Welcome to another edition of DICK PICKS: the only online NFL gambling column that continually skirts the Rooney Rule by wearing very dark sunglasses.
THE PLAYOFFS ARE HERE THE PLAYOFFS ARE QUEER THE PLAYOFFS DON’T WANT ANY MORE BEARS haha that’s a Simpsons reference but also true because fuck Chicago. Before we get into all that let me just say that last week I overcame the odds and had my second best week of the season, pushing my record three games over .500 because I am the best and I never stopped believing in me. Sure, I may have succeeded purely through blind luck and conjecture, but you can’t tell me that, because I don’t listen! As far as I’m concerned it was grit, perseverance, mental fortitude, and other white adjectives as well that helped me drag my season out of the gutter and rise anew upon the wings of an eagle but not the racist kind of eagle that Nazis like. The good eagle. Like from the Muppets. Unless the Muppets eagle is racist too. I guess the Muppets are made up of a bunch of different species and they hang out with a lot of black and Hispanic celebrities so it would be hard to believe that any of them are racist. When you think about it though, there’s like a hundred Muppets so law of averages suggests at least one of them is racist. If I had to pick one of those Muppets to be racist it would either be that eagle or the pig.
This is going to be a historic playoff weekend. We have the Bills (!!!) making their return to the playoffs for the first time since Slobodan Milosevic was indicted for war crimes. The playoffs also return to LA for the first time since Slobodan Milosevic was overseeing the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims and Croats during the Bosnian War. Any time I can work Slobodan Milosevic multiple times into the same playoff column you know something historically fucked up has happened. Or maybe it says more about me than it does about the NFL or Slobodan. Either way it’s been long as hell since these two things have happened and millions of people have died since then either through atrocities or by like eating too much cookies and pork. While I’m not going to personally tell you to eat less cookies and pork this weekend, I will say that you should enjoy the NFL while it lasts, because you will be dead soon. We also only have 11 total games left in the season and then people are going to start talking about baseball and then you’re gonna want to do a little “cleansing” of your own if you catch my drift. ON TO THE PICKS! Last week’s picks went 11-4-0. As always, the home team is in caps.
KANSAS CITY -9 vs. Tennessee
I got to watch Marcus Mariota for about 30 snaps this season which is plenty for me to make an absolute statement along the lines of “There is no way this Hawaiian nerd is winning a road playoff game.” Jacksonville let Tennessee walk into the playoffs specifically so they could kick their ass this weekend instead of last weekend, but then Andy Dalton fucked it all up so the Titans limp into KC as dead men walking. Bunch of fuckin Sean Penns out here smashing cameras and punching Madonna and pretending they saved Haiti even though everybody just wants them to leave.
Kansas City pisses me off so instead of talking about this uneven mess of a team I’m going to talk about places that Andy Reid is probably banned from due to his eating habits. My guess is the list includes most water parks and amusement parks, but not carnivals or fairs because those are made for disgusting people. I would also imagine he is banned from any restaurant that does not serve food in “buckets” or “slabs” but only because what started out as a boycott turned into a series of threatening letters and the police had to take action. I can’t imagine he is allowed into any establishment that bans outside condiments because he sweats Russian dressing. Lastly I would imagine he is banned from Chili’s for singing the rib song instead of placing an order as well as Applebees for singing the Chili’s rib song instead of placing an order.
LOS ANGELES -6.5 vs. Atlanta
The Rams very much lucked into this matchup because they are facing probably the only NFC wild card contender whose fans do not give enough of a shit about the team to fly to LA for a playoff game. Sure, that means the stadium will likely be half-empty, but look at it as an optimist would and say it is not half-full of Falcons fans.
Atlanta’s biggest problem aside from Steve Sarkesian coming in and wrecking up the place, is its run defense. The guy they’re playing, former Georgia Bulldog Todd Gurley, is likely to smash them to bits. Atlanta let Rex Burkhead run for five yards per carry and he may be an actual football-playing bulldog. Bulldogs are notoriously slow and lazy so if you’re letting one of those carve you up for five a pop then Todd Gurley is going to fuck up your world in front of literally hundreds of excited Rams fans.
Buffalo +9 vs. JACKSONVILLE
Blake Bortles is hosting the Buffalo Bills in a playoff game and I am absolutely thrilled. Literally anything could happen. A bird could steal the football and tear it to pieces like one of those back to school binders from the ‘90s. A giraffe could storm the field and kick the game winning field goal and the officiating crew would just shrug and let it stand. A nude man could tackle LeSean McCoy and they could fall in love and get married at a halftime ceremony. The possibilities are endless! Why, it’s even possible that the game could be boring and unmemorable and filled with mistakes and will trudge along to a final score of something like 16-9. Could you imagine something so farfetched?
NEW ORLEANS -6.5 vs. Carolina
These teams have already played twice this year and I am NOT going to look up what the scores of those games were because I don’t feel like it. I know New Orleans kicked their asses both times though. Will this time be any different? No, fuck you. Don’t make me analyze this any further than NEW ORLEANS HEROES CAROLINA ZEROES NAH NAH NAH GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE.
As far as the specifics of this game go, there’s only one thing that everybody is truly interested in: what kind of silly jackass hat is Cam Newton going to wear to the post-game press conference? If I were him I would get one of those hats that ladies used to wear in the 1800s that has a literal dead bird on top, taxidermized like it’s still alive and just fucking around in its big elaborate nest. Maybe it is caring for some eggs, or maybe it is choking down a worm. The specifics are not important Cam, just put that dead ass bird on your noggin my dude.
LAST WEEK: 11-4-0
SEASON TOTAL: 120-117-15
