Editor’s note: well, we’re late again; despite giving myself two whole extra days to get this week’s picks column ready — here I am on Saturday afternoon typing away furiously with the clock ticking and the tiny fascist editor inside my head screaming bloody murder.
Unfortunately, this once again means no introductory story but I have been assured by numerous readers that roughly four thousand words worth of humors NFL picks are good enough for the weeks where that’s all I have time for. I thank you for your patience and I’d like to inform concerned readers that my cat Ginger has actually turned a few small corners and miraculously is in notably better shape than when I first brought her up here on this website. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we have a vet appointment on Monday and it seems like all the extra love and attention might’ve worked a minor miracle for my beloved kitty; it’s been a good week in my family and truthfully my difficulty finishing this column was more about a nagging case of writer’s block than anything else.
At this point, I’ll refrain from making any promises about the return of the Gambler and our intro stories; on weeks where I have time and inspiration I’ll write one, on weeks where I don’t, I’ll focus on making a few more picks to compensate — despite all outward appearances, I’ve learned that writing fiction under a deadline is actually quite hard sometimes.
As always picks are made against the Pinnacle line at the time I write the column, our choice to win is listed first and home teams are printed in all caps. Please be reminded this website is not responsible in any way if you take gambling advice from a deranged madwoman who still hasn’t managed to break .500 on a week this season; at this point we’re subsidizing Vegas with “the vig” each week — or we would be, if we were actually gambling officer.
PATRIOTS (-1) over Texans:
During last week’s column, I blithely suggested that “New England could promise to hold a bloody punt, pass and kick contest at halftime to see who gets to play quarterback for the rest of the game and I’d still be picking them” — which as it turns out, is precisely what happened last Sunday when the Patriot’s latest attempt at cloning Tom Brady was slammed hard into the dirt and Jimmy “I’m still looking this shit up every time I have to spell it” Garoppolo went down with a fucked up shoulder.
Reports indicate that Garoppolo is technically dressing for this game as the backup QB but that’s pretty much entirely because Bill Belichick is a stone cold mutherfucker with a long, long memory and Jimmy is hoping to someday succeed Tom Brady in New England; he absolutely cannot fucking play after folding his goddamn throwing wing up like that just four days ago and everyone (including the Texans) knows it. Dutifully, I have spent parts of the past three days watching all nine (yes, nine) passes something or someone called Jacoby Brissett threw against Miami last week on loop like every other deranged gambling addict in the country and I can say with some certainty that Brissett is basically terrible; at least for the moment.
This is a problem, because the Patriots are facing off against a devastating pass rush from a Texans front seven that can be best described as a “pack of psycho, fucked-up butchers” who just happen to play football; Brissett’s family should probably consider taking out a goddamn life insurance policy under an assumed name at this point because the rookie is going to get hit hard and often by a defense that knows New England doesn’t have another “real” quarterback available for this game. Don’t expect the run game to help out much either; the Texans defense is vulnerable to speed when they over-pursue but they eat lard-ass power backs like Legarrette Blount for fucking breakfast on the regular — New England is going to have to win this game in the air, with a rookie 3rd-round QB throwing at least twenty-five passes.
The Texans have prepared all summer for this game; they dropped $72M on a goddamn Ent who plays quarterback just because he beat the Patriots in Denver last year, they’ve known for months they wouldn’t have to face Tom Brady and just about everyone on the fucking planet is assuming they’ll get the job done against a team that might seriously be starting Julian Edelman at QB by the fourth quarter.
This is of course, exactly why the Patriots are going to win this game outright on Thursday Night Football after Bill Belichick drags their asses to a “ho-hum” victory through a combination of dark magic, the ritual sacrifice of a practice squad punter and sheer, unbridled assholery.
I told you folks last week, I’m done losing money because I forgot about Dre.
DOLPHINS (+10) over Browns:
Look, I really don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about this game because objectively, it’s going to be a goddamn crime against football and if you’re the type of person who can actually sit through a contest this fucking terrible from start to completion — you’ve got way damn bigger problems than a ten point Dolphins spread.
I’d merely like to point out that this game represents a reasoned violation of one of our “mostly immutable” rules of wagering; Miami has in no way shape or goddamn form proven that they’re capable of covering a ten point spread and under normal circumstances I’d slam Cleveland so hard here, I’d end up in traction — which is basically where most of the Browns best players are right now and therein lies the problem.
Over the past two seasons we’ve been rewarded by picking Cleveland to cover when shockingly competent Browns QB Josh McCown is playing but he apparently snapped his collarbone like a deep-fried chicken wing (again) last week and the Browns are starting a rookie QB (Cody Kessler) that even management admits is nowhere near ready to play at the bloody NFL level. The Browns are now so desperate at the most important position in football that they actually signed the quarterback-like substance and accomplished clipboard warrior Charlie fucking Whitehurst to back up Kessler; despite the former having proven conclusively over his eleven year career that having Chuck Whitehurst at quarterback is pretty much exactly the same goddamn thing as having no quarterback at all.
The Dolphins don’t really deserve our faith this Sunday, but I’m not even sure the Browns can actually score on offense at this point and Cleveland is already staring at a long, painful year of absolutely fucking brutal tanking; in week three of the 2016 season.
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