2010 Week #15

Here are the rest of the picks for a compelling Week 15.

Fav

Spread

Dog

Dre

Jay

	Thu. Nite
SD (7-6)	10	SF (5-8)	SD 34-7		SD	SF
	Sunday
MIA (7-6)	5	Buf (3-10)			Mia	Buf
CIN(2-11)	1	Cle (5-8)			Cin	Cle
TB (8-5)	4½	Det (3-10)			TB	TB
IND (7-6)	4½	Jack (8-5)			Ind	Jack
CAR(1-12)	2½	Ariz (4-9)			Ariz	Ariz
BAL (9-4)	1	NO (10-3)			NO	Bal
NYG (9-4)	2½	Phi (9-4)			NY	NY
STL (6-7)	3	KC (8-5)			StL
DAL (4-9)	7	Wash (5-8)			Wash	Dal
TENN(5-8)	1	Hou (5-8)			Hou	Hou
Atl (11-2)	6	SEA (6-7)			Sea	Atl
PIT (10-3)	4½	NYJ (9-4)			Pit	Pit
OAK (6-7)	9	Den (3-10)			Oak	Oak
	Sun. Nite
NE (11-2)	14	GB (8-5)			NE	NE
	Mon. Nite
Chi (9-4)	9	MIN (5-8)			Min	Min

We were really hot tonight with our thoughts and observations, so much that I'm sure I'll forget a lot of them.  I offered to eat my remote control if something happened in Sunday's games, but I totally forgot what.  Our podcast, should we ever fire it up, will be loud and hopefully entertaining, if not insightful.  Anyhow, some of our thoughts included:

• Right out of the box with a disagreement, Jason likes the Buffalo Bills to cover because, well, they are our unofficial mascot, what with their logo appearing at the top of this blog, and because they are scrappy and keep playing hard.  I like Miami because they need the win to stay in the playoff race, and I think they will play a smart game using their RBs to control the clock.  At least they should.
• In the Battle of Ohio, Jason will take the Browns because they also play hard the whole game while Cincinnati appears to play one quarter or so per game.  I will take the Bungles because that one quarter, I think, will be enough to take down Colt McCoy and that horrible passing game.
• Tampa Bay is playing a team under .500 in the Detroit Lions.  What has Tampa done all year against sub-.500 teams?  Yes, beat their brains in!  We'll take em to do it again.  I would like to acknowledge that I do know that the Buccaneers have been losing defenders left and right to injury, so I am very concerned down the line about how they will fare versus an NFL team.  The Lions are not an NFL team.
• Indianapolis and Peyton Manning have their backs firmly against the wall and must defeat Jacksonville to stay in the playoff hunt.  I have to back Peyton and the boys.  The Colts and Peyton as a group comprise the soft spot of my heart, and for all of my criticism of their offense, I must stand firm in their corner in their most desperate time of need.  Jason, heartless bastard that he is, picks the Jaguars to go into Indy and beat them, knocking them out of the playoffs for the 1st time in a very long time.
• In the Toilet Bowl Game of the Year, Arizona with their 3rd-string QB travels to the Eastern time zone to play an early game, and yet, Carolina blows so bad that we'll take the Cardinals.  At least to cover--I hate this game so much that I'll say that Carolina wins the game but doesn't cover the spread, just because goofy shit like that seems to happen in crappy games like this.
• Jason described the Baltimore Ravens as maddeningly inconsistent this year.  They don't seem to sustain success like they used to when their defense would lead them to run off 8 or 9 wins in a row.  He will take the Ravens, however, in a low-scoring contest over New Orleans.  Baltimore's near collapse on Monday night against Houston may have awaken a sleeping giant, and Jason thinks their defense will rise up from that embarrassment and take out the Saints.  I will take the Saints in a high-scoring affair because I can't take the Ravens after what the Texans did to them in the 2nd half.  What might the champs do to them if the less-than-impressive Texans can push them to the limit?
• We both notice the dings and hits that Michael Vick is taking, and we see the New York Giants waiting for Vick and the Eagles and still smarting from their loss in Philly in Week 11, and we think New York will knock out Philadelphia.  Jason is calling it now--he thinks the Giants will knock out Vick individually and add to their death toll of murdered QBs this season.
• Jason would like to invoke a Contingency Pick here and hedge his bet on the Battle of Missouri.  He will take Kansas City if Matt Cassel can recover from his appendectomy a couple of weeks ago and lead the Chefs onto the field.  But he will go with the Rams if Brodie Croyle has to make another start.  I was so unimpressed with the Chiefs last week without Cassel that I'll take the Rams regardless of who starts for KC.  I got the Chargers coming from behind to nip the Chiefs at the wire for the division title, and St. Louis winning here is the only play for me.
• Rex Grossman to start over Donovan McNabb??  The Shanahans have officially gone completely off the reservation.  It's an obvious pick for Jason to take Dallas, but I figure that the only pass Grossman has ever completed with any consistency in his Godforsaken career is the one where he closes his eyes, balances on one foot, and flings the ball deep.  And the Cowboys DBs are more than happy to allow you to complete that pass several times per game.  So maybe he can keep the Redskins in the game.  As for the decision to bench McNabb, I just want to point out that Washington's passing game ranks 10th in the league in yardage, with an average of 7.1 yards per attempt, which is good for a tie for 14th.  Clearly those are not huge numbers, but should they get you benched for a far inferior QB?  McNabb's stats are 58.3% completion, 3377 yards, 14 TDs, 15 INTs.  Just for comparison's sake, there's a QB in New York called Sanchize whose stats read 53.3% completion, 2852 yards, 16 TDs, 12 INTs, and his coach may talk about benching him, but he's not being benched.  And who the fuck is McNabb throwing to, anyway?  Quick, name a Washington receiver not named Santana.  No WR on that roster is ever going to a Pro Bowl, not this year or any year in the future.  Call me nuts, but I'd be rather impressed with a QB racking up those numbers with that receiving corps, not trying to bench him and embarrass him all the time.
• We like Houston over Tennessee because Tennessee sucks, and because the Kubiak Plan must now go into effect.  The Kubiak Plan involves the Houston Texans putting together a bunch of meaningless wins in the final quarter of the season, allowing coach Gary Kubiak to be brought back by management yet again as pundits talk up Houston as the hot team for next year based on their great finish.  They nearly got started with an upset over Baltimore, but luckily, Josh Wilson doesn't play for the Titans.
• Jason will stick with his Falcons continuing to slap around the teams that they're supposed to slap around, and this week, that would be the Seattle Seahawks.  He believes that in today's 24/7 media cycle, the Falcons and their coaches have heard so much about this game being a letdown game that they are more alert to the potential letdown and will work to ensure that doesn't happen.  I see his point, but I think that many times, you can be alert of a pending trap, but your body doesn't really know how bad the trap is until it's actually in the stadium playing the game and being caught in the trap.  Atlanta can steel themselves against a trap all they want, but the facts still remain:  The Falcons give up 7.2 yards per pass attempt, Seattle is getting back WRs Mike Williams and Ben Obomanu from injury, and Qwest Field is a bitch to play in as a visitor.  I'll go with the Hawks to cover the 6-point number.
• Speaking of Sanchize, he's got zero TDs in the four Jets losses this season.  Actually, the whole fucking team has zero TDs in those losses.  Darrelle Revis has his built-in excuse--he was limited in practice this week with, yes, a sore hamstring.  Get ready for Hines Ward and Mike Wallace to hand out some windburn to the Jets secondary, and the Steelers to hand out some whoop-ass to the New York Jets.  Now let's go eat a Goddamn snack.
• Here's how sure Jason feels about Oakland beating the snot out of that insufferable shit Tim Tebow and the Broncos in Tebow's 1st start:  He called taking the Raiders and giving the 9 points the "Lock of the Century."  Wow!  In all our years, I don't think I've ever heard him say that.  But I got him to rescind that somewhat because he admitted that he doesn't feel as strongly about this game as he did just last week when Tom Bieber and the Patriots went up to Chicago and raped the Bears.  So maybe not Lock of the Century.  But we both feel very confident that Tebow will make the entire Denver organization look very dumb for drafting him in the 1st round.  If I were Denver's interim coach, I wouldn't start him.  Why should I take losses against my record just to prove that the lunatic before me who drafted this idiot shouldn't have done so?
• 14 points?  Against Matt Flynn?  It's not enough!  We love New England to slaughter Green Bay and put their playoff hopes on ice.  Speaking of ice...
• And finally, this hot mess in Minnesota.  And not just the game, either; the garbage surrounding where the Monday night Bears-Vikings contest would be played was amateurish.  That college stadium where it's going to happen will have many issues that won't be resolved by kickoff, but so long as Minnesota doesn't lose another home gate, that's ok.  Let the players bonk their skulls off the frozen FieldTurf.  The NFL doesn't care about head injuries anyway unless they happen to QBs and WRs.  After Jason and I had a long laugh about the Chicago Bears and their vaunted Cover-0 defense, where they leave guys totally wide open for huge plays like they did with Deion Branch last week, we looked up some info on Joe Webb, the guy starting at QB for the Vikings because Tarvaris Jackson is on I.R. and the Little Wrangler still can't grip a (foot)ball.  And we realized that we know absolutely nothing about Joe Webb.  It didn't matter.  Both teams will struggle to score on that shitty field in zero-degree weather.  We'll take the Vikings to cover 9 points because the Bears may not score 9 points.