Nurse the Hate: Jacksonville and NFL Week 7

I had a very unsettling dream last night where I was on a small dive boat out in the ocean.  I couldn’t see land in any direction.  The sea was very rough, the boat pitching violently.  I had to get into scuba gear and jump into the sea to make a very deep dive to a shipwreck where a small box supposedly contained something of great value.  The sea was a disturbing color of green, a light sandy green that suggested little visibility once I entered the water.  After almost falling down on the clumsy walk with my tank and flippers to the platform, I fell into the bracingly cold water.  There was almost no visibility as I descended.  A huge silhouette swam past me above, an enormous predator.  I kept telling myself not to panic.  I could feel the presence of the massive shark looming nearby.  I sunk to the bottom of the ocean and felt along the sludgy sand bottom for the box, the only sound my labored breath bubbling out.  I kept cutting my fingers on sharp rusty edges of debris as I desperately searched.  At last I found the box, which was like a small treasure chest.  I struggled to open it, to get the great treasure.  Inside it was one item, a small antique key. 

I don’t know what that means, if anything, but I have my suspicions.  I do know that I am looking for answers in my NFL picks, where I have been "struggling".  It's been a half point here, a half point there...  It still comes up loser.  The issue is mostly that I don’t know anything, and these games have razor thin margins of error.  I do feel that the tide might be turning though.  This shows what a sap I am.  I think I might need to get more aggressive.  It's the only option.  It's a weird time right now.  I am so far beyond burning the candle at both ends.  I have entered into a period of time where it is all activity, activity, activity.  I don't really know what is going on as I am juggling too many things at once.  The only course of action is to continue moving until the wheels come completely off.  Only when sitting amongst the smoking debris can I be expected to assess what has happened.  Until then, let’s go…

I am betting on the Jacksonville Jaguars this week.  I have been to Jacksonville once.  I played a show at a place called the Moto Lounge with The Cowslingers.  (I wrote “Gonna Win The Lottery” on the stairs of a building outside the club before the show for any Cowslinger trivia buffs out there.)  Jacksonville was most noteworthy for our visit to a beach which was populated by white trash dope addicts.  Skinny young men and women with sores on their skin sat against a horrible smelling cinder block latrine while we attempted to walk through the needle infested sand to hop in the ocean.  These were people that even Kid Rock would shy away from.  Angry hillbillies in jacked up pickup trucks roared through the parking lot.  An almost empty Hooters sat near a sad port.  The place felt like a great town to have your car broken into, or maybe sleep with a tired eyed single mother that would steal your wallet while you slept.  Grim place.

I am not going to let that stop me.  I feel like the Jaguars will be so happy to leave Jacksonville and play in London that they will score some points and keep it close against Buffalo.  I don't even know who is on the Jaguars.  Does Maurice Jones Drew still play?  It's all about betting against the raised expectations on the Bills.  Rex Ryan will probably try to show his players how cool he is by letting them go crazy in London pubs, and as a result the Bills will play down to their level of competition like all Rex Ryan coached teams.  The Bills have 8-8 written all over them despite having great talent.  Rex seems like an interesting man that isn’t a particularly good football coach.  He will be there three years and leave in disgrace.  This is not to suggest anyone in Jacksonville knows what they are doing either.  I’m just all over the points on the little team field trip to England.  Jacksonville +5.5.

A few weeks ago the story on the Raiders was that “They Are Back Baby”!  Then they lost to the Bears, went on a bye week and are perceived to suck again.  This is good for degenerates like myself.  All the same people that think the Raiders suck just watched Phillip Rivers throw for 500 yards and almost beat the Packers on the road.  The amazing thing about the NFL is that perception amongst the public is whatever happened last week will happen again this week.  That is never the case except for the Patriots winning and the Browns losing in soul crushing ways.  The human mind craves order from the chaos.  Things are supposed to happen in a systematic manner.  When they don't, the mind wants to reshuffle the deck into a more ordered revision of history.  San Diego will always throw for 500 yards.  If they almost beat Green Bay on the road, they'll kill the lowly Raiders at home.  Of course.  Yes. 

Don't get me wrong.  I hate betting on the Raiders.  They have let me down almost as much as those loser Raider fans dressed like Darth Vadar and scary cavemen in their cheap seats.  I wonder with the rapid "gentrification" of Oakland, if the new hipster crowd will become Raider fans?  By the way, "gentrification" means that the poor people that lived there and ran used appliance and wig shops get moved out for dudes in mustache wax that open shops dedicated to free range organic antique bicycles and artisan espresso sweaters.  If you drive a tow truck or deliver pizzas in the Bay Area, chances are you have tickets in the end zone at Raider games.  I have a hard time seeing someone that waits tables at a vegan hot yoga herbal tea shop putting on skeleton makeup and yelling terrible things at Derek Carr.  Here's what I know...  San Diego is 1-7 ATS at home.  It's just difficult to play great football when it's 76 degrees, sunny, and everyone wants to hang out at the beach.   What the hell.  I'm on the Raiders +4.5.    

Season record a bleak 4-7.