TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to something more depressing — week 9 picks.

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Sunday
Houston Texans +4.5 at Minnesota Vikings: The Texans have won three straight games and are heading out on the road for the first time in a month. The Vikings are coming off their bye week having two weeks to stew over giving up 50 in Chicago. I think this falls under the “teams who give up 50 generally do pretty well the following game. We also all have to keep in mind that Houston hasn’t really beaten anyone and gave up 21 to a really, really bad Lions team. If I had to pick a game that AP was going to drop one of THOSE games on the world, it’d be this one. Vikings cover.

Cincinnati Bengals +7.5 at Jacksonville Jaguars: Jacksonville hasn’t played well outside their division at all this season. On the other hand, Cincy hasn’t put up more than 14 points since Carson Palmer called it a season. Until they prove they can do better than their current 10 PPG average, I see no reason to pick them this season. Jags cover.

Tampa Bay Bucs +8 at Kansas City Chiefs: The Bucs lost a game on the road last week that they probably shouldn’t have lost. After crushing Carolina and beating up Seattle by 10, I don’t see any reason last week was anything more than a hiccup. Back to crushing bad teams for the Bucs. Bucs cover.

Baltimore Ravens +1 at Cleveland Browns: This is an awful, awful game to pick. Both teams are mediocre bordering on good. Both teams can lose to anyone on any given day. Neither team has a really “holy sh*t” thing to push it in their direction. I can’t really call it for anything other than the Browns have owned the Ravens at home the last few years. Browns cover.

New York Jets +5.5 at Buffalo Bills: This is another awful, awful game to pick. Buffalo has been pretty steadily knocking teams off at home. The Jets desperately tried to lose to the Chiefs last week. I don’t think the Bills drop two divisional games in a row but I do think this game ends closer than a touchdown. Jets +5.5.

Arizona Cardinals -3 at St. Louis Rams: I know the Cardinals have struggled a bit of late but, if they’re actually a decent team, 3 point should be nothing in St. Louis. Cards outright.

Detroit Lions +12.5 at Chicago Bears: The Bears beat the Lions by 30 in Detroit earlier this season. The Lions have done nothing to presume that the outcome of this game would be any different. If this wasn’t a division game, the fact that the Bears are playing the Titans next week would spray paint “TRAP” in bright yellow letters all over this game. Since trap games aren’t usually in the division, I’m calling this blowout for the Bears. Bears cover.

Green Bay Packers +5 at Tennessee Titans: I’ve been hearing some folks calling this a trap game. I don’t think you can, by definition, have a trap game at home. If anything’s a trap game, it would be next week in Chicago before coming home for a divisional game against the Jags. If I had to guess, though, the Titans probably knock off GB and CHI before dropping the undefeated bid to the Jags in Florida. Titans cover.

Miami Dolphins +3.5 at Denver Broncos: Weird game for Denver as they have to play this game at home and immediately go to Cleveland for the first NFL Network game. After two straight losses, I’m pretty sure that Denver will be able to bounce back against the Dolphins… besides the point, taking the Dolphins on the road against a decent team is a shaky prospect, at best. Denver covers.

Atlanta Falcons -3 at Oakland Raiders: The Falcons have proven they can beat bad teams on the road. The Raiders have proven they might be able to beat a college team at home. Falcons cover.

Dallas Cowboys +7.5 at New York Giants: Very rarely do I ever take the favorite in NFC East games if the spread is more than three. However, this game is very rare. It’s not the norm that you get a team in your building for the first time since the previous year’s NFC playoffs that spent every second of the offseason talking about how they were better than you. They spent the entire pre-season talking about how they were better than you. Now, you get a shot at them, in your building, beat up by injury and ripe to be taught a lesson? I think the Giants are going to throw Dallas an EPIC beating this weekend. Giants cover.

Philadelphia Eagles -7 at Seattle Seahawks: Anything less then 10 points makes this an easy pick, I think. The Seahawks’ claim to fame in the last few weeks has been “crushing the 49ers on the road.” I don’t think they have anything the Eagles can’t crush. With Westbrook playing I don’t think the Seahawks’ quest to remain above “pitiful” will work out. Eagles cover.

New England Patriots +5 at Indianapolis Colts: Boy, I bet this match-up sounded really good on paper. I said last week that I don’t think the Colts can really beat up any good teams. The question is “can the Colts’ line be picked apart by the Patriots’ geriatric linebackers”. The answer is “yeah, probably.” Besides the point, I’m pretty sure Matt Cassel will be able to find Randy Moss a couple of times considering the Patriots’ line will be able to pick up and toss most of the Colts’ pass rushers. Patriots outright.

Monday
Pittsburgh Steelers +2.5 at Washington Redskins: Besides the fact that this falls under the NFC East rule I’m pretty sure that Roethlisberger’s motorcycle accident was less punishing then four months of getting the bejesus kicked out of him. Like, I honestly don’t know where people are getting this “The Steelers are a Super Bowl Team” thing… against any good team, B-Roth gets murdered. It’s not surprising that their two losses have come at the hands of teams with good pass rushes. The Giants got to him on around 60% of his drops. I imagine the Eagles did something similar. I see no reason the Redskins won’t continue this trend. Redskins cover.

Five Good Spreads
5 points - Giants -7.5 over Cowboys
4 points - Redskins -2.5 over Steelers
3 points - Eagles -7 over Seahawks
2 points - Cards -3 over Rams
1 point - Falcons -3 over Raiders

I stopped writing these a while back because I couldn’t get myself up for them. I found myself doing my best to find anything else to write about — to the point where I started about 15 things in my draft queue that I’m probably never going to finish. It then occurred to me that the stupid blog-that-lacks-a-name is supposed to be fun. After the infomercial tonight (in which I decided that I can’t think of anyone better to reign in wasteful government spending then a guy who’d drop the cash to rent Invesco Field and buy a half-hour infomercial at 8pm during fall TV season) I’ve decided that I can’t take the election anymore.

For quite some time my decision had been made. I liked McCain in 2000 when he ran against Bush in the primary. I also generally agree with the Republican’s stance that the economy tends to be better off when less of people’s money is sucked in to the gaping black hole in Washington. I also have huge misgivings about Obama’s health care plan. I have a huge problem with a Obama teaching kids from a very young age that it’s totally normal to rely on the government for everything (via the college service tax check from Uncle Sam). The more I read, the more I became bothered by these gigantic government programs that seem to be the cornerstone of the entire Obama campaign.

Then, recently, I came across an article about 401(k)’s and it brought the whole thing together for me. With Obama’s impending election, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and control of the House — all the pet projects Democrats have had for the last 8 years get green-lit. This includes taxing retirement savings (while in the same breath complaining that Americans don’t save enough for retirement… but… whatever). Because an investment account designed to make money over 40 years lost money over six months, the obvious answer is to start messing with a retirement savings program that most people seem to like. On top of that, let’s just call it what it is — a thinly-veiled way to bolster a failing Social Security programs that Democrats are desperate to save… just like their dogged insistence that Bush’s calls to take a gander at what was going on with Fannie Mae was nonsense. Besides… who needs personal savings accounts when the government can provide? Who needs to decide what they need to save when the government can take what you need and just pay you what they think is fair?

From the article: A less radical idea under consideration would permit all workers to contribute to “universal” 401(k) plans.

This is where we’re going?

Besides that point, here is a general list of things supported by the last Congress:

* no secret ballot to unionize
* “fairness doctrine” - allowing the gov to dictate content of media outlets
* various tax hikes (depending on what plans we are talking about)
* dramatic expansion of the definition of a “child” for gov’t health care purposes, or just the all out gov’t plan for all.
* re-institution of drilling bans on OCS and oil shale while insisting we need to end our dependence on foreign oil.
* rewrite of DC gun ban, plus likely expansion of federal restrictions
* a flood of justices to lower courts after the Senate’s 8-years of whining and stamping their feet about Bush appointees.
* adding House and or Senate members, with voting rights, to the House and Senate for DC

We’re staring down the barrel of a massive, New Deal-esque expansion of government with Obama somehow insisting he’s going to manage to cut taxes on 98% of Americans while only 60% of Americans pay federal taxes in the first place. Which seems… stunning. After watching the infomercial, it makes me wonder why so many people are trying to come here illegally when it obviously sucks so much to live here.

And that leaves me with a guy whose 114 years old who voted for a banking bailout, wants to nationalize mortgage loans, and picked maybe the worst VP candidate in the nation’s history in hopes to rally the crazy Religious Right into voting for him when they were never, ever going to vote for Obama in the first place.

But I can’t pick against the Giants because David Carr sucks.

I guess the problem with running on a platform of Change is that some people liked it the way it was. I’m not going to volunteer for socialism… you’ll have to bring it to me.

I’m voting for McCain.