Week 9: Better late...

Apologies for the late posting. Technical difficulties left me without internet access entirely. No e-mail. Nothing. Like the pilgrims. On to the picks: Holy hell, was this ever a bad weekend for me.

St. Louis (-3) Kansas City
The battle for Missouri. St. Louis loves baseball more than football, and I expect fans there, still giddy over the World Series win, will carry the Rams on Sunday. Apparently there’s only room for one winner in St. Louis.

Baltimore (-3) Cincinnati
Ravens are living on the edge. That is my excuse this week for picking Cincinnati. Go Bengals! (Hi Dad!) Sorry Dad.

NY Giants (-13) Houston
I’m torn on this game. If the line were set at 9, I’d have no problem picking the Giants. As it is, I just can’t take them to win by 13. Not yet. A brief flicker of light in the middle of one long exercise in futility.

Jacksonville (-10) Tennessee
How do you solve a problem like Jacksonville? Until they prove to be consistent at something, I can’t trust them as ten point favorites. Jacksonville has officially become my college boyfriend. Or more accurately, this boy I kind of dated in college. One weekend he was all that I could have hoped for in the first guy I went out with when I no longer had a curfew. He was cute, funny, smart, and had a steady stream of cash coming in from his parents. The next weekend, he was blowing me off to get wasted with a gaggle of nimrods who lived on the second floor of his dorm. Sometimes he’d show up in the middle of the night for what I assumed was sex, but most often ended with him throwing up in my shower before passing out on the floor of my bathroom. The good times rocked; the bad time, not so much. Jacksonville, you are officially that guy. You’re not worth sticking with over the long haul, but sometimes, when you wash the vomit out of your hair, clean my bathroom, and spring for chocolate chip pancakes, you make it hard to let go.

Dallas (-3) Washington
Did we all watch Friday Night Lights this week? Tony Romo is our Matt Saracen. He played like a champ in his first game, and as such he totally deserves to hook up with the Coach Taylor’s daughter. And this week he’s playing our crosstown rivals, who are comprised entirely of juvenile delinquents who beat up little boys and throw bricks through young girls’ windows.

You know how much I hate Philly? Multiply that by 1000, and it’s close to how much I hate Washington. If you cheer for them, you’re a bad person. There’s no way around it. Well. What can I say about this? Apparently whatever higher power overseas sporting events decided to smile down on the team with the racist mascot. We were just out-coached on this one. After Washington failed to score from like the six inch line (having had SEVEN tries to do so), and we were pinned all the way back inside our own one yard line, Marion Barber should have been the back in for us. He’s the power runner, not Julius Jones. And what, what, what the fuck with all these penalties? That is a matter of discipline, and that is the fault of the coaching staff.

And don’t even get me started on TO’s dropped pass. "If you can touch it, you can catch it," is just another sports cliche at this point, but seriously, how do you make that pass easier to catch? Should Tony Romo has ran up alongside Terrell, and handed him the ball in a decorative gift bag?

I can, however, think of two good things about this game. First, Romo continues to impress. Second, I am successfully molding my previously football apathetic friend Buffy into a Dallas fan. She came out to watch the game with me (third time this year!), and at the end said, "Wow. That really kind of hurts. I’m upset by this!" Hurray for Buffy! You’re practically one of us now!

Buffalo (-3) Green Bay
Green Bay is good enough to beat a team that sucks this much. Obviously Green Bay is not good enough to beat a team that sucks this much.

New Orleans (-1) Tampa Bay
It’s safe to stop picking New Orleans, so I guess I shall. Tampa Bay was barely edged out by the Saints in Week 5, so I expect playing at home to make up for the difference here. Don’t tease me New Orleans! Don’t be Jacksonville!

Atlanta (-5) Detroit
Dun dun dun. My bullshit pick of the week. I like Detroit here. I know I’ve been consistently underrating Atlanta, but this week I expect that to pay off for me. Impressive, no? Two of my three BS picks so far this year have come through. This is not a trend to be ignored. I’m giving myself two points for this.

Chicago (-13.5) Miami
Too cold for the Dolphins. Shut up, you didn't pick this one either.

Minnesota (-5.5) San Francisco
I don’t care at all, so I’m taking San Francisco for my college roommate (Hi Katie!). I'm betting you didn't pick this one either. But I did. Huzzahs for me and Katie!

San Diego (-12.5) Cleveland
No reason not to take the Chargers at home. It was a hard weekend for me, so I’m going to console myself by taking half a point for this one.

Pittsburgh (-2) Denver
If the Steelers lose this game, their season is over. The Steelers' season is over.

New England (-3) Indianapolis
There is no reason for Indianapolis to lose this game. Of course, they will. How many Peyton Manning ads do you think we’ll see per commercial break? I can’t wait until they show the one of him in the moustache bragging about himself. I’m hoping it’s right after he throws his first interception. My esteemed colleague writes about Peyton Manning above, and you should check that out. While not part of the cult of Marino, I tend to have an easier time forgiving him his playoff losses than I do Peyton Manning. Primarily because Manning is for all intents and purposes the offensive coordinator of the Indianapolis Colts. Absolutely everything concerning the offense flows through him to a degree that I’ve never seen happen on another football team. Hell, even Montana, Mariono and Elway had plays called in from the sideline, at least occasionally. As a result of this power structure, when Peyton has a bad game the entire offense it out of luck because there is no way to compensate for him. Admittedly, this doesn’t happen often. In the regular season. In the playoffs, it happens all the time. You can talk about defense all you want, but during the post-season he is the one constant in Indianapolis’s failures.

Congratulations to him for getting this particular monkey off his back. It was a tough thing to do, and he played well. But I’m still going to need to see it in January.

Seattle (-8) Oakland
This game sucks. Seahawks. Is it too late to change my pick here?

Ouch. 4.5 out of 13 this week. And that's a pretty generous tally. Must retreat and regroup.