Quick question: What’s better than skipping church, sitting on the couch in a dark room watching the Red Zone channel for 12 hours avoiding all real world responsibilities, and gambling on grown men who probably have CTE? Doing it for the 19th straight week, Welcome to the NFL Playoffs.
Buckle up people we are knee deep in the most glorious time of year known as the NFL Playoffs and this weekend may be the best weekend in all of football. Or even the best weekend in all of sports. Or even the best weekend in the entire year!!! Christmas? New Years? 4th of July? You could combine the excitement of all those holidays and it wouldn’t come close to the excitement that awaits us during divisional round weekend of the NFL playoffs. 2 games Saturday, and 2 games Sunday, and Every game is going to be close except Patriots-Texans. Every QB is one of the best in the league except Brock Osweiler. Every coach is at top of their profession except Bill O’Brien who is a sad excuse for a poor mans Bill Belichick and I feel confident in saying that Bill Belichick has taken dumps that could coach better than Bill O’Brien. And every game is meaningful except Pats-Texans which will be a slaughterfest and the Patriots could rest Tom Brady and still cover the spread. 8 teams remain alive and will be playing this weekend for a chance to advance and possibly win the super bowl. On the other hand some teams are also packing their bags because they are moving cities next year, the San Diego Chargers are no more and Thursday made it official that next year they will be playing in Los Angeles.
LA has had one unsuccessful season of Rams football and they are already bringing them a second team. That would be like Will Smith announcing his next project is After Earth 2; did any of us really want the first one to begin with. The Charger and Rams could combine teams and still not be able to beat half the teams in the league. The Browns and the 49ers both had historically bad seasons and all 3 of their wins combined came against teams who now play in Los Angeles. And its not like LA is known for having great sports fans to begin with. Half of LA thinks Kobe is still starting for the Lakers. There is a famous saying that goes ‘how do you tell if someone is a Laker fan? they know nothing about basketball’ I highly doubt the Hollywood A-listers will be running to get in line to see a Rams or Chargers game anytime soon.
Something else happened last Sunday besides NFL playoff games, the Golden Globe awards were on Sunday night. I did not watch a second of them. I was busy watching film on the Seahawks in case Kyle Shannan called me up this week and wanted my opinion on how to attack the cover 3. It came to my attention later this week that Meryl Streep won an award of some kind and gave a very interesting acceptance speech. Basically she said that without hollywood and actors the rest of America would have nothing to watch but football. How out of touch with reality is this old lady? Nothing to watch but football? I DREAM OF A WORLD WHERE THERE IS NOTHING TO WATCH BUT FOOTBALL. This is the worst type of award acceptance speech, a person who pretends to be someone else for a living is trying to tell me I should feel bad if all I watch is football, absurd. I found something else this week, I have never actually seen a movie staring Meryl Streep, not one. I attempted to do some research for this blog on wikipedia and I’m aware of the perception that Streep is considered to be a very good actress but just to make sure I called my mom to ask her opinion of Meryl and she said “Meryl Streep is the GOAT.” While I’m proud of my mom for using great slang terminology I’m not so sure Meryl Streep is actually the greatest of all time, I think Phillip Rivers might be better. Exibit A:
Meryl Streep and the rest of the hollywood elite may hate the idea of nothing to watch but football, whether they like it or not the Chargers will soon be playing in their city. Since he is in LA Phillip Rivers may want to consider trying his hand at acting. I mean look at the way he pretends to be tough one second and the next acts as if he was hit by a full speed train. I’d like to see Meryl Streep’s old bones pretend to take a hit like that. Maybe Phillip Rivers can give Meryl a few pointers, maybe start with picking a movie that doesn’t sound like a fake made up title like: Dark Matter, One True Thing, Prime, or Moonbeam (ok that last one was fake but it could have fooled me; all those others are all real movies that she was in, ever heard of any of them? me either.)
Rivers like Meryl Streep is also overrated but without any of the accolades to go along with it. Poor Phillip will have to pack up with 12 kids, drive up to LA and attempt to win more than 6 games so these holier-than-thou hollywood types like Meryl Streep’s will actually attend both the terrible Rams and terrible Chargers games. If he succeeds and people buy into the Chargers in LA maybe he and Meryl can be friends, if not I know another person who will agree with him that Meryl Streep and her Hollywood friends suck. Good Ol Goose.
NFL DIVISIONAL ROUND PICKS
All lines used from Las Vegas Westgate SuperBook
Falcons -265 over Seahawks and Over 51
Patriots -15.5 over Texans
Packers +5 over Cowboys
Chiefs -120 over Steleers
Falcons -265 over Seahawks and Over 51
I’m gonna try my best to do impartial when writing this even though I’m a die hard Falcons fan so I will do this in 2 parts. First is a sober level headed argument for why Atlanta will win this game: The Falcons enter the playoffs on a 4 game winning streak during which they averaged 39 ppg and held their opponents to 18 ppg. The Falcons played the Seahawks blow for blow in Seattle in week 6 and ALMOST came out with a win in Seattle despite losing the turnover battle 0-2. The Falcons had a buy and an opportunity to get healthy and the Falcons have no one listed on their injury report entering Saturday. The Seahawks lost pro bowl safety Earl Thomas for the season and have been significantly worse on defense since his injury. Lastly and most importantly this game is NOT in Seattle, where the Seahawks are 8-1 this year including the playoffs as opposed to 3-4-1 on the road. This game is gonna be close and I like the Falcons to come out on top.
Now for the Falcons fan in me to state his argument: THE FALCONS HAVE THE BEST DAMN OFFENSE IN THE LEAGUE RUSSELL WILSON’S STARBUCKS DRINKIN MACKLEMORE LISTENIN ASS WILL NEVER COME INTO THE ATL AND WIN A PLAYOFF GAME FALCONS SUPER BOWL BOUND 85 BEARS COULDNT STOP THIS OFFENSE FALCONS BY A MILLION.
Also I have no idea why I did not realize this earlier but the Falcons have hit or tied the over in their last 11 games so let’s go ahead call the over 51 a lock.
Patriots -15.5 over Texans
Here is a list of things that are more likely to happen than the Texans going into Foxborough and beating the Patriots this Saturday:
Hell freezes over. John Mellencamp wins an Oscar. John Elway comes out of retirement to play QB for the Broncos next season. Chris Brown and Soulja Boy put their differences aside to team up and run for president on the same ticket in 202o and win. Lenny Dykstra wins the nobel prize for literature. Jameis Winston and Chris Johnson team up to coach a high school speech and debate team. RGIII leads the browns to a super bowl. RGIII leads the Browns to the super bowl on Madden. RGII wins more than 8 games as the Browns Starting QB. RGIII plays 16 games in a season. Donald Trump appoints Meryl Streep to Secretary of State. Vladamir Putin and Barack Obama get matching BFF tattoos. Hilary Clinton gets photographed wearing a Make America Great Again hat. Johnny Manziel wins NFL comeback player of the year. The sun doesn’t come out tomorrow.
The Patriots went 13-3 ATS this season and covered double digit spreads multiple times. I expect them to do the same this Saturday.
Packers +5 over Cowboys
Easy pick to make because of how dominate the Packers looked last Sunday in the second half against a very good Giants defense. But this Packers team is more than just dominate for a half of playoff football, they are on a 7 game winning streak and in their last 5 games have averaged 35 ppg. They don’t have an easy task going into Dallas to play a 13-3 Cowboys team. I don’t know if the Packers will be able to win this one straight up but I think they will be able to keep it close.
Chiefs -120 over Steelers
Steelers looked great last Sunday and Vegas took notice as this line is almost a pick ’em on the road in Kansas City. What Vegas didn’t take notice of was the Steelers were playing the Dolphins with a backup QB. Even with people hoping on the Steelers train, I’m sticking with the Kool-Aid man Andy Reid for one reason. Andy Reid is 16-2 in his Career in games coming off a buy. Andy Reid may not be good at winning super bowls or dieting but he is great at winning games coming off the buy. Give me Andy Reid, Alex Smith, and Fake Gronk at home over the Steelers.
After this weekend we only have 3 football games left, enjoy it while you can.
Double COVERage 