DICK PICKS!
UnScene Comedy’s Weekly NFL Gambling Column
by Rich Karski
Welcome to another edition of DICK PICKS: the only online NFL gambling column that has been scientifically proven to cause skin irritation.
Another week of slightly better than .500 gambling! If this keeps up I’ll be able to afford to put one of those giant leather bras on my yacht. We are done with week four of the NFL and you will be happy to know that I have learned nothing about any team up to this point. Is anybody good? Maybe Denver and Seattle, but anybody else? POSSIBLY! Are New England and New Orleans legitimately terrible? IT APPEARS SO! Will Lincoln stop playing that goddamned Matthew McConaughey commercial if everyone just promises to go out and buy a Lincoln right now? IT’S WORTH A SHOT!
I don’t know how much my opinion of each team has really changed since week one, or if I’m willing to abandon any of those opinions entirely. I think my main takeaway from these first four weeks is that every team is a lot closer to the middle than I had expected, and any team is capable of blowing out any other team on a given week. Doesn’t that make for some really fun gambling?! * slams dick in refrigerator door a whole bunch of times*
My main point is, it’s probably going to get a lot worse around here before it gets any better, as I struggle to gain any grasp of exactly what the fuck is going on with this league. All I ask is that you bear with me, as this week I will try to come up with one thing I ABSOLUTELY KNOW FOR A FACT about each game. ON TO THE PICKS! As always, home team is in caps.
GREEN BAY -7.5 vs. Minnesota
Hey! The guy that everyone in the world said was the most talented and most NFL-ready quarterback in college football FOR TWO YEARS before they turned on him a month before the draft might actually be good! HOW ABOUT THAT?! Look Teddy, you seem like a nice guy, and it’d be a great story if you overcame the loss of AP to drag this team into the playoffs, but one thing I absolutely know for a fact about this game is it’s on Thursday night. Every Thursday night game thus far has been a lopsided joke, and I don’t see Teddy going into his first game at Lambeau, at night, and blowing out the Packers. If he does, then Jay Cutler is going to be, like, soooo mad you guys.
Chicago +3 vs. CAROLINA
Here’s Jay now! And he’s going up against a Panthers defense that got fed a giant spoonful of deez nutz by former Panther Steve Smith last week. They needed to get the medical cart to take his dick and balls back into the locker room after the game. Steve Smith fucked the Panthers’ defense so good that they all went back to their lockers to find Derek Jeter gift baskets waiting for them. Anyway, I should probably go with the Panthers at home against an uneven Chicago team, but one thing I absolutely know for a fact about this game is that the Panthers are finally showing the cracks that made me distrust them to start the season and Jay Cutler is going to squeeze his kid’s measles all up in said cracks.
Cleveland +2 vs. TENNESSEE
Something I absolutely know for a fact about this game is that it is terrible and I’ve already written way too many words about it and knowing that it even exists has been enough to ruin my day.
PHILADELPHIA -7 vs. St. Louis
All of a sudden the Eagles are tied with the Cowboys for the division lead even though the Cowboys’ personnel decisions are made by a syphilitic Yosemite Sam. They should be able to handle the Rams though, since the Rams had a bye last week which made everyone forget that they were still a football team. “St. Louis? I thought their team moved to Phoenix. They got ANOTHER ONE? Didn’t they learn their lesson the last time?” One absolute fact that I know about this game is that Dick Vermeil is going to watch it and cry.
Atlanta +4 vs. NY GIANTS
Okay, the Giants have strung together two impressive wins in a row and are at home against a shitty defense that just got taken to the woodshed by a rookie QB in his first start. OF COURSE the Giants will lose this game. Eli Manning has been looking good, and he gets to face Atlanta’s trash heap of a secondary, so OF COURSE he will throw three picks and spend the entire game looking like a child who got separated from his mother in a department store. I know for an absolute fact that this is how the Giants have been operating for years now. Put them up against the football version of the Space Jam monsters and they’ll gut out a win. Give them some momentum and hand them a team that looks primed to be steamrolled and they will spend four quarters pissing in their own eyes.
NEW ORLEANS -10 vs. Tampa Bay
New Orleans gets to play another home game! They’re probably pretty relieved about that since they’ve been an abject disaster outside of Louisiana this season. They need a big win after last week’s embarrassment in Dallas, and they need a whipping boy to take out their aggression. Tampa fits the bill perfectly. I’m not fooled by their victory in Pittsburgh.
Is Post Traumatic Alarm Clock Disorder a thing? (via pinterest.com)
This is still a bad football team with a mediocre quarterback and shitty alarm clock uniforms. Who the fuck wants to be reminded of an alarm clock during a football game?! For decades the alarm clock was the bane of human existence, until phones became popular enough that we thought we had wiped them from the face of the earth.
Putting people’s least favorite thing inside their most favorite thing killed the bad feelings we had about alarm clocks and the shitty Buccaneers uniforms bring all of those feelings back.
I absolutely know for a fact that whoever designed those uniforms should be put in jail but not even in a regular jail like a jail in Guatemala or something. Asshole.
Houston +6 vs. DALLAS
So is Dallas good? Is Houston good? I don’t fucking know. I’m taking Ryan Fitzpatrick on the road for Chrissakes so do you really think I have the answers here? Something about this game that I know for a fact is that Ebola is in Texas now, so we finally have the perfect excuse to build a giant wall around the whole state and never let anybody in or out so these teams could play each other every week and there would be no need to watch them ever again (unless everyone on the field was hemorrhaging uncontrollably, in which case I would watch. For science.)
DETROIT -7 vs. Buffalo
Well EJ Manuel got benched for Kyle Orton this week so one thing I know for an absolute fact is that everybody on Buffalo’s coaching staff and front office have updated their resumes this week and are probably sending annoying LinkedIn requests to every owner in the league. “Hey, remember me? I somehow drafted a quarterback worse than Geno Smith WELL BEFORE Geno Smith was drafted!” * clicks ignore, deletes LinkedIn profile, throws computer into ocean, shoots ocean with a gun*
INDIANAPOLIS -3 vs. Baltimore
OH WOW THIS GAME MIGHT ACTUALLY BE GOOD EVERYBODY! Andrew Luck, architecting, Shrek-looking, Cookie Monster-sounding ass motherfucker that he may be, is a damn good quarterback. You can tell he enjoys playing football and is genuinely excited every time he does it. Joe Flacco always looks like he just found out he got a waitress pregnant. That probably isn’t going to have anything to do with the outcome of this game; I just thought I would point it out. Anyway, like Indy in this game because frankly Baltimore has looked a little too good recently and I know for an absolute fact that they have an egg to lay soon and I figure this week is as good as any.
JACKSONVILLE +6 vs. Pittsburgh
Ugh. Pittsburgh travels to the Pittsburgh of the South to play a Jaguars team that I’m not even sure has made a defensive stop this year and if they had it was probably because the other team’s offense punted on first down to give their defense some extra reps against practice squad level talent. “So why the fuck are you picking the Jaguars you idiot?” Well, first of all hey shut up, and second of all, the Steelers under Mike Tomlin are like a fat Appalachian redneck version of the Giants under Tom Coughlin.
We saw last week that they have a remarkable ability to play down to their opponents and ruin suicide pools everywhere. Second of all, I know for a fact that the Jaguars have to win at least two games this season, and one of those games is going to be against a pretty decent team that is woefully ill-prepared which at this point should be the Steelers’ team slogan instead of whatever it is now which is probably something terrible like “Strong as Steel” or “Ignore the Rape Accusations.”
DENVER -7 vs. Arizona
Hmmm… Peyton Manning… at home… vs. Drew Stanton… giving one touchdown? This feels very suspicious. Does Vegas know that Manning hasn’t remembered to clean his dryer’s lint trap in two years and a fire is going to break out send him to the hospital with third degree burns on early Sunday morning? Is this a different Drew Stanton than the one I remember who sucks and has always sucked? One thing I know as an absolute fact about this game is that Denver and Arizona are a lot closer geographically than I remembered them being so maybe we should all spend more time looking at maps. Maps are nature’s way of telling us where we’re not allowed to go.
Kansas City +6.5 vs. SAN FRANCISCO
Andy Reid exacts revenge on the Levi’s corporation by desecrating their stadium in the name of all the REAL men who don’t fit the unrealistic physical standards that their jeans set for us. I know for a fact that Andy Reid is always looking out for the little guy (SO THAT HE DOESN’T SIT ON HIM BECA– USE HE’S HUUUGGGGGEEEEEEE)
SAN DIEGO -6.5 vs. NY Jets
Rex Ryan came out in strong support of Geno Smith as his starter this week which is why I will continue picking against the Jets. San Diego has looked pretty good since week one and since Mike McCoy took over Philip Rivers has been treating opposing defenses like he treats the urge to masturbate. It is an absolute fact that Philip Rivers has never spilled his seed outside a fertile womb and I dare you to prove me wrong.
NEW ENGLAND +1.5 vs. Cincinnati
* Sigh* Okay, I KNOW. I know New England has sucked. I know Tom Brady has sucked. I know the offensive line has looked like they are the beneficiaries of Brady’s life insurance policy. I know so many things about this game. But the one fact that I will stand by is that if Andy Dalton comes into New England as a road favorite and beats this team on a Sunday night, then you can bury the fucking dynasty and I’ll be the first to throw dirt on the coffin.
Seattle -7 vs. WASHINGTON
Seattle is in Washington. Washington was the first president. Presidents are on Mount Rushmore. The Seahawks RUSH MORE than any other team in the league! That’s fucking eerie. I know for an absolute fact that that is fucking eerie.
