Notes While Having Tea With The Tillerman (NFL-Week 6)

**UPDATE: We forgot to list one final play...Washington +5.0. Apologies...

You don't wanna hear my usual crap...so on to the picks...

SIDES (13-9): Tampa Bay +3.5; Pittsburgh +2.0; Oakland +7.0; Tennessee -4.0; New England -1.0

TOTALS (22-12-1): Det./Min. Over 43.0; Den./NYJ Under 48.0; Jac./Ten. Over 42.0; Was./Ari. Under 47.0; NYG/Phi. Under 50.0; Bal./T.B. Under 44.0; Chi./Atl. Under 55.5

That's it. Lots of Unders so get that clock windmill-ing arm ready! Luck...

Proud To Be An A$$hole From El Paso

    Will be keeping this short today after the Mexican Restaurant romp with colleagues last night. Let's just say I'm outta drinking shape for anything but beer. In fact the last time I did tequila shots and margaritas I ended up professing my undying love for the middle Hanson sibling only to find out later they were all brothers. And when did margaritas go the way of the traditional martini? Everyone they served me last night was so colorful, exotically flavored and glittery it looked like they tapped it out of Lady Gaga's ass. But who am I to complain...and moving on to some ancillary matters...

--Has A&E finally just given up and become the Storage Wars channel? It reminds me of the early days of the History Channel or as they should've called it back then-"Nazis 24/7". And if you're gonna go this way could we at least get less of fat ass Darrell in his wife-beater and more of Brandi in something low cut?

--To those who asked about it from yesterday's post it is true that Chaz Bono is shopping for a penis, but no he/she did not get it yet. My first thoughts on reading this were doesn't John Bobbitt have an extra one laying around? And secondly...are balls sold seperately?

--And finally enjoy the Bowl Game tonight...No not the National Championship game between LSU and Alabama, that's tomorrow, but the much anticipated GoDaddy.com Bowl featuring those bastions of gridiron greatness Northern Illinois and Arkansas State (see our bowl related Curse of Northern Illinois article here http://bowltilithurts.blogspot.com/2010/12/humanitarian-bowl-preview.html). Having these ridiculous 5th tier bowl games after the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta Bowls reminds me of the old Dana Gould bit about how the Larry King Live show used to feature two guests. They'd always put the top billed one on first as to not run short of time if the interview was going particularly well so that in the opening King would announce, "tonight's guests are Alexander Solzhitsnetzyn, the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning author who saw his entire family killed by the KGB then spent 19 years in a Soviet Gulag...and the man who played Fleagle on The Banana Splits." Enjoy the game...and, oh yeah, it's Arkansas State -1.5/65 if you want to try to at least make it interesting.

NFL
--In a disclaimer we'll point out that much like the rest of the year our official play on Houston/Cincinnati Under lost, but our analysis of a Saints dominated shootout and N.O/Over play was a winner. Today we'll just throw all the plays out there and you can judge for yourself.

--Disclaimer II: Fred of Fred's Picks texted, in light of his 4 game losing streak, "I abdicate my position much like Kaiser Wilhelm the 2nd!" I assume this means there will be no selection today...as to whether he'll also be exiling himself to The Netherlands, however, is unclear at this point.

--Pittsburgh at Denver: Talk is that this game could be make or break for the Grand Tim Tebow Experiment after two extraordinarily dismal performances to end the year. For those who have tried to forget I'll remind you that in Week 16 at Buffalo Tebow became the biggest turnover machine since Dave Krieg and his tiny, Vietnamese girl hands were fumbling away games  for Chuck Knox's Seahawks of the 90's. This was followed by a Week 17 disaster with the playoffs on the line where Timmy put up a 20.1 QB rating which is even harder than it seems in that much like filling in your name correctly on the SAT you get 18.0 points for just stepping on the field.
    All in all though we were big supporters of giving Tebow a chance. The Broncos are improving in many areas with the emergence of Von Miller on defense and Demaryius Thomas at WR, but they're still a safe distance from Super. Leaving Kyle Orton or some other middle of the road veteran out there while the highly drafted Tebow languished on the bench would be like the Kansas City Royals signing Jamie Moyer. What would be the point? Let the kid play and sink or swim on his own.
    So did he sink or did he swim? That's the problem. Kudos to the Broncos for tweaking the offense to play to Tebow's strengths, but things may have gone too far. An easy sked and inept performances by their opponents in the latter half of the season allowed the Denver offensive staff to put Tebow in a bubble for several weeks as they ran the ball ad nauseum and only let TT pass in late, desperate situations against loose, prevent defenses. Sure it all worked out in a playoff berth, but in terms of truly evaluating their unique QB the Broncos struck out.
    In the end it's obvious Tebow needs to show at least some vertical threat in order to keep defenses honest and allow the spread option game to work. That means again re-working the offense, giving Tebow plenty of game speed reps in that offense, constant re-evaluation of mechanics/decision making and a willingness to risk losing some games in order to get answers. Sure it might all work out in the end, but like being married, to say, Sharon Stone...it sounds like a lotta work. We expect GM Elway to be QB shopping in the offseason for someone of a more conventional bent.
    As for the game the question remains...How will Denver possibly score today? They have put up more than two TDs only twice in Tebow's 11 starts and those came against Oakland, who recently fired their Defensive Coordinator, and Minnesota who finished an ugly 31st in Total Defense. Today, however, they get the fairest stop troops in all the land as Pittsburgh finished #1 defensively giving up only 14.1 points per game. Even worse they held opponents to under 100 ypg on the ground and allowed the second least rushing TDs in the league. Toss in a blitzing James Harrison and a ball-hawking Troy Polamalu and you might want to keep the kids in their rooms as no impressionable youth should be exposed to what could be an unsafe helping of Brady Quinn.
   Earlier this year the Steelers took on a Seattle team sporting the youngest offensive line since the expansion year Carolina Panthers and shut them out 24-0. We see more of the same here so we'll go Pittsburgh -9 and with Big Ben still limping the run-first approach will hopefully keep this one Under 33.5 in the antidote to your Lions-Saints hangover.

Officially the Steelers don't have cheerleaders, but these girls seem to be in the spirit!

--Atlanta at New York Giants: On Tuesday the temperature here in New York was 8 with a wind chill of -2. Today it's 52 and could reach as high as 60. Up, down, big, small frankly my testicles don't know what to do these days. Seemingly this bodes well for the Dome as Home Falcons, but after many a frozen tailgating adventure at The Meadowlands we can assure it's always 20 degrees colder in the swamps of Jersey and the wind is constantly swirling. We've detailed Matt Ryan's H/A splits here in the past, but to update you this year he had a 102.9 QB rate and 17/5 ratio at home against 84.6 and 12/7 on the road.
    On the other hand we're no big fans of the Giants and feel their playoff clinching wins over the Jets and Cowboys were as much the result of flawed opponents as it was their own ability. The one thing we do know is that the Giants Front Four has been playing well. For the year they ranked tied with the Ravens for 3rd in sacks against the Falcons' below average 21st ranking. Both O-Lines allowed a similiar number of sacks so it should be the Giants in Matt Ryan's face more often than the Falcons in Eli Manning's.
    All this bodes well for another possible big game for WR Victor Cruz which seems stunning. Not that Cruz isn't a talent, but more that he has broken virtually every receiving record in the long history of the Giants franchise this year and still defenses refuse to pay him any special attention. Against the Jets Darrell Revis spent most of his time matched up against a hobbling Hakeem Nicks and broke up at least 3 passes intended for 4th stringer Ramses Barden, a player who I assume was given that name to remind his parents to use a condom in the future. Expect more of the same as from observation it appears the Falcons let their CBs play sides of the field rather than match up with certain receivers. Still we'll go Under 47.5 here, but make it a Favorites sweep of the weekend by taking the Giants -3.

There are no official Giant cheerleaders either. But at this point let me add that the ubiquity of these large breasted, small waisted women on the Internet has almost become boring...

...as I said..."almost"...

I couldn't write another line...nor do you want me when this is waiting...

Another British Page 6 girl...Can you get a U.S. subscription to the Daily Mirror?

One Hand Holds The Bottle, One Hand Holds My Shame

...and no that is not a description of how I spent my New Year's Eve. In fact, aside from it being the alcoholic version of Amatuer Night, I generally stay in on NYE since I prefer, as George Thorogood once put it, to drink alone. I will not add the superfluous next line to that song since saying you "drink alone" already implies you're "all by myself", but then again I guess I shouldn't expect Bob Dylan "Desolation Row"-like lyrics (why were Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the Captain's Tower again?...you know what we'll discuss it later...) from a man who had a Cult Hit with a song titled "One Scotch, One Bourbon and One Beer". Still I've always found that chorus the laziest lyric since The Scorpions rhymed "here I am" with "hurricane"...and suddenly I'm starting to think maybe I should get out among people at least a little on these occasions. So moving on to...

Baylor-Washington...if you've been reading this blog from the beginning of the season you know that I don't find these wild shootouts to be "Instant Classics" and this one was no different. Seeing these offenses going up and down the field at will was like waiting for a contestant to miss a question on The Joker's Wild. It's just too easy. Now I know I'm a glass half empty kinda guy to begin with, but could these defenses at least mix in a third and long every now and then to make it difficult. If I wanna see hopeless I'll challenge my Special Ed. class to spell the word "Colonel" again...nobody got past the first "o".
    But then again maybe I'm just angry because I had Washington +9 as they became the first underdog in 56 non-overtime games to score 50+ points and not cover the spread. Like I tell my Genocide Studies class after assigning them the classic Rwanda history We Wish To Inform You Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With All Our Families...it's hard to get happy after that one. Though now that I think of it that's kinda implied in the title.

Nope...Washington +9 still hurts!

   Overall the bowl picks posted on these pages didn't fare much better. My selection of Florida State -3 survived over Notre Dame despite the best efforts of the FSU head coach who decided to go for two twice in the first minute of the fourth quarter, failed both times, and thereby nearly shoved pointspread victory into the jaws of defeat. I thought we put this problem to bed quite eloquently in our "Two Point Conversion Decisions Are Time Sensitive" article from September, but then again I shouldn't expect much from an adult who goes by the name Jimbo.
    In the other plays BeyondThe Bets.com's Underdog specials on Washington and Iowa got reamed by two long, spread covering TD runs by favorites who were in "need one more 1st down to run out the clock" mode. The latter play coupled with Fred's Pick of Iowa State in the Pinstripe Bowl left us feeling like we just got f--ked by the entire state of Iowa...kinda like Michelle Bachmann.
    We still have one play left on Oklahoma State -3.5 over Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl. And whether you follow these picks and analysis or "fade" them bigger than a '80s Kid & Play haircut check back as the Bowls run through January 9th and we'll try to provide more posts, picks and pre-pubescent humor along the way.

NFL
--A lot of things are disappointing. The people who frequent nude beaches, for example, are seldom the people you want to see with their clothes off in any setting let alone beneath the unremitting glare of the sun and having been to several Melissa Etheridge/Indigo Girls shows I can tell you unequivocally that lesbians don't generally look like they do in pornos or on The Howard Stern Show. But these things notwithstanding the AFC West this year has bummed me out.
    Now I thought the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks making the playoffs last year was the saddest thing I saw since I watched the manager at our local Dollar Store spill mustard on his tie then take it off and hang it on the rack for sale, but the clusterf--k that takes place today between Oakland, Denver, San Diego and Kansas City is like watching Tara Reid do Shakespeare.
    Briefly put the Broncos take the division with a win or a Raiders loss while the Raiders need both a win and a Broncos loss to get the #4 seed. Even worse is the fact that if the Bengals lose to Baltimore one of these trainwrecks could easily wind up with a Wild Card berth as the #6 seed where they'd get to face the fading, Tyler Yates-led Texans. All the scenarios are available here http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AmrG_3kh7GboIRsnz7_COtRDubYF?slug=ys-nfl_playoff_picture
    So what's gonna happen? Well last week we analyzed heck outta the NYG-NYJ matchup by comparing second half schedules and noting that the Giants slate was predominantly more difficult than the Jets thereby hiding the true talent levels of the two teams. Here it's hard to do the same since as division mates these teams have all played similiar skeds and all been terrible in their own way until it's like comparing apples to even crappier apples.
    For the Chargers and Raiders the problem is defense. In San Diego Norv Turner has always been an offensive guy and since he's all but out the door his defenders have little reason to put forth more than a cursory effort as they showed in Detroit last week. Meanwhile the Raiders have gone 2-3 in their last 5, but during than span their stop troops have been pounded like a baby photographer at Bjork's house. Their only wins coming courtesy of 3 Caleb Hanie interceptions and the Chiefs scoring a mere 13 points on 489 yards of offense which is the NFL version of showing up at Courtney Love's house with a fistful of Vicodin and not coming home with chlymidia. The number here is 48.5 and we'd lean heavily toward an over it weren't for the Raiders Red Zone problems and Phillip Rivers 2011 penchant for untimely INTs.
    In the other game the bloom came off the rose for Tim Tebow last week, but it's more the return of Kyle Orton for K.C. that has us leaning toward the Chiefs in Mile High. Kansas City has put up over 400 yards offense in both of Orton's starts and while he may not be outwardly bitter over his demotion/release by John Elway I'm sure he's a little more focused than usual. As for Tebow his poor effort against a banged up, seive-like Bills squad doesn't bode well for a strong performance vs. a D that has held 4 of it's last 5 oponents under 16 points including the Steelers and Packers. We see a Chiefs upset here so the onus will be on the Silver and Black to keep Al Davis' legacy alive and Bill Maher's tweeting fingers busy in Oakland.

What?...you want captions?...listen I'll pull the whole thing right now...

--As for the other AFC games with make or break playoff implications the Jets are at Miami clinging to the tiniest of hopes their season will continue. Fred's Picks are now at 7-5-1 (NFL only) and on a 2 game slide, but we have to concur once again with his selection which is the Dolphins -3. The loss to the Giants last week sent the J-Men's camp into disarray. Offensively there is talk of firing OC Brian Schottenheimer, overhauling the O-Line and committing more to the running game. But as my High School baseball coach told me when I tried to break an 0-17 slump by switching bats every time I came up...sometimes it's not the bow, it's the Indian. And in the NFL the Big Chief is the QB and quite frankly Mark Sanchez ain't exactly Crazy Horse at Little Bighorn. It appears Rex Ryan is gonna ride it out with the Overthrowin' Trojan for the foreseeable future, but with his D not playing up to the dominant levels of his first years in NY the chance to play for the big prize may be slipping farther and farther away.

--As for the Bengals they have done great things this year, but the fact remains that they have exactly one win over teams with winning records this year (24-17 at Tennessee). Still they lead the Titans, Jets, Raiders and Broncos by one game and with all those teams Dogs or small favorites today they could still sneak in even if they fall to the Ravens. And in fact drawing the Ravens in Cinncy as opposed to say Pittsburgh may actual be a minor break since Baltimore has enjoyed the road this year about as much as Syd Barrett registering losses to Tennesse, Jacksonville, Seattle and San Diego away from the Land of the Crab Cake. Still it would seem Tennessee playing away against the locked in and resting their starters Houston may have the best chance at stealing the #6 seed...so why is nobody talking about Mike Munchak as AFC Coach of the Year material?

--Finally the big one is Sunday Night with Dallas at the Giants. We're running late so see last week's post for our NYG analysis. On the flip side the Cowboys have won once in their last 4 and that was against the "Wake Me When This Is Over" Buccaneers, they have a slightly banged up QB, a shaky secondary and everything to lose here. We're no big Giant fans, but if their winning allows us to see plenty of shots of an egomaniacal, pompous ass like Jerry Jones squirm then what can we say but...G-I-A-N-T-S (sorry 'Boys fans).

--Oh yeah, our pick is Chiefs +3.

    Check back periodically for Bowl and Playoff bits. It's been a tolerable ride...and from me that's a rave...thanks for playing. B-E-E-R...what a good idea!!

Seriously, Lingerie Football's not catching on?...That's a head scratcher...Stop that. I mean it the other way...

A Two Pack Habit And A Motel Tan

    Now that I'm done bunching up phlegm like a Yiddish Cantor we can move on to more important issues like...Once you've lost it is it possible to find your virginity again? I'm not saying it's been awhile, but last week I found myself e-mailing our local paper wondering why they no longer list the heights and weights with the All-County Girls' sports teams. I can't make it on just the head shots alone.

    But moving on thank you to my 3rd Period class for the personalized Christmas gift. Nothing says you look like a disoriented alcoholic with a busy schedule quite like a monogrammed flask. Well at least I know someone is reading the blog.

    And finally are we done with the interminable Peanuts Christmas Specials anyway. A Charlie Brown Christmas, It's Christmastime, Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown...enough already. How 'bout making It's Called Alopecia, Charlie Brown. I mean he's 8 years old and has a hairline that makes Homer Simpson look like Ross from Friends...alright I'm better now, so let's get to football...

CFB
--This year's College Coaching Carousel reminds me of the movie Good Will Hunting where we are supposed to be excited because the lead character forsakes a life of fame and fortune to chase after his true love. But when it turns out that it's Minnie Driver's moon-face that has hit his eye like a big pizza pie...well, that's annoying.
    Similiarly CFB writers are trying to stir up enthusiasm over the offseason hirings of retreads like Charlie Weis (Kansas) and Rich Rodriguez (Arizona) or unproven newcomers like Kevin Sumlin (Texas A&M) or Larry Fedora (North Carolina), but I'm not buying it. For my money though the offseason hire that may have the biggest immediate impact is one that has surprisingly flown under the radar-Mike Leach at Washington State.
    Leach,as you may remember, was fired at Texas Tech for treating Craig James' son's concussion symptoms by keeping him locked in a closet like the love child of Anne Frank and Elian Gonzalez. One high profile lawsuit later and Leach was in the analyst booth, but it can't tarnish his record in Lubbock. Over 10 seasons Leach went 84-43, never missed a bowl and twice had the Red Raiders ranked in the Top 10 reaching as high as #2 in the latter half of the 2008 season.
    The only problem was Leach's squads perenially fell short against the bigger, faster Blue Chip-laden powerhouses at Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska against which he went 9-17. In the Pac-12 however this shouldn't be as much of a problem. This year the conference could not even fill its bowl allottment and with LaMichael James moving on at Oregon, Stanford finding itself Luck-less and USC still dealing with the Reggie Bush probation 2012 doesn't figure to be a dominant year out West.
   The Cougars went a mere 4-8 in 2011, haven't topped .500 since 2003and will be breaking in an untested sophmore under center next year. But Leach has turned skinny nobody QBs like Kliff Kingsbury and Graham Harrell into NCAA record breakers so the potential is there for a turnaround in Pullman. They won't be BCS bowling, but still keep Washington State in mind as a potential play-on team in 2012. It's not worth chucking a Nobel Prize for, but even Minnie Driver's good for a roll in the hay every now and then.

Turning round a program like Washington State is never pretty.

--On the list of the worst people of 2011 there's the New Jersey couple who had the youngest of their three children taken away when it was discovered he was named Adolph Hitler Campbell and then there's Todd Graham.
   Last week Graham was named head coach of Arizona State after only one year at Pittsburgh in a move that could make Bobby Petrino look like George Halas.
    Making this doubly bad is that Graham also pulled the same one and done stunt at his first job as HC of Rice which he left to take the job at Tulsa where he lasted a whopping 4 seasons before heading to Pitt. You can read all the ugly lies and promises here http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=pf-forde_graham_quits_pitt_asu_121511 and while we see a possible "Rise of the Third Tyke" in New Jersey Graham better hope he hits it big in the desert as his sincere then see-ya act will only last as long as he's a big winner.

--In case you missed it the Bowl season started yesterday and continues ad nauseum through mid-January. Fred of Fred's Picks will be tossing out an occasional play, but beyond that and some pithy commentary when warranted we're going to stick to covering the NFL. As for our own early observations with an eye toward posted lines we see two teams that we feel are outmatched physically in their games-Notre Dame and Stanford. The Irish played 2 teams this year, Michigan and USC, who could match the size speed balance of FSU and lost both, the latter badly. And while Florida State has no real dominant win this year they did finish up 6-1 after QB E.J. Manuel got healthy in mid-October with their only loss coming by 1 point to Virginia in a sandwich game between rivals Miami (FL) and Florida. The line currently stands at FSU -3.
   And in the same vein Stanford proved to be little more than the right arm of Andrew Luck as they cruised through an embarrasingly easy early season slate only to get pole-axed for 103 points by the two most physically talented teams on their slate, USC and Oregon. Oklahoma State would be in the National Championship game, but for a inexplicable stumble vs. Iowa State and their survival in the high-flying Big 12 proves they have the speed that the Trojans and Ducks used to dominate Stanford offensively. The numbers are Okie State -4/74 in what could be the wildest shootout this side of a Slim Dunkin video set.

NFL
--First let me step out character to say thank you Tim Tebow for some exciting football...crappy football, yes...but nonetheless exciting.
    Today Yahoo! Sports among others is billing the Pats-Broncos matchup as the Game of the Week and why not. There are plenty of other important tilts with playoff implications galore, but things won't be right in the world until we can explain or explain away this whole Tebow/Bronco mania.
    Now usually I'm pretty good at this. Sure I overthink often and miss the obvious, but if it requires going outside the proverbial box I'm in my realm. For example when the answer was Ralph Manicotti in the Jeopardy! category Sitcoms everyone immediately thought "Who is Ralph Kramden's upstairs neighbor?" while I went with "What do the Olsen Twins do after eating Italian food?" An off-beat, but I'd argue equally correct response. Still there's really nothing I can come up with to justify this 6-1 Denver run other than coincidence meeting pure luck meeting shitty opponents in a house of cards that will come down sooner rather than later.
    At 4 today in Denver we predict that collapse will come at the hands of Belichick and Brady. And if you're worried about the Pats D that got lit up for 463 yards by Rex Grossman and Washington last week don't be. First off the Patriots defensive problems come against the pass, but while Ron Jaworski was the Polish Rifle Tebow is more of the Mile High Musket taking his time between shots and ineffective at long range. Against the run New England is 11th overall and has held 8 of 13 opponents under 100 yards. Figure Belichick has some schemes prepared to mess up the spread-option and he may even have been preparing ahead of time which may explain the lackadaisacal effort vs. the Redskins.
    The line is N.E. -7.5 and we'll have our pick below, but I don't care how much Tebowing the folks in Denver do this gridiron version of the Loaves and Fishes ends today.

Frankly it's late and I just liked this girl...yeah like I'm worried about sounding creepy at this point.

--FRED'S PICK: And at 7-3-1 we're giving him all caps. Today's selection is the Jets +3 and for once in recent weeks we are skeptical. We agree the Jets should be able to move the ball via the ground on Philly, but after back-to-back weeks of 30+ points it just feels like Mark Sanchez is ready to go in the tank today. We thought we'd find some sort of home/away stat that would back this up, but we couldn't. Call it a hunch similiar to how we feel about the possibility of Michael Vick creating problems with his legs like Tebow did to the Jets late in the Thurday night game a few weeks back. Still Fred's on fire and we've been stabbing wildly so place your rooting interest accordingly.

--Today according to BeyondTheBets the public is pounding Green Bay and New Orleans. The Pack over K.C. is hard to argue with, but the Saints have had their road woes this year barely slipping past Carolina and losing outright to Tampa and St. Louis. They also get rival Atlanta next week with the division title on the line so don't discount Minny +7 or +8 there. Also remember Seneca Wallace starts today for Cleveland and while he's no long term fix he does have mobility and a career 80+ QB rate neither of which Colt McCoy possesses to this point so the hot Arizona Cardinals may not be a sure thing today. As for us New England and buy the hook down to -7. I can't keep writing about Tim Tebow every week. Hungover and humiliated.

Big Boobed Brits...when all else fails!