We'll get to last week's epic failure with the rest of the picks later in the week. For now we're back to a fairly substandard Thursday night game unless the Raiders can rekindle some of that old AFC West rivalry magic. It seems like just 30 years ago that Sunday afternoons at 4:00 p.m. meant Dick Enberg, Merlin Olsen, Jim Zorn, Dan Fouts, Marcus Allen and some combination of the Raiders, Chargers, Broncos and Seahawks (somehow those four teams that used to be in the same division seemed to play each other every week). Those were the pre-ESPN days when halftime of the late games was our first chance to see highlights of what had happened earlier in the day. That is unless you got the Washington D.C. feed, in which case they would preempt the football highlights for ten minutes of local news. That's right kids. As preposterous as it sounds, the local NBC affiliate would cut away from the NFL to give us coverage of a water main break on K Street and yet another piece on corruption within the D.C. government. (Some things never change).
Apparently I was ahead of my time because every Sunday I would sit there waiting for the highlights and every time they would come back from commercial to the news desk and I would say "mutherfu......" (I was a 10 year old with a mild cursing problem that 30+ years later, as you may have noticed, remains untreated). Channel 4's Jim Vance was Lucy, I was Charlie Brown and the highlights were the football. I can still feel the agitation as I'm writing this today. I mean who puts local fucking news in the middle of a football game?!? Let's move on (because clearly I haven't).*
Denver by 10.5 over Oakland: The Pick - Raiders
About the only bright spot from by far the worst fantasy football season of my career** is the fact that the FGR/FGK father-son team used a four game winning streak to squeak into the playoffs. Everything you need to know about my 2012 fantasy football predictions can be summed up by the fact that, on draft day, I talked my sons into picking Darren McFadden, Ryan Fitzpatrick, DeAngelo Williams and Randy Moss while they talked me into picking Peyton Manning, Demaryius Thomas, Andre Johnson and Reggie Wayne (I am not making that up). I have no doubt that the Broncos are going to win this game but it feels like we're getting to that part of the season when everyone just assumes that good teams are going to crush bad teams by double digits despite the fact that only two teams won by more than 10 points last week. I'll be taking the 10.5 at home while at the same time praying that Peyton Manning continues to redeem me in the eyes of my children (is there anything that guy can't do?).
Endnotes
* This was going to be a total throwaway piece until I stumbled onto one of the most free-flowing organic rants I've ever had. I started thinking about those 4:00 p.m. games and BOOM my mind went right to how pissed-off I was when I saw that Channel 4 News logo. I hope I can recall this feeling at my first court ordered anger management class.
** What exactly is the proper way to refer to one's years of playing fantasy football? Does the fact that I've been doing it profitably for over 15 years qualify it as a "career"? A "pursuit"? A "racket"? Is there a more pertinent question that I should be asking, the answer to which would be "loser"?
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| "And now let's check-in with Rob Ryan on the five day forecast" |
Denver by 10.5 over Oakland: The Pick - Raiders
About the only bright spot from by far the worst fantasy football season of my career** is the fact that the FGR/FGK father-son team used a four game winning streak to squeak into the playoffs. Everything you need to know about my 2012 fantasy football predictions can be summed up by the fact that, on draft day, I talked my sons into picking Darren McFadden, Ryan Fitzpatrick, DeAngelo Williams and Randy Moss while they talked me into picking Peyton Manning, Demaryius Thomas, Andre Johnson and Reggie Wayne (I am not making that up). I have no doubt that the Broncos are going to win this game but it feels like we're getting to that part of the season when everyone just assumes that good teams are going to crush bad teams by double digits despite the fact that only two teams won by more than 10 points last week. I'll be taking the 10.5 at home while at the same time praying that Peyton Manning continues to redeem me in the eyes of my children (is there anything that guy can't do?).
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| Even the Raiderettes' cheesy uniforms have stayed the same. |
* This was going to be a total throwaway piece until I stumbled onto one of the most free-flowing organic rants I've ever had. I started thinking about those 4:00 p.m. games and BOOM my mind went right to how pissed-off I was when I saw that Channel 4 News logo. I hope I can recall this feeling at my first court ordered anger management class.
** What exactly is the proper way to refer to one's years of playing fantasy football? Does the fact that I've been doing it profitably for over 15 years qualify it as a "career"? A "pursuit"? A "racket"? Is there a more pertinent question that I should be asking, the answer to which would be "loser"?
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