-Thursday November 6th, 2008-
Now that we’re past the halfway point for the 2008 NFL season and based on my current record for picking games against the spread this year (horrendous), I’ve decided to throw caution to the wind and try a new experiment in terms of the strategy I use in making my weekly picks.
When I was a kid watching TV shows on Friday nights, ABC used to run what they called TGIF, a lineup of family friendly shows designed for that very weak timeslot (Full House, Family Matters, Step By Step, etc.). Well my absolute favorite out of this bunch was “Perfect Strangers.” I’m not going to explain the premise of the show because if you don’t know about it, then do yourself a friggin’ service and go board yourself up for a week and watch the DVDs. But I digress…I have a faint memory of one of the episodes where Larry and Balki become very successful at picking the games each week, simply by thinking up a theoretical death match between the two teams mascots.
Well my little experiment for the rest of the season is going to simply apply the same logic. Forget the way I did it before by looking at matchups and records and home field advantage and injuries, etc. I obviously know nothing. I want to see if I can be more successful by using this stupid technique. At the end of the year, I will compare my winning percentage in the first half with my winning percentage in the second half and compare the two.
Without further ado…below are my new and improved week 11 picks after the schedule
| Time | Favorite | Spread | Underdog |
| Thursday, Nov 13, 2008 | |||
| 8:15 PM | NE Patriots | -3.5 | NY Jets |
| Sunday, Nov 16, 2008 | |||
| 1:00 PM | Atlanta Falcons | -5.5 | Denver Broncos |
| 1:00 PM | Philadelphia Eagles | -9.5 | Cincinatti Bengals |
| 1:00 PM | Green Bay Packers | -5.5 | Chicago Bears |
| 1:00 PM | Indianapolis Colts | -8.5 | Houston Texans |
| 1:00 PM | New Orleans Saints | -4.5 | Kansas City Chiefs |
| 1:00 PM | Miami Dophins | -10.5 | Oakland Raiders |
| 1:00 PM | NY Giants | -6.5 | Baltimore Ravens |
| 1:00 PM | Tampa Bay Bucaneers | -3.5 | Minnesota Vikings |
| 1:00 PM | Carolina Panthers | -14.5 | Detroit Lions |
| 1:00 PM | Tennessee Titans | -2.5 | Jacksonville Jaguars |
| 4:05 PM | San Francisco 49ers | -3.5 | St. Louis Rams |
| 4:05 PM | Arizona Cardinals | -3.5 | Seattle Seahawks |
| 4:15 PM | Pittsburgh Steelers | -4.5 | San Diego Chargers |
| 8:15 PM | Dallas Cowboys | -1.5 | Washington Redskins |
| Monday, Nov 17, 2008 | |||
| 8:30 PM | Buffalo Bills | -4.5 | Cleveland Browns |
Jets (+3.5) over the Patriots
I have to take the Jets getting the points on this one on this one being that a Patriot could easily be shot down when being chased by an actual Jet! This is going to be easy…
Broncos (-5.5) over the Falcons
Sure, a Falcon can be more elusive and can probably delay the inevitable with a Bronco, but who are we kidding here. If you were to put the two in a cage match of death, we know who’d win.
Bengals (+9.5) over the Eagles
Same logic here, except even more poignant due to the fact that we’re talking about a friggin’ Bengal eating an Eagle! Done and done…
Bears (+5.5) over the Packers
I picture the scene with Will Ferrell and the Bear in Semi-Pro…we know how that turned out.
Texans (+8.5) over the ColtsThe last time I checked, horses do not know how to use a gun yet…but Texans sure do.
Chiefs (+4.5) over the Saints
If history teaches us anything…Indian Chiefs loved to be brutal bastards and Saints loved to become martyrs so that they would eventually become Saints. Moving on…
Raiders (+10.5) over the DolphinsWow…really? A crazy pirate dude vs. Flipper? This is getting a ridiculous. By the way, I’m starting to notice a lot of underdogs being picked through this exercise.
Giants (-6.5) over the Ravens
Even Andre the Giant could catch a stupid bird and kill it. So much for the underdogs
Vikings (+3.5) over the BucsThis one is probably the most evenly matched so far. But from what I know about Vikings, they were some pretty crazy Nordic sons of bitches and out of all the pirate type names you could come up with, doesn’t “Buccaneer” sound the most girly?
Lions (+14.5) over the PanthersI take that back…this is now the most evenly matched so far. I could’ve taken into account the “Wizard of Oz” principle with the Lion being portrayed as cowardly. Instead I’ll go with the common rule that the Lion is the king of the jungle and besides, my favorite Disney propaganda was “The Lion King.”
Titans (-2.5) over the JaguarsI just picture a giant soldier striking down a jaguar in mid leap with his mighty sword. Plus, I’m sick of all the feline themed mascots.
Rams (+3.5) over the 49ersOnce again I will apply the cage match scenario. There’s no way some gold rusher can get away from a battering ram. They’re not trained to fight, not even with their pick axes.
Cardinals (-3.5) over the SeahawksAnother game of even stevens in the mascot world. I’m really sick of all the bird mascots too at this point. They should just change all the mascot names to different birds and different types of felines. Maybe one group can be the NFC and the other can be the AFC. Then in the Super Bowl every year, you know you have some kind of crazy Bird vs. Cat fight every year. Then they can make some silly cartoon about it like Sylvester and Tweety. Whatever, I obviously have nothing…I’m taking the Cards here.
Chargers (+4.5) over the SteelersHmmm…someone who works in a factory that produces a certain type of metal vs. ELECTICITY! Come on!
(The “Come on!” in the previous excerpt is a shout out to my favorite television character of all time, GOB from “Arrested Development”)
Cowboys (-1.5) over the RedskinsA good ole’ Cowboys vs. Indians match. We all know how this worked out the first time around.
Bills (-4.5) over the Browns
This interesting…according to the internet box, both of these teams were actually named after real people. It just so happens that one of them carried a gun.
That concludes the experiment for this week. Lets see how this goes!
Take it sleazy people.
