Weekly Picks

It's going to be very difficult now to have a 9-2 playoffs, but I am going to try.

san francisco -2 CAROLINA
Sometimes young up and coming teams need to lose to a veteran team in the playoffs before they can make their own ascension.

SEATTLE -8 new orleans
Just because the home field and the cold weather isn't a guarantee of success it doesn't mean it never works.

indianapolis +7 1/2 NEW ENGLAND
I think New England is going to win this game, but the Colts offense can put enough points on the board to keep this close, unless Luck plays like he did in the first half against the Chiefs.

BEST BET
DENVER -10 san diego
This spread is about 3 more points than I had hoped to lay, but the fact that the Chargers won this last meeting, and got lucky two weeks in a row means that Denver is probably going to pound them.

Last Week: 2-2 (3 pointa)
Season: 45-44 (36 points)
Best Bets: 1-0 (6-12)
Home Favorites: 0-2 (19-20)
Home Underdogs: 0-0 (2-1)
Road Favorites: 1-0 (12-11)
Road Underdogs: 1-0 (12-12)

ForkGate

Soon New York Mayor Bill de Blasio will issue a mandate requiring all New Yorkers to eat pizza with a knife and fork. Hizzoner visited a Staten Island pizza place, and he went to Goodfella's (good choice) but the problem is, he ate his pizza with utensils.
Nothing could be less New York, and this is the guy running the city.
The Mayor tried to say this practice is common in his ancestral homeland and folding the pizza and eating with your hands is a strictly American thing.
He's a liar, a moron and a dictator. And now he has offended my ancestral homeland.

I Hate the Eagles, But I Love the Eagles Cheerleaders

Two left over notes from the Eagles game I went to with Billy a couple weeks ago, and they both involve cheerleaders.

First, the very hot Casey, came into our suite during the second quarter to pose for pictures. As best I can tell, only the teenage son of one of the executives took her up on her offer. I wanted to, for no other reason than to be able to add the "stupid things I do because they'd make good blog posts" tag to this post, but I demurred because Bill had been worried about acting professionally among his co-workers.

Also, if you're a grown man and you take a picture with a cheerleader, there's no way to avoid looking creepy. And it seems like a self-admission that hugging up on her is the closest you'll ever get to a woman's vagina.

During halftime of the game Rachel Washburn was honored. She recently returned from her second tour of duty in Afghanistan where she served as an Army intelligence officer with a special ops combat unit.

Reaction Shots

The great thing about the internet is that it gives a home to so much content we might never have seen before. But even with all that increased content, and increased access, there are still some things that are usually off limits, such locker rooms and team meetings. But recently we've gotten some good glimpses behind the scenes.

Let's start with the Wisconsin Badgers football team watching the Packers beat the Bears in the last game of the regular season, specifically the moment of Randall Cobb's game-winning touchdown catch.



Next, we go inside the San Diego Chargers locker room after they survived the final regular season against Kansas City's backup to earn a spot in the playoffs against the Cincinnati Bengals. When Mike McCoy finishes talking you can hear a player say "we owe Cincy" and one mocks the "who dey" chant. Clearly this motivated the Bengals to kick the Chargers asses.



The coolest of these is Ric Flair speaking to the San Francisco 49ers the night before their game against the Packers. Entrance music and all.



But my favorite one is from an NBATV show following the Toronto Raptors. Here you can see their initial reaction to the Rudy Gay trade, which also sent Quincy Acy and Aaron Gray to Sacramento.

Song of the Week

"Runaway" - Steve Means
I heard this song in a store an absolutely loved it. I don't know anything about this guy because he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. There isn't even a real youtube video version of this song.

The Things We Do For TON

The poker site I use, Ultimate Poker (benefactors of my $1000 score), is owned by the same company as UFC, as the name would indicate.
Because the site is newly opened to NJ players, and UFC 169 is in New Jersey it only makes that it would give away some tickets to the event to online players.
UFC and Ultimate Poker went big, putting 1,000 pairs of tickets on the line. There are quite a lot of ways to win including winning pretty much any tournament on the site in January, or some random draws on their Facebook page and lots of other ways. Each of the Ultimate Pros had 3 pairs to give away to twitter followers who do certain things like make a video, or do something for charity, or say what you would do with a million dollars.
None of those was up my alley, so I went after Brent Hanks.
He was awarding tickets for the best joke tweeted with the hashtag "makeBrentlaugh."

But here's the problem: UFC 169 is February 1st. The same day as Duke's first trip to the Carrier Dome to play Syracuse. So I can't go. So I will give the tickets* to my only other friend who follows UFC.

You're welcome big TON.

*-assuming there is no fine print about the tickets being non-transferrable. *-assuming if anything cool happens he takes pictures and does a guest post about it.

The NFL is Poop - Wild Card Playoffs

Fuck the Cold
I only wish I had a little more confidence in my knowledge of just how overrated home field advantage is in the NFL, especially when it comes to the weather. Three outdoor games this week, and all three games were won by the road team, from the warmer climate that was supposed to be affected by the bad weather. That doesn't mean every bad weather game will be won by a road team for a Southern city, it just means that there are a million factors in determining which teams win football games, and even in the playoffs, the cold is probably in the bottom 100,000.

Which Leads Me to the Most Important Factor in Wins and Losses
In the NFL you need a quarterback who can make plays when the game is on the line. It can be with his legs, like Colin Kaepernick's 11 yard scramble on 3rd and 8 that put the 49ers in field goal position. Or it can be with his legs and his arm like Aaron Rodgers's brilliant escape and fire on 4th and 2 to Randall Cobb early in the 4th quarter that set up the touchdown that gave Green Bay the lead. Both these quarterbacks played brilliantly in this game and the only reason Rodgers lost is because his supporting case just wasn't up to snuff.

And When Your Quarterback Plays Badly, You Lose
Andy Dalton picked the wrong time to put up an absolute stinker. The Bengals actually led this game 10-7 at the half, and after a Bengals 3-and-out, San Diego scored a touchdown to take a 14-10 lead. The game was still very much in reach but then Dalton fumbled on a long run when he dove headfirst, not feet first, meaning the ball was live and the ground could cause a fumble. (RGIII did the exact same thing earlier this season.)

Then Dalton threw interceptions on the next two series (he now has 1 TD and 6 INTs in three playoff games). But San Diego still led only 20-10 and the Bengals had the ball at San Diego's 41 with under 5 minutes to go. Yes, the situation was dire, but on 4th and 3, they should have gone for the 3 yards, and taken a field goal if it were available. Instead they went deep, missed, and ended their chances to win, with 5 minutes left.

Game of the Week
Indianapolis Colts 45 Kansas City Chiefs 44
One of the greatest, most exciting, craziest games I've ever seen. It's now the second biggest comeback in playoff history after the famous Bills-Oilers game.
In order to score 35 points in one half of football everything needs to go your way, like this fumble that bounced right to Andrew Luck for the touchdown that gave the Colts the lead.

But even besides that he played a great game, got just enough collapse out of the KC defense and led his team to a huge memorable victory.

I do kind of weep for Alex Smith here. He is known as a game manager, and more derisively as Captain Checkdown, but he played a great game, 4 TDs, 0 INTs, 378 yards, a few nice deep balls (a 79-yarder to Donnie Avery), and basically a hell of a game, but his team failed him.

Shoveling It In
One of Alex Smith's other touchdowns lack the artistry of his beautiful bomb to Donnie Avery, but still accounted for 6 points. It was a back-handed shovel pass to fullback Anthony Sherman. But that wasn't the only shovel pass I saw. Andy Dalton hit a big one to Giovanni Bernard as well. And I am pretty sure I saw a couple others over the weekend. It's a pretty risky pass, but cool when it works.

Picture of the Week
Ladarius Green makes a great leaping catch over Chris Crocker (he's 6'6", Crocker is 5'11") for a touchdown.

Game of Next Week
Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots
There's no such thing as momentum but that doesn't mean the team "on a roll" never wins. Confidence does matter though and if Andrew Luck is feeling good he could fling the ball around. But he's going to have to find a different receiver because you know Belichick is going to clamp down on TY Hilton.

If the Super Bowl Were Played Today
Denver Broncos 31 Seattle Seahawks 17
Nothing much changed this week, as expected. But this week is when we separate the contenders from the pretenders, so this space could change.

Mrs. Poop in 15 Years

This new Old Spice ad may seem kind of creepy to some, but to Mrs. Poop and maybe other mothers who don't like their sons getting older, it really hits home.