Welcome to another edition of DICK PICKS: the only online NFL gambling column that only meets with Russians during election years because that’s when its exotic pets tend to die.
After a semi-bounce back week, the hole is not as deep and I can refrain from selling blood and get back to daydreaming about buying all the blood I could ever want. I have also been getting some positive feedback about the column from people I don’t know and from the bottom of my heart I want you new readers to know that if you are a cop you have to tell me or YOU go to jail. Not me.
Some of the most interesting feedback I got was along the lines of “some of your words are very funny (ed. It’s the swear words) but I don’t know a lot about football or gambling so I keep having to look things up.” Well you’re in luck, new, ignorant, possibly law enforcement officer reader, because I’m going to use this week’s column to explain a lot of the shit I usually talk about on here to hopefully make this column easier to follow. Even if you’re not a degenerate gambler, a fan of football, or one of the moon-based spies trying to decode my messages of resistance to your nefarious cause.
First, the gambling aspect of the column: I pick games “against the spread” meaning that those numbers next to the city name are either a + if I take an underdog, or a – if I take a favorite. Favorites have to win by at least as many points as they are “giving” so a team that is -5.5 needs to win by at least 6 or I say “fuck” a lot and text my dad about what a shitty job he did raising me. Underdogs have to lose by fewer points than they are “getting” so a team that is +3.5 can lose by as many as 3 but no more. If they lose by more I will also say “fuck” a lot and text my friend Adam about how I’m going to walk into the sea and never come back. Got it? Good. ON TO THE PICKS. I will be giving more clarifications under each game. Last week’s picks went 9-7-0, and I always put the home team in all caps because that’s how you know which awful city I am going to shit on the most in a given paragraph.
LA Rams -3 vs. SAN FRANCISCO
The first game is usually a Thursday night game and Thursday Night Football is something the NFL started a few years ago to make people depressed so they drink more from Friday through Sunday. Every game on Thursday night is bad and everybody hates Thursday Night Football but it keeps happening because Seinfeld got canceled probably.
Baltimore -3.5 vs. Jacksonville (London)
Okay how do I explain this one… Every year the NFL plays a few games in London, England because a long time ago in Europe they started playing a game called football and we started playing a different game and also called it football so they called us wankers and we were like “We’ll show you who the real wankers are!” And the real wankers invariably end up being the Jacksonville Jaguars.
INDIANAPOLIS +1 vs. Cleveland
So this is interesting because this is the first time Cleveland has been a “favorite” in a game since 2015, because Cleveland is very bad as a city but also as a football team. They are the “favorite” because Indianapolis is also very bad on account of they have one good player named Andrew Luck and he can’t play because his shoulder is filled with ants. Both of these teams are very bad and if you see this game on any television you are required to call the police or at the very least spray that television with a hose.
Pittsburgh -7 vs. CHICAGO
The quarterback for Pittsburgh is named Ben Roethlisberger. He is a good player but I talk about him a lot in here because he is a rapist. You see, he trapped a woman in a bathroom in Georgia and then allegedly showed her his disgusting grey penis and tried to force himself upon her. So when you see his name just think “Claymation Rape Monster” and you’ve basically got the gist of it.
Miami -6 vs. NY JETS
The Jets and the Dolphins are two teams I like to make fun of more than others because I am a Patriots fan and these are two of the three very bad teams that play in their division. The Dolphins are usually less-bad in a bland way, but this year they signed a man named Jay Cutler as their quarterback. Jay Cutler plays quarterback like a cat knocks things off your coffee table: with no regard for anything but his own mysterious intentions. The less said about the Jets the better.
Denver -3 vs. BUFFALO
Buffalo is also a team in the same division as the Patriots but they aren’t as fun to insult because they are a directionless mess of a franchise mired in a town built on the backs of very sad and cold ghosts. Denver, on the other hand, is a team that is fun to insult because their quarterback’s last name sounds like “semen.”
CAROLINA -5 vs. New Orleans
Carolina and New Orleans used to be a fun rivalry. Carolina had a fun quarterback named Cam Newton who was beaten down physically by not being protected by his teammates or the league and emotionally by being a fun black guy in a region where fun and black are illegal. New Orleans had a fun quarterback named Drew Brees who was beaten down emotionally by having a defense that gives up more points than he can possibly score, but was protected physically by a smear of gypsy blood on his face. This game is not fun anymore.
NEW ENGLAND -13.5 vs. Houston
One thing to know about this column is that I am usually wrong about New England because I hear about them the most and have far more opportunities to change my mind. Houston is starting a rookie quarterback who has only played in two games before, so logically this will be very difficult for him. Logic, however, does not work in the NFL so using it is stupid, and I am also stupid, so logically, you should pick Houston. Ah, but there you are, using logic again. I told you not to do that. See how this works?
Atlanta -3 vs. DETROIT
If you scroll back up you will notice that a lot of teams I picked are lowercase teams with a – in front of the points. That means I am picking a lot of “road favorites” which is not a good idea. If you continue reading this column in the future this is about the point where I will notice that I have taken too many road favorites and say something like “oh goddammit.” Classic DICK PICKS.
PHILADELPHIA -6 vs. NY Giants
It’s important I address this here if you aren’t familiar with how football works: The NFC East is the most annoying division in football. The four teams in this particular division are Washington (DC), Philadelphia, New York Giants, and Dallas. Because of the prominence of these teams’ locations and history, every game played within this division will be on television and it will be a bad game. Especially this one, because both coaches are always confused but they get that mad kind of confused like when your dad is trying to fix something and makes you hold the flashlight but then he breaks it and says he only broke it because you were holding the flashlight wrong even though you didn’t want to be there in the first place.
TENNESSEE -3 vs. Seattle
Seattle was very good for a few years but now they aren’t good anymore because everyone got sick of success and sick of each other except instead of the lead singer killing himself they are trying to kill the lead singer by letting large men attack him instead of just letting him get hooked on dope.
Kansas City -3 vs. LA CHARGERS
If you haven’t noticed, there are two New York teams and two Los Angeles teams in the NFL. Now, New York has had two teams for exactly negative forty-one years because that’s when the Giants started playing in New Jersey and the Jets moved to New Jersey seven years later. So for thirty-six years New York has had zero teams and everyone is happy about that. Los Angeles had two teams leave in 1995 and everyone was perfectly fine with it but now they have two teams again for the first time since then. Do you care? Of course not. But just by trying to understand that paragraph you have put in more effort than any LA football fan ever will. Oh and Kansas City’s coach is a guy named Andy Reid who is a sentient rubber glove full of hot dogs. That comes up a lot.
GREEN BAY -9 vs. Cincinnati
Green Bay has the best quarterback in football at the moment and his name is Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers sounds like a guy who could be good at football so if you hear his name feel free to implicitly trust him. Cincinnati has a quarterback who has bright red hair and sings Christian rock to his teammates before every game. He is not very good. His name is Andy Dalton and that name sounds like a guy who wins one term on the City Council but then tweets a picture of his penis at a teenager instead of sending it privately. DO NOT trust that man.
Oakland -3 vs. WASHINGTON
The only thing you need to know about these teams is that Oakland’s owner fleeced the state of Nevada out of $700 million for a new stadium in Las Vegas and looks like a giant toddler who cuts his own hair with a fork and knife, but is still less of a crook and embarrassment than Washington’s owner and it’s not even close. Best case scenario, the Spaghetti-o’s served in the owners boxes are full of botulism.
ARIZONA +3 vs. Dallas
Another thing to look forward to with these columns is me getting burnt out by the time the last game rolls around, especially if it is a game I don’t care about. I could tell you a lot about these teams. Where they play, what their mascots are… hell, I even know some of the players. But it’s a lot easier to just hurl vague insults about a team’s location/fan base and let you decide if they make sense. So here goes: this game is like two strip malls got mad at each other over which one had the nicer Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill.
LAST WEEK: 9-7-0
SEASON TOTAL: 14-17-0
