Low Involvement NFL Week 2

 

I was watching the Presidential Debate this week.  I don't know if you watched it, but if you didn't, you probably should.  I remember in the past when these debates were on and one of the old men would say something like "We need less taxes so we can stimulate the economy!" and then the other old guy would say "We need to get back to manufacturing stuff in America!" and then we'd all talk amongst ourselves at which of these obviously smart old guys we should vote for.  The two choices were serious people.  People with experience and knowledge.  George Bush, Bob Dole, John Kerry, Al Gore...  You had a sense "that guy knows more than me".  Boy, have times changed.

Now it's sort of more like a reality TV show where we are all in for the ride.  One is an obviously polished white collar politician, and has some experience in the Senate.  Maybe not as much as you'd have liked in 1984, but now you'll take what you can get.  The other candidate is of great concern.  You've this really old man in orange pancake makeup saying crazy shit with no foundation in any kind of facts, the kind of a guy that most small town bars have sitting down at the end.  In the small town bars, everyone in town sorta laughs at him and says, "Well, that's just Otis.  Just ignore him.  He's crazy but he'll go home around 9."  This is the same as that situation, except in our case 45% of the people in the bar are thinking "We should give Otis nuclear weapons and all of our PIN codes to our bank accounts!".  

Trump is unfit to run an Olive Garden much less the United States.  It's hard to fathom how anyone that has seen him speak publicly for more than 30 seconds doesn't think to themselves, "Something is wrong with this Old Man.  Why does anyone think it's a good idea for him to be in charge of anything?".  I then read something that helped explain some of his core support, a large group called "Low Involvement Voters".  This means "people that don't pay attention to anything".  Like when Trump starts saying he's going to put tariffs on everything coming into the country, that sounds really good if you don't know what "a tariff" is.  Hey dipshit, if the person importing olive oil has to pay an extra $1 per bottle in tax to get it to his warehouse, who do you think is going to eat that $1?  His margins are the same, so that $6 olive oil is now $7 olive oil coming to you.  

"Low involvement people" are not great news for the rest of us that can see clearly that Haitians aren't eating people's pets, no one is a Communist, no one is killing newborn babies, and when someone says they have "a concept of a plan", they don't understand the complexity of the question much less have an answer.  Check out this stat...  White voters without a four-year college degree are almost twice as likely to say they’d vote Trump (63%) than to say they’d vote Harris (34%).  These are the same people that thought Mexico was going to pay for a wall.  Fucking A.  A third of the country are morons and we have to hope enough of the other people with a shred of common sense watched that insanity on Tuesday.  When I see someone with a house that is a shrine to Trump, I assume they're either a fascist or a fucking dope.  It's like putting a billboard up in your yard to announce, "I don't know what reality is, and I am a racist".

Maybe "Low Involvement Voters" are focused on the things that really matter.  I'm, of course, talking about NFL Week 2.  The first week of the NFL season is that cold slap of reality to half of the league's fans that have somehow talked themselves into optimism on their team's chances.  I sat here all summer staring at Deshaun Watson on social media buying diamond pajama pants and flying around with his bare assed girlfriend giving as much thought to football as I do to group health insurance plans.  While terminally optimistic Browns fans tried to trick themselves into believing that Watson was going to be the guy they recalled from in his one good half of football as a Brown, instead in Week 1 he looked like a Poor Man's PJ Walker.  Let's be honest.  Deshaun Watson has no intention of applying himself to be a winning NFL QB.  He's done with this football stuff.  He just wants to buy stuff.  He is no longer a reasonable option as an NFL QB.  The Browns, having given Watson $230M, have no choice but to put him out there and hope some sort of magical thunderbolt strikes him and allows him to revert back to the player he was 4 years ago.  I suspect the team might want a thunderbolt to strike him dead, but that's a discussion for next week after Watson embarrasses himself yet again in what could be his last start in the NFL this week in Jacksonville.  I'm not betting on the Jags so much as I am against Deshaun Watson.  Jacksonville -3.

On the last week of August Malik Willis got traded from Tennessee to Green Bay.  After the Jordan Love injury last week, it now appears Willis will be forced to start on Sunday against the Colts.  Look, this would be a bad situation if you were a savvy veteran QB, but this is Malik Willis.  He has never thrown for a touchdown in the NFL.  He has 67 pass attempts in his career and has been sacked 15 times.   This isn't like plugging Josh Dobbs in.  In fact, Tennessee picked up Josh Dobbs a couple years ago off the street to avoid starting Willis in a late season game, and Willis had been on the team for two years.  I have no idea how you can win a game with this guy unless the Colts turn it over 4 times.  I got on this early at Colts -2.5, but I'd take it up to 4 if I were you.

I'm going with more chalk here.  I'm nervous about taking all these favorites, and I still might take the Raiders +8.5 or Giants +1.5, but give me the Kansas City Chiefs.  They are coming off 10 days rest with Andy Reid having nothing but time to prepare for Cincinnati.  I watched some of the Bengals last week, and I don't care what the team is saying, Joe Burrow is hurt.  He bears no resemblance to the guy that almost won a Super Bowl.  He can't get the ball downfield, plus his line looks terrible.  Both sides of the Bengals lines got shoved around by the Patriots (The Patriots!) last week.  Remember, these are the same Bengals guys that made a big show of calling Arrowhead Stadium "Burrowhead" after their past success there.  I think Mahomes and the boys will want to get some separation here.  Kansas City -6.

Current record:  2-1