Nurse the Hate: The Warning of the Hot Oven or NFL Week 7

 

When something has just always been, it’s hard to imagine anything different.  Change freaks people out.  Despite the planet providing every confirmation that these climate change sirens have been warning, people sill freak out about the idea of “green energy”.  The idea of not driving around in your 17 ton Chevy Canyonero SUV is too much to bear, even if the payoff is the state of California not continually on fire.  “I know that the Gulf Coast just got wiped out by four consecutive hurricanes, but The Constitution says I have a right to burn tires if I want!”  (It doesn’t). There is a sense of comfort in continuity.  Halloween trick or treaters.  Burning leaves while Thanksgiving dinner slowly roasts.  Unpacking holiday decorations and trying to beat the first brutal winter storm.  The Jets losing.

As the years pass, we have all learned that the Jets losing are something to count on.  It comforts us, allowing us to understand that some things are constants, like the sun, the moon, and the sea.  Just like a young child, I felt the need to touch the hot oven to see if I would be burned, and bet on the Jets.  The pain I felt in losing was reassuring, like learning a father’s life lesson was true and therefore maybe there was a structure to the chaos of the world.  Yet, I find myself here once again, ready to pull the trigger on the awful 0-6 NY Jets, as if I had forgotten why my fingertips are scarred by the burns of that hot oven.

Let’s get a terrifying stat out of the way.  There have been 450+ teams with losing streaks of 3+ games in NFL history.  The 2020 Jets are the only team in history to have won the turnover battle in all of their games and still lose.  That is an eye popping stat that suggests that the worst Jet results are yet to come, and at 0-6 they have already enjoyed their run of good luck.  The Jets are a terrible team.  They have no offensive weapons, bad quarterbacking options, no defense to speak of, and key injuries amongst their best players.  Their coach sucks.  The organization is filled with infighting.  They seem to have no plan.  But… hear me out…

Teams that have gone 0-6 cover 65% of the time in game 7.  Winless teams coming off being shut out cover 56% of the time.  The Jets are bringing back Sam Darnold, who sort of sucks, and benching Joe Flacco, who really sucks.  They are playing a Bills team, that has just gone through a buzzsaw of games that were covid threatened and re-scheduled.  Don’t get me wrong.  The Bills are a vastly superior team that are hungry for a win.  However, all we need is the Jets to keep it within two touchdowns in a divisional game.  That can’t be that hard, can it?  Place your hands on the oven.  This is one of those uncomfortable bets that one must make to win over the season.  Jets +12

I am concerned that Joe Burrow might die in his Bengals uniform.  The Bengals spent some money on free agents last season, but apparently spent that money poorly.  Perhaps they purchased magic beans.  Whatever they bought is not keeping Joe Burrow from taking horrifying hits.  Now the Bengals have to face a Browns team that was just embarrassed in a high profile game.  I don’t like the Bengals chances here.  

The Browns just confirmed what many of us suspected, that they were not an elite team and stuck in the Chargers/Lions/Panthers/Texans middle class.  They just didn’t expect to get smoked like they did in Pittsburgh.   I would have to think the focus in that building is going to be to “get right” against the hapless Bengals.  The Same Old Browns would roll over this week.  I don’t think the Browns are great, but I also don’t think they are the Same Old Browns.  This line is a little light.  Cleveland -3.

All of a sudden the undefeated Titans are The Team of the Moment.  National Media cannot stop talking about how great Tannehill and Henry are, completely unstoppable.  Meanwhile the Steelers are doing what they do, quietly winning games.  I have seen four Steeler games, and this looks like a Top 4 team to me.  I see a Titans team that is getting too much credit for beating Buffalo in a bad spot, an underperforming Vikings, and sneaking out a win versus a Romeo Crennel coaching crippled Texans.  

The Titans are undeniably a good team.  They win by being more physical, and make key plays late.  The media coverage loves to equate Mike Vrabel with the team profile.  A key points to remember is Vrabel is standing on the sideline in a sweater vest, not playing.  I don’t see the Titans being physically dominant over a Steeler team that literally kicked the shit out of the Browns last week in what was less of a performance than just a matter of corporate identity.   Give me Pittsburgh +1.5 in a game that this experienced organization sees as a statement game.    

Season record 9-8