Nurse the Hate: Hate the NFL Week 2

I apologize for the late post this afternoon.  I know many of you depend on my NFL insights so you can less than slightly break even on your own ill-founded wagers. I was swaggering around last night after winning a big Bama wager with a bellyful of Southern Tier 2X Rye Ales.  Look at The Big Man flush with cash.  Look at that expression on his face.  Such confidence and with a cocksure strut.  He must have all the answers.  

I found that crisp assurance of a crystal clear vision of the future disappeared when the Southern Tier wore off.  It must be something in the rye.  I took the hounds on their marathon Sunday walk where I do most of my big thinking.  As we worked our way through the woods things began to once again take on an inarguable clarity as they always do.  The quiet calm of nature helps wipe away the noise of day to day life.  It is my own Walden Pond. 

First of all, let’s talk about the Arizona Cardinals.  With the exception of that bizarre Kurt Warner Super Bowl season, the Cardinals have sucked with the regularity of the change of the seasons.  There is a certain comfort to know that as the leaves fall to earth here in Ohio, somewhere the Cardinals are getting pasted in the desert.  That is why it takes a real blind optimism to throw money down on the Cards today, but hear me out…  The Cardinals are playing the Lions in Phoenix today.  The Cardinals are good at home, winning nine of their last twelve.  The Lions can’t win on the road, losing ten of their last twelve.  These are trends that the savvy gambler pays attention to on a Sunday.  I am all over the Arizona Cardinals +2 at home. 

I took Kansas City -3 today, as I figured that the Cowboys got six turnovers last week and still just won by three.  If your team gets six turnovers in the NFL, I believe that team wins by an average of 71 points normally.  The Cowboys must kind of suck.  They get so much press anyone would think that the team is a powerhouse, but they have gone 9-7 for the last 22 years if memory serves me correctly.  Jerry Jones is more worried about being a maverick outlier owner than he is about actually doing what he needs to do to win football games.  I have bought in on the Chiefs hype of being a “surprise team” (despite the fact that every media outlet from US Weekly to Boy’s Life has plugged them).  This is probably a huge mistake on my part.  Regardless, I’m on KC -3.

I’m thinking about the under on the Jacksonville at Oakland game, but I fear that even considering watching this game will mark me as a dangerous degenerate.  This game has so little interest in it, I’m not sure if it even is televised.  The recaps about it in tomorrow’s press will probably be pen and ink drawings.  I do know that Jacksonville is starting Chad Henne, who is considered by NFL scouts to be “the poor man’s Brady Quinn”.   Jacksonville hasn’t scored more than 20 points in a regular season game since last Thanksgiving weekend.  Oakland has been under the total in seven of their last eight.  I’m thinking UNDER 41.  God help me.

Season to date:  1-1