Nurse the Hate: NFL Week 2

I’ve been busy this week trying to get my life together.  It’s been a full week of “rope a dope” as I take body blows trying to outlast my opponents and cobble together whatever constitutes something resembling a win.  Thank God for the illusion of control that sports gambling affords.  Sunday afternoons can once again be moments of self medicated peace as I rail against the injustice of an inevitable roughing the passer penalty that will cost me some hard earned American Green.  It’s the little things…  Now, onto the games.    

I have a hard time understanding what is going on in Buffalo.  The team made the playoffs last year for the first time since the War of 1812, and they immediately cut bait on Tyrod Taylor without a tangible plan.  I had to call Leo to see if he had become the GM over there, which would have been better than the current state in Western New York.  “Yeah…  we released Tyrod Taylor as QB…”  But Mr. Love?  Who is going to be the quarterback?  “Ah… Ah… Well… It’s a little fucked up.  But… It’s going to be great.  What the fuck were we talking about again?”.  This appears to be The Plan in Buffalo.  The Bills will have to choose between running Nathan Peterman out there, who I consider to be “The Poor Man’s DeShone Kizer”, or Josh Allen, who is a new version of “Rookie Blake Bortles”.  Neither of these options are conducent to winning football bets. 

The Bills are a much better team at home than that abortion they trotted out in Baltimore last week.  This is probably due to the fact that 40,000 dudes in beards have been drinking Labatt Blue and pissing in the woods surrounding the parking lots in Orchard Park since Thursday.  There is an angry blue collar Viking mentality that seeps onto the field that will probably freak out the SoCal vibe Chargers.  This might even last until the second half, at which point someone on the Charger sideline will realize “Hey, we’re playing the Bills.  Let’s win this and get back to LA and get organic free range hemp smoothies.”.  I don’t know how the Bills can score enough to keep pace with the Chargers in the event they score more than 7.

As the Chargers generally play poorly when going east playing at 1pm, I don’t love them giving the 7.5.  I don’t know why these guys can’t adjust to flying a few hours east.  I do red eyes over to Germany, drive around in a van, and then play a show after waiting around 8 hours and drinking 17 beers.  Then again, I don’t have a point spread on “OVER seven lyrical mistakes Miller in set 1”.  Regardless, I’m going to tease the Chargers with the Eagles. 

Philadelphia played that NFL Thursday night kickoff TV special clusterfuck that seems like 2 years ago.  Meanwhile Tampa stunned the Saints away last week with an improbable asskicking from the manly beard of Ryan Fitzpatrick.  I love Fitz and I love his flowing beard.  That beard makes you forget he’s a Harvard Man slumming it for some cash until he slides into some Old Boy Network finance gig to suck from the teat of Wall Street.  Fitzpatrick as an NFL QB is the same as me as a cowboy.  All are not as they appear. 

I think the Bucs spent this entire week giving each other high fives saying “Bro!  We won Sunday!” forgetting that the Eagles are coming in to break their bones.  The Eagles, even the Nick Foles Eagles, will bring Tampa back to reality this week.  I seem to recall the Eagles winning the Super Bowl last year, which suggests to me that they might be good.  The Eagles also have had an additional three days to rest and prep for this game.  I think the word most sportswriters will use to describe this game on Monday will be “dispatch” as in “The Eagles dispatched the Bucs Sunday”.  Chargers -.5/Eagles +2.5

The Redskins v Colts line has moved from Redskins -3 to Redskins -6.  Whenever you see a line move three points that quickly it means The Public has poured money onto one side.  I will continue to preach to anyone that listens that The Public doesn’t know anything.  A lifetime spent in advertising has taught me that no matter how stupid you think the general public is, you haven’t even begun to grasp the lack of basic reasoning out there.  Spend a few minutes and watch any video interview that is described as “Trump supporter defends president”.  That’s about half of the country that is armed with that type of brain.  Even as you read this there is a guy in a red MAGA ball cap that is shoveling money across a betting window on the Redskins.  His belief is that since the Redskins beat the shit out of an awful Cardinals team last week, they will beat the shit out of EVERY TEAM they play in the future.  This dope has no idea that the Colts were one freak play away from beating a good Bengals team last week and the Redskins are still the Redskins.  I’ll take the points here and assume that Vegas is once again fleecing The Rubes.  I’m not betting ON the Colts so much as betting AGAINST the wisdom of the American People.  Colts +6   

Season Record: 2-1