Nurse the Hate: Hate the NFL Holiday Edition

 

The holidays are as laid back as American society gets in the calendar year.  It is the one stretch where work slows down and the regular routine goes out the window.  Even I have made time to chop a large chunk of my index finger off doing food prep instead of busying myself with my normal labors.  It’s all about appreciating the little moments like bleeding all around the Christmas tree that make the holidays so special.  Ah, holiday memories…

This festive holiday spirit even goes into the NFL where a couple of Browns players got arrested on a traffic stop on Christmas night with a bunch of Adderall on them.  I have no idea how one gets arrested at a traffic stop and the police discover you have a bunch of prescription pills on you, but they did.  I would also think that small tablets are easily concealed, though I suspect that the traffic stop went from “Can I see your license and registration?” to “Do you mind if we search the car?” pretty quickly after the Browns player either a) got mouthy or b) went to the “Do you know who I am?” card.  Ah, holiday memories…

So now the intrepid gambler must try to discern which one of these teams playing today is focused and will play true to form, and who has already begun packing for a two week stay at the Bahamas to ride both jet skis and vacationing hillbilly chicks.  I believe the Dallas Cowboys to be a team that has completely packed it in and is looking at these last two games as a way to “evaluate talent”, which actually means “don’t put any risk to our real players and run some practice squad guys out in Cowboy uniforms so we can get this over with and go home”.  I watched the “highlights” of last week’s Cowboys v Jets game where Coach Jason Garrett laughed it up as his third and then fourth string QB tossed interceptions all around the stadium.  The Cowboy season ended when Romo got hurt.  They just don’t care about the score any longer.  They want to see if the backup guard can handle a real NFL game.  Give me Buffalo at home where Rex Ryan will have his team motivated to win meaningless games just like he did as a Jet.  Buffalo -6.

I don’t have any real analysis about this game beyond “The Steelers will kick the crap out of the Ravens today”.  Pittsburgh looks like the best team in football right now.  They are getting healthy and peaking at the right time, as usual.  Meanwhile every Raven of note is currently hobbling around in a cast.  Some people think that the Ravens will keep this close due to “the rivalry”.  Every person that made this a “rivalry” with the Steelers is watching this game, not playing in it.  To bet on the Ravens is to suggest that their shirts have enough muscle memory to propel backup players to victory over the best team in the NFL.  I will take the violent goons in the yellow and black.  I cannot stress this enough.  Pittsburgh -10.5

A quick note on the season win total bets I placed in August.  These have gone quite well.  I have a winner with Buffalo under 8.5 wins as I wisely predicted “…the Bills will reliably rip their fans’ hearts out.  To win in the NFL you need a good coach and a good QB.  The Bills have neither.”  Winner winner chicken dinner.  I also got a big win on San Francisco Under 7.5 wins and noted “The 49ers will be a team that won’t even have their games televised by the end of November.  This is a team that should consider forfeiting 2015 and coming back in 2016 when they’ve had a chance to really think long and hard about what they’ve done.”   Here’s the one that bothers me.  I lost on Washington as I was sure they would be under 6.5 wins, though I couldn’t foresee how bad the Cowboys and Eagles would be this year.  Well, you can’t win them all, but I’ll take two out of three… 

It's raining.  There is nothing going on.  There is a scent in the air.  It's the smell of "opportunity".  I'm going to make it happen.  Come join me.  Let’s get out there and pay for Christmas or in my case hospital bills.