Nurse the Hate: Hate The NFL Week 3 at The Mall

The two women walked with defiant purpose.  They each clutched multiple shopping bags.  They were in the apex of their beauty, the age when youth and maturity have a perfect delicate balance.  Well put together, they had obviously spent much time and thought into their appearance.  This was sharply contrasted by the disdainful expressions they maintained behind enormous sunglasses.  While their clothes were specifically designed to attract attention, they were angry when passersby glanced at them.  They climbed into a black Mercedes SUV that cost as much as a small house.  At the very bottom of the back window was a small tastefully placed Pittsburgh Steelers sticker.

I don’t know if this is exclusively the reason why I am going to bet against the Steelers this week.  I obviously want some small misfortune to visit those two.  They were just so sure they had all the cards in the deck, and dammit I think they do!  They were probably going to a party that looked like a rap video.  Here I am hunched over a small table looking at the sports page like a degenerate, a twisted monster.  Does this make me petty?  Yes.  I cannot deny this character flaw.  I am clearly bitter at these two thoroughbreds going through their paces at the corporate created shopping village with requisite Olde Tymey Farmer’s Market with America’s most expensive Amish grown vegetables.  By the way, why is it generally assumed that the Amish are providing vegetables of superior quality?  They aren’t exactly filling me with confidence over there with their bad shoes and Three Stooge's haircuts. I challenge you to find a difference in the $8 butternut squash they are selling versus the Mega Grocery Store version for $1.25.  As far as I know those wily Amish are wheeling their buggies into Wal Mart, buying those squash at list price and then tossing them on a fold out table at the Olde Tymey Farmer’s Market at six times cost.  Bunch of suspender and bonnet wearing carnies…  I’ve got my eye on them.

It’s more than just my petty jealousy of the snotty shopping girls as to why I'm betting against Pittsburgh this week.  I did a little research and found an astounding amount of money is on Pittsburgh this week over St. Louis.  I am aware that the Steelers can apparently score at will.  I am also aware that LeVeon Bell returns this week after his suspension for selling LSD cookies to people at Burning Man or whatever the hell he did.  However, I am seeing 75-85% of The Public is on Pittsburgh.  If they zig, you zag.  Example.  If 85% of The Public thinks the Pope won’t bust out a keytar and do Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” during his papal address in Philly today, I’m betting he will.  I am also betting he hits that high note at the end of the chorus too.   This Pope rocks.  St Louis +2.

I’m doing things I never thought I would do.  I enjoyed a piece of salmon the other day.  I test drove a Mini Cooper, though to be perfectly honest it was just to see if I could hit Dead Man’s Curve here in Cleveland at 65 mph and not have the Mini Cooper slide into the wall.  (It didn’t.)  I read a science textbook to see if I could figure something out.  (I couldn’t.)  I listened to Best Coast’s new release and liked it, though I must also admit a smoldering grudge against the singer chick and husky guitar player fella for waiting an hour to go on in San Antonio three years ago and totally screwing us at that Festival we all played together.  Yet, what is life without new experiences and shifting views? 

It is a Brave New World.  I am doing all sorts of amazing new things.  Watch this!  In this New Guilded Age I am betting on the Houston Texans.  The Texans have already bungled their starting QB situation two weeks into the season when they discovered Brian Hoyer was Brian Hoyer and stuck Ryan Mallet in at QB after three quick quarters.  Unfortunately for the Texans they discovered Ryan Mallet is Ryan Mallet, which means he is the poor man’s Jeff George, or “an unlikeable simpleton with a cannon arm”.  That quote came directly from the Patriots scout reports.  OK, I made that up but I wish it was true.  None of that will matter this week as the Texans get to play at home against a shit Tampa team with a rookie QB that will have the deal with JJ Watt all day.  I watched HBO’s Hard Knocks where Watt flipped a thousand pound tire 65 times.  How the hell is Tampa going to deal with a Frankenstein monster of a guy that runs like a cheetah and tosses half ton tires around like potato chips?  The answer is, of course, they won’t and the Texans defense will carry the day.  Houston -6.5

Season Record:  3-4