Welcome to another season preview edition of DICK PICKS: the only online NFL gambling column that can tell you which Harry Potter house you belong to (the bad one that you hate, virgin.)
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Preseason football is already in its second week, and you know what that means: joint practices! And you know what that means: FISTFIGHTS! Every damn year certain teams will pair off with a team they don’t play in the regular season and practice with them for about a week because it gives their borderline players an opportunity to punch a Pro Bowler in his smug idiot face. This year we have already seen brawls between St. Louis and Dallas, and Washington and Houston, so naturally the NFL is doing the NFL thing and CRACKING DOWN.
Of course, it is doing so in its very NFL way of releasing some vague language and waiting for something new to happen so they can make up a punishment for it after the fact BECA– USE THAT HAS WORKED SO WELL IN THE PAST AND IS CONTINUING TO WORK WELL EVEN RIGHT NOW AS WE SPEAK PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN HE IS A GINGER IDIOT WHOSE DICK LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE GLUED A MARSHMALLOW TO A STRAWBERRY BUT DO NOT ASSUME HIS DICK TASTES GOOD BECA– USE OF THIS IT PROBABLY TASTES LIKE THE BAD DICK OINTMENT HE HAS TO — USE TO KEEP IT FROM FALLING OFF. But yeah I bet their stern paternal language will stop large men from getting angry and punching each other when it is very hot outside.
I think all of this pent up aggression just boils down to the fact that it’s mid-August and everyone is just horny for some football. Lord knows I am. They should have made that the Monday Night Football theme. ARE YOU HORNY FOR SOME FOOTBALL???? MONDAY NIGHT HORNY!!! Just rolls off the tongue.
We are less than a month away from the reality of regular season NFL football, and we continue this season preview with a look at the AFC and NFC North which is kind of like looking into a snow globe full of old dirty nails.
ON TO THE PICKS!
(via zonamixta.wordpress.com)
AFC North
Pittsburgh Steelers UNDER 8.5 wins
The AFC North is a pretty tough division to call, since every team alternates between excellent and terrible at a rate that is only comparable to Johnny Depp roles (excluding the Browns. The Browns are always Mortdecai.) But this year I think the reigning champs fall down a few steps and miss the playoffs. It’s not just that their secondary is sewage (their secondary is most definitely sewage.) It is also because last year was one of the odd years where the Steelers went a full season without having 90% of the team’s limbs fall off and get kicked around the field and then picked up and stolen by a stray dog who drops them into a river where beavers use them to finish their dam.
The Steelers have been pulling this act for the better part of this decade. Fluctuating between Super Bowl appearances, first round exits, and missing the playoffs entirely. Sounds frustrating! So after a first round playoff exit last year, my only recourse is to pick them to win the Super Bowl or miss the playoffs, and as good as Antonio Brown and LeVeon Bell may be, this is not the team that’s winning the Super Bowl. Once they find out that the entire roster is made out of Legos and they’re starting their 45th offensive line combination of the season in front of a quarterback who has a shunt in his head, 7-9 will look about right. That’s what Steelers fans deserve anyway. These people would put French fries and coleslaw on a wedding cake. It’s a birth defect from breathing in all of that coal dust probably.
Baltimore Ravens OVER 9 wins
Ughhhh The Ravens are going to win this awful division again and the Patriots will probably have to see them in the playoffs and everyone is going to cry and cry and cry about where players were lined up last year YOU COULD HAVE CALLED A TIMEOUT JOHN YOU BIG WET PUSSY. Don’t try to tell me this division isn’t awful because it sent three teams to the playoffs last year. They played the AFC and NFC South and oh my god have you seen those fucking divisions??? They’re like soccer teams from one of those Balkan countries that just broke up so now they need five soccer teams instead of one and they might resemble real soccer teams when they play each other but once they play a team from a real country they lose 68-2 and another war breaks out.
Ravens fans and the entire Ravens organization are probably beside themselves that the Patriots are the ones being oppressed by the NFL instead of them. “THAT’S OUR THING WE ARE THE TEAM THAT EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET IT ISN’T FAIR DON’T YOU REMEMBER WHERE THEY LINED UP THEIR PLAYERS?!!” While we are sorry you’re not the victims du jour, Ravens fans, take solace in the fact that everyone still hates your cry-baby, hypocrite, prison yard team and racist, corrupt, gutter-swamp city for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with football.
Cincinnati Bengals UNDER 8.5 wins
HOOOO Boy if you thought Baltimore was a racist mound of burning trash, let’s take a ride to Cincinnati! In Cincinnati the cops kill black people so bad they ACTUALLY GET CHARGED WITH MURDER! Do you know how egregiously a cop has to kill a black person to be charged with murder???
Black guy: “Mighty fine day we’re having officer.”
Cincinnati Cop: *does the whole Samuel L. Jackson speech from Pulp Fiction and then shoots black guy in the head*
THIS IS NOT THAT FAR OFF FROM WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!!
The Bengals are my pick for this year’s WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?! Team, where much like the 2014 Saints and Jets, and the 2013 Texans and Falcons, they will go from borderline respectability to laughable incompetence without all that much actually changing about the makeup of the team. The Bengals have been ready for this for YEARS now. I believe this is the year the dam finally breaks and Andy Dalton drowns in a river of subpar chili while every cry for Jesus’ help fills his lungs with more and more slimy beef sludge. GET EXCITED BENGALS FANS!!!
Cleveland Browns UNDER 6.5 wins
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA yuck. The only way this combination of city and team could be more depressing is if that Uruguayan soccer team that had to eat each other played their home games in 1946 Hiroshima. Maybe next year when they have another top three pick they won’t fuck it up so badly.
(via todayspigskin.com)
NFC North
Green Bay Packers OVER 11 wins
This pick was tougher than it looks. Aaron Rodgers is not exactly known for ironman streaks, and if he misses one game this season then this bet could be in shambles. With the Packers’ offensive line continuing to be kind of shitty, that’s not out of the question. This is still a good team though, and now that they’ve taken the play-calling away from Mike McCarthy and handed him a shiny ball of tin-foil instead, maybe we’ll stop seeing the kind of idiot conservatism that cost this team a trip to the Super Bowl. It was like Scott Walker was running that offense, especially since none of the players could have abortions and are all part of a union that has been completely neutered by the corrupt scoundrels with whom they are forced to negotiate.
HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS THE NFL AND WISCONSIN ARE BASICALLY THE SAME THING! Right down to the premature death caused by constant bodily punishment, only replace concussions with alcohol and fried foods. Green Bay is especially gross. I’ve been there twice and the town has an overwhelming feeling of “anything over 14 years old is fair game” which is probably why Mark Chmura loved it so much. Still, Green Bay and Seattle are probably the best teams in the NFC again (shut up Cowboys fans. Seriously, shut up. I’m not going to tell you again) so you figure they SHOULD each go at least 12-4 even though Dom Capers’ 70 year-old “have 11 guys run towards the quarterback and scream” defense only seems to work against Jay Cutler.
Detroit Lions OVER 8 wins
Goddamn this is lower than I expected. I would have happily hammered under 9 or 8.5, assuming the Lions will slip back to .500 since they had a lot of luck last year and looked absolutely atrocious for long stretches of the season. Vegas was obviously expecting the same slide that I was, but given the choice between an above .500 Lions team or a below .500 Lions team, I would have to lean ever so slightly towards above. You hear that Detroit? You get the benefit of the doubt about being possibly mediocre!
The Lions remind me a lot of the mid to late 2000s Chargers. A quarterback that everyone suspects is good but probably isn’t. All-world talent at a few positions and spare parts at others. Coaches that you would not trust to manage a rest stop Dunkin Donuts, let alone a two minute drill… And yet because the Packers are blocking them from a division title, and they have the stain of Lions history on them, they’ll never be saddled with the “choker” label that those Chargers teams had to endure. The Lions are like the little brother who got kicked out of high school for selling pot and everyone expected to be robbing pharmacies within a year but instead he got himself a city job and sure he only makes $14/hr digging holes but it’s much better than anybody expected! Good for you Lions!
Minnesota Vikings UNDER 7.5 wins
No no no. I’m not buying it yet. I don’t care that Adrian Peterson is back and had a whole year off and everyone expects him to just break of 40 yard runs like he’s gonna whip his kid with them. You’re also not going to talk me into Teddy Bridgewater. Sure, he doesn’t make a bunch of terrible mistakes but he also couldn’t throw a surprise party for Helen Keller. Congratulations on Black Chad Pennington, Vikings fans.
It’s pretty remarkable that Adrian Peterson pretends he didn’t do anything wrong by hitting his child in the testicles with a stick until they started to bleed. Don’t make a child’s testicles bleed should probably have been in the Bible, but since that’s the only book AP has ever read (and probably only the pop-up version) he had no idea that this would be a problem. It was comical to watch the organization handle the whole situation like they were next though. “Please Adrian, we’ll give you more money! Just don’t smack our nuts!” And now everybody has to pretend they’re happy until AP breaks down like a Fiat and they have to take him behind their 24 billion dollar stadium and shoot him. SOMEBODY HIRE A SEX BOAT THIS IS GETTING TOO DEPRESSING WHERE IS PRINCE PLEASE SOMEBODY GET PRINCE ON THE PHONE WE NEED HIS TINY SEX MAGIC.
Chicago Bears UNDER 7 wins
Ray McDonald was signed as a redemption story, did all kinds of domestic violence AS HE IS WONT TO DO and then was cut. Brandon Marshall was traded because he made Jay Cutler sad, and then Kevin White was drafted to make him less sad, and then Kevin White’s leg disintegrated so now everyone in the Bears organization is sad. BUT JOHN FOX IS HERE YOU GUYS! This is the man who introduced the NFL to Jimmy Clausen, so get your Ds and Bs and Vs ready for Clausen-mania in Chicago once Cutler’s kids give him polio! Sure, maybe you won’t get to see a lot of touchdown passes, but if you’re a fan of quarterbacks standing on the sidelines chewing on a mouthguard like a fucking idiot, then this is the team for you baby!
I’m currently reading a book about John Wayne Gacy because I like to get inside the heads of famous serial killers because I am a MIND HUNTER AND NOW I KNOW HOW TO LOOK FOR THEM, and I guarantee those 29 bodies they found in his house have as much a chance of playing 16 games this season as 80% of this roster. And all of the Chicago sports fans who started pretending to like hockey in 2009 can’t even coast on their latest Stanley Cup victory because their star player is more than likely a rapist. BUT HOW ABOUT THOSE CUBBIES GUYS!! SAAAATURDAY IIIIIIN THE PARK PLEASE DON’T LET US NEAR ANY KNIIIIIIVES!!!!
That does it for this week. Next week we preview the, hold on, *pukes for 75 minutes straight* AFC and NFC South!
I won so much money with Dick picks last season that I was able to buy a monkey, a blank gun, and a fainting goat to make all my dreams come true. Well, one dream, at least.