Tag: 2019 predictions

WEEK 5 RECAP 2019

Once a year the Jewish people take a day away from the chaos of normal life to reflect on and atone for our actions of the past year. It is an often-uncomfortable but nonetheless necessary process. Looking back on the last 12 months, one of my takeaways is that I have let the extraordinarily dour circumstances around me affect my optimism. I have begun to expect the worst to an extent that is not healthy, that leads me to sabotage opportunity before it can develop, out of fear that I will be disappointed by an unfavorable outcome. So my intention coming out of this Yom Kippur is to find the strength to be vulnerable, so I can let the good things in again.
Like with anything, sports presents a great opportunity to create a proxy for a larger overall dynamic: I can practice this paradigm shift by applying it to the NFL! The Broncos make this goal difficult. However, this week saw a rarity: the Broncos, Seahawks, Saints, and Packers all won, as did my fantasy team, so… Yasher koach to me.

SEA over LAR
When the Rams were lining up for the kick I told my partner Tasha that the game was over, the Rams won. She said they still have to kick the field goal. I said that was a formality. Tasha: 1 Dangersquirrel: 0.

NO over TB
Not even as close as the score, Jameis struggled again (good sign) and Teddy Bridgewater had his career day. It’s nice to know the offense can contribute to a Saints win without Drew Brees.

OAK over CHI
Jon Gruden sold out to neutralize Khalil Mack and it worked. Josh Jacobs had another big game and Chase Daniel did not step up, despite this London tilt being ostensibly a Bears home game. Some rethinking might be in order as far as whether or not Gruden’s rebuild is working.

BUF over TEN
My kind of game. Neither team was gonna blink on defense. Cairo Santos missed 9 points worth of kicks in a 7 point loss, so now the Titans have signed… *checks notes* Cody Parkey?? The Bills will come out of their bye in two weeks 4-1 with Josh Allen back.

ARI over CIN
As hard as the Cards tried to give this game away at the end, they showed that they are further along the rebuilding process than the Bengals, who have yet to admit that it is in fact a rebuild. Andy Dalton would appear to be in a lame duck season, and has shown fewer moments of real NFL quarterbacking than Kyler Murray, though without AJ Green or John Ross he does have the excuse of having Tyler Boyd as his #1 target.

HOU over ATL
Deshaun Watson (on my fantasy team) passed for over 400 yards, 5 TDs and a perfect passer rating in a game where his mom was made an honorary captain in recognition of her victory against cancer. He did so throwing to Will Fuller (on my fantasy) much more than Deandre Hopkins, which is great character development. Atlanta just cannot put things together, and it’s starting to look like the end of the Dan Quinn era.

CAR over JAX
A surprising back-and-forth game with two surprisingly entertaining young QBs filling in for injured starters. Christian McCaffrey can add this pelt to his wall as another game where he was the difference, though credit also goes to the Carolina defense. Again.

PHI over NYJ
Philly sleepwalked through this one and still covered the 14 point spread. Adam Gase has a lot of good excuses but there’s got to be a level of Bad that is inexcusable.

NE over WSH
Jay Gruden’s death rattle involved going into the second quarter with the first lead anyone has had over the Patriots since the AFC title game despite his beloved Colt McCoy having -9 passing yards. By halftime it was still just 7-13. Then the dam broke, the Pats piled on the points, and long story short Jay Gruden will be the Raiders’ Offensive Assistant in no time.

BAL over PIT
Not encouraging for Baltimore that even after knocking Mason Rudolph out of the game and playing about a half of football against a guy so insignificant I’m not gonna bother looking up his name, it still took a ticky-tack RTP call and a forced fumble in OT to to pull this one off.

MIN over NYG
Glad I overcame my instinct to pick the Giants. That would have been embarrassing.

DEN over LAC
We have to figure out how to stop running into brick walls on offense, but at least this time we actually got in the win column. The Chargers look hapless. It’s hard to think about how the Broncos should be 3-2 with the two losses coming in competitive games on the road against opponents with winning records.

GB over DAL
Impressive comeback attempt by Dallas but the Packers forced a lot of mistakes and put the ‘Boys in too big a hole. I still think Dallas is a good team but their stock was undeniably inflated by an early schedule almost as easy as the Patriots’. Aaron Rodgers’ anti-Cowboys superpowers are remarkable.

IND over KC
A lot like the Eagles’ loss to the Falcons, KC just Got too beat up and never recovered. Even with that being the case, the Colts played almost exclusively man coverage, which is apparently an obvious Achilles heel for this offense now, as noted by the Patriots last year and the Lions last week.

SF over CLE
It was strength against weakness with the Niners pass rush going against the Cleveland o-line. Baker just never stood a chance back there.

Underdogs: 2-2 (7-9) 
Locks: 2-2 (1 over LAR7-6-1)
Survivor: 4-1 BAL, NE, GB, LAC, KC
Don Shula Award Candidates: NE, SF
Matt Millen Sashi Brown Award Candidates: CIN, MIA, WSH
Title Belt: NE defended from WSH (6 week reign)

WEEK 5 PREDICTIONS 2019

Listen, people who play football should get paid to play football. There is an incredible gap between how much old rich white people get paid to own football teams and how much, on average, players actually make. When we think of football players and how they relate to money, we most often think of the likes of Sam Bradford, making many millions of dollars on multiple contracts just for being in the league. But the typical football player’s story is more like: scraping their way through college often racking up debt because they’re not allowed to make money, getting drafted in a late round where the rookie scale is relatively low, getting their bodies wrecked playing on and off for 2-5 years, then getting phased out of the league and entering the workforce as a physically limited and untrained 30-ish-year-old who’s likely to develop significant disabilities in their middle age.
I love that California is not letting the NCAA make millions of dollars off of vulnerable young people putting their bodies on the line without letting those young people take care of themselves and their communities. And I hate that nobody made the Chargers pay Melvin Gordon. If you think they shouldn’t have to pay Gordon because Austin Ekeler is playing well, then you just believe two people should be underpaid to play RB for the Chargers. That’s highkey bootlicker mentality.

Survivor: KC
Locks: CHI, PHI, NE, KC
Underdogs: LAR, BUF, TB, ARI

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose!

WEEK 4 RECAP 2019

After a slew of upsets and an amazing 4-11 split for home teams this week, there are only 3 teams undefeated at the Don’t-Call-It-A-Quarter-Pole, and only 2 if you don’t count the Niners because they’re a week behind now. There are also 5 winless teams, all of them coached by new HCs. Just like in real life, it seems the hegemonic powers are as steady as ever, while the lower class are desperate just to keep surviving.

PHI over GB
Now that we kinda know what a catch is, let’s get really confused about what pass interference is.

CLE over BAL
It was a close thing until the third quarter when Mark Ingram (on my fantasy team) decided to fumble, and Nick Chubb (on my opponent’s fantasy team) went off for like 200 yards and 3 TDs. Baltimore’s defense is kind of a concern, isn’t it?

LAC over MIA
They really are gonna go 0-16. Wild.

KC over DET
Many, myself included, game Detroit a chance in this game, and were not disappointed. Were it not for a 100-yard fumble return, the Lions would have squeezed this one out. But when you give Patrick Mahomes a shot at a game winning drive chances are he’s gonna do it.

CAR over HOU
I was gonna draft Christian McCaffrey in fantasy. I was gonna fuckin do it. And then the draft just… Auction drafts are complicated and I’m bad at them. Anyway, Carolina is legit somehow, so enjoy that. Kyle Allen fumbled 3 times and the Panthers still won. Of course, they also intercepted DeAndre Hopkins in the red zone, so maybe Bill O’Brien deserves some of that credit.

NE over BUF
The Pats got up on the virtue of a blocked punt TD, and stayed up thanks to knocking Josh Allen out of the game in the 4th. Driving with a minute left and a 6 point deficit Matt Barkley got blasted and airballed an INT. I was actually impressed by every aspect of the Bills’ game except the quarterbacking and the lack of dildos thrown on the field, breaking a 4-year streak.

OAK over IND
Speaking of breaking streaks: The Raiders won in Indy! Injuries caught up to the Colts, with the likes of TY Hilton and Darius Leonard off the field. If you went back in time to when the Raiders signed Jon Gruden and told me that in 2019 Team Captain Vontaze Burfict would be suspended from the team for a year for headhunting, I would have been devastatingly unsurprised.

NYG over WSH
That’s gotta feel good for Giants fans. Some guy named [look up guy’s name] replaced Saquon’s production seamlessly, and Daniel Jones had the quintessential Pretty Good Rookie game. Who knew all it took to make this team look good was replacing everything about it?

TEN over ATL
The Titans do this like three times a year. They’ve already used two of them. Wanna bet they’ll use their last one on Denver?

TB over LAR
One of the larger upsets. Remember when I said the Buccs would either look amazing week 1 and then fall apart or look terrible week 1 and then pull it together? Yeah.

SEA over ARI
An easy one for Seattle, which is nice. The Cardinals should be concerned that they’re an easy win for a division opponent in Glendale.

JAX over DEN
I was prepared to lose, but not like this. Not while losing Bradley Chubb to an ACL for the year. Not going up 17-3 and looking like it would be at least 20-3 before Flacco throws one of the stupidest INTs so far and from that point on we give up 779 rushing yards to Leonard Fournette (on my opponent’s fantasy team) and miss 13 sack opportunities every play while the Jags get 95% time of possession. Not once again scoring the go-ahead TD in the last minute only to watch the refs revive the other team’s stalling FG drive with a bullshit RTP. It’s time to start looking to next season, earlier in the season than I’ve ever witnessed before.

CHI over MIN
What the fuck even is Kirk Cousins? The Vikings can’t get consistent QB play out of him, while the Bears lost Trubisky and put in Chase Daniel without missing a beat.

NO over DAL
The Cowboys played a real cupcake schedule in the first three weeks, but I fell for it anyway. The Saints defense looked amazing in this game. If the Saints cane avoid dropping more than a couple games before Drew Brees is back, it might end up being their saving grace, keeping him fresh for the postseason push.

PIT over CIN
Oh god, Cindy is so bad. They made James Conner (on my opponent’s fantasy team) look like Ladanian Tomlinson.

Underdogs: 1-0 (5-7) 
Locks: 3-3 (15-4-1)
Survivor: 4-0 BAL, NE, GB, LAC
Don Shula Award Candidates: NE, KC, SF
Matt Millen Sashi Brown Award Candidates: CIN, MIA, DEN, WSH
Title Belt: NE defended from BUF (5 week reign)

WEEK 3 RECAP 2019

It was really uncomfortable when my teams played each other, and even more uncomfortable when both of the teams I wanted to win didn’t win. Why do we invest so much energy into results we don’t have any control over? It’s a terrible idea, a scam, a hustle. A conspiracy to sell Bud Light. Well guess what? I will never, ever buy Bud Light.

JAX over TEN
Kinda smug about how hard I called this one. The Legend of Minshew is a bit much but he did play pretty well. The AFC South plot thickens…

GB over DEN
Still no sacks or turnovers. We moved the ball very well. We controlled the clock to an extraordinary degree. And then we shot ourselves in the foot a billion times. It’s pretty frustrating. But hey, the Packers are 3-0 and look like they’re just getting their sea legs! That defense is legit and Aaron Rodgers is still Aaron Rodgers.

BUF over CIN
The Bengals figure to have few opportunities to win this season, and they’ve already squandered two of them. The Bills can breathe a sigh of relief for like half a second and then have a panic attack when they look at all the Patriots’ scores in the last 9 months.

DAL over MIA
Is it weird that this felt like a pretty competitive showing by the Dolphins? Oof, this is gonna be a long season y’all. Rosen was definitely an upgrade. You love to see it.

IND over ATL
The Falcons had six possessions in this game. SIX! And yet still Matt Ryan and Julio Jones managed to rack up enough fantasy points for my opponent to bury my ass in the cold ground. Jake Brisket is the Truth, so write that down.

NE over NYJ
I think Old Bill fell asleep at halftime on this one. The Patriots defense still hasn’t let up a touchdown since regulation time of the AFC Championship. That’s technically 17 quarters.

DET over PHI
Not surprised by this result. The Eagles are gonna be like this for the whole Pederson/Wentz era: a Super Bowl contender that sometimes loses back to back regular season games to middle-of-the-pack teams.

MIN over OAK
Legit shit by Dalvin Cook again. Embarrassment for the Raiders, which usually would be great but since we were embarrassed by Oakland we are now embarrassed again by the transitive property.

KC over BAL
A close scoreline but Baltimore was not actually up for the challenge of the Chiefs. Their defense in particular looked pedestrian. It’s gotta be weird for the Ravens to go from playing nobodies to playing the best team in the NFL. Hard to judge them fairly in either case.

NYG over TB
Daniel Jones comes in, sees Mike Evans record a game’s worth of stats in the first 20 minutes, loses Saquon Barkley, has 2 passing TD and 2 rushing TD, and then Tampa miss a walkoff FG to solidify New York’s 18 point comeback? Sounds about right.

CAR over ARI
Oh okay, fine, I was really fucking wrong.

NO over SEA
Every team has a Moore’s Law game, and this was Seattle’s. Trippy shit all day went wrong. And of course I think we all underestimated Sean Payton’s motivation to prove that he can make this team competitive with Teddy Bridgewater. Never underestimate Payton’s pettiness.

SF over PIT
The fact that the 49ers turned the ball over 5 times and still won tells you a lot about Pittsburgh. Mason Rudolph was only so-so, and Minkah Fitzpatrick was a standout on an overmatched defense.

HOU over LAC
The Texans are the NFL’s most generically-branded team, but Deshaun Watson is one of the most fun players in the league to watch. This Chargers slump is in the dictionary under “regression to the mean.” The AFC South plot thickens…

LAR over CLE
I don’t blame Baker so much. But Freddie Kitchens? Yeah, I blame him.

CHI over WSH
Is Dwayne Haskins starting yet?

Record: 9-7 (28-19-1)
ATS: 9-7 +$26 (28-19-1 +$36)
Underdogs: 2-4 (4-7) 
Locks: 5-0 (12-1-1)
Survivor: 3-0 BAL, NE, GB
Don Shula Award: NE, BUF, KC, GB, DAL, LAR, SF
Matt Millen Sashi Brown Award: PIT, CIN, MIA, DEN, WSH
Title Belt: NE defended from NYJ (4 week reign)

WEEK 3 PREDICTIONS 2019

Ben Roethlisberger Mason Rudolph
Andy Dalton
Baker Mayfield
Lamar Jackson
Andrew Luck Jacoby Brissett
Marcus Mariota(?)
Nick Foles Gardner Minshew
Deshaun Watson 
Tom Brady
Ryan Fitzpatrick Josh Rosen
Sam Darnold Trevor Siemian Luke Falk
Josh Allen
Joe Flacco
Derek Carr
Patrick Mahomes
Philip Rivers
Aaron Rodgers
Kirk Cousins
Mitchell Trubisky
Matthew Stafford
Drew Brees Teddy Bridgewater/Taysom Hill(?)
Cam Newton Kyle Allen
Matt Ryan
Jameis Winston
Carson Wentz
Dak Prescott
Eli Manning Daniel Jones
Case Keenum
Russell Wilson
Jared Goff
Kyler Murray
Jimmy Garoppolo

Survivor: GB
Locks: GB, DAL, NE, MIN, LAR
Underdogs: JAX, ATL, BAL, NYG, ARI, PIT

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose!

WEEK 2 RECAP 2019

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)

WEEK 1 RECAP 2019

(Benjamin Franklin voice): “In week one there are only two things that can be said to be certain; an unexpected tie, and the Broncos shitting the bed when I am emotionally vulnerable.”

GB over CHI
Many people hated this game, I loved it. At least one football game every week should have a combined score under 15. I know of some smart people who think Mitchell Trubisky has a lot going for him but I definitely saw Bortles 2.0 out there.

BUF over NYJ
Why did I ever put my faith in the Jets? And by faith I mean fake money. The moment CJ Mosley left the field Josh Allen turned into Steve Young. I was right about Leveon Bell though, dude was all over the field!

KC over JAX
HAHAHAHAHAHA oh my god the Jags lost Nick Foles! He broke his damn clavicle! Oh the poor dude. He is just not meant to be a full-season starter! This bodes very well for my sub-.500 prediction for Jacksonville. Let the Gardner Minshew era begin! Meanwhile, Tyreek Hill was hospitalized and I hope he dies there. Mahomes spent the second half just toying with this defense anyway. Sammy Watkins fantasy owners have earned the right to some smugness.

MIN over ATL
Oh… Yikes… The Falcons started with a blocked punt and just never got past that emotionally. Devonta Freeman only scored me 3 fantasy points and Dalvin Cook kicked Atlanta’s ass on his own. This is How Mike Zimmer wants to play football, so if it’s how things are gonna be the NFC North is gonna get interesting.

LAR over CAR
I wasn’t wrong to think the Panthers should win this game but I was wrong to be so certain they would. Both Cam and Todd Gurley looked mostly like their old selves, though Cam had no designed runs and Gurley spent a couple series on the stationary bike. Christian McCaffrey is looking like a beast, and would have carried the Panthers to victory without some stupid turnovers. Feeling positively about both these teams.

BAL over MIA
Lamar Jackson was 35/35 for 750 yards and 9 TDs by halftime. Hollywood Brown is the best WR named Brown in the NFL. I almost started Will Fuller in my flex instead of Mark Ingram this week. RGIII threw a touchdown. Josh Rosen threw and interception. Most of the Dolphins roster is trying to figure out a way off this sinking ship, all while the front office keeps drilling holes in the hull.

PHI over WSH
I wasn’t scared when the Eagles were down 17-0. Desean Jackson’s return to Philly couldn’t have gone any better, and after a quarter or so of looking rusty Carson Wentz was back to top form. Philly lost Malik Jackson and Washington lost Darius Guice, so I guess we have to put up with Adrian Peterson being suited up next week.

TEN over CLE
I was very prepared for this outcome. After an offseason of being counted out the Titans come out firing? Seen it before. After an offseason of hype the Browns look like crap in their debut? Seen that before too. Not gonna overreact to week 1 but the Cleveland pass blocking was a huge issue.

SEA over CIN
I predicted this would be a surprisingly close game and boy was I ever right. Andy Dalton and the Bengals run defense both looked their best since 2015. Eventually thought Russell Wilson did Russell Wilson things. I was encouraged by what I saw from the Tyler Lockett/DK Metcalf combo. And hey, a win is a win.

LAC over IND
Our first overtime of the year! Promising stuff from Jake Brisket but Adam Vinatieri cost his team this game, which is not something you can often say. The Chargers o-line was concerning, but their running backs made Melvin Gordon’s case a whole lot thinner. And again, a win is a win for the Chargers.

SF over TB
I got this one way wrong. I thought either this Bruce/Jameis thing will start out good and then suck or it’ll start slow and be low-key good by midseason, and I banked on the former, but maybe it just will suck? There was a lot of talk in the offseason about how just about every team has a QB that you can talk yourself into bringing them to the playoffs, but once the season starts things change fast. After 3 INTs, two of them returned for scores, Winston might have the hottest seat of any starter in the NFL. And you know what? Good. Fuck that guy. He’s assaulted one too many uber drivers to garner my sympathy.

DAL over NYG
How about that Kellen Moore offense, eh? On a night where Pat Shurmur completely neglected his greatest weapon on offense (Saquon Barkley) the Cowboys seemed to utilize their entire roster. Amari Cooper, Randall Cobb, Michael Gallup, and Jason Witten all played a part in an unstoppable passing attack that probably added millions of dollars to Dak’s eventual contract. The Giants were what I thought they were but I have to admit I was impressed by Dallas. Please don’t let it happen again.

DET/ARI TIE!!!!!!!!!
OH SHIT YEAH, A TIE! Okay so the Lions spent 3 quarters making the Cards look like a college team and making TJ Hockenson look like Shannon Sharpe, and then suddenly Kyler Murray turns into Russell Fucking Wilson and we have a goddamn game! I love the shortened overtime so much, because it combines two of my favourite things: player safety, and ties. Saw things to be optimistic about from both teams, and who the fuck knows how this result will impact standings when all is said and done? And if I may address coaches Kliff and PATRICIA!! directly: You are now in a position that few coaches have ever found themselves in, in that you are 1/16 of the way to a perfect 0-0-16 season. That’s .500 and possibly even a wild card spot! For the good of all of us, please just always tie. Sincerely, me.

NE over PIT
If any team would conspire with a player on the trading block to have them traded to a different team only to force their way off of that team to sign in New England as a free agent for the cost of 0 draft picks and peanuts on the dollar to what his former teams paid him, what team do you think that would be? If you answered “a team that already has Josh Gordon and Phillip Dorsett looking 7 times better than they did with the teams that drafted them” then you are correct. The Pats have spent the last week wiping their asses with the Steelers, and I have sympathy for select members of that team (Mike Tomlin, JuJu, James Conner, some other players not named not Roethlisberger.)

NO over HOU
Okay but can we talk about how I needed another Deshaun Watson TD to win my fantasy matchup but I also wanted the Saints to win and there was like a 3% chance of that happening BUT IT DID!?!? And way to go Refs jobbing the Saints AGAIN, AT HOME, IN PRIMETIME. They forked up the end of the half and probably cost NOLA 3 points so if we had lost you know there would be hell to pay.

OAK over DEN
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This is the Bad Place. On the same night, the league’s longest week 1 losing streak and its longest week 1 winning streak were broken. Thank god we don’t have to play on that baseball infield ever again.

Record: 10-5-1 (10-5-1)
ATS: 11-5 -$9 (11-5 -$9)
Underdogs: 1-1
Locks: 4-1-1
Survivor: 1-0 BAL
Don Shula Award: BAL, TEN, NE, BUF, KC, LAC, OAK, GB, MIN, NO, PHI, DAL, SEA, LAR, SF
Matt Millen Sashi Brown Award: PIT, CLE, CIN, IND, HOU, JAX, MIA, NYJ, DEN, CHI, ATL, TB, CAR, WSH, NYG
Title Belt: NE defended from PIT (2 week reign)

WEEK 1 PREDICTIONS 2019

Football is back! I kinda care!
Here’s how this works: I pick each game straight up and against the spread. I give myself $100 each week to bet on the games. I pick one survivor pick, which has to be a new team each week, and as many locks as I want. I track my record, how much money I supposedly win or lose, and my locks and underdogs record. If you want analysis, final scores, and snark, I’ll post those each week as a thread on my twitter @1st_and_10_

Survivor: BAL
Locks: KC, BAL, PHI, TB, DET, NE
Underdogs: CAR, OAK

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose!