NFL -- Week 12 Picks

Hopefully you all have had as awesome of a Thanksgiving weekend so far as I have. I know I say this every time I get to spend some time with my family without my effing job getting in the way, but a big splotch of time like this with my wife and kids simply cannot be beat, regardless of where you go or what you do with the time. The truth of the matter is that I have been so focused over the past couple of years on excelling and proving my worth at my job that it has slowly but surely encroached to the point that it has completely taken over my life. Just to keep up with the incredible amount of work I have taken on -- and which the powers that be have willingly availed themselves of with me -- I am up at the crack of dawn (before that, actually) five days a week, I'm the first one in the office, and I still don't get to see my kids at all many nights on the other end of the work day. Plus, I check the PDA at every red light on my drive home every day, and many days I walk in the door and head right to my home pc to log right back in to the same email account I've been slaving over all day already at the office. To get some time like this where I've truly just disconnected is simply invaluable, and it does wonders every time to put back into perspective what is really, seriously important and awesome for me.

OK, enough with the sappy stuff. Back to football. I should mention that longtime asshead Marvin Lewis officially joined Mike Singletary among the ranks of the truly legally idiotic on Thanksgiving day this week when his player Reche Caldwell was adjuged to have touched the ball on a punt return in a crucial spot in a close game to lead to an alleged fumble recovery by the Jets, and even though Caldwell could not have been clearer that he did not believe he touched the ball, and even with the replay clearly showing how laughably far from him the ball was and how he could not possibly have touched it, and how there thus could not possibly have been a fumble on the play, and what does Marvin do? Stone cold nothing. What a piece of shit. I mean, I didn't play that game, I'm neither a Jets nor a Bengals fan -- if anything, I've thoroughly enjoyed this run the Jets have had as I spend my days in New York -- so I have no personal stake whatsoever. But there are a million people who are Bengals fans out there, and they don't care if the team is yet again mired in another hopelessly losing season. Giving up on the game like that should be grounds for immediate termination, and you can rest assured that I and a million Bengals fans out there would have done just that if given the chance at that moment. How the fuck dare that shitmonkey Marvin Lewis not even challenge an obviously wrong call that gave the Jets an unearned turnover and essentially put away a football game where the Bengals had been close to coming back against a team that hasn't played a good game against a bad team in over a month. I'll tell you what though -- the moment that Coach Marvin chose not to give a shit about the game like that, was the same moment that I stopped giving a shit about the game myself. I don't need to invest any time or interest in a game that the frigging head coach of one of the teams by definition doesn't give a shit about. It's obvious that Marvin Lewis -- pretty much the single worst coach in football today other than his alter ego Mike Singletary in San Francisco -- will be fired at season's end and with good reason. But if that owner had even the smallest twig in his pants he would have fired that horse's ass right there in the middle of the season. In the middle of the game. What a piece of shit.

But hey don't worry, the schmuckhole announcers didn't even say a thing about it when it happened. I call it "Collinsworth Syndrome" -- as much as the officials in the NFL are absolutely hell bent on taking over the game instead of just calling it, the announcers have absolutely zero interest in calling the game as they see it, instead preferring to merely do and say whatever they have to to protect the integrity of the job the referees are doing. It's gotten to the point where you know you saw it wrong if the announcers agree with you, and if Roger Gooddell thinks that's what's good for the game, then he's as wrong about that as he is about allowing his refs to take over the games. Like the NBA twenty-some years ago, nobody can even conceive of the NFL ever not being the behemoth in this country and around the world that it is today. But I can. By the time Gooddell figures it out, it will probably be too late for his sport, but I'll have seen it coming, what else is new.

OK so after a dominatory 3-0 performance last week, where I got all three games correct all the way down to the most minute details as if they were an opponent's holding at the river, the season record has swollen to 17-14-2. Having not liked any of the three Turkey Day games this week, I've got three more picks in some interesting situations heading into Week 14. So here they are, in no particular order as always:

1. Cleveland Browns pickem vs. Carolina Panthers. Here's another line that is almost too good to be true, but the truth of the matter is that the too good to be true lines this year have almost all paid off on the "obvious" side. The Panthers are pretty much the worst team in the NFL this year, and even with horrible Jake Delhomme being given a gift start against his old team this weekend, the Browns should be consistently better than the Panthers, in particular at home. As a pickem, the value on this one isn't even close to close.

2. Houston Texans pickem vs. Tennessee Titans. Here's another home team facing an opponent with all kinds of trouble, and once again I think the value is clearly weighted on their side. The Titans have no quarterback, Randy Moss has already proven beyond any doubt to be a total bust on his third team of this NFL season, and the Texans haven't played so well over their last few games despite having a formidable offense. This seems to me to be the week they break out and nab their next win, and at a pickem I'll take my chances with the home team on this one.

3. Washington Redskins -2 vs Minnesotaq Vikings. The Redskins obviously suck, so this pick has nothing to do with them. This is an anti-Vikings pick, plain and simple. Unlike Jerry Jones, who fired his horribad coach at the perfect time midseason to still get his players to play and to still leave them and his interim head coach with a reason to try, the Vikings owner -- who clearly thinks he's doing exactly the same thing as Dallas -- has actually made a completely boneheaded play in firing head man Brad Childress in Week 13. I mean, the Vikings are 100% totally and completely finished, and they literally probably will not win another game this year. Childress obviously had to go -- clearly he has been a moron for a loooong time and pretty much has always been in over his head as a head coach -- but I'm pretty sure the Vikes' owner is about to be treated to exactly why you almost never see teams change head men mid-season like this. The Redskins are pretty much an embarrassment to the sport, but they could win this weekend against the Vikings at home by double digits. If not triple.