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 4th straight week. Welcome to NFL Sunday.

I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to waste time writing about serious political issues when I should be wasting time writing about stupid football things. I really wanted to write about how much I hate the Chargers, and the city of LA having two football teams, and specifically how much I absolutely can’t stand Phil Rivers for no good reason other than I hate his stupid face. Instead the President decided to open his mouth and word vomit all over a crowd in Alabama, telling them he wishes NFL owners would fire players who took a knee in protest for the National Anthem. 

Let’s start with this, I don’t really follow politics. I think its boring, and depressing, and much less fun that obsessively following sports. I know President Trump has said some crazy things before but I actively do not pay attention to any of the things he says or tweets. This time was different, Trump stepped out of the Presidential world of politics and stepped into the world of the NFL, that’s when I started paying attention. Trump’s comments made one things clear, he feels players who are kneeling during the anthem are disrespecting the United States and the flag. Which is the most obvious ’70 year old white guy’ opinion on the NFL. The players who are kneeling are actually protesting police brutality toward minorities in the United States. The reason players are kneeling instead of sitting is based on the advice former Seattle Seahawk and Green Beret, Nate Boyer, gave to Colin Kaepernick a year ago when the protests first started. Based on the President’s comments, I believe he does not know any of that.

So what was President Trumps goal when addressing the NFL anthem protests? Did he hope the owners would actually fire players who knelt and the protest would stop? If that was his goal he is going about it all wrong. Anyone who’s ever made a deal with a small child knows yelling at them to stop is never going to result in the solution you’re looking for. Put yourself in this situation,  a small child around 7 or 8 years old is sitting in the drivers seat of a car and refuses to move. You need to get in the driver’s seat to drive the car to your hypothetical destination. If you yell at the child and say “GET THIS SON A BITCH OUT OF THE FRONT SEAT HES FIRED!” How do you think that child is going to react? Yelling at people and calling them names is no way to get them to do what you want, and everyone over the age of 9 knows that except for Donald Trump.

Maybe President Trump’s goal was not to stop anthem protests but simply make a point. If that is the case, WHY IS TRUMP TALKING ABOUT THE NFL IN THE FIRST PLACE, THATS FOR LOSER BLOGGERS LIKE ME TO DO, NOT SOMEONE WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THE NUCLEAR LAUNCH CODES. I don’t know what a President is supposed to be doing on a day to day basis, but its safe to assume the President of the United States has a pretty packed schedule. At my job during the day I normally find less than 15 minutes to check twitter and tweet my thoughts about the NFL. How is someone with the most important job in the country finding time to tweet 20 times a day about the NFL?

This may be the first time a sitting President has voiced such strong opinions against NFL players, but this is not the first time Donald Trump has been involved with a football league. A lifetime ago Donald Trump bought  franchise in the upstart United States Football League, a spring league looking to compete with the NFL. Long story short the league folded after 3 seasons and the primary reason why was Donald Trump demanded the league move from the spring to the fall. If you watch the 30 for 30 documentary on the USFL basically everyone involved agrees if Trump had never owned a team the league would not have gone defunct. Which brings me to another theory, is Donald Trump trying to destroy the NFL just like he did the USFL. Clearly there is a precedent set by this president for destroying football leagues, he’s done it once, what’s to say he won’t do it again. Trumps criticism of NFL owners may lead to them actually firing players, leading to a watered down product, leading to the folding of the NFL. This is an unlikely theory but so was one man taking down the USFL.

Last theory; I started this blog by asking what does Trump hope to accomplish by bashing NFL players? It makes no sense assuming the President of the United States has a lot more important things to do than follow sports. Maybe he has screwed up those more important things so bad he needed to create a distraction so the American people don’t realize how terrible he is at his job. I may be a little too into conspiracy theory but after watching 5 seasons of House of Cards on Netflix I’m pretty sure I understand how politics works. The President starts a controversy by design with the worlds most popular sports league, and millions of Americans spend the coming weeks reactivating to what he said and arguing with each other. Meanwhile the Trump administration can continue to ruin relations with North Korea, fail to give American’s health care, or any number of horrible political things. Stay woke everyone, most likely Trump is encouraging this controversy as a distraction to the fact he is not good at his job.

And finally if you’re still upset about players kneeling for the anthem, don’t blame Colin Kaepernick, blame the NFL. Before 2009, NFL players did not even come out of the locker room for the National Anthem. In 2009 the NFL made a deal with the US government to have players stand on the field for the anthem to seem more patriotic (wow did that backfire).  Before Kaepernick began protesting last season the anthem was never even available for the TV audience. The anthem was always played during a commercial break and only the people in the stadium could participate. In 2015 it was discovered that 14 NFL teams had been paid by the department of defense (thats the government department not something related to the ’85 Bears) to honor soldiers during games to make a show of patriotism. NFL teams were literally accepting money to seem more patriotic. If you wanna blame Kaepernick for all this, fine be wrong, who’s really to blame is the greedy NFL owners and greedy US government for taking advantage of staged acts of patriotism in the first place.

Tired of national anthem talk yet? me too. All of this is exhausting and what have we accomplished? Kaepernick still is unemployed, Trump is still ignoring the importance of his job, and people on both the left and the right are mad for who knows what reason. Let’s not forget why we watch football in the first place. To put our differences aside for a few hours and make money gambling on grown men who play a game wearing capri pants.

NFL Picks Week 4

All Lines used from Las Vegas Westgate Supercontest

Vikings -130

Chargers -125

Giants +3

6.5 point teaser Patriots -2.5 Falcons -1.5

 

Vikings -130

I’m not actually gonna bet on Case Keenum right? I’M NOT ACTUALLY GONNA BET ON CASE KEENUM RIGHT?!?! I know this sounds like a bad idea but the Vikings are 2-0 at home this season and their defense has been leading them only allowing 18 PPG at home this season. On offense the Vikings are led by Stefon Diggs who has absolutly been BALLIN out this season, he’s third in the league in yards and 2nd in the league in TDs. Rookie RB Dalvin Cook has been a huge factor as well averaging 96 rushing yards per game which is 2nd in the league. As for Case Keenum (gulp) he didn’t look horrible last week. Also people easily forget Keenum threw for almost 20K yards in college and over 150 TDs. (always a good sign when you have to look up a dudes college stats to make yourself feel better about a bet.)

Chargers -125

This is a tough game to pick because the Double COVERage team has the Chargers season win total under 7.5 wins. This is also a tough pick because Phillip Rivers might be the worst person to root for in the history of sports. Rooting for Phillip Rivers is like rooting for Jaden Smith to win an oscar. It must be a sad life for the one Chargers fan who still somehow supports this team. They can’t even sell out a 25 thousand seat soccer stadium with the help of opposing fans making up half the crowd. Even with this game being in LA and the majority of the fans being Philly fans I think the Chargers win. The Chargers have had a brutal schedule to start the season but they are much more talented than their 0-3 record shows. The Chargers have found some crazy ways to lose games so far this year. I think Sunday they find a way to win their first.

Giants +3

Ben Mcadoo might be the worst coach in all of football and I wouldn’t be shocked if he is fired at some point during the season. Without the 4th quarter of last weeks game against the Eagles, the Giants offense had only managed 13 points in 11 quarters of football. Fortunately for them they somehow scored 24 points in the 4th quarter of last Sundays game. Maybe it was a fluke, maybe their offense is finally waking up. Either way the Giants are too talanted of a team, especially on defense, to start the season 0-4. If the Giants don’t find a way to win this game, and start the season 0-4, then Eli Manning should be forced to give back one of his Super Bowl MVPs.

6.5 point tease: Patriots -2.5 Falcons -1.5

If this sounds familiar its because this was almost the exact same bet I made week 1, when I took the Falcons over the Bears and the Patriots over the Chiefs. Well now we know the Cheifs are actually good and the Panthers are terrible. Even though the Patriots have given up the most amount of points in the league this year, the Panthers have barely been able to move the ball at all. And just like last week, even if the Patriots give up 33, you always expect Brady to find a way to score 34. The Falcons on the other hand are very lucky to be 3-0. However I am confidently taking my team at home against the surprising 2-1 Bills. The Falcons at home score 30 points in their sleep. Even if the Bills have the number defense in the league they are facing the number one offense in the league from last year. Buffalo’s offense won’t be able to keep up in a shootout with the Falcons.

Record ATS to date: 5-4

Thank you to everyone for reading. Be sure to check out Bart’s Best Bets for college picks and come back next week for more NFL. Happy week 4 everyone and remember don’t let your life get in the way of your football.