Nurse the Hate: NFL Week 7, 2014

I was on quite a roll there with the NFL.  Oh, I had all the answers.  But those days are over.  I am back to floundering out there in the wilderness like all the other lost souls.  It happened so quickly.  One moment I was laughing it up at a Belgian Beer event in a stupid elf cap watching winners fall to me like fluttering leaves.  Then, just a week later I find myself nursing a sore jaw from a dental procedure, hobbling around in a walking boot with Achilles tendonitis, and with the definite scent of “loser” all over me.  I am like one of those guys you see at a casino checking for change in the slot machines.  Unshaven.  Smelling of stale cigarette smoke.  Sipping the last inch of draft beer from a plastic cup.  Eyes darting around looking for a wounded animal to pounce on and get back in The Game.

I think I have found that wounded animal.  As I gaze upon the shady casino of life, I notice a drunken tourist with a handful of chips weaving across the hideous carpet.  His goal is the hard plastic bench by the men’s room where he hopes to clear his head and rest, but where he will pass out.  The chips will fall from his relaxed hand to be gathered by the first cheetah to wander by the plain.  Yes, there is a time to prosper from others misfortune, and this week’s misfortune will fall on the San Diego Chargers.

The Kansas City Chiefs are coming in this week after a bye.  This is not really that noteworthy to the players as they probably spent the off week driving around Kansas City noting how Caucasian and dull the inhabitants of Kansas City are and wishing they played for a team in a more cosmopolitan part of the country.  Something you don’t hear much in NFL locker rooms:  “I can’t wait for the bye week so we can go party in Kansas City.”.  The only reason I bring up this bye week is that KC coach Andy Reid is 13-2 after a bye week.  If given an extra week to prepare, that hefty fella will figure out a way to win.  What the hell else is he going to do?  He's in Kansas City with a week off.  In all candor, I think I went with this logic last year when he was 13-1 after a bye and lost my ass, but I’m going to the well again.  I’m taking Kansas City +3.5 over San Diego.

A way to beat a losing streak would not appear to be betting against Peyton Manning and the Broncos at home, but that’s what I am doing.  I haven’t checked the stats too closely, but I am under the impression that the Broncos haven’t ever lost at home.  Ever.  I think there were a couple fuzzy years when Brian Griese was the QB there, but that might have been some horrible memory implanted into me when I had that oral surgery.  I looked on the world wide interwebs, and I wasn’t able to find any photos of this.  I am going with my memory alone which tells me that the Broncos were unbeatable at home with John Elway, who then handed the keys to the franchise to Peyton Manning, who will then hand it over to a now groomed Andrew Luck in some sort of ceremony where dudes in robes are chanting and a virgin is sacrificed at a pot dispensary near the stadium. 

I will not let this 47-year Denver home winning streak deter me.  I am on San Francisco +7.  Since 2011 the 49ers have the best road record in the NFL.  True, they get to beat the crap out of generally lousy Arizona and St. Louis every year, but they must have beaten a good team now and again, right?  Right?  These guys are 11-2 ATS on the road in their last 13.  I think it has something to do with how insane Harbaugh gets and the team is driven so crazy they take it out on their opponents, but that’s just a theory.  San Francisco +7 in what is clearly a big mistake.  

To prove what a loser I have become, I am considering not only taking Miami +3 at Chicago, but maybe on the money line.  Sure, they broke my heart last week with that push they gave up to Green Bay at the bitter end.  Yes, I cannot identify more than two players on the team even after watching a full half of their game last week.  This is another one of those games where I am betting AGAINST Chicago more so than betting WITH Miami.  Chicago is 1-10-1 at home against the spread, the worst mark in the NFL.  This is because Vegas knows damn well that the hordes of dumb fuck Bears fans love betting on their team, especially at home.  After a week of sports talk chatter about how Jay Cutler is really a good QB and how he is “maturing”, they will all have their hearts broken when Cutler has a backbreaking turnover late in the 4^th quarter.  Cutler is 11-27 as a home favorite in his career, and someone told me he was the QB in Denver at one time (another fact that I cannot prove as this would clearly suggest that the Broncos 47 year home winning streak I pointed to earlier was totally fabricated).  By Wednesday the poor residents of Chicago will convince themselves that all is well with the Bears, and the process will repeat itself.  Oh, one more thing…  Two thirds of the public is on Chicago…  Miami +3.

Season record:  10-7-1