The Ghosts Of Autumn and NFL Week 4

Something that was rather disappointing was to travel in the tail end of summer and then when I got back it was Fall.  It was like I jumped into a goddamn time machine.  It was sailing and grilling when I left.  I come back and it's leaves and those black/gray tinted high morning clouds.  Everything smells like going to high school and not understanding geometry.  I was so bad at geometry that I think the stress of getting called to the board and ridiculed by my teacher impacted my health.  I was sick that entire Fall.  I might enroll in a college geometry class just so I can finally understand how to calculate the square area of a rhombus despite never coming in contact with a rhombus as an adult (as I had predicted as a 16 year old).  My grasp of geometry was about the same as my grasp of Mandarin Chinese is today.  Slim.  I don't want to let the ghosts of autumn haunt me too heavily though.  I have my own dragons to slay...  the Master of Wine/writing one more decent Whiskey Daredevils song for our new LP/and turning around this NFL gambling.

Last Sunday I was fairly certain going into it that I was doomed.  It generally takes a month to get a handle on which teams are any good.  Up until then, it's all preseason hype and snowballing rhetoric combined with short term overreaction.  Team A lost last week, therefore Team A will never win again.  Pass it on.  I am aware of this and yet I also succumb to it.  I do it every year.  It's a tradition for me like unwrapping Xmas presents or putting up plastic skeletons in your front yard might be for you.  Side note, anyone that invests great sums of money into Halloween decorations that doesn't have kids under the age of twelve I harbor suspicions on.  Anyway, getting my ass kicked early is the way I spend great sums of money on the Fall like your stupid plastic skeletons you got at Home Depot.  If we are being honest, you likely get much more joy with your plastic skeletons than I do losing a game in which I took a position on the Tampa Bucs, so feel free to smugly smile at me as I walk past your Halloween Grotto Of Doom with my losing ticket.  You fuckers.  

That gets us into Week 4 and the chance to follow the axiom of ABG...Always Be Gambling.  Let's not let a little kick in the teeth ruin our autumn, shall we?  A smorgasbord of opportunity awaits the clever boy.  Let's first tackle the most intriguing game on the slate, the Raiders hosting KC.  I think there is a groundswell of optimism around the Raiders because leaguewide people want the Raiders to be good.  What's not to like about a bunch of Hispanic guys in pirate and Skeletor costumes drunk as shit on Modelo waving around plastic axes in the end zone?  The League is better when the Raiders get to play the part of dastardly villain.  There is a little glimmer that the Raiders at 3-0 might be a legitimate football team this year.  I think that is true as long as the baseline is set at "7 wins and competitive almost every week" as opposed to "Maybe they will win the West".  We are early enough that I don't feel comfortable leaping on the idea that the Dynasty Chiefs are back, but I do think they will score some points today over by the Mandelay Bay which will be flooding fat guys in red KC jerseys into Allegiant.  Kansas City Over 26.5 points.    

I am sticking with two concepts in which I entered the season.  1.  The Jacksonville Jaguars are good.  2.  The Cincinnati Bengals aren't.  Here's what we know about both teams.  The Bengals slipped past a shitty Bucs team in a game where Baker Mayfield fumbled four (4) times, somehow beat the Texans while only getting 12 first downs, and lost to what appears to be a shitty Steelers team.  That to me appears to be a team hovering in The Great Pack of teams which are all going to be around 7-8 wins.  Meanwhile the Jags kicked the shit out of the Browns, lost to Denver on the road by one score, and then kicked the shit out of the Patriots.  The Jags are good.  It doesn't seem like they are good because they are in Jacksonville and the only reason one thinks of Jacksonville is if you are having a conversation about meth.  Jacksonville is the better team and they are getting points.  Gimme the Jags.  Jacksonville +2.5  

Speaking of teams no one thinks about, how about the Carolina Panthers?  That team is the Applebee's of the NFL.  It is a team with a corporate committee approach to having an identity.  There is no organic excitement about the team, and even when they had that brief glory during the Cam Newton Era, there were no Panthers fans, only ticket holders that secured their seats from corporate benefactors.  "Going to the game Brad?"  Sure am.  Got some tickets from my guy at Gliotech.  We'll probably leave at halftime.  Cue to pre recorded announcer stadium drop:  Up on your feet Panther fans!  Roar!  

The Panthers have both offensive tackles and their best o-lineman (guard Damien Lewis) all confirmed as out of this game.  Both starting cornerbacks are hurt and out of the game.  That does not seem to be a recipe for success.  If these injuries had been on the Cowboys, it's all ESPN would have talked about all week.  Since it happened to Carolina, nobody knows or gives a shit.  I don't think the Lions are all that, but they really caught a sorta shitty Panthers team at a great time.  I'm hoping to see a 3, but I will fire on Detroit -3.5 if I have to.

I think the Miami Dolphins organization has a plan.  I like what they are doing long term by getting rid of all the players they had that were big money and not doing shit to help them win.  The downside of this is that as of right now they are fucking terrible.  They are 0-3 and have scored three touchdowns in 3 games.  All losses have been double digits, so it's surprising that they haven't scored more garbage time points.  They go to Minnesota where the Vikings are only giving up 13.7 points to opponents.  Toss in that Miami just lost Achane to a blown out knee, their best offensive player, and it's not a recipe for great success.  I was going to get on the Vikings, but it's hard to trust that offense right now to cover a double digit spread.  I am going to get on this by betting on Miami's failure to score and take Miami Under 14.5 points.  If you are way too into the NFL like I am, you'll note that Minnesota's defensive coordinator is well known red ass Brian Flores.  He comes after teams hard in general.  Making this game especially noteworthy is his still pending contentious lawsuit against the Miami Dolphins for wrongful termination.  The Vikings will stay in full blitz and Cover 0 packages until next Tuesday.  He's got to be shooting for a shutout here.  Former Miami Dolphins defensive back Jason McCourty said, "I was in the building when Miami fired [Flores]… he wants to whoop their you know what."  Terrible offense meets motivated defense.  Yeah, I'll take that under.

There is a season total out there that came to my attention.  The NY Giants still have a win total prop out there for Under 7.5 season wins available on many platforms.  To be clear, you are telling me that the Giants are going to win 8 games when they are underdogs today at home against the Cardinals?  If you are an underdog at home to what is considered to be a Bottom 3 team, what games are you going to be favored in?  How does a team that will be an underdog in all of their remaining games pull six upsets?  By trading for JJ McCarthy?  NY Giants UNDER 7.5 wins.

Season Record:  3-7

Jack's Car and NFL Week 3

 

When I was a little kid I lived on the outskirts of Philadelphia.  The early 1970s was, in many respects, one of the last gasps of identifiable culture while still stubbornly holding onto wildly outdated and stupid ideas.  While you might have had retro cool bell bottoms and fuzzy extended guitar solos, you also had backward facing station wagon seats, no seatbelts, and about 40% of adults chain smoking cigarettes in cars and airplanes.  All the clothes were ugly, the shoes were bad, food was shitty, and we had a VW Beetle.  It's one of those eras that if you lived in it, you can remember that it sounded more like Barbara Streisand and Mac Davis than Lynyrd Skynard for normal kids subjected to their Mom's radio station.  Maybe if you're in your forties you have a similar feeling about the 1990s.  Everyone will retroactively conjure up that everyone was into Nirvana in 1994, but for most people that time was all about Ace of Base and Mariah Carey.

Anyway, I was a little kid and I had a babysitter named Doreen.  She had a boyfriend named Jack who had a pony tail and mustache.  I thought he looked like he was an adult in his 20s, but he was probably 17.  Who the fuck knows.  They were both pretty nice, and they would play with me until putting me to bed slightly past when I was supposed to go, likely their way of showing me they weren't beholden to "The Man".  Of course in this case "The Man" was my housewife mother and her paper salesperson husband who were not that much older than those two, but I appreciate the gesture in "fighting the power".  I assume Jack came over in the hopes that Doreen would play with his dick on our couch after I went to sleep.  I didn't know that then, but no hard feelings now Jack. 

Jack had some domestic atrocity of a car, one of the sea of horrific looking automobiles available to an underemployed young man at that time.  It was like a used Oldsmobile or Dodge Duster and it smelled like cigarettes and burned plastic.  I remember sitting in the back seat when Doreen and Jack took me to the mall and I just slid across the plastic interior whenever we made a turn.  It's not like anyone thought about seatbelts.  Doreen was wearing a scarf on her head in that hippie style with hip hugging jeans.  Jack had one of those cowboy flannel pattern shirts on that Bob Weir lived in for most of the 70s.  I got some kudos because I correctly identified "American Pie" on the radio as "the Chevy to the levee song" despite having no idea what a "levee" was.  They made me ride one of those little trains in the mall courtyard and I wanted no part of it.  I was really concerned about looking uncool, which is odd considering I was probably six years old and wearing a polyester shirt with a grape Kool-Aid stain on it.  Yet, I remember being embarrassed being on the train.   

I might be merging that day with another day in my head, but when we got back to the house some young guy came up the driveway.  I recognized him as the legendary "Keith Kunick", an older high school kid that had totaled an astounding number of cars either because he couldn't drive or was always super fucked up and consequently couldn't drive.  He was a bit of a celebrity to us younger kids as he was viewed like a local Evel Kneivel in how often he had miraculously escaped serious harm despite the mangled cars in his parent's driveway.  There were multiple fucked up cars on the driveway, and in retrospect the Kunicks were probably hillbillies that just couldn't bear the idea of junking out Keith's various mishaps.  Super impressive to a six year old though.  It was sort of like having a TV actor come strolling up your driveway.  I played it cool, and by "played it cool" I mean stood there silently staring like a psychopath.  

Keith had come to see if he could borrow Jack's car.  It blew my mind that Jack knew Keith as worlds collided.  Doreen was not in favor of this idea as Keith was clearly a fuck-up, and she strongly advised Jack against turning over his keys right in front of Keith, but Jack seemed to be swayed by Keith's rock solid argument of "C'mon man!  It's just for an hour.".  As I think about it now, Jack was obviously concerned about the youth culture idea of being anti-materialism and seeming like he wasn't part of the counterculture, but he also knew the risk in giving your keys to Keith Kunick.  Doreen went off in a huff when Jack gave Keith his keys, and then I went back to doing whatever a little kid does.  I got sent off to bed after my traditional dinner of an Armor Hot Dog (I got into this rut of only eating that for about a year) as the sun started to set.  There was tension between those two as I went upstairs as Keith was still AWOL and it was well past the agreed upon hour.  

When I woke up in the morning my babysitting team was gone.  I couldn't have cared less about how the drama had turned out.  I was six.  It was a normal morning of Lucky Charms, cartoons, and my Mom smoking cigarettes in the kitchen.  Later that day I was in my Mom's VW sitting up front as she drove us to do some errand.  We passed the Kunick's house.  In the front yard was Jack's car.  The entire front of the car had been bent like an accordian.  This was undeniable testimony that someone (Keith) had been driving this car too fast and too recklessly.  Fucking Keith Kunick had done it again.  I wish I could track down the principals of this story to find out if my memory is correct and what the outcome was, but my gut instinct is that Keith is long dead.  I don't know Doreen or Jack's last name and there isn't anyone around to ask what it might be.  The one thing I did learn was you need to trust your gut when a Keith Kunick comes over talking shit.

I've heard a lot of shit talk this week about how the Chargers may go 0-9 to start the season.  Refresh my memory, but weren't America's pundits focused on how the Chargers were going to be a playoff team this year two weeks ago?  I get that maybe emotions were running hot on the Chargers from being some sort of sleeper AFC champ, but 0-9?  This seems like a perfect flat spot for Buffalo, a team that loves to play down to the level of their competition.  I am going to use the Chargers in a teaser leg to take.them to +13.5.  I am not on board with the idea of the Bills defense being "all that".  Let's be honest, the Chargers need a monster effort this week.  In the NFL, teams are never as good or bad as they seem.  Gimme the Chargers with a ton of points.  No one believes the Chargers will ever win again.  Now is the time to buy.

Speaking of "buy low" teams, let's talk Pittsburgh.  It's been a week of talking how terrible Aaron Rodgers looks.  Look, I agree.  The guy looks like how I would imagine I would look out there despite the fact he's a world class athlete and I hurt myself on my coffee table.  He's got that "Johnny Unitas as a Charger" look to him only old guys like myself can fully appreciate.  Here's my thinking...  Divisional games with a home underdog are always worth a look.  Pittsburgh has an elite defense.  They also can't score and presumably won't score a bunch this Sunday.  Points will be at a premium.  I'll take the under 48.5 in a teaser leg.  The only way I get smoked here is defensive or special teams touchdowns.

I am taking Seattle over Washington.  The Commanders must be bummed as Daniels is obviously very talented but he's also a skinny brittle dude.  Marcus Mariota is... well... he's 2026 Marcus Mariota.  Mariota is 3-10 in his last 13 starts.  I cannot fathom a world in which Marcus Mariota defeats the Seahawks defense.  If Mariota is going to win games, it will be against teams like the Giants, Falcons and Cardinals.  He ain't beating the Seahawks.  Let's tease this down to Seattle -1.5.

Combine all these into combinations:  Chargers +13.5/Pittsburgh Under 48.5/Seattle -1.5  

I think the Jags are good and the Patriots might have that Super Bowl hangover.  New England had maybe the most favorable schedule and playoff setup in modern NFL history.  Drake Maye looks like he's taken a step back.  Vrabel can't be unaffected by the ditzy NFL reporter affair going public.  AJ Brown was supposed to be the fix on the receiving corps.  I'm out on these guys on big road games.  They seem like they are going to be one of those 9-8 sort of teams fighting to get into the playoffs around Xmas.  The Jags seem legit to me.  Give me Jacksonville at home in some sweaty ass Panhandle weather.  Patriots are injured and in a bad spot.  If the Patriots are going to lose 8 games, this is one of them.  Jacksonville -2.5 

Philadelphia is one of these teams where EVERYONE is pissed off after the game.  Eagle fans, despite winning the game, are motherfucking the players and coaches because the team seems to be underperforming despite winning.  The fans that just watched their team lose to the Eagles is pissed because they lost but it seemed like they maybe should have won.  News flash... Winning ugly is still winning.  The Bears are either starting Case Keenum who hasn't played a game in two years or the guy from the Mining college that has a concussion.  You ain't beating the Eagles with that.  Chicago has too much major media market smoke being blown around.  I'll take the good team that is healthy.  Philadelphia -3.5. 

Season Record:  2-3

Vive La France and NFL Week 2

 

It had been a couple weeks here in France for me.  Through much of the trip, there have been "local fixers", friends which have helped make the inevitable language and cultural gaps much easier to navigate.  I came to France for the first time about 20-25 years ago, pre-smart phone and Google maps.  There's nothing like trying to find a train station when if you somehow communicate what you are looking for, you then get stampeded with a bunch of gibberish you can't understand.  I could know the words in French to the question I wanted to ask, but my American accent made it almost impossible for anyone to know what I was trying to say.  Try finding a rental car return at a train station when the only word you know for sure in French is "Gare".  Soon you'd have a crowd of people gathered around you all speculating on what was going on.  "What does he want?  He is saying something about the police and a piece of cheese.  It makes no sense.  Perhaps he is a local village idiot from the place he comes from?"

I've met some great people and drank some really good wines on this visit.  It ain't easy for these folks these days.  These are artisan producers in very trying conditions trying to build upon generational family businesses.  The current economic climate, pointlessly derailed by our nation's dementia dictator, is making it hard on anyone not in the Inner Grift Circle.  There are winemakers in the Rhone Valley that are doing backbreaking agricultural work on steep slopes, just roasting in the sun, only to find their American importers are dropping them.  The importers cannot find the path to sell wines which had been $65 only a year or two ago, now thanks to tariffs, are $100+ on American shelves.  In many cases the producers just sell their small quantities elsewhere, but it depends on the winery.  Our modern Court of Versailles in DC has absolutely no idea or interest in how most of the industries they are crippling actually work.  In the case of the wine industry, the simplistic thought would be "wine is wine, so if we make European or Australian wine more expensive through taxes, people will buy American wine instead."  This line of thinking would be logical as long as you don't know a fucking thing about how the business you're jacking around actually works.  This, of course, is the modus operandi of the idiots we put in charge of our country.   

Here's why this tariff shit is so stupid with wine...  All wine is not the same, just like cheeses are different.  For example, the idiots in Washington saying "if we make Parmesan cheese shockingly expensive, that means people will just use Kraft singles on their chicken parmesan recipes.  USA!  USA!  USA!"  Wine from Cote Rotie is different than wine from Marlborough NZ which is different than wine from Chianti.  All the government is doing is shooting us in the foot by limiting available flavors to consumers.  But let's say that magically everyone decided to embrace only American wine in this country.  The problem is that winemakers import the bottles, closures, barrels for aging, and various dry goods from European suppliers to make their wine.  We don't make any of that shit here.  Now that you have taxed those supplies, American wine costs more too due to increased production costs, which further shrinks demand.  On top of that, there are a bunch of small American businesses that import European wine that now face huge hurdles to stay in business, which would be comparable to shit like eyeglass frames, construction lumber, car parts, etc etc etc.  With wine you can also factor in the absolutely stupid Canadian trade war which has led Canada to blackball American wine entirely. For Napa cabernet producers, this can reflect 40-50% of their overall business.  Why "normal" Americans cannot understand that they elected a reality TV star that pretends to be a business expert instead of a demonstrably incapable buffoon remains baffling.  

It just sort of sucks to walk around when you leave the country and have everyone else know what a bunch of clowns we have become.  It's not some sort of debate where people ask, "What the fuck are you guys doing over there?".  It's more like that quiet "let's not bring up that embarrassing thing going on" normally reserved for school children that wet their pants or people with kids that are in the news for sex crimes.  It's been a long couple years where you just can't keep track of the latest horrifying news or wonder why great swaths of the population can't seem to engage with reality at all.  I can tell you because I've seen it...  There is a better way.  While it's not like France doesn't have all sorts of their own issues, at least the pace is more reasonable, the food is better, and you don't see ugly families in enormous SUVs driving around with hate message bumper stickers.  Well... not at least that I can read fluently.

I bought a weekly streaming package for the NFL here.  I watched some NFL as the early games went off at 7pm.  It's actually ideal, as long as you don't want to watch the late game kicking off at 2:15am.  The Browns, as expected, looked like the worst team in the league, but otherwise it's hard to make sense of what is going on.  Typically the first month is when you can maybe figure out if Atlanta is as bad as they appear (I think they are) or if the Chargers might be sorta shitty (I have no clue).  That's why this week I am going to venture out on some games where I feel like the teams are as advertised.  Who is who we think they are in this Wilderness Of Mirrors?

I am still of the opinion that the Texans are good.  Sure, they lost a close game to Buffalo, but after Buffalo handled the Lions last night it seems like Buffalo is legit.  There's no shame in losing a game to the Best Regular Season QB In Football, aka Josh Allen.  That vaunted Texans defense certainly has some questions swirling around it now, but let's still assume that they are top tier.  The Texans have the Bengals at home this week.  Joe Burrow is already hurt with "back tightness".  All I know is if I have "back tightness", I might not be excited to try and throw a football 40 yards and get hit by giant angry men.  I'm not buying into the narrative of Cincinnati as an elite team.  They beat the Bucs at home last week by one score and Tampa had four fumbles.  Tampa is one of those "who is the least shitty team?" in the NFC South where someone will back into the playoff spot in Dec.  It could be them, New Orleans or Carolina.  Who cares?  Houston is better than Tampa and is giving less than a FG.  I'm back on Houston -2.5.  

Speaking of Tampa, there aren't going to be too many more chances to bet against Deshaun Watson, and this is one of them.  Seize it.  I cannot understand why the Browns keep pretending that Watson played well and the team is in capable hands.  I'm all for the willing suspension of disbelief when it comes to watching a Star Wars film or whatever, but not when I'm stuck watching a guy that has provided no evidence that he can still compete at this level.  Meanwhile on the other side of this game is Baker Mayfield, one of the last grudge carrying big game players around.  While the potential for Mayfield to toss a brutal back breaking INT is always there, I think he really wants to give a "fuck you" to the Browns owner and front office here.  This is such an obvious pick, there has to be something wrong here.  This is where the NFL can jam you up, where the team that looked absolutely amateur and flat comes out the next week playing with their ass on fire due to embarrassment suffered the week prior.  This is the Browns though and they are fucking terrible.  Tampa is 4-15 ATS in their last 19 games, so I am paying the freight and going Tampa money line.  

The Panthers are better than the Falcons.  The Falcons have Stefanski and Cooper Rush.  How the hell can you overcome that?  The Falcons were 2/12 on third down conversions, threw for 118 yards/two INTs, and in typical Stefanski coached team fashion made 9 penalties last week.  I didn't watch to see if Stefanski had a press conference where he said they would "clean things up", but I'm sure he did.  The Panthers hung in with the Bears for three quarters, and the Bears are much, much better than the Steelers.  I am committed to betting against the Falcons until they have someone that can play NFL QB or the spread gets too big to ignore.  Carolina -2.5  

Season record:  1-1

  

  

Playing The Angles and NFL Week 1 2026

 

I was upsold at the restaurant.  I knew what was happening but the social contract which bound us all had me trapped into compliance to order a bottle of wine that was $50 more than I had budgeted.  The server had asked me what I wanted to spend, and what I was looking for as far as region.  He excitedly promised to return with a myriad of options in this price range, but instead came back with two options 50% over what we discussed.  I was getting played.  I knew I was getting played.  I bought it anyway, exhausted from the potential effort of the spar and parry to come from trying to get what I had asked for.  Later at a different establishment, I was given a glass of cheap cotes du rhone when I had ordered a St. Joseph.  I knew the waiter fucked me just to save the restaurant on margins.  They must have laughed about it after the shift.  Fuckers.  Such is life in the Big City.

History has shown that large city service employees exist strictly to try and rip off anyone that wanders into their sphere not knowing all the angles.  I think the entire city of Venice was built on scamming tourists in the 1600s, but that might have just been something that I read.  Roman peasants must have been fleeced when they were trying to buy a t-shirt of their favorite gladiator when they ventured to the Coliseum.  "Flavius the Brave shirts!  One denarius here!  Three inside!  Same Quality!"  Two days later some little shepherd kid is all bummed out when his Flavius shirt falls apart after his Mom bashed it with a rock in the river giving it a wash.  A story as old as time itself.

Yet, I think there is no other choice than to lean into getting scammed, within reason of course.  This is how the economies of these places work.  If the taxi driver doesn't pad the fare, the waiter jack up the check, and the hotel charging mystery fees, the entire infrastructure will crumble.  What are the shifty eyed African young men going to do if they can't loiter around train stations looking for wounded gazelle?  Everyone has their place in this economy regardless of what the AI Doomseeker Techno Bro cult guys have to say.  

The key is to see and understand the angles.  Then you must accept it.  For example, when buying a car at a dealership, assume you are getting fucked.  Just know and accept that going in.  The car dealer didn't get his place in Naples and his private jet by giving people fare exchange for money.  I know a guy that was the GM of a Nissan dealership that made $1.2 million in a year, and he didn't even own the place!  It's interesting as I have never met anyone that didn't say that they got a "great deal" with their most recent automobile purchase.  While it is good for people's sense of worth, this is self delusional.  I get it though.  It's tough to walk around and say, "Yes, I did get a new car.  Boy did I get fucked on my trade in though!  Whew!  I helped that dealer make his quarterly nut, that I'll tell ya!  I hope he put in a new kitchen in his winter place.". 

With this NFL season, my expectation is to take an early asskicking as everything I know is probably wrong.  What I'd like to do this opening week is to focus in on betting counter narratives to what is the accepted logic.  For example, we are all programmed to believe the Buffalo Bills will be really good because they have been good for so long.  It also follows that as it is a QB's league, having Josh Allen on your team means you can't possibly lose.  Well, until the playoffs that is...  I am assuming that this must be the reason why Buffalo is a favorite over the Texans on the road.  My understanding is that the Texans will have a motherfucker of a defense again, and unlike last year where their offensive weapons were all out, they are healthy.  Houston beat them last year and in 2024.  Why not again?  Houston +1.5

For the record, I have no idea if the Steelers are any good.  They have that roster profile of name players on the back end of their careers that tends to end badly.  However, they can't be any healthier than they are right now when they open up against the Falcons.  This isn't so much a bet ON the Steelers, but a bet AGAINST the Falcons.  I watched Stefanski for years.  He has the worst ATS margin of any veteran coach.  He's especially bad when he has a limited QB, just like he does right now with Tua.  I have seen Stefanski lose over and over and over to Pittsburgh.  We'll see how big a deal it is to not have Tomlin.  Pittsburgh -3.5.

         

  

Old 97s and Fail Safe Gambling Advice

 

I caught the Old 97s this week, a band I've seen and played shows with on and off since 1995.  Sort of like The Cowslingers, it's the same basic bunch of guys driving around in a van playing the same kind of music for 30+ years.  Of course, they write better songs with more immediate accessibility, worked harder/smarter, had less snarky "let's see what happens if we light this match" tendencies, and have a better singer/better looking dude as a front guy who from a distance hasn't aged since 2003.  Rhett Miller might have a goddamn Dorian Gray type painting going in his attic of wherever he lives.  It's good to see those guys still doing what they do as well as they always have in 2026.  I think at the time when we were all really "going for it" in 1995, what they have going today would have been defined by any of us as having "made it".  Those guys are playing music, living an artist life in fucked up times for musicians, and still creating good shit.  We would have loved for things to turn out that way for our little band.  Don't tell anyone but we weren't nearly as good as them.  

The Old 97s have that tough situation going where at heart of their creative endeavor is a need to write new stuff and keep chasing new songs.  I think they have 14 studio records, which is impressive considering they have been on major labels and the weird between life of the New West/ATO AAA league almost enormous corporate playbook labels.  I think Rhett Miller has another 8 or 9 solo records too.  Unfortunately, like all bands in the United States, you seem to be limited with your audience needing to be the exact same age as the band.  Thus, with a bunch of guys in their 50s, they get a crowd that wants to hear the songs they loved when they got into the band in the late 90s/early 2000s.  This has to put those guys in the same spot as someone like the Rolling Stones who must have gotten sick of playing "Start Me Up" before Ronald Reagan left office.  

I have a theory that 85% of the music that people listen to and connect with has been made within 5 years of their last year of formal schooling.  There are exceptions, like most of the people that listen to bands like ours that continue to slug away at our (ahem) "craft" after 127 years of existence.  I would imagine that the Old 97s have a super engaged core of fans that would love nothing more than to see a show of the last four records exclusively, but if you want to continue to make a living, you better let your people sing "Barrier Reef" before they Venmo their kid Uber Eats money.  

I'll be honest though.  I really like the Old 97s and respect their songcraft immensely.  I am the rarest of the rare, an old man that actively seeks out new music as opposed to going to the football stadium to see 78 year old Brian Johnson try to belt out "Hells Bells" one more time.  (I have no idea why anyone would pay money to endure the hassle of going to a stadium show to watch that happen from a half mile away.). Still, even I, an allegedly engaged consumer, had lost touch with the Old 97s catalogue.  This week I bought a physical copy of their last two records "Twelfth" and "American Primitive" to see what's doing.  I'm looking forward to my normal digestion of those records, listening to them while driving on the highway in the band van.  That seems to be where those records have gone down well in the past.  However, this does bring to light the concept that while I have cast stones at the concert goers wanting to hear "Barrier Reef" because that's what they are comfortable with, that doesn't seem all that much different from the same guys driving around in the same Chevy van going to the same clubs playing the same kind of shit we always have in the past while listening to Old 97s records as background noise.  

You know, we were never super tight with those guys and I'd like to tell a quick tale just to clear something up.  We had played some Nashville New Music Showcase thing in like 1994-95 or so with them on this big bill.  It was probably 1995 right around when they had their Bloodshot record that was making waves.  They were towards the end of the bill that was every "No Depression" certified band of the moment like Whiskeytown, Slobberbone, and maybe Six String Drag.  It was a really killer lineup of bands.  Those guys crushed it that night and I felt bad for Whiskeytown having to follow them.  We didn't see the Old 97s again until (I think) we opened for them at Wilbert's about 4 months later.  Someone a few weeks prior had told Leo that the Old 97s were talking shit about us.  WTF?  It was something like how they didn't want to play any gigs with us and thought that we were dicks.  It was a typical murky Leo Story.  This really seemed odd to me because in our brief interaction with the Old 97s guys they had seemed polite and genuine.  Nothing unusual had occurred.  So, by the time we saw them at Wilberts, we were now mad at THEM because they were mad at US.  We'll show you to think we are dicks by being dicks.  A-HA!  That will show you!

It was about 60 days later after the Wilbert's gig that I ran into the alleged source of the Old 97s shit talk information.  It turned out Leo had mistakenly blamed the Old 97s for something that either a member of Scroat Belly or Split Lip Rayfield said.  I'd like to use this time to A) apologize for the mix-up to the Old 97s and B) recognize that even now I'm not sure who said what to who about anything.  This could all be bullshit from the get-go.  I might be unfairly maligning Scroat Belly right now, and I'm not even sure I ever met them.  It was a go-go time in the mid-90s when the illusion that alt-country was going to be the new grunge was in the air.  Drunk competitive guys in their 20s surrounded by shit talkers will have these types of issues.  There were tens of dollars at stake and reputations to defend! 

We have played with the Old 97s a couple times at the Beachland or maybe Columbus, and I don't think I ever talked to any of the members at those shows.  I really should have gone out of my way to say "Hey man, I want to say sorry for what happened at Wilbert's in 1995", but of course what most likely would have happened was a confused look as they have no idea who I am or what I'm talking about.  I think this is fairly common in music as I learned last weekend an area musician is pissed at me because he thinks I snubbed him recently when I can say confidently I didn't see or recognize him during the incident in question.  Unless you are a member of the band The Silos in 1996, I have no outstanding beef with any of you.  Please see me so we can clear the air as soon as possible if you think I do.  If any of you know either the guitar player or drummer in the Old 97s, please tell them "ummm we're sorry for being kind of dicks".  It's important to clear up these beefs.  

I do have a beef with the Cleveland Browns though.  This season will be yet another disaster.  I'm solidly UNDER 6.5 on the Browns.  I don't think the organization wants them to win and they want to draft Arch Manning regardless of what plays out on college football fields this season.  I think the entire focus is that stupid dome opening up and having a celebrity QB as a front man.  Have you heard anyone in the Browns front office talking about expectations in 2026?  They will toss Watson out there for a few games just to see if he can provide the illusion of being competitive.  When he fails, they will repeat the exercise with Sanders to finally kill that idea with the fanbase.  Has anyone ever lost money betting on the Browns failure?  They have a worse QB room (same QBS with Watson instead of Flacco), lost the best defensive player in the league, and lost their defensive coordinator.  They are two dback injuries away from being a disaster on defense.  

The Browns schedule goes @Jacksonville/@Tampa/Carolina/Pittsburgh to start.  They'll probably be 0-4 going to New York for a soul crushing loss to the Jets just like last year.  Why will this team win more games than last year?  Vegas has the Browns favored in two (2) of their 17 games this year.  Anyone who thinks the Browns will pull 5 upsets this year to cover this bet believes in Todd Monken more than I do.  Then again, I also know Todd Monken as an OC has an NFL record of 13-24 when his QB is not named "Lamar".  Oh...  One more thing... PFF says Cleveland is the #30 offensive line.  Season is over by Halloween in Cleveland just like almost every other year.  BROWNS UNDER. 

I am OVER 9.5 with the Houston Texans.  Widely accepted as the #1 defense, they get to roll into that division with Indy rolling with achilles surgery rehab version Daniel Jones at QB, Jacksonville, who inexplicably let their running game leave in free agency, and the now Robert Saleh led Titans who have committed to a QB that looks terrible.  Let's say Stroud sucks.  How does this team not win 10 with Davis Mills?  Their road games out of division are Chargers/Browns/Steelers/Washington/Eagles/Packers.  Gets tough at the end, but the first four are pretty favorable.  5-1 in division seems reasonable to me.  Then you need to go 5-6 in the other 11 games or 6-5 if you go 4-2 in division.  If Stroud has a bounce back, I think this team might be the #1 seed in the AFC because of how weak the division is overall.   HOUSTON OVER.

Pap Pap Takes A Fall

 

I just returned from a trip to Florida, hands down my least favorite place to visit in the USA.  If given the choice between a weekend in Miami or a weekend in Buffalo, I am choosing Buffalo 99 times out of 100.  The contrived soullessness of Florida with its paper mache strip plaza landscape is a cultural desert with full blast air conditioning.  I am always happy to leave it.  After picking up the bassets at the dog boarder, they were all jacked up with separation anxiety/back to home joy.  As a result, they both drank a gallon of water shortly before bedtime.  I suspected that this would be an issue, and indeed it was.  At 4am Marvin started crying.  It was one of those "I'm not kidding.  I REALLY gotta pee!" cries that I recognized.  I got up in a fog and took the bassets outside where they both had marathon pisses.  

I am not a great sleeper.  I don't have one solid 8 hour sleep, but rather string together a series of multi hour naps.  As I stood there waiting for the dogs to come back inside I knew I'd probably have a challenge to fall back asleep.  I decided my best move would be to go to the couch and see if I could fall asleep streaming some video as white noise.  I didn't turn on any lights as that would have made it impossible for me to fall back asleep, so I walked over to the couch using the laptop as a flashlight.  The bassets, thinking that this just might be a chance at an early breakfast, excitedly circled me as I headed across the room.  This was when I made my mistake...

I would love to see video of how I did it, because even now I'm not sure of the mechanics.  All I can tell you is that as I fell after tripping over the coffee table.  I held the laptop aloft to make sure it was safe therefore guaranteeing I would take the full blow to my head.  I fell straight forward, snapped my head backwards when I hit the couch frame, and then tried to catch myself with my right arm which immediately seized up my tricep.  I hit so fucking hard I thought "you just broke your neck and died.  What a stupid way to die.  You fucking idiot.".  My head snapped back like if someone had hit your forehead with an aluminum baseball bat as hard as they could.  It was unbelievable. 

I sat up and took a quick inventory.  I moved my various body parts.  I couldn't believe that I was still functioning.  The dogs licked my face.  Holy shit did my arm and head hurt.  I was on my hands and knees like when you see a QB take a monster hit in an NFL game.  Ok.  Ok.  Ok.  I got up and sat on the couch.  That's when I could feel the swelling start.  Within minutes a huge index card sized lump started to form on my forehead and my right upper arm swelled up tight like a sausage.  It felt like my skin was going to pop open.  It's 4am and I'm trying to figure out how I am going to ice this down and maybe control it.  I wasn't dizzy.  I wasn't nauseous.  Maybe this wasn't so bad?  (Honestly, I had just gone though a near death experience but I wouldn't think about that until later.  Eight inches to the right and I would have hit the brick hearth.  Dead.  Four inches left and it would have been the couch corner.  Dead.)  Now I had to figure out how to get a couple frozen bags of peas to balance on my head and back of my arm simultaneously.  The bassets went to their bed and immediately fell back asleep.  The house was quiet.  Should I go to the ER?  Fuck.  

I didn't have any of the signs that suggested skull fracture but I'm sure I had some level of concussion.  There was no bleeding, barfing, or dizziness.  I decided just to ice it.  Two days later the lump is down and all that blood started to drain into my skull giving me a raccoon eyes like I was an early member of KISS.  The arm had turned a brilliant shade of violet.  I looked terrible but all things considered didn't feel that bad.  That's when I went to my 6 month follow up to the cardio guy.  When he walked in the room, he had what I would call a strong reaction.  I believe his first words were "JESUS CHRIST!!!!".  He was so freaked out he couldn't even look at me when he was talking.  He was insisting I get a CT scan and wanted to put me in a wheelchair to make sure I could make it down there.  I had walked the dogs for an hour that morning, and had even worked out the day before.  I thought I was on the mend, but he was really freaking out.  This is when I thought that maybe I had fucked up on my decision making.    

After a series of X-rays and scans it turned out I didn't fracture my skull.  I did get a hairline fracture by my elbow, but they can't really do anything about that so it didn't matter.  I have now entered my "old guy with weird face injury" phase, similar to guys you see at Home Depot or the grocery store with flaking open sores or loosely taped gauze.  I knew this phase was coming for me sooner or later, but I didn't expect to go from the pit at a Viagra Boys show last Monday to "Yes, as a matter of fact, I have had a recent fall" in 8 days.  It's this type of whirlwind series of events that only confirms my suspicion that I am on borrowed time.  I'll tell you this, I'm not planning a skydiving trip or mountain climbing expedition anytime soon.  Extreme sports for me have moved out of that realm to "mowing the lawn on a hot afternoon".  It's grim.

My focus is now on this lingering headache and NFL futures.  It's so difficult to find value on these because of the over analysis from every dime store dickhead like myself trying to find any edge.  I try to look at franchises with meager fanbases that are sitting in the "sorta crappy" zone.  Here's a team you never think about... the Atlanta Falcons.  The Falcons are coming off an 8-9 season where Cousins gave them most of their juice.  They fired their coach, brought in Kevin "That's on me.  We gotta clean that up." Stefanski and quickly signed my concussion buddy Tua to augment the always injured Michael Penix at QB.  This does not fill me with confidence.  Stefanski on the surface is a good head coach with his two Coach Of The Year trophies, but I never bought in.  He had the worst against the spread record of any veteran coach, meaning that he won most of the games he was supposed to but by less points and he almost always lost the games where his team was an underdog.  On top of that, with the Falcons Stefanski is taking over a team with bad QBs that can't get the ball downfield.  Sound familiar?  He should give the ball to Robinson 400 times a game, but he won't. He'll try to win with four yard dump passes.  

The Falcons went 3-6 with Penix last year.  Nobody wanted Tua because of a suspect arm and the potential that he will die on the field with another big hit.  Where are the wins going to come from?  The NFC South is sorta shitty with all the teams being more or less equal on paper.  For them to improve on last year they need to fix their defensive line (they haven't), get better QB play (Tua looks awful and Penix isn't healthy enough to play), and hope no one else in the division has gotten better.  I think the Saints are on the rise, and the Panthers/Bucs are better than the Flacons.  They start with three 2025 Playoff teams, go on the road to New Orleans, and then Balt/Chi/SF.  At best they are looking at 2-5 unless Stefanski is better than he has been historically.  At that point, is this a team that's looking to "build for the future" to get into draft position for a QB?  No one will hold the new staff responsible for going 5-12 and getting a new potential QB in the draft.  Atlanta UNDER 7.5 wins.    

           

 

 

Explosive Diarrhea Update

 

I’m not sure how the authorities figured out that the source of the explosive diarrhea was the lettuce at Taco Bell as my experience has been that ingestion of Taco Bell in and of itself will result in explosive diarrhea.  For example, if you got in contact with any random set of regular Taco Bell customers and started to poke around their bowel movements, I think that in no time at all you’d discover that explosive diarrhea wasn’t so much an ailment but a lifestyle choice.  I remember Leo telling us in the van one time that he shits 4-5 times a day like it was the most natural thing in the world.  If you are in line at the Taco Bell drive through near my house, you likely spend your day shitting across the region.  Based on my understanding of fast food consumers buying patterns, it would have been difficult for health authorities to dial in if it was the Taco Bell, McDonalds, or Subway which was the culprit of this regional gastrointestinal distress.  Hats off to whoever figured out it was the lettuce across a regional Taco Bell distribution system.  Frankly, I’m stunned to know anything in our government works as designed these days.

I think we forget about what "normal" was in the 2010s.  The sheer incompetence of the Trump Administration is mind boggling.  This just in...  It turns out that if you get rid of all the people with experience and education in a particular area, you’ll have a big drop off in performance.  I guess most people are tuned out so aren’t that concerned that an 80 year old man surrounded by sycophants has bungled his way into a lose/lose situation in the Middle East that increasingly seems to be spiraling further out of control.  It’s also hard to figure out what is really going on over there as we have all become so conditioned to the consistent stream of lies and bullshit from the government that it requires you to seek out information from more trustworthy news resources like Al Jezeera and influencer podcasts.  All I know is we allegedly “won” the war we started but have not achieved any of the stated goals and are currently taking fire from the guys we beat and can’t move any ships.  Sweet, sweet victory.  

I also can’t figure out why the journalists all maintain procedural norms with the administration and pretend he’s not shit talking on the fly when they ask any question.  They don’t seem to understand that by legitimizing him with deference they have become part of the problem.  Instead of "The reflecting pool does not appear to have any evidence of vandalism and it is unclear what evidence the president is referring to in his social media posts", why is it not "You can't believe anything this guy says, because if he demonstrably lied about a botched repair job how could he possibly be telling the truth about ANYTHING?  Today he said X/Y/Z, which are also obviously lies.  Here's what we can confirm to be true.".  I think it would be in everyone's best interest to just stop with the pretense that the office still demands respect to the individual.  The individual in question has no policies, follows no advice, taps no information and seeks to make our reality whatever is going on in his head at any given moment.    

While Trump's approval rating is at a near historic low, it’s hard to believe that 34% of the country still approves of presidential performance.  That’s really low, but still almost 1 out of any 3 people?  Even the "well, I don't like some of the things he says, but..." crowd you's think would notice how badly this guy is fucking things up.  Still, there are less true believer cult members now.  You still see some of those creepy hillbilly shrine houses where they have flags and banners seemingly unaware of the fact that they are cheering along to a bunch of rich guys stealing their taxes, but it’s either that or college football flags for that crowd, so whatever….  I guess they need their passions.  If you are interested you can always wander onto social media to find a climate change denier or someone freaked out by the inevitable “socialist/communist” boogie man the conservatives reliably revert to in times of stress.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone that is worried about socialism actually define what it is they think will happen if someone that wants to install healthcare or affordable housing options into the community gets some authority.  I am of the opinion that a lot of people that think they are “rich” and thus a potential target of the Communist Boogieman don't understand what the definition of "rich" is.  There are a lot of dudes that own shit like jet skis and four wheelers that think they are "rich".  I’m not saying those toys are cheap, but when the kooks in the far left want to target the rich with their pitchforks, they mostly just want Bezos and Zuckerberg to pay taxes like the rest of us.  I don’t think that is a dangerous liberal idea.  I think that’s fair and equitable but goddamn are hillbillies in $60,000 houses worried about Bezos keeping a higher percentage of his earnings or what?

Ultimately most people don’t pay attention to anything unless it directly impacts themselves like being cut off in traffic or a delay in their diarrhea Taco Bell order.  As I write this, there are two women talking to each other directly behind me.  Neither one of them is really listening to the other, their conversation just a babble of noise that intersects in the brief pauses.  “You know when you’re driving from somewhere new and then RIGHT RIGHT you don’t really know for sure where you are going because I KNOW I KNOW and like I was telling my husband I KNOW RIGHT? and then WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW CAUSE IT’S LIKE A NEW he was wanting to know if I IF YOU HAD YEAH YEAH OK OK OK”.  Those two aren’t capable of grasping anything beyond what is going on directly in front of them on the surface level.  How can you move society ahead when most people are fucking morons?  This is what keeps approval ratings at 34% as opposed to 16% and makes the rest of us consider if we want to roll the dice on having a salad to eat.  I like salads.  I don't like explosive diarrhea.  Damn, did the United States fuck itself up.  We are all stuck in this car with an 80 year old dementia patient at the wheel that didn't know how to drive when he was at his best.  Meanwhile, one out of three people in the car are like "You're doing great!" as they scroll Tik Tok dances on their phone having no idea we're speeding into a wall.  It's not great.

That's why I'm focusing on NFL win totals.  There are things we can all agree on there, like the Arizona Cardinals aren't going to be very good.  They are sitting at 500-1 to win the Super Bowl, so expectations are very, very low.  When their win total was released it was at 4.5 wins.  That was immediately bet down to 3.5 wins.  That's rarified air.  Anytime you can look at a 4-13 ticket for a winner you need to give it a glance.  The NFL has razor thin margins between being "average" and "bad".  Each one of these teams is a couple key injuries or cluster injuries at a position away from being terrible.  Add into that mix that each team every season has one of those "I can't believe the (team) won last week over the (clearly superior team) on Sunday.  However, it's hard to build up much confidence in the Cardinals to hit that over.

One of my first considerations in betting an over total is "good QB/good coach".  If a team has both of those in place, they are generally a winning team.  The only teams last year that had that combination but had a losing record were the Ravens at 8-9 (but Lamar missed 4 games, and are we positive John Harbaugh is still a "good" coach?) and the Chiefs at 6-8 (Mahomes missed 3 games).  The Cardinals are rolling into 2026 with Jacoby Brissett and Gardiner Minshew.  At some point they will toss rookie Carson Beck out there to solidify our expectations of him being a shitty QB.  Their coach is first year NFL head coach Mike Lafleur, one of those guys that was an OC under Sean McVeigh so thus has all McVeigh's success attached to him much like past examples of this concept at work like Josh McDaniels.  His brother is Matt Lafleur, again cementing that he HAS TO BE good.  This gives me concern.

The Cardinals schedule in the first half is, shall we say, challenging.  @Chargers/Seattle/@SF/@NY Giants/Lions/@Rams/Broncos/@Dallas/@Seattle/Rams/@Kansas City and that takes you to Thanksgiving.  Looking at that, you have to think they have that Giants game circled.  Maybe Kansas City has a longer rebuild than expected?  I will give them a win in there somewhere.  I just don't know where.  Best case scenario they are what?  2-10?  Now they have to find two wins in the stretch run of Washington/Philly/Jets/@Saints/Raiders/SF.  For me, I'm thinking, "Can they beat the Jets and Raiders at home in December as the Jets try to tank for a pick and the Raiders listlessly wrap up the year on the road?".  

I don't know.

I see this as an automatic play at Over 3, but the books will hesitate to go there on it despite all the negative juice already on the under 3.5.  Last year the Jets/Titans/Raiders went 3-14, so the league seems to have embraced tanking for the draft.  Browns and Titans only won 3 two years ago, but winning 3 games or less is very rare in this ultra competitive league.  The case for the Cardinals winning 4 games+ becomes the only side under consideration.  Let's try to make the argument...

*  The team needed improvement in the line, so they drafted a stud guard in the second round and signed two apparently competent free agents.  This should make their offensive line somewhere in the 16-22 range in the league.  Not great, but not a total disaster like in Cleveland, Tennessee or Houston.  You can win four games with a line like that.   The Cardinals have drafted a bunch of exciting skill position players and put nothing into the line.  You know who else does that?  The Raiders and Falcons.  Uh-oh. 

*  Jacoby Brissett isn't great, but he keeps you in games.  He's thrown 3 times the number of TDs than INTs, so he's good at keeping the team hanging around in games where a turnover can change the outcome.  The problem is Arizona doesn't have a great turnover differential.  Brissett played really well for a stretch in Arizona last year but when you looked at the end of the game, they still lost.  Dude went 1-11 as a starter last year.  Is Carson Beck going to be better?  Probably not, but they will need to find out.  If you think Beck will be an improvement over Brissett, you gotta consider the over 3.5 wins.

*  The Arizona defense was 28th against the pass and 27th against the run in 2025.  Will they be better?  Ummm... I guess they could be?  It seems like they will improve statistically as they will be consistently behind trying to stop short passes and runs up the gut designed to keep the clock running against them.  They aren't winning many games for the team though.  "Boy, did the Cardinals shut down the Rams" is not something I expect to type.  

Gun to head, I'd take the over on this at plus juice.  I think they get a couple weird wins before Thanksgiving.  A win over SF (who I think is going to be feast or famine), the annual insane NFL upset win over somebody crazy, and then find two wins from the Giants/Washington/Jets/Raiders mix.  The variables are if Beck can somehow give you improved QB play, Lafleur really IS a good coach, and the line is good enough to give Jeremiyah Love some opportunities.