The football gods giveth, and the football gods taketh away.
TB over CAR
Something is seriously wrong with Cam Newton. And I’m not talking about the glam babushka costumes he’s wearing for press conferences now, that shit is awesome. I spoke too soon saying he was back. Whether physically or mentally, he’s suffering. You hate to see it. And you should also hate to see the way the Panthers misused Christian McCaffrey in a Thursday Night home loss to an inferior division rival.
SEA over PIT
HALLELUJAH! My affection for the Seahawks doubled on Sunday as they have knocked Ben Roethlisberger out for the year!! It’s all coming together! Mason Rudolph will now be the Steelers’ starter and I can dance on Roethlisberger’s grave! Will he even come back to football? I really hope not. God this is great. And on top of that, the Seahawks receiving group, which looked like a weakness at the beginning of the year, seems to have at least a decent foundation in DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett.
GB over MIN
The Packers so far are a really good defense that keeps the opposing team smothered while the offense waits for its brief moment of genius. It sounds suspect but they are 2-0 after beating their top rivals for the division in back to back weeks.
SF over CIN
I should have gone with my damn gut and picked the Niners. This is what I get for not caring about games: I go with the chalk and get burned for it. But I still don’t care.
BUF over NYG
Ugh, why did I pick the Giants? The Bills are by far the best New York team right now. Hell, they ARE the only team that’s actually in New York. MetLife is their home stadium too now, they just mugged it off of the Jets and Giants. If Daniel Jones doesn’t start next week I don’t even know what to make of it. They need SOMETHING to take pressure off Saquon.
BAL over ARI
Good showing by Kyler Murray to hang in there, but the Ravens are unstoppable right now. I’ll take it seriously if they can keep it going next week against the Chiefs. For now they’re just beating up on the D2 of the NFL.
DET over LAC
The hits keep coming for the Chargers. Detroit was so so close to starting 2-0. I’m a big believer in Kerryon Johnson and Kenny Goladay.
IND over TEN
Whatever AFC South Nonsense happened on the field was overshadowed by the honest-to-god fire on the field before the game that was the result of a flamethrower that fell over. Honestly it’s a wonder it’s taken this long for that to happen, when you think about it. Very Titans-y results so far this season.
DAL over WSH
Who picked the 10-point spread for this game, again? Oh yeah, that would be me. Only like 4 more semi-competent losses to go before the Potatoes start Dwayne Haskins, right?
HOU over JAX
In what would somehow not be the only instance of this tactic this week, Doug Maronne opted to go for 2 after a last-minute TD that put his team down 1 before the PAT. Leonard Fournette got stuffed on the goalline. This is the kind of shit that wins or loses divisions down the road, so it’s gotta sting after the Jaguars kept the Texans (especially the ones on my fantasy team) in check all game. Then again the Texans kinda kept themselves in check. Am I really bad at fantasy football?
NE over MIA
My fantasy opponent had the Patriots defense so fuck you.
KC over OAK
Deceptively close for the first quarter, and then Mahomes threw 300 yards and 4 TDs in the 2nd quarter. So yeah, that’s how that’s going. I would actually like to thank the Chiefs for giving me a plausible way to keep the Patriots out of the top of my power rankings this week.
CHI over DEN
I was so prepared for the Broncos to lose, but I was not prepared for that. After 3.5 quarters of shitty football from both sides, the Broncos drive to the goalline down 7, get picked off, force a punt, drive back to the goalline, score a touchdown, line up for a game-winning 2-point conversion, get flagged for delay of game, send out Brandon McManus for the game-tying PAT, miss the kick, get a do-over thanks to an offsides flag, come back out for a 2-point try, make the 2-pointer with 36 seconds left, kick the ball to Chicago, get flagged for the most bullshit roughing the passer you will ever see, get the Bears to 4th and 15 with 20 yards to field goal range, give up a 25-yard pass as time expires, have the refs decide that there was 1 second on the clock when the player went down and that the Bears called an insta-timeout, and watch Eddie Pineiro kick a game-winning 53-yarder. The Broncos need to figure out how to move on from Isaac Yiadom and Garrett Boles, because they are losing football games just the two of them. Somehow a team that has Vic Fangio, Von Miller, and Bradley Chubb, has gone 8 quarters of football with 0 sacks.
LAR over NO
In a swift move by karma, Focus On The Family supporter Drew Brees is now also out of the lineup with a fuckedup hand. This happened pretty early in the Saints game and Teddy Bridgewater did not get the job done. That being said, the Saints should have had a halftime lead after Cam Jordan scoop-and-scored a clear Jared Goff fumble — except the refs blew the play dead and when the replay showed that they were completely wrong they couldn’t allow the return, just the recovery. Therefore the Saints got the ball but on their own 30, leading to a punt. The league has got to figure out how to stop certain teams from getting fucked over repeatedly, because they keep lending credence to conspiracy theories. Having that touchdown would have changed a lot of the tone and strategy of the game moving forward, so while the Saints lost by more than 7 it’s easy to think the egregious reffing mistake was at the core of it.
ATL over PHI
Not actually surprised by this outcome, especially not after the Eagles spent all night dying on the field like it was All Quiet On The Western Front or something. Julio Jones took a 4th and 3 screen 50 yards to the house, what was left of Nelson Agholor dropped a long pass that got lost in the lights, Zach Ertz was tackled 2 Planck lengths short on 4th down in the red zone, and that’s all she wrote. Two NFC contenders went in and two NFC contenders came out.
CLE over NYJ
“It’s so weird to hear the names of people on the Browns and have them be people I recognize. Like, that I recognize for being good. Usually if you told me a team had a mono problem I would just assume it was the Browns.”
– My partner Tasha
Record: 9-7 (19-12-1)
ATS: 8-7-1 +$19 (19-12-1 +$10)
Underdogs: 1-2 (2-3)
Locks: 3-0 (7-1-1)
Survivor: 2-0 BAL, NE
Don Shula Award: BAL, NE, BUF, KC, GB, DAL, SEA, LAR, SF
Matt Millen Sashi Brown Award: PIT, CLE, CIN, JAX, MIA, DEN, CAR, WSH, NYG
Title Belt: NE “defended” from MIA (3 week reign)
Dangersquirrel vs the NFL 