Gambling Udate: Zim vs. The Wife

My Ticket:

PIT @ JAX – JAX to win

TEN @ NYG – TEN to win

HOU @ IND – IND to win

TB @ NO – NO to win

Potential Prize: $57.02

Recap: Ok, so I played it a little safe this week, hence the lower potential prize. But I damn near won, if it weren’t for the two TIE games and Jax being unable to pull the game out late in the 4th. Oh well, back to the drawing board… again…

The Wife’s Ticket:

CHI @ GB – GB to win

ATL @ MIN – ATL to win

DEN @ SD – SD to win

STL @ PHI – STL to win

Potential Prize: $31.10

Recap: The Wife followed my style this week in staying away from the ridiculous long shots, and she was also close to winning this week. Who would have thought that the mighty St. Louis Rams (snicker, snicker) would be unable to muster an offensive TD in that Philly game? The odds-makers, obviously...

Number 10

Nobody wins at Lambeau Field over the Packers in December right? That is a given. That is x = 1 in the NFL season schedule equation.

That is why I knew that the Bears didn’t have a hope in hell of maintaining a 14-6 lead at halftime of their game. Cold weather team or no, it is just plain fact that nobody wins at Lambeau in December. Sorry Bears fans, you all should have just tuned out after kickoff, then again, most of you probably did thanks to your teams abysmally inept offensive unit.

If my favorite team was trotting out Jim Miller and Crystal Chandelier as their top two QBs, I would start rooting for someone else. Seriously, I would. Those guys are terrible. Neither of them can take a hit, and they are all but immobile in and out of the pocket. Add into the equation a running back (Anthony Thomas) who is seriously over rated, an underachieving O-line, only one decent receiver to throw to and you got a recipe for disaster. Uggh.

One positive for me, personally, in this game was the TD pass by Henry Burris, the Chicago 3rd stringer who came in late just for laughs. Burris used to play in the CFL and was the QB for my hometown team the Saskatchewan Roughriders before bolting south for greener pastures and a thicker wallet. (Can’t say as I blame him…)

Anyway, the Pack won this game in ho-hum fashion, and there may be more reason to worry in Cheese-Head land. Ahman Green has a sore knee and that defense is suddenly looking suspect, which could spell trouble down the line in the playoffs.

That is, unless they are playing at Lambeau…

Number 9

Speaking of disaster, what in the name of Bernie Kosar happened to the Cleveland Oranges on Sunday? Losing to the Carolina Panthers at home? Losing to the Carolina Panthers? That pitiful display automatically wipes out the two good wins you had this season over the Jets and the Saints.

Man, Tim Couch looked ug-ly in this game, throwing up passes that looked more like kickoffs. He should have been Couch-ed in this game. This was a game that I was sure the Oranges were going to win on Sunday, I thought that they would use it as a springboard into the lead of the AFC Central division. Yikes, I guess not.

Losing 13-6 to a team who’s QB only threw for 89 total yards? Man, that’s terrible.

Just reason #471 why I don’t like teams from the AFC.

Number 8

Speaking of terrible, no other word comes to mind when trying to describe the Arizona Cardinals performance on Sunday. Losing in one thing. Getting absolutely obliterated is completely another. The Cards shouldn’t have even bothered making the trip to KC, seriously. They looked so dreadful in this game, I actually felt sorry for their fans.

Do you think that a 49-0 destruction will leave a bit of a mark on a team’s collective psyche? Ummm… yeah, maybe.

The news is already flying around that Jake “the Garder Snake” Plummer will be unceremoniously booted out of Arizona forever after this season. How nice. Plummer’s unrestricted free-agency will be the butt of many a joke in the Grand Canyon State after this season, and justifiably so. This team is so pitiful, they are approaching Bengal-like in their incompetence.

Now, as for the Chiefs, they have all but been eliminated from playoff contention, but they played some of their best football of the year on Sunday. Priest shuffled the Cards to the tune of 116yds in the first half, at which time, the Chiefs’ coaching staff decided to give him the rest of the game off.

I mean, why not? The Cards had decided to take this game off right after the coin-flip.

Number 7

Does anyone win any uglier (is that even a word?) than Steve McNair? He is always hurting somewhere, he never plays a full week of practice and yet he finds ways to lead his team to victory, and always keeps them in it. I find this fact truly peculiar. Hence, I will be referring to him as “Game Day” Steve from here on in.

(I get the name “Game Day” from my days of playing Pee Wee football. On our Pee Wee football team, the Sun-Devils, we had a kid (his name was Anthony, but for some reason we nicknamed him Roger) who played with us who never seemed to practice for one reason or another. He was either away doing something important like babysitting, or he was sick, or he was hurt and couldn’t practice. And yet, somehow, when that week’s game rolled around, old Rog showed up dressed in his uniform and ready to play. So we nicknamed him “Game Day Rog”. Of course, Game Day had as much chance of getting in the game as our female trainers, but he was there, at every game, without fail. What a character. I miss those days…)

Anyway, back at the Ranch…

So, “Game Day” Steve stepped it up and willed his squad to a win, but what else is new? Well, the Titans have a 7-5 record and a stranglehold on a wildcard berth. And with three of their last four games against divisional foes, they could be looking at their own division title. That is, of course, if “Game Day” Steve keeps showing up.

Number 7A

An aside here folks, still referring to the Tennessee Titans. Has anyone read ESPN Page 2’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback column? The guy who writes it, Gregg Easterbrook, is a damn funny, albeit long-winded fellow, who came up with the funniest name I have ever heard for the Titans. Due to their rather odd looking logo, “TMQ” refers to the Titans as “the Flaming Thumbtacks”. Priceless. You really all should check out that column on Tuesday’s (AFTER this one, of course), but be forewarned, it is a long one (yes, even longer than this rambling) so be prepared to spend a good 45 minutes trying to sift through it all.

Number 6

Ok, Cincinnati Bengals; please do us all a favor and look in those tiger striped pants of yours for your damn man-hood already. How can you call yourselves a band of PROFESSIONAL athletes when time and time again you somehow find ways to make other teams look like superstars when playing you? How can you let teams slap you around and abuse you like that? How can one team single-handedly find so many ways to lose? How can a franchise’s front office sleep at night knowing that they are charging their dwindling fan base very good money to file into their brand new stadium each week to watch the most deplorable franchise in all of professional sports? How can a coaching staff justify playing a guy who hands the other team the game each week? How has Corey Dillon NOT gone postal in that locker room?

I seriously would like to stroll through that Bengals locker room after a game like their latest effort (if you can call it that). I bet you would see one of two things. Either you would see every single player sitting somberly at their lockers, looking out into space, trying to figure out why they keep on losing games like they’re going out of style. OR, you would see a bunch of players sitting around joking, listening to music, singing, clowning around. If you see the latter, then you know that your team has either given up on the season, or worse, they have grown accustomed to or have accepted their losing ways.

I hope, for the Cincinnati Bengals franchise sake, that the latter example is not the case. Because if there were ever to be a case for contraction in the NFL, Cincy would be it. I mean, even with the spoon-fed parity in today’s NFL, this Cincy team has still managed to lose at LEAST 11 games in 7 of its past 11 years.

Honestly, this team is so bad, I don’t even have a joke here.

Number 5 - Awards Time

What a week. What an unbelievably outstanding week in the NFL for stats. We saw a 400yd passing game, three other 300yd passers, 7 receivers gain at least 110yds, 2 players rush for over 220yds, 4 other players rush for over 140yds, one of which was a QB, and one player gain 116yds rushing in the first half alone. Wow, it makes picking one guy to be the “Zim’s Top Ten Man of Steel” increasingly difficult.

But this week I have to give the nod to the aforementioned “Game Day” Steve McNair. Not only did he playing an inspiring game with insanely sore ribs, but he tossed for 3 bills and three touches in that game, with those ribs. He dragged his team to victory in thrilling fashion, scoring the game tying 2pt conversion on his own with a QB sneak he audibled into. Wow.

This week’s winner of the “Miss Tessmacher Awards for Stupidity” is Mike Martz. Congrats Coach S”Martz”, you successfully played your QB into one of the worst performances of his career. Instead of trying to keep blockers in to protect that insane Philly pass-rush, you decided to keep on with the wide-open sets, leaving the immobile and visibly shaken Kurt Warner open to more hits than anyone could handle. Do you think that this scheme of yours is working well? Also, you didn’t have the spark between your synapses to realize that when your QB is playing as bad as Warner was, you need to make a change.

Number 4 - Quick Hits

- Speaking of Warner, does anyone else out there think that he has looked nothing short of awful this season? I mean, coming off that finger injury, the ball has looked like a wet bar of soap in his hands and a Mallard in the air. Cripes, I think that my ’79 Ford Pinto had less rust on it…

- Someone give Warner a hand. Seriously. I just read that his hand is busted (isn’t this like the 581st time he has broken a bone in his throwing hand?) and he will miss another two weeks. Nice… So long Rams. See you next year.

- Did anyone else out there think that those Thanksgiving Day games were just terribly boring? Nothing was entertaining about them, ‘cept for those pimpin’ New England retro jerseys.

- I think that Bledsoe played some fearless football in that snowy win over the Dolphins. He threw the ball places he shouldn’t have and got away with it. Does that make him lucky or just plain good? The answer? Both.

- That Chargers / Broncos game was a classic. Those two teams are so evenly matched it’s scary. I loved how it came down to OT where both team’s kickers missed potentially GW FGs before Steve “Mr.” Christie booted it through for the win. That game was entertaining.

- Did anyone else think that watching John Madden rip apart that “Tur-duck-en” with his big meaty paws on MNF should have been edited out? That was just plain disturbing. A turkey stuffed with a duck that is stuffed with a chicken is bad enough, but to watch Madden drool over it as he tore it apart with his bare hands was disgusting. I think it could have even warranted an “18A” rating.

Number 3

Isn’t this always the way things go? I mean, two teams come into MNF playing some great football of late, both winners of 4 in a row and looking to get into 1st place in their respective divisions. So the hype is justifiable, right? I mean, two team playing like this will come in and clash in an epic battle on Monday Night Football, right?

Wrong…

Don’t get me wrong, this game was not boring by any stretch, it’s just that it wasn’t all that exciting. The stats were nice, with both QBs having good nights, and Tim Brown got his 1,000th catch of his career and all that. But other than that stuff, the game just sort of… went.

There was no real critical set of downs, nor any spectacular plays to speak of, and it made for another production-line NFL game. I think that is why we are seeing MNF’s decline as steadily as Al Michaels’ hairline. These games just haven’t been all that good lately. We need to see a Montana vs. Elway type game, where both teams go up an down the field and the last team with it, probably wins.

We don’t need to see Sebastian Janikowski kick FGs all night. In fact, we don’t need to see Sebastian Janikowski, nobody does. I have always held to the belief that Janikowski is actually John Goodman posing as an NFL kicker. Seriously.

Anyway, maybe next week we will get an exciting MNF game, one where I can come to work the next day and talk about how great it was to my workmates. Hell, this MNF thing is getting as bad as my sports betting, we are always looking to next week for success.

Number 2

Ok, this just isn’t right. It’s not. It is unfair. Unfair to the NFL, unfair to the USA, unfair to the world.

Mike Vick is TOO good. He is so unbelievably talented that it is seriously unfair to the rest of planet Earth. How did this guy NOT get scooped up by the Jedi Academy as an infant or something? How can the Marines, Army and Air Force continue to let this super-human roam freely? How is an NFL defense supposed to stop this guy?

Man, I have seen a lot of things in my day, but I have never EVER seen anything like what Vick did against those Vikings. If you would have told me that an NFL QB, not naming names, had a day where he rushed for as many yards as he passed, I would have laughed and figured that someone like Ray Lucas or Jake Plummer threw for only 54yds and rushed for as many.

But to see what Vick did in that game is something I don’t think I will see for a long time again. Not only were is stats staggering, throwing for 173yds and a touch while rushing for 172 on 10 carries for two touches, but the way he won the game for the Falcons was as equally as staggering. What QB of our time runs for a 46yd TD to win the game in overtime?

Man, and they way he ran past those Vikings defenders (if you can call them that) as if they were all running in slow motion is a beauty to watch. Did you all see when on three separate occasions Vick darted between two Vikings so quickly that they slammed into each other trying to tackle him? That’s just sick.

Sick I tell you. Sick.

Number 1

Ok, first off let me just say that I am very pleased that the Niners won the game 31-24 over the Seahawks. I am pleased that the Niners are at 8-4 and are poised to reclaim the NFC West with just one more win. I am also pleased that the Niners successfully rebounded from that ugly loss to the Eagles on MNF at home.

Now, let me tell you what I am NOT pleased with…

I am not pleased with the fact that this team still seems to lack that killer instinct. I don’t know where it stems from, or why it is lacking, all I know is that this team needs it… bad.

I am not pleased with how teams seem to “hang around” in games, and ultimately make them too close for comfort in the late stages.

I am also not pleased with how there is literally no pass-rush to speak of from the Niners front line.

(Enough negativity…)

However, having said all that, I must say that things are all right in Niner-lad today friends. I mean, a win is a win is a win, right? Ugly or not, the Niners will take a division victory any day of the week, right?

Right.

Now, I also must take credit for Jimmy Williams’ big play on special teams, because I called out those teams in last week’s column as well as every message board I visited this past week. Good work boys, now keep it up.

Anyway, let me just say that the Niners offense has stunk for twp games now, and it seems that if it isn’t one thing it’s another with this team. I look forward to the games where the Niners play well in all aspects of the game. I pity the opponent when they do. I think the Niners are the most balanced team in the league, but it seems that one part of this team seems to underachieve from week to week. Time is running out boys, if you want to make a serious push for home field advantage, you will have to get those facets in line and start playing well everywhere, otherwise it could be another short postseason for the 49ers.

And that won’t please anybody…

Until Next Time…