Drummer and NFL Week 1

 

When I was very young I lived outside of Philadelphia.  The house and surrounding area seemed very rural, but when you're five years old, a small vacant lot can seem like the Amazon.  It was the 1970s.  It seems insane to people now, but everyone in my 5 year old peer group spent their days as follows.  1) Wake up and shove down a bowl of Cap'n Crunch and/or Lucky Charms.  2) Throw on clothes that you found on the floor by your bed.  3). Go outside. 4) Have no contact with adults from 915am-5:59pm when you get called for dinner by your parent bellowing your name as they stood in the doorway 5) Eat the tasteless 1970s meal your Mom made in 32 seconds like a ravenous puppy while avoiding all vegetables except potatoes and corn. 6) watch the Rockford Files 7) Fight to stay up "just ten more minutes". 8) sleep and repeat.

We had no parental oversight and were essentially feral dogs patrolling a one mile radius from our homes.  We knew the topography of the surrounding ground like fucking Indian guides in Westerns.  "That skunk weed is bent.  Richard and his brother Robert were here looking for our fort.  Let's get some sticks and go beat them."  So while four kids were wailing on two other kids with sticks in the woods, our parents were smoking cigarettes and drinking Lancers wine blissfully unaware of any of our doings.  I cannot overstate how little my parents knew about what we were doing, or perhaps more important, cared about what we were doing.  For example, as people now can't comprehend how Catholic priests were able to sexually assault kids for years without detection, I can tell you firsthand, we TOLD our parents "Father Shanz took us swimming and made us take our trunks off so he could take pictures of us naked".  While one would think that news would be alarming, it was universally met with "I'm sure he had his reasons.  Now go wash our hands and get back in here for dinner.  If you aren't seated at that table by the time I put out my cigarette, you'll really have something to cry about."  That's the way it was.  You were on your own, but it didn't seem weird.  We were all in the same boat.

I had these neighbors, the Johnsons, who had an Irish Setter named "Drummer".  That dog was tied up to a dog house area with about four feet of rope.  He was enormous, or probably more accurately, seemed enormous to a five-year-old.  In retrospect, his being tied up to a tiny area and having no training whatsoever while living in a house of seven kids might have explained why the dog was fucking crazy aggressive.  When you walked past him to find a stick to give Richard a beating, the dog would lose his mind barking at you, pulling the rope to try and get you.  Every once in awhile, Drummer would get loose.

When Drummer would get loose, it was like the situation when you're about an hour into a horror movie.  The protagonists know there is a monster, they know what it is capable of, and they know that they now are its prey.  Somebody's number is up.  The word would spread quickly, maybe one of the Johnson kids would come sprinting up the hill yelling "Drummer is loose!  Drummer is loose!" as we all blinked into the sun trying to absorb this life altering new reality.  I remember one time when three of us sprinted to a tree, climbed up onto the "safe branches" above where Drummer could jump and tried to wait out Drummer's teeth snapping interest until we could scamper to the safety of someone's garage.  In this case, Drummer would not be denied.  As our parents smoked cigarettes and watched Match Game, my friend Christopher was tossed from the tree by his older brother as an offering to Drummer.  His screams filled my ears as we sprinted to my garage.  There was no time to feel guilty.  This was survival, and I felt the combination of survivor's guilt and shameful joy that it had not been me that was shoved off the tree.  It is said that even now, on a warm summer night, the high pitched scream of a five-year-old can be heard on a Full Moon.  

The best part about being five in the 1970s was that after Christopher was gored by Drummer, we all ate some shitty dinner, watched Rockford Files, went to bed and re-set the next day.  Drummer was tied back up, we all went outside after gnawing on a Pop Tart, and the same group of kids played together again, albeit with Christopher bandaged up a bit.  Everything started up again, brand new, yet filled with possibilities.  Yesterday you got beaten by these kids with sticks.  Today, maybe you'd be one of the ones with the sticks whaling on one of your assailants.  The wheel would turn.  This, to me, is where we are at with the NFL slate on Week 1.  It's all the same, yet different.

If you have read my NFL picks in the past, you know that I am a contrarian.  When they zig, I zag.  The Public is always wrong.  Walk into a Wal Mart and look around.  These people are fucking morons.  They are the same ones that now have gambling apps and are trying to put together multi team parlays that pay off at 65-1.  Let me ask you...  Do you think the guy that bought a $80,000 pickup truck and put a Monster Energy Drink sticker on it knows anything about anything?  Let's fade that guy and pick some teams that guy will never get on.

As we all know, no team has more hype around them than the Houston Texans.  This is the 2024 version of the Jacksonville Jaguars, the team we only recall as having the sexy young QB that won a playoff game and is ready to Move To The Next Level.  Here's what you forgot.  They were one dropped pass away from missing the playoffs entirely, they got smoked by the Ravens in the Playoffs, and were basically the same as the Colts and Jags.  Give me Indianapolis +3 at home over Houston.

Carolina was one of the most pathetic teams of the last decade.  They never had a lead in the fourth quarter last year.  Not once.  I think they will still suck this year, but being the NFL, they will "suck less".  Granted, this wouldn't be a great marketing slogan for the guys in the Panthers ticket office, but it's all they've got.  "Hello?  Mr. Stevens?  Chet Robinson from the Carolina Panthers here...  The reason I'm calling is we have some partial season ticket packages I think you might want to take a look at for the upcoming year.  We really like what we are seeing in Training Camp, and we feel confident we are going to suck less this season."  What are you going to do?  It's not like the Saints are exciting.  Quick factoid.  Derek Carr is 4-14 ATS as a favorite of more than three points.  Carolina +4.  

My guys in the desert are hitting it hard on their "system plays" and I'm getting on board.  What does this mean?  Krusty and I have talked each other into betting against Washington.  There are three big negatives for Washington that don't have a great track record of success.  It's a rookie QB in his first start with a new coach in a new system with a new DC who is giving defenses to a new green dot guy.  Look, I'm no big fan of Tampa, but they are a three time division winner at home in Florida in the September heat playing the piece of shit Commanders.  Tampa -3.5.