Welcome back for another fun week of poorly thought out wagers. While you’re sitting there reading this I’m locked in a very large warehouse counting a lot of stuff while trying to limit my dust intake. Good times. Anyway, I was able to find three of the world’s foremost football prognosticators to assist with this week’s picks.

(more…)

Billy “I Own Four TV’s” Simmons had an article detailing the Pats 4th and 2 call from Sunday Night. It contains the usual assortment of Simmons arguments that he deems irrefutable. But forget all that. Look at this:

(more…)

Yesterday it was announced that Tony Dungy will head the Players Advisory Forum, a group that will serve as a intermediary between players who want to bitch and the league executives who want to ignore them. Already committed to the cause is a religious nut (Kurt Warner), a phony dickbag who conveniently adopted religion to cover for his sordid past (Ray Lewis) and Brian Dawkins (Brian Dawkins).

Now, Dungy has already played guardian angel for Michael Vick. He’s trying to do it again with some college football coach. But what’s his angle? If there’s anything I distrust, it’s a guy with a savior complex. I search for greed and self-interest in the basis for every action. Why? BECAUSE EVERYONE IS GREEDY AND SELF-INTERESTED!

Therefore, I must conclude that Dungy is starting a cult. A big awesome football cult. I bet he’ll call it the Indianapolis Cults (ba-zing?).

Now, I have no problem with cults. One of my uncles is actually in one. Growing up, I’d only see him at holidays, but he seemed a fairly normal and affable guy. As a teenager, I began picking up on the fact that in-laws commented that they never knew where his income came from, and they joked that he was probably a drug dealer (he lives in Miami, which is for drug dealers what D.C. is for lawyers). Then finally when I was about to graduate high school, they dropped the bombshell on me that he joined a cult right after he got out of college. “Who’s the cult leader?” I would ask. At the time he joined, it was some Indian kid who was anointed a deity at birth, which sounds like a pretty sweet deal for the kid. I’m guessing he’s a grown-up deity now. “So what does he do for the cult?” I would press. They didn’t know entirely, but they’d answer, “well, he mostly flies around on The Guru’s jet.”

I know Waco gave cults a bad name, but my uncle got a good arrangement at this benign cult where he would just fly around everywhere on jets and party with crazy cult floozies. My conclusion: CULTS. ARE. AWESOME.

Sadly, I never got in on the lazy floozy banging cult life. Instead, I became a layabout blogger. But this cult sounds like it could work. Add football to the equation, and I want in on the ground floor of Dungy’s football cult. I imagine hating the gays will be a big part of it, which I can’t say I would be crazy about. Me and the gays got no beef. But if they got a sweet jet, then shit, all bets are off, gays. Sorry.

Anyway, this is a roundabout way of me saying Ray Lewis is going against Dungy’s former team this weekend. But Terrell Suggs is out, so even though the Ravens were already boned against the Colts, they’re extra boned now.

Here’s the NFL Play 60 ad with Breesus, DeMarcus Ware and Troy Polamalu cavorting and capering on the South Lawn of the White House that will air beginning Thanksgiving weekend. C’mon Troy, I know you have a PCL sprain, but you should be able to cover a middle aged socialist Mooslim.

Here’s other NFL marginalia in bullet form.

We had some great questions submitted after lunch today, and that’s too bad, because the bulk of the mailbag is always written the night before. Wednesday, people. That’s the best time to submit questions.

Now, on to the mailbag! Some compelling stuff this week, including HPV, the trade deadline, the Nuva Ring, my dong, shrooms, Chad Henne, Rod Tidwell, veterans in college, high school handjobs, and MILFS! MILFS! MILFS!

(more…)

Laura here is in her first season with the Cincinnati Ben-Gals cheerleading team. At 41, she is also the oldest cheerleader in the league. Admirably, she has refused to let age stand in the way of her desperate, desperate need for attention. Sorry, that’s a really mean joke; actually I think it’s kind of cool to have a cheerleader who is old enough to have given a hanj to Ickey Woods at Riverfront Stadium. [ KyPost via Deuce of Davenport ]

Jeremy Shockey thinks there’s no way LeBron James could even make an NFL practice squad. So shut up before he punches you in your fag mouth.

The league admits officials mistakenly gave the Browns four timeouts in the second half Monday; thus giving Eric Mangini an extra two minutes to blink in silent terror on the sidelines. [ PFT ]

The NYT’s Freakonomics blog discusses the decade’s most overblown fears. Number one in the NFL? Mike Martz’s coaching prowess.

The Bills’ hometown newspaper reports that interim coach Perry Fewell has benched quarterback Trent Edwards in favor of Ryan Fitzpatrick. If you have Edwards on your fantasy team you should go ahead and make a roster adjustment… and then never play again for the rest of your life.

THIS FACKIN GREEK FAKE-HISPANIC BITCH IS RAWPONSIBLE FAH ALL OW-AH SAWFFERING! That’s right, everybody. Put down all the statistical analyses proving that Belichick did actually make the correct decision by trying to convert the 4th and 2. Turns out, the Patriots were fated to lose anyway, because Access Hollywood host and Boston native Maria Menounos Tweeted that the Pats were going to win before the game was actually over. DIDN’T LITTLE BILLY SIMMONS EVAH TEACH THIS FAKE MEXICUNT ABOWT THE POWAH OF THE JINX? WE SHOULD REVOKE HEH BAHSTON CITIZENSHIP! SHE’S NAWT IN THE BROTHAHOOD ANY MO-AH!

I cry for this couple’s future children. Hell, I weep for all of us. Thank goodness we’re all gonna be wiped clean from the Earth in 2012. Because, really, once you see a bald, schlubby white groom do the spastic Ray Lewis “dance” to greet friends and family with his Flacco jersey adorned bride at their wedding reception, you know there’s no reason for us to wasting God’s splendors.

Besides a shocking paucity of purple camo, I did notice that this is a crowd appreciative of mediocrity (guess they have to be), as you can spot two people in Mark Clayton jerseys and another in a Sam Koch. No Kyle Boller for the estranged in-law everyone hates?

Careful about watching past the two-minute mark. It gets a little tender. [stifles tear]

Poor young saps. They never had a chance. At least once they get divorced, you know they’ll just blame the refs.

[Thanks to reader Alex for the tip]

I hear yer lookin’ for a new football coach. Shoot fella, this is your lucky day. It just so happens that, after much careful reflection, I have decided to draw a curtain on my distinguished college coaching career and return to the scene of my greatest triumphs, the NFL!

Hey fella, you know what this league doesn’t enough of anymore? Zany coaches! When I was in the league, there was a place for a zany coach, now everyone is so durn serious all the time. But I got some good dad-gum news for you. You are gonna make me your new football coach and we are gonna turn this league on its dad-gum ear!

Looka me fella, I wear a cowboy hat. You know who just loves cowboys? Why kids, that’s who! Hire me as your next coach and your kid attendance will double in a season. Double or I eat this here Stetson. Kids love cowboys and I am the greatest cowboy the great state of Michigan has ever produced. We can even dress some of the coloreds up like Indians! It’ll be zany, I tell ya!

An’ I’m not just a cowboy! Imma tough guy, fella! I wear black! A tough guy who’s also a turd of a race car driver! And don’t forget zany, watch me dump this grape jelly in my trousers and do the Charleston! Ha-cha-cha! Boy howdy, that’s zany!

But of course, you’d have to be zany as a polecat to leave game tickets at will-call for Elvis Presley, but that’s what I do. Course, I gotta keep the act fresh. I’ll prolly leave tickets for Michael Jackson or mebbe John Kenneth Galbraith. Don’tcha think people will just eat that…

What’s that? You already hired a coach? Perry Fewell? Never heard of him? Well heck, fella, why dincha say so? Say, you reckon the Oilers need a coach?

Someone at my gym was telling me about a guy who went into the hospital with back pain; he told the doctors he was afraid he had spine flu. And that’s not a joke. That apparently really happened, according to the second-hand story that I’m now making a third-hand story.

Naturally, I spent the next ten minutes thinking about various influenza FAILs. Like, there’s a pine flu epidemic in the Northwest… I’m not sure if this is a hangover or wine flu… Sarah Jessica Parker has a nasty case of equine flu. Et cetera.

I bring this up because I was sick for the last three days. I had this weird stomach pain that wasn’t quite gas and wasn’t quite indigestion, and mixed with my light sleeping habits it wrecked my REM sleep. I ended up taking something like six naps over the span of two work days while consuming a helluva lot of healthy crap like miso soup and peppermint tea. And the kicker was this: no booze or caffeine for MORE THAN TWO DAYS.

That’s no way to live, people. Don’t trust Mormons, those people are powered by the dark arts.

Week 10 Meast and Least below:

(more…)