The BMW X3 and NFL Week 7

After four years, I just saw my old 2010 BMW X3.  I don't have any love for the car, but I owned it for about 8 years where it served as my "winter car".  If you get down to brass tacks, it was actually my "dog car".   When you have two basset hounds that need to be ferried around, you need to accept the fact that they are going to make one of your cars filled with shedded fur and smell like old fritos.  My old bassets Monty and Ryver had so many health issues the last few years of their lives that I must have driven them once a week to a vet as I siphoned off all money for a new "winter car" into basset care.  I added it up one time and over the last few years, I spent $21,000 on those dogs (and would do so again).  I loved those bassets. 

The car had 160,000 miles on it when I got rid of it.  I had crested the point with an old car when you stop making major repairs and start to look for the "good enough" solutions to problems.  By the time I was ready to purchase my next car, that BMW needed a new drive shaft, complete brake job, four new tires, new windshield, muffler, and exhaust pipes.  I remember my mechanic telling me, "I think you can keep it on the road for another 3 months, but I wouldn't drive it further than one uber ride away."  As I was driving back and forth from the vet mostly, I limped through the 2022 holiday season before trying to see what I could get for it as part of another new used car deal.  Enter Leo...

We were talking in the van about my finally looking around for a new used car (a 2015 Audi Q5 with 70,000 miles on it during that bleak post covid period when used cars were insanely inflated).  I had a dealer that must have made a killing on his previous deal offer me something like $1500 for the BMW to be part of the deal.  I'm telling you, that BMW was essentially scrap at that point.  Leo, hearing this, asked if I would sell him the car instead.  I told him "That's a terrible idea.  I cannot stress to you how fucked up this car is.  You don't want any part of it.".  I still remember him telling me "All I know is I am going to be really mad if you don't sell me that car."  Events had taken on a life of their own.

He had owned a BMW X3 some years earlier, purchased as he purchases most things, by randomly walking into someone selling it.  I distinctly remember telling him not to buy a BMW with more than 100,000 miles on it unless he was ready to pay $1500 in the least opportune times.  Every single BMW repair costs $1500 even if it's a wiper blade replacement or side view mirror repair.  It just doesn't seem to matter.  If you own a BMW, the sweet spot is miles 10,000-50,000.  There are a few repairs that come like clockwork at 60,000, and then you can cruise to 100,000.  After that, it's caveat emptor.  Leo waved away this foreboding warning sort of like when someone in a children's story is scolded not to go into the haunted woods at night.  He went skipping in singing a nursery rhyme oblivious to the dangers ahead.

That car began to give him problems almost immediately.  I cannot stress to you enough how fucked up it was.  If it was a horse, you would have shot it out of mercy.  He must have been behind the wheel for about 30 days when he picked me up for some reason.  I remember when he started the car the dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree, a sea of twinkling red lights.  As a guy that owned 8 BMWs over the years, I recognized that if they have a warning light go off, it's not advice.  It's "you better take care of this fucking problem or we are going to seize up on you when you are 72 miles from your house."  That is, of course, exactly what happened.  That particular X3 was towed at some point to his old work helper's house where I believe it was briefly started again until the engine seized up and was sold for scrap.  RIP.

Having this past experience did not deter Leo from buying yet another BMW X3 with high mileage, in this case mine with 160,000 hard, hard miles.  I sold it to him for whatever that trade in offer was and took a few hundred off for mercy.  It was, perhaps, the worst used car anyone could have purchased with the exception of my father's famous "Hooligan" he owned for a brief period in the mid 1970s.  Leo gave it over to his friend, a mechanic that specializes in repairing BMWs, that put in a new drive shaft, did the brakes, and maybe the windshield?  I don't remember all the details, but Leo felt confident enough to allow his wife to drive it to Florida.  This is a feat I would place alongside Charles Limbaugh's transcontinental flight as an accomplishment of pure daring.  Shortly afterwards the car broke down again.

I heard legends that the car occasionally ran again in short spurts.  I think that engine seized up too.  If I can offer up a guess as to how that happened I would imagine that it was ignoring some Xmas tree lights on the dash combined with the fact that the car was tired.  So so tired.  This is when the story took a turn and I learned that Leo had decided to drop a new engine into the car.  I can't understand the logic of doing that.  As I had mentioned, I had driven around with basset hounds in that car for almost a decade and about three years prior to getting rid of it abandoned almost all care of the interior.  This is not a gorgeous one-of-a-kind vehicle with some slight engine issues.  It's a beat to shit 16 year old car with almost 200,000 miles on it.  I would have to think that if you added up his initial purchase price, the primary repair costs, tows, cost of tires, and now the new engine installation we would be talking about the purchase price of an X3 with about 100,000 less miles and undoubtedly better condition interior.  But, Leo is gonna do what Leo is gonna do.  There is no stopping it, much as you cannot stop a river flowing or the moon rising in the sky.  It's happening.

On Tuesday I was driving over to Hector's to practice.  We are dialing in about 11 new songs for a new record, so we were all eager to get going.  My phone rang with a call from Leo, which was odd as he's not much of a phone guy.  "Hey buddy."  This alerted me to the fact something was wrong.  I don't get a "buddy" unless there is an issue.  A "Hey G!" greeting means something of much less significance.  He told me he was broken down on the Cedar off ramp and asked if I could give him a jump.  I wasn't sure why his battery would quit while he was driving, but I said I was on my way and figured I'd assess the situation once I got there.  When I arrived, I saw it.  Holy shit.  It was my old X3 after all these years, broken down, just like the last time I had seen it a few years ago.  He had tried to jump it to no avail, and decided to push it off to the side of the road and "deal with it tomorrow".  I thought he should have towed it then and there, but he assured me that "he had a guy".  Uh oh.  

As far as I know, that old BMW is still sitting there on the off ramp.  I think it is a testament to man's desire to see a dream through, no matter how unlikely that it is to come true.  We all knew that this project would probably end in great failure, but sometimes you just have to try.  There is something to be said for that kind of stubborn resolve to just see it through, fighting against headwinds so strong it would knock down a lesser man.  I could identify with that.  I too have that stubborn streak and I am going to put it on display by once again getting involved in a wager involving the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  The Bucs are my 2010 BMW X3.      

I am going to once again get involved with a Tampa game despite being 0-3 in calling them this year.  That piece of shit rookie QB tossed that game killing INT last week just like I had feared that he would, so the good news for Bucs fans is Baker Mayfield appears to be coming back this week.  Mayfield, who dislocated his thumb on his non-throwing hand, is no stranger to playing hurt.  I saw that guy playing hero ball and blowing games for a full year while a healthy Case Keenum stood on the sidelines cashing checks.  With Mayfield it's never clear if he wants to play as some sort of macho posturing or if he is more worried about not getting enough attention.  It might be a combination of both.  Tampa is a staggering 1-14 ATS in their last 15 games.  I don't think I have ever seen that with an NFL team, and I lived through the 1-15/0-16 Cleveland Browns era.  Carolina has covered three of the last four times they have played Tampa, are at home, and appears to be a much, much better team than Tampa.  Carolina -2.5

I'm doing it.  I'm on the Raiders.  I think we might be in that time period where the public refuses to release their preseason notions on the Rams being some kind of superteam.  The Rams are a friggen mess.  They have Davante AND Puca out this week.  Myles is still out with Aaron Donald looking like a guy that just came out of retirement.  Stafford suddenly looks old (as can so often happen to NFL QBs, see Manning, Peyton and Brees, Drew for reference).  The Raiders have fallen back out of favor with the public after going from 3-0 to 3-3 in three quick weeks, but let's put it into context.  The Raiders lost to the Bills, Patriots, and Chiefs- three AFC Playoff teams.  None of us think the Raiders are a playoff team, but it looks like they have ascended to be one of those teams that loses close games at the end by 3 or scores meaningless backdoor covers with cheap TD passes with no time on the clock.  The Rams have two wins this year.  Arizona and the Giants.  They definitely "need" this game, but the Raiders at home with points?  Why not.  Raiders +4.5

The Browns v Tennessee game is perhaps the least anticipated game of the 2026 season.  The Browns offense sucks (28th), but the Titans sucks worse (31st).  Watson will fire passes into the dirt for three quarters but with Cam Ward, I don't even think that he knows where it is going.  Neither team can run the ball in the best of scenarios, and both defenses are pretty good.  I am on the UNDER as the only way I can imagine this going over is if the special teams score or Ward tosses a pick 6.  This game should be essentially unwatchable, so thank God I will have a stake in it to keep me somewhat attentive.  Cleveland/Tennessee UNDER 38.5

Current record:  9-10

The LinkedIn Swamp And NFL Week 6

 

I made the mistake of opening up LinkedIn to respond to an email there.  Like most normal human beings that end up having a LinkedIn account, I was told I "had to be there" by people in my old job.  Like a fool, I listened to them which has allowed the cesspool of Corporate America to seep into my world on an unwelcome basis since I set up that account.  To those of you reading this not involved in Corporate America, consider it a blessing to not have to log onto the platform.  I assume the initial idea was to create a Facebook type community for people in white collar jobs and unfortunately it turned into Facebook for white collar jobs.  It's a nightmare.  

LinkedIn, as I see it, exists for two primary reasons. 1.  For people to self promote themselves via corporate speak and false humility to allow them to leave their current soul crushing job for their next shallow soul crushing job.  This is where people will say passive aggressive things like "I am humbled and honored to have accepted a new position with (insert company) as the assistant regional manager.  We have an absolutely incredible team that is the best in the business that is dedicated to (whatever the company does expressed as some selfless act)."  What they really mean is "I just got a promotion to be the assistant manager that oversees Rochester and Oswego, so I kind of think I am a bit of a baller and wanted to take a victory lap.  We sell sorta shitty office equipment.  The "best team in the business" I am referring to is some stupid hillbilly woman named Denise that heats up tuna fish in the microwave in the breakroom, this balding guy named Robby that likes to talk about a woman in shipping's "gazongas", Gary who has worked here for 14 years and spoken in a meeting twice, and Maureen who the company wants to fire but can't because she ginned up some alleged handicap.  None of us give a fuck but if we can sell you 4% more shit than last year, I'll hit my bonus and can buy a jet ski."

There is nobody worse than someone that is very fluent in LinkedIn speak and seems like a True Believer.  These are people which wear their profession as their only identity and have created a self worth totally focused on the fact that they have what they believe is status and power because they get to talk at the Monday morning meeting and can lord over 5-7 people who otherwise would never have to listen to them.  There is nothing that fills me with more schadenfreude than when one of those people gets "laid off" (they never get fired, only "downsized").  The combination of loss of confidence as their identity was stripped away plus the wild positioning of themselves as they scramble for a new job is a joy to behold.  I just saw some dickbag that used to work within the corporation I was mired in get clipped and is now manically "re-branding" himself.  As far as I could tell, when he was in his old job the only thing he did was attend meetings and shoot out jargon filled emails with no substance.  He had some bullshit titles like "Director of Enterprise Growth" and was a "Director of Local Sales Initiatives".  I have no idea what he actually did because as a guy that was bringing in money, I never thought about him at all unless he had created some bullshit at the corporate level that served to only be a distraction and wasted my time.  As a guy once referred to a fellow salesperson at a job I had in the early 1990s, "He couldn't sell pussy on a troop ship".  Ah, it was a different age...  Anyway, the guy that got fired because he sucked is now madly posting after he couldn't find a new job and is justifying his new made up job of "consultant".   He just decided to launch his "company" which I assume means he created a new email address and maybe a website.  If you need some guy to talk shit, he's available. 

The other reason LinkedIn exists is for people seeking other jobs to make comments on other posts as a transparent attempt to curry favor.  Somebody will post that they are "humbled and honored" to be a sales rep for some piece of shit digital marketing company and then right underneath will be people in the comments saying things like "Congratulations Dan!  As a thought leader in the space you will be a huge asset to the organization!".  I think that person could save themselves some time by calling or texting Dan directly and saying "Bro... You think you can get me in over there.  I think these fuckers at my job are going to put me on a PIP.".  I guess LinkedIn allows a safe space for the true lions of Corporate America, those that can smile though any indignity and ignore the obvious while cheering on blatant stupidity.  Super active people on LinkedIn can find each other and say, "I bring a leadership-first mindset, an enterprise-aligned moral compass, and a relentless passion for transforming executive directives into actionable enthusiasm. My superpower? Knowing when to challenge the status quo—and when the status quo signs my paycheck."  

I can't tell you how happy I am not to be involved in that bullshit.  Embracing reality, no matter how grim, is a much cleaner path.  That's why I am betting on the Tennessee Titans.  Now you might ask yourself why anyone would willingly walk up to the window to hand money over saying, "I'd like to bet on a Robert Salah coached team with Cam Ward at QB please.".  This is a legitimate concern.  The Titans appear to be a clear cut bottom three team in the NFL.  However, every team in the NFL has to win at some point.  Why not today for the Titans?  The Colts defense is terrible, Daniel Jones isn't the same level of effectiveness with limited mobility, and their owner is wandering around the sideline with sparkly jackets and a head set.  This is not an ideal situation.  I suspect the Titans might win outright today, but in light of them consistently staying within one score in their losses, I'm on Tennessee +7.

I jumped on the Browns when they were at +5.5 when it was suspected Lamar was going to play tying them up in a teaser.  Now I did that when Philadelphia was at +1.5 and it was assumed that Jalen Hurts wasn't about to lose his leg to a tragic blood clot.  So now I am out there with all kinds of Eagles exposure with Tanner McKee about to make his first real NFL debut in front of a bunch of pissed off Eagles fans.  I don't know if Tanner McKee is going to be serviceable or not (my guess is "not") because I know as much about Tanner McKee as you do.  I sure as shit don't recall seeing exciting Stanford highlights where some guy was slinging the ball around, so I'm not feeling great about that.  Thus, I am going to have to backwards engineer my way out of that situation and make some uncomfortable choices.

The starting QB situation today is very murky.  I have no idea what that coy zesty fella Caleb is doing in Chicago, so that Bears game is out of consideration.  I certainly can't allow the Jets into my Circle Of Trust, so that's out.  Something about that Texans v Jags game screams out "eel", so I'm out on that.  The Giants v Saints game falls into my "Never bet a game with two shit teams with a mountain of injuries" policy.  Do I really want to get involved with the Arizona Cardinals in any situation, much less against a Rams team that needs a breather but also desperately needs the win?  Who wants any part of the Chargers right now?  They might just have to disband that disaster.  Dammit... I am going to have to bet this Tampa v Pittsburgh game...

I feel like Doyle Lonagan from "The Sting" as I am going to take Tampa +2.5 versus Pittsburgh today.  I just know that after I see a couple Q1 turnovers from future trivia question answer Jalon Daniels and the Bucs fall behind 10-0 I am going to try to crawl through the cage screaming "GIVE ME BACK MAH MONEY!  THERE'S BEEN A MISTAKE!!!", but here we are.  My thought is that Pittsburgh sorta sucks and can't score.  They can't run the ball at all, and Tampa has shockingly good metrics for a team that doesn't ever win football games.  Aaron Rodgers always plays like shit in Florida, and when his RPO facades don't have the Tampa defense biting, he will spend the day dumping passes to ineffective running backs and tight ends so he doesn't get hit.  If Tampa doesn't turn the ball over I think they can grind out some ugly ass game where Rodgers is yelling at guys on the sideline and his teammates are all exchanging glances trying to communicate "Why is this guy such a dick?".  I am filled with trepidation but I am doing it.

Current Record:  8-9 

   

Sorry Kid and NFL Week 5

 

I read about an incident at one of the Dodgers v Braves MLB playoff games where a foul ball went into the stands and an adult male caught the ball.  The guy was a huge baseball fan and after attending games for a couple decades, this was the first foul ball he had ever caught.  Meanwhile, ten rows in back of the guy, a mother sent her five year old kid back to ask the guy for the foul ball.  The guy said “no” and he wanted o keep it.  Of course, this immediately triggered outrage amongst certain people who felt like to deprive the kid of the ball was cruel.  As soon as I read it, I thought “Fuck that kid and fuck that kid’s parents.”.

Now before you go crazy at me, let me say I would probably have given the kid the ball.  Who needs a whole section of people getting on your ass for a baseball clipped into section 128 by Jeff Manto or whoever.  The ball would have gone home with me and then sat on my desk or on a shelf as part of my voluminous garbage I have collected over the years.  Yet, if I wanted to keep it, why do I have to hand it over because some kid a half a section away wants it?  At what point is someone going to teach that child (and his parents) the idea that your kid doesn’t get anything he wants just because you think he’s so fucking special.  What’s next?  I gotta give him my beer because he asked for it?  Sit the fuck down kid.  It ain’t yours.

I do feel badly for the kid though.  He likely had no idea of why he was doing it and must have thought, “Well, this seems unusual for me to walk down ten rows of stairs to go talk to a stranger and ask him for something that everyone seems excited about.  But Mom seemed to think it was the right thing to do, so I’m going to follow orders here.”.  Seriously, at what point did the society decide that all these kids are little princes that get every wish and desire granted?  There was some meeting held somewhere where all these parents agreed that their offspring were standout human beings, creatures so unique that the social norms needed to be upended to better serve their needs.  Was the baseball for the kid, or was it actually for the Mom to feel like she was the super parent that was manufacturing the ultimate childhood?  She is going to right all the wrongs of her own childhood by providing a storybook land of rainbows and unicorns for her own child.  The kid is 5.  He doesn’t give a shit.  The ball flying into the stands was exciting enough.  And you know what, life is filled with disappointments.  Maybe the kid needs to learn that now.  You want the ball?  Too fucking bad.  It ain't yours.

The other thing that pisses me off is the way that parent put the guy on the spot.  She was asking a favor of the guy, and she did it in the most passive aggressive way possible by sending some little boy over with the confidence that no one could possibly say no to such a sweet little bastard.  Kudos for the man for saying no.  He had to know he was going to catch a shit storm, but the real shit storm should be on that Mom for putting I’m in that position in the ultimate public setting.  Of course, then the internet roared to life and all these "Aw, let the kid have the ball" people chipped in.  Shut the hell up.  You are part of the problem too.  I worked with an entire generation of young adults that were groomed to think they were special.  They all thought they should he running the place as soon as they got hired because they had been told their whole lives how special they were and everything had been set up for them to get what they want immediately.  Bad news.  In this life you got a lot of shit sandwiches to eat.  If you haven't eaten one yet, that first one is going to be rough.  Better to have it when you're five so you develop a real taste for 'em.

Speaking of shit sandwiches, has anyone gotten to eat one of those like NY Giants fans?  They (predictably) lost their QB Dart to injury for the season.  The good news is they have Jameis Winston as a backup, so that means they can at least lock in for a season of "anything can happen" football where he will toss 3 TDs and 3 INTS in the same game.  Then they go out and trade for JJ McCarthy?  Good lord.  I don't know if we have ever seen an organization give up on a Top 10 overall pick as fast as McCarthy by the Vikings.  That kid must not only suck, but be such a total douche that they team was willing to publicly admit their failure by giving him away for a 5th.  Now he's a Giant.  Let me ask you, who's judgement do you trust with a QB- the Vikings or the Giants?  So as McCarthy's bad vibes settle into NY, they get the Commanders this week with Daniels coming back from a horrific elbow dislocation.  I'm sure he's not ready to play, but after having to toss that Rutgers kid in last week after (also predictably) Marcus Mariota instantly got hurt, they don't really have a choice in what is suddenly now a very winnable NFC East.  The real exciting part of this game is not who wins, because both teams sorta blow, but when do we all get to see another nauseating elbow dislocation when Daniels brace fails?  I'm on the Giants to keep it close in lousy Atlantic Coast weather.  I fully anticipate not watching one second of this game.  Giants +3.5

After the Lions burned me last week in getting smoked by the Panthers (the Panthers!) it has now become painfully obvious that the problem with the Lions is that old issue of "they aren't very good".  The Lions have the worst defense in football.  There's a couple dudes playing in the defensive backfield that a couple weeks ago were parking cars at the Motor City Casino.  A couple things to consider on this game...  Should the Lions be favored on the road versus ANYBODY much less on a short week?  How can you cover a football game when you can't stop anyone?  I'm looking for that old reliable effort from Jacoby Brissett and the Cardinals where he has a chance to win the game for the Cardinals at the end and fails to make a play.  The last thing you see before they cut to yet another USAA commercial is Jacoby looking off pensively in the distance as he tosses a 4th and 7 pass into the turf.  Arizona +4.5 

The weather is going to be shitty in NY today.  I say this as a guy that is in NY and just purchased a plastic bag that is allegedly a "poncho" so I can get poured on at the Meadowlands watching our sex offender battle another great citizen in Geno Smith in what is sure to be a miserable watch.  I think the Browns and the Jets are essentially the same team, one of the great sea of teams this year in the NFL that get to be the "opponent" for the four or five good teams to steamroll on the way to their potential Super Bowl.  Neither the jets or Browns can move the ball very well and they both have stout defenses.  I am going to take the underdog, in this case the Browns, and tease them up further by matching them up with the Jacksonville Jaguars.  I don't give a shit on who wins that Browns game.  I assume it will be close and ugly.  On the flip of this is I think Jacksonville is catching the Eagles at a great time.  The Eagles Hall of Fame tackle retires, they trade their starting center, and as the veneer falls away from that amazing o-line, we are all discovering that Jalen Hurts isn't a "win because of" QB but more of a "win with" player.  I keep saying it, but Jacksonville is really good.  Take the points down and take the W here.  Browns +8.5/Jacksonville -1  

Current record:  6-8

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.