Well shit, I suppose I should get the rest of Gambling With Sanity up. To be fair, I wrote a whole thing for Part 1, bobbing and weaving my way through insane gibberish and fleeting poignant and keen observations about the state of the world and how sport has meaning and blah blah blah, anyway go read it if you haven’t already. I could provide a link but I am also notoriously lazy and also hate to break up my flow, so just click on the main Armchair Linebacker heading and it will be on the front page somewhere. This might also be slightly truncated due to time constraints, which means probably a paragraph for each game instead of twenty or however many the fuck it has grown to. Anyway, with all that gibberish fucking said, let’s just get to the picks.
Washington (+9) at Buffalo
The Bills got back to winning, pulverizing the hapless Dolphins, so maybe they are back on track. Still, it always makes me leery to trust the Bills because of years, decades, of Failure Demons gnawing at their soul like those rats gnawing on the insides of that lady in American Psycho. And never forget that one of the Bills Super Bowl losses came at the hands of the dreaded Washington Football Team back when they were known as the Redskins and that one Indian, Iron Eyes Cody, wept on the side of the road. I’m not saying that has any bearing on this game, but you never know how psychic menaces and curses are gonna work, even thirty years down the line and… Jesus Christ, it’s been thirty years already? I’m way too fucking old for this shit. But yeah… never forget. Also, that Washington team reached that fateful Super Bowl by beating the shit out of the Lions in the NFC Championship game so Dark Energies abound here. Still, it won’t be enough to slow down the Bills of Buffalo.
Pick: Buffalo
Chicago (+7) at Cleveland
The Browns are a bona fide contender which feels weird still, but my man Baker Mayfield is making it less weird with every week, win or lose. That’s because even in the losses, you can feel the vitality of the Browns. Obviously in the wins too, but there is something more poignant and meaningful about a team showing out in its losses. It speaks to the character of the team, their willingness to fight even when its against the odds or the mandate of history. Meanwhile, the Bears are Bearsing their way through yet another season which means inconsistent and wild mood swings like a pregnant lady and also mediocre quarterback play like a, well, like a Bears QB. And since the Browns have the echoed soul of Kenny Stabler working through their QB, this is an easy pick for me.
Pick: Cleveland
Indianapolis (+5.5) at Tennessee
One of these two teams is gonna win the AFC South this year and since the Colts are already 0-2 and flailing uselessly with Carson Wentz at QB, this should open things up for Tennessee to take it even it means taking it at 9-7. That is because the AFC South is a wretched tire fire, the souls of burned out Firestones wailing for all eternity. (Naturally, one of the heirs to the Firestone fortune married into the Ford family and was the Old Lady known as Old Lady Ford, so never trust a Firestone.) Both of these teams have looked weaker than they were supposed to, and the Jags and Texans are on another level of Failure this season, rocked by rape scandals and by Urban Meyer scandals, which might be the same thing, who is to say? But what I can say is that Tennessee looks like the only team out of these shitheads to have a real shot at things so the hicks in Tennessee have something else to cheer for other than the Friday Night Lynchin’.
Pick: Tennessee
LA Chargers (+6.5) at Kansas City
The Chiefs have looked mortal so far, scraping by the Browns and getting Got by the Ravens, neither of which is anything to really be ashamed about, but these are the Chiefs and when you are supposed to be the best team in football, you have to hold yourself to higher standards or else the knives come out, both internally and externally and you end up lying on a slab like Rikidozan after getting shivved with a Piss Knife, which is exactly what it sounds like. But the Chargers are a team without a real identity or without a soul, cursed by the coyote yowled bleakness of post-empire Los Angeles, and trusting in Justin Herbert to outgun Patrick Mahomes is probably an exercise in foolish insanity.
Pick: Chiefs
New Orleans (+3) at New England
Both of these teams are in the middle of post-empire living themselves, having lost the franchise quarterbacks that have led them this entire century. But because of that, it is still too hard to accurately gauge who or what they are and that makes picking these kinds of things difficult. Still, the Patriots might have a dude in Mac Jones even if I am still leery of his stupid name, while the Saints are trying to delude themselves into Jameis Winston, which is a dark place to be, and no one should rely on a team trotting that idiot out there. So, go with the Patriots I guess, but don’t feel good about it. Both because it’s tough to say and also because who in the fuck would ever feel good about backing the Patriots and Little Bill? Not me, and yet here we are.
Pick: Patriots
Atlanta (+3) at NY Giants
What monster booked this game? Jesus Christ, what an awful game. Fuck this and fuck you.
Pick: Giants
Cincinnati (+3.5) at Pittsburgh
The Steelers keep lurching along like a zombie Frankenstein (yes, I know that is the doctor’s name, not the monster’s so fuck off) or maybe that is just Ben Roethlisberger drowning his latest rape victim in a pond after looking at some flowers. Either way, the Steelers are not dead yet, just soulless monsters waiting to be put down by someone, anyone. The good news is that the AFC North is full of someones and anyones, which means it’s gonna happen soon. The Bengals are hoping to be the team that gets the first bite of that rancid flesh, but Joe Burrow needs to stop throwing interceptions and also juggling coeds who all think they’re the one. That’s how you get crabs, and also how you get your car all fucked up by some insane 20 year old blonde, who maybe even sends you weird shit like headless Barbie Dolls or her pinky finger. It’s a whole scene out there and it may be tough for a young dude like Burrow to get his head right with all that going on. Still, fuck Ben Roethlisberger.
Pick: Bengals
Arizona (-7.5) at Jacksonville
It’s a bad scene in Jacksonville, which I’ve already detailed for you, and it’s playing out exactly how I thought it would, minus a few sex crimes anyway, but those are sure to come and are probably already being carried out by the newly degenerate Jaguars, who have only the wretched soul of Urban Meyer to look to for guidance and that is like looking to a priest to comfort molestation victims. I’m just saying, this probably gets much worse before Urban is finally run out of town, back to whatever college football shithole will have him or the Vatican or really anywhere the needs of the innocent are devoured like the innocent flesh of a piglet. Meanwhile, the Cardinals are looking good with Kyler Murray, who I might add, has been the best QB in the league in both weeks so far, at least according to my fantasy league, and my fantasy team which is 2-0 and has already whipped up on the degenerates in my league aka some of the people reading this. You know who you are.
Pick: Arizona
Baltimore (-7.5) at Detroit
I don’t know if I’ll get a preview post up, and if I don’t, I’ll definitely do a postgame post this week, but just in case I don’t get to it, I’ll make a prediction here, which of course will be that the Ravens will drink our collective tears and gnaw on our bones, shitting out the marrow as a warning Never To Love the Lions.
Pick: Ravens
NY Jets (+10.5) at Denver
Things are, predictably, still a total disaster in Jets land, which means that all of Northern New Jersey is in a nasally uproar, setting fire to the very garbage that serves as their source of income (at least declared income.) The Broncos, on the other hand, are somehow 2-0 and don’t look too fucking bad, with Teddy Bridgewater yet another year removed from his horrific knee injury. Still, I think the Broncos probably made a mistake in not trading for Aaron Rodgers, but some people won’t make deals with The Devil no matter how often God turns a deaf ear to their pleas, and that’s just the horrible truth about nature. God doesn’t give a fuck and The Devil will rifle through your pockets for spare change after you throw yourself off a bridge or get stabbed by a member of the Vatican Guard after you try to stalk the Pope and throw eggs at his window. It’s not a good scene, this world of ours, and while the Broncos may yet regret dealing with The Devil, for now their souls remain untainted and at least they are not the Jets. Amen.
Pick: Denver
Miami (+4) at Las Vegas
Speaking of teams who have turned their souls over to devilish sorts, the Raiders are 2-0 and look to be a real contender in the AFC, supping on the nefarious delights of the Vegas underworld, picking off ruined tourists and sending them by the van full to John Gruden to suck the life from them before burying them in a bottomless hole dug in the Vegas desert by Unknown People who may have been gangsters or may have been Grey Aliens, no one is sure which, and shit, maybe they were Grey Alien Gangsters. The Truth Is Out There as Fox Mulder once told us, or perhaps warned us, because the Truth is likely to be ugly and impossible to digest by regular folk, and even fucked up folks like me. It’s that same Truth that has the Raiders humming along in their new hellscape while the Dolphins try to collect themselves after getting humbled and broken by the Bills, which is, obviously, not a good place to be spiritually. But it’s Miami, who gives a fuck? Just do some blow and hit the beach under a hot sun sent straight from hell while you ogle bikini clad Instagram Influencers. It’s not the best life, spiritually speaking, but fuck it, its’ not the worst either. It still doesn’t mean you’ll win any football games, though.
Pick: Raiders
Tampa Bay (-1) at LA Rams
Man, this is a juicy game, is it not? It’s perhaps the two best teams in the NFC fighting it out for early supremacy, which is enough on its own to make for an interesting game. But it’s also Tom Brady vs. Matthew Stafford as Brady continues his quest to devour the universe one hapless soul at a time, and Stafford continues his to win just a solitary playoff game, just one, so that he will never be humiliated again at restaurants or wherever the hell people can see him and taunt him, ruining his life. I, of course, would never do that to my erstwhile QB, even if I haven’t always been nice to him, but this is a Very Real psychic issue for Stafford and going against the dude who is perhaps his polar opposite in terms of success and career gratification, if not life, in Tom Brady, makes for something nearly Shakespearean. You’ll notice I said “if not life” for Brady, and what I mean by that is simple: he is a man incapable of finding happiness and contentment in Real Life, because no matter how many Brazilian models he balls or how many orphans he eats, it’s never enough, just like winning another Super Bowl is never enough. He is a man cursed with an insatiable appetite for all things, which is the tragic Truth about life for these people. It is both what drives them to be great and what keeps them from ever being satisfied with it. It is its own kind of Hell. Tom Brady may be the Greatest of All Time but he can never relate to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man, and that’s a curse he can never escape.
Pick: Rams (THAT’S RIGHT)
Seattle (-2) at Minnesota
Let’s all take a minute to laugh at Kirk Cousins…
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
…who has been revealed to be, without a doubt, a Fraud and a Loser. He is now little more than a pathetic figure clinging to whatever succor he can find in Minneapolis or back home in the comforting confines of his Dutch Christian upbringing, rubbing shoulders with the De Vos family or maybe joining the Blackwater lads in a friendly game of touch football, whose rules state that every time a team scores a touchdown they get to drown an immigrant baby captured by mean men on horseback with whips and hatred in their hearts. Thankfully for the immigrants set to be done in by Cousins’ team, Cousins is the quarterback so they don’t have to worry because his team isn’t scoring SHIT. Meanwhile, Russell Wilson fucks his celebrity wife and doesn’t care about any of this. Is his amorality enough to triumph over the immorality of Cousins? Probably. Amorality wins, and that in itself is probably a Dark Truth too terrible to truly complicate, but this is NFL Football, it’s all dark and terrible, and even sicker, that’s why we’re all here.
Pick: Seattle
Green Bay (+3.5) at San Francisco
Naturally, The Devil regained his powers long enough to torment the hapless Lions and all of their long-suffering fans. (Hi!) Still, Vegas and the world at large seem to remain leery that any of that was real. It is the Lions, after all. It’s possible, probable even, that he is still Doomed and that whatever happens against the Lions exists in a temporal bubble where it is always Devil O’Clock and Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson announce they are quitting in a time loop that never ends. But the truth is that even The Devil is Doomed to see his hell reduced to dust and tears. It doesn’t even have to involve a Second Coming or anything as dramatic as that. The Devil just has to continue being The Devil and eventually his own Doomed Fate will overtake him, and he will realize that he is, indeed, in Hell forever, and even if he is the Boss there, it is a lot like being the Manager of Home Depot, which is a terrible fate no one should have to endure. Then again, he *is* The Devil, so fuck him, I guess. Still, going into San Francisco as an underdog like this is 1987 is probably a bit jarring. But that is just the nature of The Beast, and if anyone can understand it, it’s, well, it’s The Beast. Still, I am not going to be the dude who goes against The Devil even in his death throes.
Pick: Green Bay
Philadelphia (+3.5) at Dallas
In the spirit of this half-assed post, I am not going to say anything about this game or these teams except that I wish them nothing but ill will and anyone who loves them is Sex Pervert of some kind or maybe just a Degenerate Drunk. (Hi, Tosh!)
Pick: Dallas
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