroit Lions spent their offseason hardening by reading the lore of their lengthening annals of howling boobery in an eldritch voice, huddled together to try and spirit together the new Bobby Layne from cigarette butts and empty bottles of Wild Turkey, the real sadness is that nothing prepares you for the next calamity.

This is where I come in, a sprightly British popinjay, name is Dan. Pleased to meet ya guvna, strike a light! You may have read my name being cursed in rancour by the mighty Neil and are wondering why I’m here to help. Well, I don’t know a lot, but I know this: when the Lions are bad, Neil is ornery. And when those hackles rise so hard that Lake Michigan trembles, I sense my Neil needs love. And who better to understand and empathise than a Browns fan?

Sadly there is no “NFL London” game this week. I tell ya, you should take those things off us. Do you realise how bad the average Brit looks in a football jersey? We’re not even cut out to wear Starter hats but we try.

Anyway, I’m going to take off my Stephen A. Smith hat and don my John McCririck hat (look him up, he’s a famous betting idiot) and try and call this week’s round of hot NFL action!

CHIEFS @ BRONCOS

The Broncos have managed to find their ass with both hands over the last couple of weeks while the Chiefs are running around the corn-flapping flatlands suspiciously assless. That Mahomes kid seems like the business but in my mind I have the Chiefs down as bottlers and the Broncos down as that jerk kid who lives nearby who always joins in your play and breaks something. Broncos by 10.

DOLPHINS @ BILLS

The Dolphins are in that pretty dead spot where they can just hit the ‘fuck it’ button. Throw that hopeful pass. Reject that percentage ball. Take the two-pointer. I mean they barely have the confidence to pull their underpants up, but forget that now. Bills are 4-1 but they’re as exciting as a Sigur Ros soundcheck. Dolphins by 3.

JAGUARS @ BENGALS

The craven attempt to make the Jaguars the first British franchise should be resisted. Look, aside from the soccer that has been secreted into our DNA when the first head of FIFA caught God nailing his wife and decided to play the long game, we are a land who loves novelty stuff. Oooh, we think now, wouldn’t it be great to have our own NFL franchise. That’ll show them we’re serious! Six years later I swear there’ll be crowds of under 15000 weird-shaped Brits in London Monarchs throwbacks. We can’t keep in with minority sports. We talk a good game, sure. “Olympic legacy, inspire kids to do athletics!” Seven years later we win like 5 medals at the World Championships and no one at home is watching. Build up the Jags. Try, people of Jacksonville, to climb off your weird swamp boat thingy, and go to a game. Jaguars by 14.

VIKINGS @ LIONS

The winters are coming in a literal and spiritual sense. The new trick of the Lions has been a masterstroke in fracking the remaining reserves of hope from the stony underneath of the Detroit faithful. They have exchanged rank oafishness for cursed mediocrity. They won’t go 3-13 anytime soon and cause people to drink Flint Spring. Instead they’ll crank up that anticipation like a world record attempt on the house of cards in a giant warehouse with a huge fan at the end. Someone will switch it on. They always do. They might win this game. It would be perfect form. Reel them in and fuck them. Lions by 10.

RAIDERS @ PACKERS

Has one team ever been held up as an icon whilst being as fundamentally disappointing as the Raiders? Any sport. I’m taking the long view here, ignore their absolutely perfunctory season to date. A lot of British people love both of these teams, the former for their admittedly strong aesthetic and reputation alongside classic hip-hop of the late 80s; the latter because a lot of our great sports teams are pretty much the only game in town (and for miles around) and punch way above their market. Packers by 17.

RAMS @ FALCONS

What is that metallic thumping rolling down Hw. 110? Why it is the Rams hype train breaking apart. It was a good run. Superbowl finalists. Aaron Donald killing people. Todd Gurley a beautiful vision, cutting through gaps like silver gossamer threading a golden needle. On such tender wheels butterflies break. Gurley’s return from injury might spark a playoff run and the team don’t look fundamentally haunted like, say, NEIL LOOMS WITH STRANGLER HANDS but they have to beat the completely mediocre Falcons to stave the ghost from their sun-kissed lonely mansions. Rams by 21.

TEXANS @ COLTS

Two absolutely solid teams here battling out for the AFC South and honestly I couldn’t care less. I don’t know why but something about the Houston Texans makes my eyes seal themselves shut. For some reason I could imagine the old Oilers with a fanbase of Hank Hills groaning their way through every down. The Colts had nice uniforms in the 60s. Texans by 7.

49ERS @ THE REDACTED TEAM FROM WASHINGTON

The only affinity I will ever really have for the 49ers is firing up Joe Montana Football on the Mega Drive (Genesis? PAH) and realising that they’d coded Joe Cool’s arm to be the only one that could throw forward successfully. If you liked playing 1920s style ersatz-rugby football, pick another team. Oh, actually, I really liked Jerry Rice. My first days of watching football (10am highlights show on Channel 4 hosted by this nerd who loved the Falcons) basically seemed to be a montage of Rice catching one on a sixpence and scoring. Some will tell you that this game is primed for an upset as 5-0 play 1-5 but I tells ya, it’s gonna be ugly. 49ERS by 28.

CARDINALS @ GIANTS

When did the city of New York turn into a giant loser machine for sports? Yankees aside, I mean. This is one thing I like about US sports. OK, nearly all of your franchises (ugh, shudder) are placed in “major markets” (hoses self down) but it’s pretty clear in the global cultural imaginary the US is like New York and LA and maybe San Francisco and everything between is a desert or a mountain. A lot of your good successful winning teams come from teams outside of that. Admittedly there’s a lot of it. Here in Europe, especially recently, the big famous cities don’t just hog all the culture and the brains; they get all the sports teams because we don’t have a draft and can’t MAKE some promising 18 year old live in Preston or Yeovil if he doesn’t fancy it. Right now the big teams in Europe are in London, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Munich. What happened to KV Mechelen getting to European finals? What happened to Alan Shearer’s biggest career move being from one provincial club to another? It sucks. I want the Cardinals here but I feel that Giants management will read this and curse me. Giants by 13.

CHARGERS @ TITANS

Tennessee seems like a noble place to me so I can’t for the life of me figure out why the “TENNESSEE TITANS” feels like such a sad car to crap town. It’s a parodic name chosen for alliteration rather than anything real and I hate it. Not that there’s anything loveable or authentic about the LA Chargers, but I admire their stoic commitment to second tier futility in a half-empty stadium in a town where all the white communities hang USC and UCLA flags and nary an NFL mention is to be had. Chargers by 6.

SAINTS @ BEARS

‘Saints at Bears’ sounds like a niche porn title but also it is probably this week’s most mouth-watering game. Some website called Bears Wire (lol) says that Vegas have their Chi-town lot as favourites, despite being 3-2 to the Saints 5-1. I don’t see how this is possible. Even with Trubitsky back the Bears look probably as useful as actual bears at going forward this year. The Saints have miraculously only scored 6 more than they’ve conceded this season in spite of that positive record. Winning is winning, Vegas, and that’s what the Saints are doing. Saints by a single score.

RAVENS @ SEAHAWKS

FUCK OFF STOLEN BROWNS. Seahawks by 21.

EAGLES @ COWBOYS

I love reading Neil’s enmity toward the Dallas Cowboys. Both America’s Team and the Greenclad Yousers are .500 so far this season and if God intervened (she doesn’t) this game would be a tie because I know how irate ties make American fans who grow up thinking a tie means two losers. Sadly I think the Eagles are going to win this on account of how badly the Cowboys’ butt has fallen off of late. Eagles by 14.

PATRIOTS @ JETS

Alex, a friend of Neil and I, embodies all of the smugness you expect now from the Patriots. Like literally 5 minutes before writing this he sent a Bitmoji of himself in Patriots clothes to Neil mourning the mental detonation of his beloved boobs in armour. They’re unbeaten, while the Jets remain America’s saddest sports team (and I have seen the San Jose Earthquakes play football). This one probably won’t be as ugly as it should be because of some strange psychological phenomenon called ‘professional pride’ what with the game being on Monday Night Football. There’s no place to hide, but Touchdown Tom will make all the Alexes of the world strut to work on Tuesday with even more of a shit-eating grin. Patriots by 21.