Ruminations, etc..

D.T.: Hell of a week eight, folks. Certainly more interesting on and off the field than I expected, at least. We saw some record-setting nail-biter games, the return of Peyton Manning, the utter incompetence of Carolina’s stadium security, and more! And as of writing this on Tuesday morning, we’re seeing the completion of San Francisco’s implosion and the firing of Ken Whisenhunt from head coach of the Tennessee Titans. It may only be 9am where I am, but as an unabashed Cardinals’ fan…

And Week 8 looks halfway decent. Well, not really, but let’s ride this wave of euphoria for as long as it lasts!

BMK: Yeah, the games were mostly interesting, but there is a significant lack of off-field salaciousness and lunacy, something we here at 4^th and Krol are very interested in.  Frankly, it was a boring week eight. Except for PETA going after Dez Bryant for having a monkey. Hearing about that story warmed the cockles of my black heart.

On to the picks!

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BROWNS at BENGALS

D.T.: The Browns gave the Cardinals quite the scare in the first half of last week’s game, until Arizona remembered how to play football and returned from the locker room to dominate with more than 20 unanswered points. As a Browns fan, I imagine that felt like the clouds parting during a torrential rain, the sun shining down on you, and then realizing the clouds were pierced by a meteor headed right for your face. Now imagine first responders picking up your remains, then delivering them to your enemy’s house so they can pee on them.

BENGALS

BMK: I’m late with column again. But I was taking the Bengals anyway, for all the reasons that DT delineates above.  But for one more: the Ginger of Doom is one sexy, sexy man.

BENGALS

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PACKERS at PANTHERS

D.T.: The Panthers, too, had quite a scare on Monday Night against the Colts. That game was in the proverbial bag before Indy rallied and came from behind in the fourth quarter to force a overtime showdown and ultimately a very narrow Carolina win. They’re hosting Green Bay next — a squad that just had their asses handed to them by Denver. Rodgers was held to only 77 yards passing in a dominant show of force by the Broncos secondary, and made room for a startling return to form for Peyton Manning.

I think just about everyone had Green Bay pegged to win on Sunday, it’ll be interesting to see how the Packers bounce back from their first loss, and how Carolina’s secondary uses the game tape to attack Rodgers’ offense. When it came down to it, Carolina’s defense is great, but they were exhausted in the end by Andrew Luck’s weapons… and Aaron Rodgers has a lot more weapons at his disposal.

PACKERS

BMK: That Monday night game was interesting.  It was good seeing Andrew Luck going off the way we know he can. And it got Pep Hamilton fired, so everything worked out great!

Except, like, for the Colts, I guesss.

Anyway, I expect Aaron Rodgers to take out his misery on Cam Newton and the Panthers.

PACKERS

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REDSKINS at PATRIOTS

D.T.: Well, this just isn’t fair.

PATRIOTS

BMK: This is my UPSE—Ugh. I can’t even kid around about this anymore. This game is going to be ugly. Ugly like that baby alien from V.

You guys remember V?  That was a great show. Story goes, V’s showrunner Kenneth Johnson originally pitched a WWII story, and being that this was in the 80s and before Speilberg showed us how cool WWII could be, the network passed. Johnson, undeterred said, “Well, fuck it.  What if the Nazis were aliens.”

And on that day, V was born.

Oh, yeah. The pick…

PATRIOTS

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TITANS at SAINTS

D.T.: Tennessee has suffered their final loss in the clusterfuck that was the Whisenhunt Era. With ol’ Ken being fired, now Mariota and Mettenberger have a real chance at becoming NFL-caliber quarterbacks. The Titans probably don’t have a real chance at taking on an opponent like the Saints just yet, though. Especially after that ridiculous, record-setting performance from Drew Brees and his offense. In case you missed it, Breesus, King of the Drews, tied the all-time record for touchdown passes in a single game. The Saints are going to be fired the fuck up after that win against the Giants, and the Titans are going to be in full transition mode. I wouldn’t expect a Miami-esque reinvigoration for a win. It’ll be the Saints.

SAINTS

BMK: Whisenhunt is gone, but like Newt said in Aliens, it won’t make any difference.

SAINTS

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DOLPHINS at BILLS

D.T.: Speaking of Miami (remember that segue thing we talked about, Krol? How nice was that one?), they’re paying a visit to Buffalo this week. The Bills are fresh off a bye, and it’s very likely that Tyrod Taylor will return as their starting QB. Rookie Sammy Watkins, however, may take another week off while all of us little people work our little jobs in our little lives.

I’m going with the Dolphins on this one, just because.

DOLPHINS
BMK: I’m going with the Buffalo Bills.  Just to spite DT.

BILLS
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RAMS at VIKINGS

D.T.: A deceptively interesting match-up. Two fucking terrible passing offenses, and two great defenses. Neither of these teams’ QBs are having much luck this season, but both boast incredible talent at running back. Even the Vikings have conceded that Todd Gurley is the next best thing running, and even though he’s young enough to pull a switch off a tree for Adrian Peterson…

…he’s likely going to host another running back clinic on Sunday. Whether or not the rest of the Rams show up will be another story. This is a tough game to call, honestly. These two teams seem to be pretty evenly matched, though I’ll give it to the slight edge the Rams have defensively.

RAMS

BMK: Good God, Adrian Peterson is a vile human being.

Anyway…

The Rams are becoming a trendy pick for an NFC Wild Card berth. DT and I differ on that (and if you listened to last week’s podcast, you’d know why…), but DT is wrong. So very, very wrong.

The Rams are for real. If they had a decent QB, they’d win the NFC West. Luckily, they don’t. But it won’t matter here.

RAMS

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JAGUARS at JETS

D.T.: I don’t get you, New York. You hold your own against the Patriots, then lose to Oakland? Sure, I think Krol is right on the money in thinking that the Raiders could play the upsetter and vie for a wild card spot. But are Carr and Cooper really good enough to punch through a defense like what the Jets have going? Let’s see what happens when that defense comes up against another underdog team trying hard to put something together before it’s too late. I think New York bounces back, but I think the Jags get a few body shots in.

JETS

BMK: This is one of those matchups I can’t get excited about enough to even write a pithy dismissal. So here’s Fireman Ed.

JETS

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RAIDERS at STEELERS

D.T.: So, the Steelers lost to the Bengals, despite having Big Ben back under center. The game turned out to be one of the better showings on Sunday, with both teams giving it their all, and playing hard. Perhaps a little too hard for star Pittsburgh runner, Le’Veon Bell, who suffered his second consecutive season-ending knee injury. It wasn’t an ACL injury, though, which gives him plenty of time to recover and be ready for the 2016 season. And just enough time to figure out away to get busted for weed again, and miss the first couple of games despite being healthy.

Pittsburgh is lucky they have Williams backing him up. Just for fun, I’m picking the Raiders to take a narrow win from the vulnerable Steelers.

RAIDERS

BMK: This is my game of the week. As a resident of the East Bay, I’ve adopted the Raiders as my AFC team, and I’m interested to see what they can do against the Steelers. Oakland looked good against the Jets and the Chargers, but let’s not forget that Rivers has no support and Oakland was playing against Geno in the Jets game.  Unlike Bill Romanowski (who, by the way, is an insane person), I don’t think the Raiders are going to win. Winning in Pittsburgh is tough (I should know; when I moved there it started a personal four year losing streak) and the Raiders don’t have enough of a ground game to keep the Steelers honest in the secondary.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if they did win.

And no, Bay Area Radio People, David Carr is not a top five QB. Jesus Christ, people…

STEELERS

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GIANTS at BUCCANEERS

D.T.: The Bucs stole a win from the Falcons after a bizarre showing of Atlanta turnovers, a 17 point lead thrown away, and a final interception of Matt Ryan in overtime to close the deal. Atlanta is a weird freaking team, especially in divisional games.

The Giants are a weird freaking team as well, which I think poises Tampa Bay to take a home win. Jameis Winston with his good friends Evans and V-Jax, coupled with the resurgence of Doug “Don’t Call Me Muscle Hamster” Martin) are more than enough for the Giants’ dead-last defense to handle.

BUCS

BMK: The Giants exploded offensively last week. I don’t expect that to happen again, but I like Eli Manning more than I like Winston right now. Manning has a QBR of 99, compared to Winston’s 85.6, and the only thing Manning’s ever stolen was New Yoker’s hearts.

Awww…

GIANTS

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FALCONS at NINERS

D.T.: So, the Niners have shipped off Vernon Davis to the Broncos for a couple of late round picks, and now the team has made the decision to bench Colin Kaepernick in favor of Blaine Gabbert. All that’s left now is for Levi Stadium to implode upon itself like the house in Poltergeist. I can’t think of another instance where a team has been so mishandled and has fallen into such disarray in such a short amount of time. I honestly hope Kaepernick gets traded by the deadline today (Tuesday), and he gets a fresh start on a team that knows what do with him, and doesn’t attempt to crucify him at every turn. All that said, the Falcons are going to fucking dominate the Niners in such fashion that the ink in their fans’ neck tattoos will fall out.

FALCONS

BMK: Ugh. This is going to be a bloodbath. The Niners are in the toilet and will be for the foreseeable future. They can’t run, they can’t pass, and they can’t defend either. They’re a mess from top to bottom, and the Falcons will come in to Levi’s Stadium and just clean their clocks. It’ll be borderline ugly. Too much, even for me.

I’ll still watch it though, and laugh my fool head off. Because I’m a terrible person.

FALCONS

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BRONCOS at COLTS

D.T.: Kubiak, you see what happens when you let Peyton Manning run the offense again? The clocks turn back five years, he throws long balls with perfect spirals, and leads the team to a stunning victory against an undefeated Super Bowl favorite with another all-time great QB. And everyone watching was happy, because we got to see Happy Manning instead of Grumpy Manning, and even heard some Omaha’s.

This week, Manning makes what may be his final return to Indianapolis to take on an ailing Colts team. Last time, Jim Irsay managed to play the psychological edge and threw Manning off his game with a backhanded thank you ceremony for Peyton (and by playing with the stadium open to fuck with his weakness to the cold). But even such underhanded plays won’t be enough when Andrew Luck is on Pagano and Hamilton’s leash, and that Denver Defense is staring him down. The Broncos will go 8-0 and Pagano will definitely be fired during Indy’s bye week.

BRONCOS

BMK: Is Peyton Manning done?  Despite last week’s outing, I’d say that he is.

Physical skills don’t deteriorate on a 90 degree curve.  Unless, like, Peyton losses a leg or something. Maybe not even then. (see Leppard, Def). That said, there’s plenty of evidence in the past nine weeks that he’s lost a lot of his physical skills and it’s because of that, I don’t like them to go deep in the playoffs this year, despite the fact they could go 12-4 or higher. The window is closed.

That said, they’re going to kill the Colts.

BRONCOS

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EAGLES at COWBOYS

D.T.: Well, this should be a cluster fuck, and fun to watch just for the sheer spectacle of it all. Cassel and Weeden being fucking terrible, Greg Hardy already acting as poison on the sidelines, and playing a divisional rival will show the Cowboys unravel even further. But don’t expect a dominant showing from the Eagles, either. They’ll win, but they’re not all that.

EAGLES

BMK: When the Niners bum me out too much this weekend, I’m turning to this game. As my esteemed partner from behind the Saguaro curtain pointed out, this should be a complete clusterfuck. With any luck, Loki will appear in the middle of the field and take Greg Hardy away to service Frost Giants in Hel. But that probably won’t happen.

It’ll be Niffleheim.

EAGLES

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BEARS at CHARGERS

D.T.: This week ends with an utter non-event of a prime time game. Both of these teams are spent, with no hope of for the playoffs. Under different circumstances, this might have been an interesting game, with both teams no longer giving a shit, and playing for pride. But neither team has any. The Chargers are moving to LA and will lose Rivers in the process (he refused to sign a contract extension for fear of having to move there), the Bears are going nowhere (geographically and otherwise).

I don’t even know… Chargers, I guess? It’s a home game, and Rivers is still fucking ridiculous under center.

CHARGERS
BMK: This is the kind of Monday night match that just gets everyone excited. Who’ll suck least and win?  Tune in and find out!

BEARS
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D.T.: And that’s it for Week Nine! Week Ten comes right after this week, and also has football games scheduled to take place there-in! Divisional match-ups abound with the Bills and Jets kicking off on Thursday night, followed by the Lions and Packers, Browns and Steelers, Chiefs and Broncos and the much-awaited NFC West showdown between the Cardinals and Seahawks.

I’ll be spending next weekend in Denver, attending the Broncos and Chiefs game from bitchin’ (and expensive) lower-bowl seats, then high-tailing it to the nearest pub to catch the Cardinals game on Sunday Night Football, and sampling as any unique and delicious Colorado microbrews as time and constitution will allow. Fear not though, dear reader, for there shall still be an article for you in week 10, as long as there is alcohol in my stomach and football in my heart!

 

BMK: Week nine is in the books! While DT is off sampling microbrews and other…recreational delicacies in Colorado, I’ll be here, fighting the good fight against oppression, tyranny, and good aesthetic taste.

And remember kids: your mother may disown you, your spouse will leave you, everything you’ve ever believed in will let you down…except us here at 4^th and Krol.

Thanks for reading and listening.

And now…your weekly dose of Kat Dennings…

 

 

This was written and compiled listening to the 80s Music that Doesn’t Suck Playlist on Spotify and that nagging voice in my head wondering if left the iron on. Spoilers: I didn’t.