Posted by | Madison | in Weekly Recaps

My New York Football Giants beat the Atlanta Falcons 31-10 in a game that proved a lot more exciting than one of our more esteemed colleagues had it pegged for, at least in the first half.

As much I want to rag on Eli, he finally shed his “sha” and showed us some top 10 quarterbacking skills (at least according to Jaws; I’ve got Eli at 11, begrudgingly). With an offense and defense that seem to be clicking and a schedule that looks to be soft in the middle, I am cautiously getting my hopes up for Big Blue’s prospects this season. Meanwhile, who is pissed that it was Anthony Wright who came in at the end of the game to snap the Giants to victory as opposed to Pork Chop Lorenzen?

On to more important matters -

Amani Toomer, the man who has the most stylishly deadly sounding name in the NFL, set the Giants reception record and tied the touchdowns received record. In honor of his achievements, we are going sartorial and cancerous with the next two items…

Though the Atlanta cheerleaders wore those pink, fitted girly jerseys on the sidelines. While We Suck at Sports are correct in principal regarding girls wearing their teams colors, we still advocate for our right to wear colors and have the proper fits that make us look cute, lest we look like boys. As torn as I am about this issue, I think it comes down to my last line of defense against anything that causes me cognitive dissonance: whoever said humans, especially women, had to be internally consistent?

Besides, as the Falcons know, it is Breast Cancer Awareness month, so if you’re in your late twenties, get your baseline mammograms and don’t forget your monthly self-exams.

Speaking of which…

Whose jaw dropped when Mike Tirico said, “he’s loving himself after that interception” while DeAngelo Hall basked in the glory of picking off Eli Manning?

There were a few snickers before Jimmy Kimmel chimed in, “Uh, I didn’t know you could should a person loving himself on TV.”

Kimmel seemed to throw the broadcast trio in booth into a tizzy with his sense of humor, no? Kimmel’s question on whether or not they could partake in a bit of sports betting was met with Jaws’ all too vehement denial. Kornheiser tried to have a bit of fun with it while Tirico pretty much left the whole thing alone. I was half waiting for Kimmel to launch into his version of the Aristocrats to save his time in the booth.

Posted by | Madison | in Weekly Recaps

So yeah, we admit it.  We spent Saturday at the spa and then went out afterwards so we missed yet another set of upsets in the college ranks.  Is it just me or has the NCAA seen parity?

The top rated programs are still generally heads and shoulders above the rest but gone are the 54-0 blowouts.  And it seems like even when top programs win by a lot, the games are usually a hell of a lot closer than final scores would suggest.  Then, of course, as has been the case the this year, the top programs seem to get taken down with regularity.  We really need to figure out a new girls’ day-and-night out for the fall.  Missing these college games is becoming unacceptable.  By the way, did anybody see Boise State’s quadruple overtime victory over Nevada 69-67?

On to the recap of week six:

Washington 14, Green Bay 17:  The Packers find a way to win a week after finding a way to lose.  Brett Favre sets the interception record while not adding to his touchdown record.  Jason Campbell had a good game but lost.  God must have gotten tired of sitting on Joe Gibbs’ shoulder and spent the week chillaxin’ with Jon Kitna on his bye week.

Miami 31, Cleveland 41:  72 total points.  Crazy.  Miss Cleo Lemon had all of his psychic friends network mojo working but it wasn’t enough to best the offensive powerhouse of the Cleveland Browns, who I am now ordaining as the Patriots of the Mid-West.

Minnesota 34, Chicago 31: Who expected this kind of an offensive explosion?  I think Adrian Peterson is still running somewhere in Chicago.  Brian Griese played like a real, NFL quarterback, which in Chicago is really something to marvel at and savor.

St. Louis 3, Baltimore 22: The story here was that Rams - inept as they are - could not overcome six turnovers to win.  I mean seriously, we knew they were bad and riddled with injuries but when you’re given the gift of turning the ball over six times, you just have to win.  The Cowboys did last week.  Sheesh, Rams, what’s the deal?

Tennessee 10, Tampa Bay 13:  This was one of those games that was built for the last drive heroics of Vince Young.  However, Uncle Rico left the game with a leg injury giving way to Kerry Collins and it was the “other” mobile quarterback Jeff Garcia who drove the Bucs down field to set up the game winning field goal attempt with 11-seconds left.  

Philadelphia 16, Titans of New York 9:  I know that talent wise, the Jets are sort of like a college team but do they have to look like one with those blue and gold uniforms?  When we turned the game on, it looked like the Eagles were playing Navy.

Cincinnati 20, Kansas City 27:  Larry Johnson finally broke out…against a Bengals team that has to play anybody they can find at linebacker.  With no running game to speak of, the Bengals fall to 1-4.  Kansas City is tied for first in the wacky AFC West!

Houston 17, Jacksonville 37: The mighty Matt Schaub was benched late in favor of SAGE ROSENFELS who was 11 of 12 for 82 yards and a TD!  The Jags seem to be hitting their stride.  I know this game was against Houston but as Alikat will tell you, the Texans usually play the Jags well having won four of the last six against their division rivals.

Carolina 25, Arizona 10: Before we switched over to the game, Alikat said, “I bet you China Doll Warner goes down in this game,” and when the channel changed, we saw Warner being led off the field.  Vinny Testa-friggin-Verde went 20 of 33 for 206 yards and a TD against the team that tried to sign him earlier in the week.  How’s that for a fuck you?  By the way, both these teams are almost down to their wide receivers and punters on the QB depth chart.  I wonder when Ryan Leaf is going to get a call.

Oakland 14, San Diego 28: The division leader Raiders fall out of first place with a tough loss to the Chargers.  If Culpepper and the Raiders could have converted at the 1-yard line at the end of the half, the Valtrex that the Chargers have been using probably would have worn off and they likely would have had another outbreak of the NTD.

New England 48, Dallas 27: Tom Brady adds five touchdowns to his record setting pace of eleventy billion touchdowns.  Whoopie doo.  Watching the Patriots is like watching porn - a fucking bore.  Just like we know that everybody in the porn is going to screw in multiple ways, we know that Brady is going to throw TDs to multiple receivers.  What’s the fucking point?  I’m so over this shit.  Roger Goodell should come up with a new way for the Patriots to score.  Maybe Tom Brady has to play left handed from now on.  Or he should be the all time quarterback, playing for both teams.  That would rock.

New Orleans 28, Seattle 17: Finally…les bon temps have come back to New Orleans.  Now if only they can roulez for the next eleven games, the Saints can salvage the season at 12-4.

Posted by | Madison | in Weekly Recaps

What a game.  The Bills won the turnover battle by five but ended up losing the game by two on the Cowboys’ second attempt at a last second, 53-yard field goal AFTER Dick Jauron pulled the Shanahan special by calling a timeout just before the snap of the first attempt.

You know what scares me about those plays?  What if the Nick Folk missed the first attempt that Jauron called the timeout on?  A 53-yarder is no chip shot.  A 53-yarder by a rookie who looks kind of like Jesus Kitna in an unfriendly stadium is less likely.  If that had happened and Folk went on to make his second attempt, it would have been Norwoodian.

Like Don Cheadle said, “Crazy.”

Anyway, I’m not entirely surprised at Romo’s transformation into Rex Grossman in the first half.  During the first four games, when Romo would move around in the pocket and wing those crazy ass passes into very tight windows, the defenders would always just miss.

In the Cowboys-Giants game, I remarked to Alikat that it was crazy that the Giant defenders weren’t intercepting those passes as it seemed like they were always just a few inches off.  Tonight, it didn’t matter about the inches since Romo basically threw to Buffalo all night long.  By my count, he could have very easily had thrown seven interceptions.

I’m also not entirely surprised at Romo’s transformation into Joe Montana at the end of the game.  He showed a lot of guts tonight but he’s going to have to get his house in order because, while I hate to be Mistress Obvious, a performance like that is just not going to cut it next week against the Patriots.

As for the Bills, they never could beat the Cowboys in the early 90’s and apparently that inability has stuck with them.  Though Trent Edwards (who by the way if you missed the ten times they mentioned it in the broadcast has a note from the late Bill Walsh handwritten to him on his refrigerator) played well, this is going to be a loss that doesn’t clear out of the locker room easily.  They played tough, the defense put 21 points on the board, took the ball away seven times, and they still lost.  If you saw Dick Jauron in the post game interviews, it looked like he was about to cry.

This is going to sound crazy but I feel like the Bills probably had a better chance allowing the two point conversion and then going into overtime.  The Cowboys just seemed to have too much momentum at the end of the game.

Posted by | Madison | in Weekly Recaps

As Alikat said, this was one of those wonky, murky weeks where the only thing that  is certain is that stuff happened.  With a St. Louis, New Orleans, Chicago, and San Diego looking at do-or-die games, only Chicago and San Diego came away with victories.  For San Diego, it means that they’ve put themselves in the driver’s seat to win the AFC West as stupid as that sounds.   As for the Bears, I’m not convinced that their win over the Packers changes their grim prognosis.

Cleveland 17, Patriots 34:  What a fucking bore.  Tom Brady continues on his blistering pace for a million touchdowns as the Patriots score 34 points for the second week in a row.  So far, they’ve score 38 for three games and 34 for the last two.  They are obviously getting weaker.  I suggest the Cowboys go for 40 next week.  It’s the only way to be sure.

Jacksonville 17, Kansas City 7: It looks like the Chiefs left it all on the field…last week against the Chargers.  Larry Johnson had 12 yards.  Hard knocks indeed.

Miami 19, Houston 22: Speaking of hard knocks, Trent Green gets knocked out trying to block Travis Johnson and then has to suffer the humiliation of Johnson taunting him while he was KO’d.  The clock on Green’s career just took a few more ticks toward midnight.  Dolphins back up QB Miss Cleo [Lemon] didn’t prognosticate Kris Brown’s game ending 54-yard field goal to seal the game for the Texans.

Arizona 34, St. Louis 31: Matt Leinart wanted his team to “ride or die” with him.  Now he’s out for the next nine weeks with a broken collarbone.  I guess the team’s going to have to “ride or die” with Kurt Warner, God’s O.G. NFL warrior.  The good news is that Leinart now has the next two months to drink as much sauvigion blanc as he wants which is great for us because he’s hilarious when he’s drunk.  How many more losses before Scott Linehan gets fired?

Detroit 3, Washington 34: Speaking of God, the Redskins won God’s Battle on the Gridiron.  God must really hate Jon Kitna to have given Joe Gibbs’ such a big margin of victory.  He must have masturbated too much this past week.

Atlanta 13, Tennessee 20: After a week as a busted Dan Marino at the ball, the clock struck midnight for Joey Harrington who took the field this week as, well, himself.  It was so bad that Bobby Petrino gave the reins to Byron Leftwich, who played about as well as the mediocre white quarterback he replaced.  Uncle Rico had another ugly stat line but racks up another win.  I swear some of his passes came submariner, a la Dan Quisenberry.

Seattle 0, Pittsburgh 21: In a rematch of Super Bowl XtraLarge, the banged up Steelers took it to the Seahawks and put all the questions about the legitimacy of their win to rest.  And thank fucking god.  I’m so sick and tired of Seattle fans crying about how the refs jobbed them out of a championship.

Jets 24, Giants 35:  The suck of this win is that Tom Coughlin staves of the firing line for another few weeks.  Oh well, at least The Giants are putting some distance in the race for last place between them and the Iggles.  The race for second in the AFC East is sort of like the race for first in the AFC West; all the teams want it but none of them seem to have the talent to take it.

Carolina 16, New Orleans 13:  The Saints were 10 and 6 last season and won the division.  They could do the same thing this year.  They just have to win the next 10 of 11.  Okay, I’m just messing around.  John Kasay’s last minute field goal pretty much drove a stake in the Saints’ season.

Tampa Bay 14, Indianapolis 33: Peyton Manning and the second string took it to Jeff Garcia and the Bucs.  The Colts bore me.

Baltimore 9, San Francisco 7: Now talk about excitement…this grudge match between Billick and Dilfer was a fucking barrel of monkeys!  Before the game started, Alikat asked me what I thought about this game and I said, “Ravens 10, Niners 7.”

San Diego 41, Denver 3: So the Charges finally filled their prescription of Valtrex.  Yeay.  But as we’ve learned from the commercials, there is no cure for coaching herpes and you can still transmit it even if you don’t show symptoms.

Chicago 27, Green Bay 20: The Bears didn’t win this one; the Packers just gave it away.  Deanna looked super cute in her pink Favre jersey.  This is a good illustration of why the female targeted jerseys confuse us so much.  We don’t want to like to them because we know better and we know that greedy men in New York have spent millions of dollars in research to understand and leverage the weaknesses in our consumer psyche in order to market and sell girly NFL gear to us.  But, as I mentioned before, fact is fact, the Reebok women’s NFL gear have great silhouettes and we look so damn cute in them.

Posted by | Madison | in Weekly Recaps

Hey look, the internets have made it out to rural Wisconsin!  And since I love all of our readers as much as I love the cheese curds, here’s your weekly recap fix as I wind down my vacation.

Chicago 27, Detroit 37: There is absolutely no reason why the Bears should ever, under any circumstances, throw 52 times.  Only bad things can happen. 

St. Louis 7, Dallas 35: It’s getting really ugly in St. Louis.  If you can’t stop Tony Romo from turning a -35 yard botched snap to the longest 4 yard run in the history of the game, you got problems. 

Baltimore 13, Cleveland 27: Derek Anderson’s Brady-like 10 of 18 dissection of the Raven D was the biggest surprise of the day.

Jets 14, Buffalo 17: So the Bills line showed up to block for Trent Edwards.  Woo-hoo.  This one was the snoozer of the week.

Houston 16, Atlanta 26: In a game filled with more quarterback drama than I have time to write about, the better team lost.

Green Bay 23, Minnesota 16: The entire state of Wisconsin is basking in the fact that they the only state with undefeated major college and pro football programs.

Oakland 35, Miami 17: Daunte Culpepper rolled to a tune of 75 passing yards and five total TDs.  Still, I don’t think Miami regrets getting rid of him.

Seattle 23, San Francisco 3: The first of two major injuries on Sunday happened to Alex Smith who separated his shoulder on the third play of the game.  NFC West, you’re in trouble now that Trent Dilfer, the man who made the backhanded compliment “game manager” sexy, is at the helm.  On to the Super Bowl, Niners!

Tampa Bay 20, Carolina 7: A week after breaking through, Cadillac broke an axle and is done for the season.  The David Carrolina Panthers are off to a rocky start.  I’m telling you, all bets are off in the dirrrty South.

Kansas City 30, San Diego 16: After a great, healthy showing in the first half, the Chargers had a vicious outbreak of the NT in the second half leading to the ineluctable loss.  Oh, Norv…

Denver 20, Indianapolis 38: Marvin Harrison goes down but like assholes, the Colts win again.

Pittsburgh 14, Arizona 21: You think Ken Wisenhunt and Russ Grimm had anything to do with this win?

Philly 3, Giants 16: God, I can’t tell you how satisfying this win was.  Elisha might not have played well enough to become a man tonight but after one week of being white, Donovan McNabb is Black again. 

Posted by | Alikat | in Weekly Recaps, Weekly Pick's Recap

I love when I take myself and all my sports betting freaks out there to the Bank! I went 3-1-1 in my money picks and 6-4-3 with the rest of the games. Had you been playing $1000 per game you would have walked away with a cool $1800 profit. Maybe a few more weekends like this and even a sports betting junkie chick like myself can one day look like Grace. As Jack Nicholson once said to Anjelica Huston at a Broadway Show when Anjelica was complaining about the comments Katherine Hepburn was making about the acting in the show and told Jack to go tell Kate to quiet down. Jack said, “Honey I may be famous, but I’m not THAT FAMOUS”! Well I’m beautiful, but not that beautiful! Even though Grace spent some time at the Monte Carlo I think she would have lost her bra betting against me just like the sports books did this weekend. I just Love To Win!

I totally got burned on the Rams this weekend as they went down hard against the Bucs. I really felt they were going to get their offense going against a so so D in Tampa. Boy was I wrong on that one. Marc Bulger is looking unsure and hesitant in the pocket and Stephen Jackson, though he did run for over 100 yards finally, can’t seem to break off that huge game changing blast that he did all the time last year. It’s looking like 2007 could already be going up in flames for the Rams. Speaking of Jackson, he is going to be out this Sunday with a groin injury against the Dallas Cowboys. The hits just keep on comin’ for the Rams!

The Colts had yet another tough game with the Texans despite the loss of WR Andre Johnson. I told you all to make sure you took the Colts at no more than -6. Let’s hope you all listened as they pushed at 6 points. The Texans are probably the most improved team from last year and I see them having a lot of value over the next 13 games.

Now we can talk about the 3 winners: How about the 2 overs I called for you guys! The Cardinals looked pretty rough for 3 quarters, but in came Kurt Warner to save the day and our Money. Who said Jesus Lovers don’t care about Money? Kurt came in and damn near led the Cards back for the straight up Win. He got a couple of touchdown drives and that took us over the 35.5 points for this Hottie! Then came the most exciting game of the day in the Redskins vs Giants. I figured this would go over the 40.5 points it was listed at and I told you to buy a 1/2 point to get it down to 40 just in case you have a missed extra point. Eli Manning started getting the Giants going in the 3rd quarter as the whole Giant organization could feel this was their season in the balance. They finally started to play some Defense and ended the game on a great goal line stance as time ran out on the Redskins. Tom Coughlin lives to see another Sunday.

Finally we turned to the Cowboys and Hexy Rexy in Chicago for the last wager of the day. Hexy Rexy did what I thought he would do…Suck up the joint! He was so bad that we may have finally seen the last of him as a starter in the NFL. Rex had 3 interceptions on the night and was so bad at staring down his first receiver that some of my girlfriends could have picked him off. Tony Romo just earned himself about 80 million dollars after a terrific performance. That Tony is easy on the eyes and finally feeds the ball to Crybaby T.O. enough that we don’t have to wonder if Mr. Owens is going to slash his wrists on Monday morning. The Cowboys are looking like the front-runner of the NFC so far and we’ll just have to see if that secondary can hold up.

So there you have it sports betting freaks. I’m getting back to my winning ways after a FUBAR 1st week. All told here are my MONEY PICK’S TOTALS TO DATE–

Week 1: 1-3-1

Week 2: 3-2

Week 3: 3-1-1

Totals: 7-6-3

Well I gotta go and do some research for this Sunday. Stay tuned tomorrow as I start to preview the first of 3 match-ups I think will be electrifying this weekend!

Bet Ya-

ALIKAT

Posted by | Madison | in Weekly Recaps

Ouch. This is getting ridiculous. I know the Titans are “good,” but this just isn’t the same Saints team as last year. Marques Colston and Devery Henderson aren’t catching everything thrown their way; Before he went down with what appears to be a season ending ACL injury, Deuce McAllister is not having much success pounding it up the middle; Somehow, someone transformed Drew Brees into Rex Grossman.

I have four theories:

1. “Playing off of emotion,” my favorite sports cliche, is actually a real, scientifically proven phenomenon. If I were any smarter, and a grad student in sports psychology, I’d conduct a study…hint, hint.
2. The Saints had a great game plan last year and this year, every team they’ve played has the game plan figured out. Maybe in an effort to supplement his income, MachiaBelichick has begun selling his secret videotape stash, analysis and intel on The Saints. It’s not a stretch. He must have thought he’d play the Bears or the Saints in the Super Bowl before getting beat in the AFC Championship game by the Colts and so it’s not out of the realm of imagination that he has volumes of research. Hey, the Bears are 1-2.
3. After playing possum for a year where a Bush finally came to help the Crescent City, the real Bush is back to fuck New Orleans again.
4. Voodoo, bitches!

As for the Titans, Vince Young still throws like Uncle Rico but that dude wins games. It blows my mind.

I’m off to Wisconsin for the week. I’m expecting everybody to be going crazy about the Packers 3-0 start. With a big rivalry game on Sunday against the Vikings, maybe I’ll file a report from the NFC North front line. In either case, you’ll be in the capable hands of Alikat and C.J.

Cheese curds and Leinenkugels, here I come.