Nurse the Hate: Hate Wild Card Playoffs Saturday

I was briefly deflated when a concerned friend forwarded me an article about a man that was dragged overboard from a fishing boat after hooking a marlin.  His boat just kept moving ahead without a skipper, leaving him alone in the Pacific.  The man floated around in the ocean for six hours and by sheer chance was found by a passing boat.  He was suffering from shock, hypothermia, and probably embarrassment.  I think the reason this article was sent to me was to dissuade me from this doomed fishing expedition idea I have in Cuba.  If anything, it has made my resolve only stronger.  I could not be any more qualified.  Yesterday I was working out with well over eighty (80) pounds of weight for some back exercises, so I cannot imagine me having any problem wrestling a six hundred (600) pound angry billfish into a leaky boat in angry Caribbean Seas.  My lack of experience will be no factor in this mission.

Where lack of experience will be a factor is in the NFL Playoffs this weekend.  Three (3) starting QBs are replacing the “real” starter.  Oakland’s QB Connor Cook has had so little playing time that one of Oakland’s starting tackles noted “he didn’t even know what his voice sounded like” until practice this week.  That doesn’t sound like a good indication of a team about to play well.  Meanwhile the Texans will start the completely ineffective Brock Osweiler.   The Houston Texans thought it was a good idea to give Osweiler $72 million to start at QB, which is roughly the same as giving Matt Flynn $72 million.  Osweiler is playing just like everyone in the league but Houston thought he would.  Houston is like a buddy of yours that buys a Mercury Lynx and then asks you with optimistic eyes “Pretty kick ass car, right?”.

This begs the question, which is the way to go?  Take Oakland with a guy that has never played or Houston with a guy that has played pretty poorly?  It is really difficult to build up much enthusiasm for either argument.  Betting on this game is admitting to the world that you have a problem.  No one wants to see someone reeling around a sports bar smelling of bourbon screaming at Brock Osweiler or Connor Cook.   It’s absolutely pathetic to think that is even a possibility for some degenerates.  Betting on this game is a flare gun shot up saying “help me” in flashing letters.  By the way, I am on OVER 36.5.    

I cannot feel any stronger about Seattle beating Detroit.  Detroit has that Great Lakes area cloud of doom that floats over them like a cloud of pollution.  The last playoff game the Lions won was in 1957.  You know how I make shit up with crazy sounding stats?  This isn’t one of them.  1957.  Leather Tuscadero was still cranking out the hits back then.  So now the Lions are going to fly out to Seattle and win there in January against a surging Seahawk team?  I cannot construct a scenario in my mind where a bunch of guys in Lion uniforms are dancing around while dejected Seahawk fans file out of the stadium in stupid face paint.  I can’t do it.  Seattle -8.

Season Record:  28-13