Nurse the Hate: The More You Know, The Less You Know or NFL Week 4

 I have diligently returned to my wine studies.  I recently joined a tasting group, accurately dubbed "NE Ohio's Meanest Tasting Group", consisting of a couple of Master Somm candidates, a serious collector/educator with an amazing amount of experience, and my faithful female companion who at times has an annoyingly more perceptive palate than I do.  Once a week at dusk, we pour blind samples of wines that are allegedly representative of their regions/grapes and identify the wines.  What at first glance is a simple parlor trick is actually just paying attention and using deductive reasoning.  What does the wine smell like?  Is the acid high or low?  What are the tannins like?  Flavor profile?  Anyone can do it.  It just takes dedication and concentration.  In an afternoon I could teach you how to tell the difference between a pinot noir from France and California.  The trick is to be able to tell the difference between an Alsatian Pinot Gris and a Pinot Grigio from Friuli, or my personal albatross, a Spanish Albarino.  The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know anything.  

This week a new person was invited to sit in.  It's an intimidating group to offer an opinion to on an unidentified wine that you have just been handed 45 seconds ago.  You've got a guy complaining about an obscure Burgundian producer's barrel aging protocols changing who gets cut off by a guy that makes a joke about a chemical compound in malolactic fermentation to a woman mocking someone for bringing a Nebbiolo the previous week that lacked typicality for the region.  On top of that he just saw the other woman off-handedly identify a South African pinotage, and then back to the other "inexperienced" woman go against all the other test candidates to correctly note the previous wine was not a good quality Pouilly Fuisse but rather a cool climate California chardonnay, in this case Monteray County CA.  The guy had rolled into the tasting feeling good, especially since he had brought in an unbelievably obscure Italian wine for everyone to try.  It was so obscure that one of the tasting group said "I will literally eat my hat if any of you can identify this blind."  Unfortunately for him, I had this grape about ten months earlier and happened to recall it.  "You going to eat that hat with melted cheese?  Because I think that's a grignolino."  It's a cold blooded group.  I made him at least chew the hat.

That's the way life is sometimes.  One day you are The Man at your patio party being the Roy Hobbs of wine getting ohhs and ahhs impressing the neighbors with knowing the difference between Chianti Classico and Brunello, and then you are in the deep water with a guy that can tell you what part of a village a Sancerre came from just by smelling the glass for 6 seconds.  It doesn't mean you suddenly suck.  It's just life.  There's always someone better than you.  Every waiter in Nashville was the best open mic player in his/her shitty town before they got to the deep water of Music City.  It's a big jump from The Town Fryer to headlining The Hi Watt.  Hell, Joe Burrow was effortlessly the best college football player EVER last year at LSU.  He was The Man.  Then he became a Bengal...

I beg you to take a moment to look at this clip.  This is Joe Burrow's "welcome to the NFL moment".  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUVCIlaLOTY   This is the moment when Joe realized with crystal clarity that he had taken a step up and things would be different.  If you ever wondered what it would look like if you were put in a uniform and thrown out on the field, it would look something like this.  The good news is that this happened during an Eagles v Bengals game, so only 17 people saw it.  The rest of the world still believes Joe Burrow is the fresh faced light 'em up Heisman Trophy hero that is making a monster impact.  No.  He is a young kid getting the absolute shit beat out of him on last season's worst NFL team.  The Bengals are still the Bengals.  They didn't lose last year because of Andy Dalton.  They lost because they have no defense and no offensive line.  That same awful team is giving points to Jacksonville, an admittedly bad team that fortunately for us still has the incorrect narrative of a team that is "tanking".  When I look at Jacksonville, I see a team that fights hard every week.  When I see Cincinnati, I see a horribly coached team that is offering up their #1 pick as a human sacrifice.  Last week I went against a basic gambling precept.  Always bet AGAINST Cincinnati.  Not again.  Jacksonville +3.

I think the Buffalo Bills are a top 5 team in the league.  They absolutely destroyed the Jets and Miami, and solidly beat a very good Rams team (before almost giving the game away).  I am going to take Buffalo in this spot this week against the Raiders.  I love betting against a team that just had a high profile Monday Night win, in this case the grand opening of their new stadium in Las Vegas.  They had to be high, high, high after beating the Saints.  Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the Buffalo Bills.  The Raiders have their top two receivers out, two offensive lineman out, and two best offensive options banged up.  I think Buffalo is going to kill these guys.  The Fan Duel crowd doesn't get how good the Bills are yet.  This line is too low. Buffalo -3    

One of my basic concepts in NFL Gambling is to go the opposite way of The Public.  If The Public knew what they were doing, the Bellagio would not have built a fucking lake in the desert in front of their hotel.  There are hotels with moving pirate ships, a pyramid with a light that you can see from space, and lush rain forests teeming with colorful birds.  Does that give you any reason why you would follow the pack mentality?  Yet, it's tough to pull the trigger.  I don't think I'm man enough to bet on the Eagles +7 this week.  There's no way I can touch the Giants +13 or Washington +14.  I know I should.  Why  not get really wild and do a three team teaser with Giants +22/Washington+23/Eagles +16?  You can't lose!  All I know is to tie that Holy Trinity of Grief into one wager is creating your own personal Black Hole of Guaranteed Misfortune.  Just walk away.  Nothing good can happen when you monkey around with those teams.  It's like playing with a ouija board at an Indian Burial ground while chanting from an old book you found at a creepy rummage sale.  Something bad will happen.  Get out of there.  I'm thinking of something more certain, like Kansas City scoring.  The Pats v Chiefs game features the #6 and #7 offenses in the NFL.  I am going to take the Kansas City OVER 53 and watch Mahomes score 21 points late to pull the game out of his ass for the over.  

Season record:  4-4