The Ragin' Asian

and here we are again.  so much has happened in the last year.  we almost lost a year of football because the greedy owners and the greedy players still can’t figure out an equitable way to divide a bazillion dollars.  my beloved mavericks finally found ultimate sports glory in winning the NBA championship.  fredo’s beloved aggies finally got out of the shadow of the texas longhorns by agreeing to live in shadow of 4 other schools that will always overshadow it.  despite all of this, i’m still the reigning BTG champ and it’s finally time for me to defend my title.  i spend the past week in texas, meditating and drawing football power from the dry texas soil.  btw, it’s friggin hot as balls here.  i don’t know how anyone lives out here.  in any case the retreat has fully recharged my football handicapping powers and i am fully confident that i can beat my less than worthy adversaries as this stupid little parlor game of ours.  on to the picks!  on to glory!  numbers from caesar’s, home team in caps.

GB (-4) over no, 47.5, packers (-240) saints (+190)
the real line should be the over/under on the number of wisconsin skanks that aaron rodgers plowed through this summer.  i’ll set the number at 89, and because he had a little extra spare time because of the lockout, i’ll take the over.  the really sad thing is rogers still probably threw up after about half of those romps in the hay.

pit (+2.5) over BAL, 36.5, steelers (+120) ravens (-135)
i really kinda don’t get the love that the ravens are getting.  is joey flacco magically good all of a sudden?  and as someone who routinely underrates the steelers, this line seems kinda weird to me.  i think that the steelers are in for a monster season myself.  especially now since big ben is married and the only person he is going to be raping is his lovely bride. mazel tov!

TAM (-1.5) over det, 41, buccaneers (-135),  lions (+115)
a couple of weeks ago i told erik that i really liked the lions in this one and that i was going to make this my big bet.  what i failed to mention to erik was that i was really strung out on some meth at the time.  we’re all rooting for the lions this year, but now that i have llaggarrette blount on my fantasy team, i’m super loving the bucs.

atl (-3) over CHI, 40.5, falcons (-145) bears (+125)
the season over/under for the bears this year is 8.5.  TAKE THE UNDER.  in retrospect, last year’s bear’s season was one of the greatest smoke and mirror routines since fredo told me how much he loved having kids. big bet.

buf (+6) over KC, 41, bills (+245) chiefs (-290)
apparently i’m hitting the road dogs pretty hard so far.  always a winning strategy.  not that i think the bills are any good, it’s just that their qb is a harvard grad, which means he’s white.  so that has to be worth some wins no?

HOU (-8.5) over ind, 43, texans (-400), colts (+300)
if i were the editor of sports illustrated, my next cover would have a picture of peyton manning looking over his shoulder behind him with that unmistakable expression of sorriness on his face.  the cover would read “A Penis Nose in Winter” by Gary Williams.

STL (+5) over phi, 44, rams (+190) eagles (-240)
BOOM! how’s that for balls aholes?  the hype bandwagon for the eagles has gotten out of control.  and i see a situation similar to what happened to the cowboys recently.  a lot of eagles seem to think they’ve already won the the conference championship.  also, i’m working on a new theory that god must hate dogs which is why he allowed michael vick to find redemption.

CLE (-6.5) OVER cin, 35.5, browns (-240) bengals (+190)
my new roommate is from ohio.  so you know, eff her, and this game. (just jokes morgan!  i <3 you roomie!)

ten (+2) over JAX, 37, titans (+110) jaguars (-130)
i wonder what this line was when luke mccown (or is it josh…really, who the eff cares).  did you know that i think jack del rio is a very very bad coach that has only kept his job because he’s white?  why don’t affirmative action opponents ever bring this up?

WAS (+3) over nyg, 37.5, native american ethnic slurs (+150) giants (-130)
well, if al queda decides to pull a 9/11 anniversary attack, let’s hope they do it at this game.  DARKEST JOKE EVER!

ARI (-3) over car, 37, cards (-330) panthers (+250)
wtf?  week 1 and there are already shit games on the docket.  everything is getting worse people.  everything.

sea (+5.5) over SFO, 37.5, seahawks (+210) niners (-270)
i don’t care how bad tarvaris jackson is, alex smith is worse. interesting sidenote, last year’s NFC west winner seattle, has a season over/under of 6.5.  that’s how bad this division is.

min (+8.5) over SDO, 41.5, vikings (+350) chargers (-450)
i dunno, doesn’t this seem like a lot of points this early in the season for a team that has traditionally started slowly?  also, there’s a new spinoff of the bruthas on the WB called “Feelin’ Minnesota”.  donavan mcnabb ends up losing his arm in a freak weedeater accident, but he really needs the money.  so he calls his old friend brett favre, who enlists the help of harvey firestein to use use hollywood style special effects make up to make brett look like d-mac, allowing brett to secretly come out of retirement and have some more fun on the football field.  think of it as friday night lights meets keeping up with the kardashians.

dal (+4.5) over NYJ, 40.5, dallas (+180) jets (-210)
this is a pretty terrible bet.  but the mavericks have gained enough goodwill for the entire city of dallas that i will temporarily be a good fan of the cowboys.  also, i considered a sitcom starring jason garrett and rob ryan living together in a two bedroom one bathroom apartment.  i was going to call it the odd couple, but apparently that name has been used.

ne (-7) over MIA, 46, pats (-36) dolphins (+280)
kinduva sad day when the worst football team in florida are the dolphins.  think about that.  in other news tom brady is still banging giselle.

oak (+3) over DEN, 40, raiders (+145) broncos (-165)
i have two things to say about this game.  1) this double header MNF to start the season is crap.  and 2) i wonder how the tebow apologists feel about tim tebow inspiring them from the sideline holding a clipboard.

you know i had a whole long meditation on how sports and celebrity have collided where it seems that the only compelling thing to talk about in this game is either brett favre’s self immolation or ben rothlisberger’s empty redemption story.  but you know what?  eff that, the league was horrible this year and in keeping with my new universal theorem of culture, everything is getting worse, things don’t look good with a possible lockout, goodell’s increasingly draconian philosophy of running the league, and the fact that the league still hasn’t even come close to doing the right thing with concussions.  so instead i’ll give you the worse prediction ever.

fredo and i talked about it and we would not bet this game.  you can look at it two ways.  either these teams are so close and competitive and anything could happen, or what i think is more likely, neither of these teams has really distinguished themselves to be a truly memorable team.  part of me says i should root for the packers because i don’t want to pull too far ahead of the cowboys in the super bowl count, but at the same time, i think the whole small white town in america municipally owning a team is kinda BS.  so eff the packers too.  no, this game comes down to two players: aaron rogers and troy polamalu.  aaron rogers is playing the most important position better than anyone right now (but nothing on the level of manning or brady when they were killing it).  polamalu continues to do what he has always done which is create havoc sideline to sideline allowing his defensive teammates to do things that they wouldn’t be able to do with him not on the field.  he is truly the most unique player i’ve seen since deion sanders.  and in a season where the NFL has come back down to earth a little bit and is starting to resemble the other generic corporate sports leagues, i’ll boil my prediction to one completely worthless platitude.  defense wins championships.  green bay opened at -3 and the line has gone down to 2.5 as of the writing of this post.  fredo was right.  the line is too high both at the start and now.  gimme pit.

i hate football

gb (-3.5) over CHI, 43, packers (-185) bears (+165)

PIT (-3.5) over nyj, 38.5, steelers (-200) jets (+170)

so i pretty much sucked it last week since football is pretty much terrible and here we are only a half hour away and i don’t have my picks up.  eff me.  the good news is the roomie is in vegas and we have 100 bucks in play.

PIT (-3) over bal, 37, steelers (-165) ravens (+145)

ATL (-2) over GB, 43.5, falcons (-130) packers (+110)

sea (+10) over CHI, 41.5, seahawks (+400) bears (-500)

NE (-9) over nyj, 44.5, pats (-450) jets (+325)

fredo has 50 non bob bucks on the atl/gb over

i have a 20 dollar bet on a 3 leg parlay ATL-gb over/sea/NE, which if the first two hit, i’ll hedge with 30 bucks on the jets.  if the first 2 don’t hit, heavy on the pats.

i have a headache which is just as well, today the games are kinda boring.  remember, we don’t keep track of picks in the post season here at BTG, we post picks only for the love of gamblor.

no (-10) over SEA, 45.5, saints (-600) seahawks (+400)
aragorn is not starting which is a good thing for the seahawks, but they can’t make this line high enough.  if you have access to a bookie, i suggest you all him or her.

IND (-2.5) over nyj, 45, colts (-135) jets (+115)
worst colts team that peyton has played for since his rookie year, yet i still don’t have the guts to bet against him.  i’m tired of the jets too.  they are actually a pretty uninteresting team but they’re in new york so we’re forced to hear about them all the time.

KC (+3) over bal, 40.5, chiefs (+150) ravens (-170)
i’d feel a lot better about this game if the chiefs didn’t suck so much last week against the raiders. but still home dog, don’t know if the ravens have the offensive firepower to really do anything in these playoffs, let’s just go with it.

gb (+3) over PHI, 46.5, packers (+120) eagles (-140)
obviously the best game of the slate this weekend.  i don’t have a feeling either way here and vegas is saying that these teams are exactly as good as each other with that line….sooooo i guess gimme the packers.

sorry these aren’t entertaining, i need more sleep.

somethings really don’t need an introduction.

in the consolation round, week 17 saw strong play from erik as he struggled to try and salvage any semblance of his manhood by at least finishing close to helene, and he came through with gusto with a excellent 12 wins, but helene matched him pick for pick basically and finished a good 7 games ahead of erik and also managed to finish the season above the .500 mark, leaving erik the only one of us who failed to demonstrate a basic grasp of the fundamentals of this sport we so love.  fredo and eric were in striking distance of me in first place, however, they had to hope that i had a shitty week.  luckily i played consistently getting 8 of 9 games in the morning.  eric and fredo actually did the right thing as they had to go a little mad scientist and pick against some of the games that were fairly easy to pick, because getting the same number of games as me would only preserve the lead i had.  and even though i sucked in the afternoon games, the morning crush was just too much for both eric and fredo and they both finished a very respectable 52% on the season.  and of course, there i am all alone on the top of the mountain.  55% which should be the goal of any gambler.  on the one hand i’m kinda proud of myself for having such a steady eddie season, but the truth is, even winning the season doesn’t come close to my historic 15-2 week from last year.  which kinda tells us all we need to know about the quality of this season.  it sucked.  one of the worst nfl seasons i can remember, with no real compelling stories on the field and waaaaay to many off the field stories that ultimately entertained no one.

moving to the big bet round, we see that i also managed to finish atop a very tightly packed race.  even with the one push i still had more wins than everyone else at a very respectable 69%.  if i was just betting one game hard every week, i’d be waayyyy up.

lastly, the most exciting round of course was the bob bucks round.  everyone put everything they had on the line in hopes of salvaging some kind of victory this season, but in the end, the packers fucked us all.  for reasons that are unclear to me, chicago played their starters in hopes that atlanta would lose and they would maybe get that #1 seed and were able to cover a huge spread.  eric, your team in a lot of ways is just as disappointing as the cowboys.  ok, not really, but still.  goddammit.  luckily for me however, i spread my bets around and atlanta, like they have all season, came through for me.  meaning i won all three phases of this game.  it should be noted that erik ended up with a hilarious -$1 in bob bucks which i guess translates to one pump in the handjob he owes me.  helene…well, we’ll figure out another way you can repay those bob bucks.

so there you have it folks.  the season sucked, but thank god for this inane little exercise to make it somewhat enjoyable for us to follow football.  it’s a good thing it was exciting because who knows what will happen next year with the labor situation.  but if there’s a season to be played, you can bet that there will be gamblers like us to put our fake money where our mouths are.  all hail me, bob ngo, king of the 2010 BTG football pick em extravaganza.

no idea.

oak (+3.5) over KC, 43.5, raiders (+155) chiefs (-175)
and so it goes, trying to figure out the teams that care and don’t care.  kc has clinched the division and can’t clinch a bye.  oakland can clinch deez nutz with a win or a loss.

mia (-5) over NE, 43.5, dolphins (+190) patriots (-240)
pats have clinched homefield, miami has clinched rooting for a basketball team that signals the decline of professional sports.

IND (-9.5) over ten, 48, colts (-600) titans (+400)
indy clinches the south with a win and might be eliminated if they lose…so obviously, peyton is a very safe bet here despite all those points.  the titans clinch very high health insurance premiums for vince young’s anti-depressants as inconceivably, vince young is going to win the jeff fisher/vince young shootout.

HOU (-4) over jax, 46, texans (-165) jags (+145)
the jags win the south with a win + a colts loss, which in my mind means they’re eliminated because both MJD and garrard are out.  the texans can clinch the dingleberries left over from the full body cleansing that just happened to my body after a bowl of vegetarian chili and a 2 liter bottle of cherry coke.

pit (-5.5) over CLE, 37.5, steelers (-240) browns (+190)
the steelers can clinch the division and a number 2 seed with a win.  the browns can clinch the big pile of human fecal matter on your chest, from which the city of cleveland’s name is derived.

cin (+9.5) over BAL, 43, bengals (+375) ravens (-550)
the ravens need the steelers to lose and win this game to clinch the division.  with a win, the bengals would clinch the sex tape that TO and ochocinco have VERY OBVIOUSLY made during the course of the season.

DET (-3.5) over min, 42, lions (-185) vikins (+165)
the lions can clinch a 4 game winning streak, the first in probably a millenium with a win.  the vikings can clinch the oozing pustule that is now brett favre’s legacy.

WAS (+4) over nyg, 44.5, skins (+175) giants (-210)
the giants would need a packers loss and a win in this game to clinch a playoff spot.  a redskins win would clinch the presidency for the republican candidate in 2012.

GB (-9.5) over chi, 41.5, packers (-500) bears (+350)
the packers will clinch a playoff spot with a win.  the bears can clinch an ed hardy shirt and a golf visor for jay cutler if they win.

PHI (-2.5) over dal, 43, eagles (-150) cowboys (+130)
the eagles are locked into the 3 seed and cannot clinch anything.  a cowboys win will clinch texas a & m university’s reputation as quarterback U. HUNAMANOO!

NYJ (-1.5) over buf, 39.5, jets (off) bills (off)
the jets win coupled with either a steelers or ravens loss would clinch them the #5 seed instead of the 6 seed.  the bills can clinch…god buffalo sucks, i can’t even think of a good joke for this one.

ATL (-14) over car, 41, falcons (off) panthers (off) – BIG BET
the falcons can clinch homefield throughout the playoffs with a win.  the panthers can clinch jon fox’s merkin for their office trophy case if they win.

tam (+7) over NO, 46.5, bucs (+280) saints (-360)
the saints theoretically could still win the division, but they would need a lot of help.  the bucs could theoretically hijack an russian nuke and do everyone a favor by sinking florida into the ocean, but they would need a lot of help too.

ari (+6) over SFO, 38.5, cards (+220) niners (-260)
both of these teams can clinch fucking shit for all i care.

DEN (+3.5) over sdo, 47, broncos (+155) chargers (-175)
both of these teams are eliminated and have clinched me wondering if i even like watching football anymore.  thanks for the worst season ever NFL!

stl (-3) over SEA, 41.5, rams (-155) seahawks (+130)
either team clinches the division by winning this game.  however, only charlie whitehurst can clinch the favor of of the elf princess arwen by leading the races of middle earth against the forces of sauron.

now, let’s go hunt some orc!