The FGR Week 11 Thursday Night Pick

Indianapolis by 3 at Tennessee: The Pick - Colts

If we ever thought we understood which teams were good and which were mediocre, last Sunday's blowout of the Colts by the Rams (and, to a lesser extent, the Panthers' win over the 49ers) blew that notion out of the water. Coming into that game, the Colts had arguably the league's best resume with wins over the Seahawks, Broncos and 49ers (a beatdown on the road no less). The Rams on the other hand had lost three in a row averaging 15 points per game in the process behind journeyman quarterback Kellen Clemens. To paraphrase Lou Manheim* from Wall Street . . .

Hey, cool backpack. Did you
get that at the bookstore?

"Jesus you can't make a buck gambling on this league, the whole thing is goin' to hell faster than when that son of a bitch Layden* was in charge. Too many flawed teams sloshing around. The worst mistake we ever made was was letting Tagliabue put in the salary cap."

With all of that being said, in honor of Mr. Manheim, we're going to stick to the fundamentals in picking this game: (1) the Titans proved that they were capable of losing to the Jaguars and (2) the quarterback match-up is Ryan Fitzpatrick (Harvard) v. Andrew Luck (Stanford) v. If this was a boat race pitting Fitzpatrick and the Winklevoss twins against Luck, Tiger Woods and Sergey Brin,*** I'd go with the Titans. Unfortunately for the Titans, it's a football game.
 
Endnotes

* In a movie full of grumpy old men, Manheim (played by perpetually grumpy Hal Holbrook) crushes Sir Larry Wildman (Terrance Stamp), narrowly edges Lynch the sales manager (James Karen) but can't quite catch Carl Fox (Martin Sheen) who bitches about everything from his crummy parenting skills to his wife's lousy spaghetti. Unfortunately, he never had the chance to yell at some kids, "HEY, GET THE HELL OUT OF MY AIRPLANE HANGAR!!!"

"Have you even tasted prune juice?!?
Of course not. You young people
know nothing about suffering."

** Elmer Layden was NFL Commissioner from 1941 to 1946. I have no idea whether or not he was good at the job but I needed to throw someone in there and Layden got canned after only five years so he fit the bill. Sorry Elmer. I still love you as the colorful elephant.

*** I'm hoping that a shout-out to Sergey along with the fact that the Fantasy Golf Report has become one of the pillars of the Google empire will land me an invitation to the company holiday party.