The Week 14 Thursday Night Pick

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).

"And now let's check-in
with Rob Ryan on the
 five day forecast" 

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?).

Even the Raiderettes'
cheesy uniforms have
stayed the same.

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"? 

The FGR Rankings Update

You know you're in the middle of golf's off-season when you turn on the Golf Channel at 2:00 p.m. on a Wednesday (I was "working" from home) and Steve Sands is reporting live in front of a driving range full of older guys that you spend a minute trying to recognize before one of them cold tops a 6-iron and you realize it's the hackers warming-up for the World Challenge Pro-Am. I have no idea what Sands was even talking about because I was mesmerized by the guy over his right shoulder with his head bobbing up and down as he hit shank after shank after shank. I finally yelled "keep your head still!" before switching to a rerun of Cheers on ReelzChannel (the one where they're debating the world's smartest animal . . . dolphin, chimpanzee, etc. and Coach goes with Francis the Talking Mule . . . classic).

Because nothing says
"European golf" like
the "Race to Dubai."

Anyway, they were still playing meaningful tournaments on the European Tour up until a few weeks ago when they completed their version of the FedEx Cup called the Race to Dubai (because, in addition to being a tad bit whorish for prize money, the people who run the "European" Tour are apparently huge Speed Racer fans). Not surprisingly, the winner was Rory McIlroy who capped-off the season by taking down the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai.* McIlroy started the final round tied for the lead with Luke "Coffee is for Closers" Donald and then beat him by five strokes.

Why does this matter? Because the Race to Dubai was the final event of 2012 to impact the FGR Rankings so it's time for an update.** For those who are new to the FGR's growing, yet still exclusive membership of readers, the FGR Rankings were introduced in April of this year in response to the "official" World Golf Rankings' (the WGR) formula which places way too much value on golf tournaments sponsored by farm bureaus and waste management companies and not nearly enough on majors and those tournaments that have fields worthy of majors (the Players and WGC events). The result was that Luke Donald and Lee Westwood were passing the title of "World's Best Golfer" back and forth despite the fact that neither one of them had ever won a major which was like arguing whether Charles Barkley or Karl Malone was the best basketball player of all time despite the fact that neither one of them ever won a ring. It was an outrage and something had to be done. (Well, at the very least, I was outraged . . . and something probably should have been done).

"And we're just the guys to do it."

So I devised a rudimentary scoring system that only counted the tournaments with top notch fields. Then I weighted the system to award more points to the recent winners before finally tweaking it to include the FedEx Cup and the Race to Dubai recognizing that success in those multi-tournament events should be acknowledged.*** Here are the standings as of today alongside the "official" World Golf Rankings:   

                FGR Rankings                           World Golf Rankings

1. McIlroy 140 McIlroy 13.61 2. Donald 91 Donald 9.28 3. Bradley, K. 88 Woods 8.89 4. Scott, A. 88 Rose 6.66 5. Westwood 65 Scott 6.50 6. Rose 65 Westwood 6.39 7. Els 64 Oosti 6.35 8. Schwartzel 62 Dufner 5.74 9. Watson, B. 62 Simpson, W. 5.61 10. Kuchar 61 Snedeker 5.56 11. Hanson, P. 55 Watson, B. 5.39 12. Dufner 53 Poulter 5.13 13. Poulter 52 Mickelson 5.13 14. Mickelson 49 Stricker 4.98 15. Oosti 48 Bradley 4.90 16. Simpson, W. 46 Watney 4.85 17. McDowell 46 Hanson, P. 4.81 18. Toms 46 Kuchar 4.79 19. Woods 43 Johnson, D. 4.72 20. Johnson, D. 39 Els 4.64

As you can see, Rory McIlroy's recent run of greatness has pretty much taken care of the problem that spawned this whole endeavor as he is now clearly the best player in the world regardless of how you calculate it. Over the past two years, he was won two majors, finished top 5 in three WGC events, won the 2012 Race to Duabi and finished second in the 2012 FedEx Cup. That discussion, for the time being, is over.

Certainly no shame in
being ranked 10-12
. . . on Maxim's list.

It starts to get interesting in the second spot where Luke Donald's margin has dwindled to 2 points and over half of his total are from tournaments played at the start of 2011 including 20 from the World Match Play. Those points will start falling out of the equation early in 2013 so look for Donald to drop into the 10-12 range by the time the next green jacket is handed-out.

But wait, it gets even more interesting (I know, I didn't think it was possible either). This most recent update again points out the major flaw in the WGR formula which is that using tournaments with weak fields erroneously elevates players who tend to thrive in those events. Three time John Deere Classic champ Steve Stricker continues to be the most overrated player in golf as he is ranked 14th in the world despite the fact that his tie for 7th at the 2012 PGA Championship was his first top 10 in a major since the 2009 Masters and he hasn't finished top 5 in a major since 1999. Meanwhile, the guy behind him in the rankings, Keegan Bradley, won the 2011 PGA Championship, backed that up by winning the 2012 Bridgestone and then, to prove that was no fluke, finished third the following week at the 2012 PGA Championship. (If I'm arguing that one in front of a jury, I'm pretty sure I've got at least ten of them nodding at this point so let's put the fact that the "official" World Golf Rankings are flawed in the "win" column and see if we can put them away for life without parole).
______________________________________________________________________

Critics of the FGR Rankings are quick to jump on the fact that Tiger Woods barely makes the top 20 and is ranked lower than David Toms. Does that highlight a flaw in the formula? Maybe it does because no one would argue that Toms is a better player than Tiger but again it goes back to how you measure one golfer against another (by height?). Consider this. If we made a bet at the start of 2011 on who would finish with more top 10's in majors, WGC events and the Players over the next two years and you took Tiger and gave me Toms, you would have lost 6-4. So that tells us that, over the past two years, when the best players competed against each other on the best courses, Toms outplayed Tiger. (That fact just got the skeptical juror wearing the TW hat to uncross his arms and start paying attention).

"1-9 and 1 . . . 1-9 and 1 . . . 1-9 and 1"

And then there is this. Recently at the Ryder Cup we had twenty-four of the best golfers in the world going head-to-head over three days on a major caliber golf course under the most intense pressure the game has to offer. The U.S. team had three players on its roster who are ranked higher than Keegan Bradley on the World Golf Rankings but way lower on the FGR Rankings - Tiger, Stricker and Brandt Snedeker. Bradley went 3-1 with his only loss coming in a singles match that went 17 holes against McIlroy, the undisputed best player in the world. The three players ranked ahead of him in the World Golf Rankings went 1-9-1 with Stricker going 0-4. (That's the "back and to the left . . . back and to the left" part of my closing argument so just let that hang in the air for effect . . .).
______________________________________________________________________

So we know that the FGR Rankings were backed-up by Keegan Bradley's performance at the Ryder Cup but what if I told you that using the FGR Rankings could have averted the disaster at Medinah? Would that be something you might be interested in?  While we're having all kinds of fun with lists and numbers, here is my favorite. Below is the U.S. Ryder Cup team ranked by the FGR on the left and the WGR on the right using the last updated standings from before the Cup with each player's record in the foursomes and four ball matches (get ready for some sabermetric mojo):

                   FGR Rankings                             World Golf Rankings

1. Bradley (3-0) Woods (0-3) 2. Watson (2-1) Watson (2-1) 3. Kuchar (2-0) Simpson (2-1) 4. Woods (0-3) Dufner (2-1) 5. Simpson (2-1) Snedeker (1-1) 6. Dufner (2-1) Stricker (0-3) 7. Johnson, D. (2-0) Johnson, D. (2-0) 8. Mickelson (2-1) Bradley (3-0) 9. Stricker (0-3) Kuchar (2-0) 10. Furyk (1-1) Mickelson (3-0) 11. Snedeker (1-1) Johnson, Z. (2-1) 12. Johnson, Z. (2-1) Furyk (1-1)

European captain Jose Maria Olazabol employed the novel strategy of giving his best players more playing time. (Pretty clever). Out of 44 potential starts, his top two (McIlroy and Rose) played 5 matches, his next six played 4 matches (Donald, Poulter, Westwood, Garcia, Colsaerts and McDowell), the next two played 3 matches (Lawrie and Molinari) and the bottom two played 2 matches (Hanson and Kaymer). Some don't favor that strategy because they argue that the guys who play 5 matches will be fatigued by Sunday and those who only play 2 matches will be rusty. We can dispense with the "fatigue" argument as McIlroy and Rose both won their singles matches on Sunday and the "rusty" argument is almost as weak because Kaymer beat Stricker in the pivotal match. So it would appear that golf is not that different from other sports where winning teams tend to (a) identify who their best players are and then (b) give them the most playing time (this is also known in some circles as "not rocket science").

Sounds like a job for the WOPR.

Armed with that strategy, it would seem to make sense for a Ryder Cup captain to play his top 8 players in all five matches and leave his bottom 4 on the bench until they had to play on Sunday. All he would have to do is figure-out his top 8 big game players and then pair them with guys they like to play with (short straw would have to play with Tiger which begs the question of why Tiger is even on the "team" but that's a topic for another day).**** I would argue that a ranking system based on results from tournaments played against top competition on tough golf courses would be a strong indicator of who will play well in the Ryder Cup but don't take my word for it. Let's prorate the actual results from Medinah to simulate what would have happened if the top 8 had each played in all four matches on Friday and Saturday, and then run those numbers using the FGR and the WGR to see which yields the best result (you're going to be shocked).

Remember that (a) we need to remove the singles matches from the equation because the whole team plays singles so there is no substitution strategy on Sunday (and I would argue that there is not much strategy at all considering it's a blind draw) and (b) there are more individual points than team points because in the foursomes and four balls, both players get credit for the points. So there were 32 points to be won on Friday and Saturday and the U.S. team won an impressive 20 of them. Give Davis Love, III some credit there because if he had weighted his line-up using the WGR, they would have only won 18 points. On the other hand, if he had played the FGR top 8 in all of the team matches and only played the bottom 4 of Stricker, Furyk, Snedeker and Z. Johnson on Sunday, the U.S. would have won 24 points out of a possible 32 points on Friday and Saturday and would have come into Sunday with a nearly insurmountable 12-4 lead (see prorated points below and I know a player could not win 2.67 points but those three players would have combined to win 8 points).

                   FGR Rankings                      WGR Rankings

1.	Bradley	4	Woods	0
2.	Watson	2.67	Watson	2.67
3.	Kuchar	4	Simpson	2.67
4.	Woods	0	Dufner	2.67
5.	Simpson	2.67	Snedeker	2
6.	Dufner	2.67	Stricker	0
7.	Johnson, D.	4	Johnson, D.	4
8.	Mickelson	4	Bradley	4
9.	Stricker	0	Kuchar	0
10.	Furyk	0	Mickelson	0
11.	Snedeker	0	Johnson, Z.	0
12.	Johnson, Z.	0	Furyk	0
		24.01		18.01

So in summation, am I saying that the FGR rankings are not only a superior method for ranking the world's top golfers but that they also could have made the difference in the outcome of the Ryder Cup? No I am not. I am saying that they absolutely would have made the difference in the outcome of the Ryder Cup.

In case God forbid you don't
know who Mike Eruzione is.

Look at it this way. On Saturday afternoon, Phil Mickelson allegedly asked to sit-out despite the fact that he and Keegan Bradley were a wrecking ball of a team that had just beaten Luke Donald and Lee Westwood 7&6 in the morning. Love was already sending-out the teams of D. Johnson/Kuchar, Watson/Simpson and Dufner/Z. Johnson so with Mickelson out, the only remaining guys in the FGR top 8 were Tiger and Bradley who, late on a Saturday outside of Chicago, would have been the most electrifying pairing in Ryder Cup history. Instead he benched the guy who had become golf's answer to Mike Eruzione and went with the winless Tiger/Stricker combo again and, not surprisingly, they lost what many would argue (including me) was the most pivotal point of the competition.

If Love had used the FGR Rankings and maxed-out his starters, Stricker wouldn't have played until Sunday so an 0-3 Tiger/Stricker team never would have happened. It's not Stricker's fault that he and Bradley played the same number of matches (which would be like giving LeBron James and Shane Battier the same number of minutes in the NBA Finals). It's probably not Love's fault either because he was working with lousy data and a "team" of players that he felt compelled to give equal playing time to so no one's feelings would get hurt. Let's just hope that the next U.S. captain has the guts to employ the FGR's aggressive strategy. And if you're dismissing this whole argument as an exercise in outrageous speculation, ask yourself whether pairings made-up of Tiger/Bradley, Tiger/Dufner and Tiger/Kuchar would have done better than three rounds of Tiger/Stricker and then remember that they couldn't have done any worse. I rest my case.    

Endnotes

* And yes, the word "Dubai" is actually in the name of the tournament. Between all of the skyscrapers and the need to insert its name everywhere, I'm starting to think Dubai's trying to compensate for . . . I'm going to stop there before I wander into Salman Rushdie territory.

** Actually, we are way overdue for an update but it literally took me two weeks to get through the final round of the WGC-HSBC Champions event because of (a) the NFL, (b) the election coverage and (c) Homeland. The fact that I was able to go two weeks without knowing who won the HSBC simply by not watching the Golf Channel is a pretty good indication of what a non-factor golf becomes on the American sports landscape after the end of the Tour Championship.

No Golf Channel for two weeks? Oh
the sacrifices I make for the FGR.

*** Here is a link to the explanation of the basic FGR Rankings point system - The FGR Rankings. We have since added the "Darren Clarke Rule" which states that a player must earn points in more than one qualifying event to be eligible and the "Jason Day Rule" which allows me to remove a player from consideration because he has effectively taken the year off. (Day would have been 14th in the current rankings thanks to his second place finishes at the 2011 Masters and U.S. Open but, after wasting the 4th pick in my 2012 fantasy draft on him, he is dead to me).

****  The Americans generally take more of a "7 year old girls little league soccer" approach and evenly distribute the playing time with everyone getting at least 3 but no more than 4 matches. Oh yeah, they also talk a lot about "resting" players . . . in golf . . . a game most of us play to "rest."

The Week 13 NFL Picks

The updated FGR Rankings are currently waiting for Nate Silver's blessing before publication as we have taken some major liberties with trends, probabilities and statistics that make people at both extremes of the global warming debate look conservative by comparison. In the meantime, let's get back to what you would expect from the Fantasy Golf Report . . . football picks. Through 12 weeks, attempting to actually analyze these games has me barely over .500 so I'm bagging all of that and going with the two things that have never failed me: (a) being a wise-ass and (b) astrology.*

Green Bay by 9 over Minnesota: The Pick - Packers

The correlation between the relative boldness of some of my predictions and the great distance by which they have missed their marks is almost uncanny. Case in point, my statement last week that "I have the Pack winning-out and taking the #2 seed in the NFC." After their 38-10 shellacking at the hands of the Giants, I need to revise that to "I have the Pack clinging to the last NFC playoff spot." When am I going to learn that you always need to apply Costanza's Theorem when betting on the Giants? Costanza's Theorem is of course - "if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right." (Now I just need to hold that thought until I get down to the Monday night pick).

Chicago by 3.5 over Seattle: The Pick - Bears

"Hey Pete, d'you take care of that 
thing with the guy about the thing?"

The Seahawks could potentially lose their two starting quarterbacks to suspensions for the use of performance enhancing drugs which is surprising considering that coach Pete Carroll is the kind of upstanding guy you bring in when you want to run a clean program (now just replace "upstanding" with "underhanded" and "a clean program" with "the Bada Bing").

San Francisco by 7 over St. Louis: The Pick - 49ers

The 49ers average margin of victory in their eight wins has been over 19 points and it's never been less than 7 which means that they may be the best team in the league at smelling blood in the water. The last time these two teams played, it ended in a mess of a 24-24 tie as they handed a pistol back and forth and took turns shooting themselves in the foot. Jim Harbaugh had been using that game as a motivating tool at practice this week by repeatedly telling his players that "everyone is laughing at you" until a member of the defense lost his shit and mauled one of the assistant coaches. Since then, Harbaugh has gone back to motivating his players with Dora the Explorer stickers and fake Spiderman tattoos resulting in no further incidents. 

N.Y, Jets by 4 over Arizona: The Pick - Jets

Not only has the Jets' horrendous play forced Fireman Ed into retirement, but it's apparently making local food critics very salty as evidenced by this New York Times review of Guy Fieri's Times Square restaurant - Welcome to Flavor Town!** The good news for the Jets this week is that, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king and in this case, the "land of the blind" would be the passing games of these two teams and the one-eyed man is Mark Sanchez*** (which would explain a lot). 

Carolina by 2 over Kansas City: The Pick - Panthers

"Mommy, mommy, look
at me, look at me . . .
I ran for two yards."

Cam Newton is so obsessed with his own performance and drawing attention to himself that he makes guys like Chad Johnson and Terrell Owens look like the humble kids from Hoosiers. The beautiful part of that is that he will single-handedly remove the Panthers from Super Bowl contention for at least the next 7-8 years because he's just good enough and flashy enough that they won't risk the public relations hit of getting rid of him. (Not so much a "beautiful part" if you're a Panthers' fan but at least he's an upgrade from Jake Delhomme, Jimmy Clausen and Chirs Weinke which is like saying you just upgraded from a car with no brakes to a car with faulty brakes). 

Detroit by 4.5 over Indianapolis: The Pick - Lions

Cam Newton's annoying defensive counterpart may be Detroit's Ndamukong Suh who recently devoted an entire ESPN Magazine interview to denying everything from the accusations that he's a dirty player (despite the fact that he's "won" the Sporting News' title for dirtiest player the last two years) to the fact that he's at best a lousy driver (four driving incidents in the last year including a ticket for going 91 in a 55 and another incident where he crashed into a tree . . . and then blamed the tree). At the end of the interview, Suh even denied having a unique first name saying, "I had so many kids in my 9th grade class named Ndamukong that they had to give us all nick names." He then jumped into his car and backed into the side of Lions' Stadium because it was "in my blind spot."

New England by 7 over Miami: The Pick - Patriots

Everyone keeps talking about how unstoppable the Patriots are going to be once they get all of their "weapons" healthy. But over the last nine years when they haven't been winning the Super Bowl, the Patriots taught us that football is not basketball where five guys can touch the ball on the same play so it doesn't really matter how many "weapons" your quarterback has if he is on his ass or running for his life before he gets a chance to look in the direction of Weapon #2. (This theory was on display last night as the Falcons harassed Drew Brees into 5 picks in one of the greatest fantasy football season killing performances of all-time).

"Cut it out . . . CUT IT OUT . . . 
I'm only on my second read."

Buffalo by 6 over Jacksonville: The Pick - Jaguars

The Jags are proving that every team in the NFL is just one half-decent quarterback away from being competitive (which will bode well for Alex Smith in free agency next year as the Cardinals and Chiefs compete for his services). Meanwhile the Bills continue to set a standard for mediocrity unparalleled anywhere outside of the cable television service industry.

Houston by 4.5 over Tennessee: The Pick - Texans

You know it's not your day when your fantasy kicker (Jason Hanson) doinks the game winner off the upright in overtime that would have significantly improved your favorite teams' chances of getting the #1 seed in the AFC. After two very shaky wins, the Texans are starting to look like a top seed that could get throttled at home by the Broncos or the Patriots in the second round. (At least that's what I'm telling myself).

Cleveland by 1 over Oakland: The Pick - Browns

"More proof that defenses, not
perms, win championships."

If you're the Raiders, you know you've hit rock bottom when you've made the Browns an attractive proposition as a road favorite. I don't think that's happened since the relatively successful (yet still brutally painful for Cleveland) Bernie Kosar era. 

San Diego by 1 over Cincinnati: The Pick - Bengals

If there was any doubt left as to whether this would be Norv's swan song in San Diego, I'm pretty sure that 4th and 29 play erased it. Then again, considering the track record of Chargers' ownership and management, they'll find a way to pin that one on the assistant special teams coach and make him the scapegoat.

Denver by 6.5 over Tampa Bay: The Pick - Broncos

We may get the ultimate test of Greg Schiano's convictions this week because it will take some serious onions to have his boys crash into a kneeling Peyton Manning at the end of this game in Denver. I know I for one wouldn't want Schiano's thuggish tactics to impair Manning's ability two weeks before the Broncos come to Baltimore. (I just wanted to get that on the record in case I let out an inappropriate cheer related to the health of either Manning brother or RG, III, all of whom the Ravens still have to play this year. I will now go shotgun a bottle of Pepcid AC).    

Baltimore by 8 over Pittsburgh: The Pick - Ravens

The Steelers decided to back-up one of the league's most self-destructive quarterbacks (both on and off the field) with two guys who have a combined age of 70 (seriously) and are about as mobile as an arthritic donkey. Eight points is a big spread for a Ravens-Steelers game but in this case I think that number has a magical quality because it is exactly how many beers I will drink before kickoff.****

Dallas by 7.5 over Philadelphia: The Pick - Cowboys

I jumped on the Cowboys' late season push to almost make the playoffs and convince everyone that they just need a couple of tweaks here and there a week too early. I think it's about time Jerry Jones had the following conversation with Colonel James from Boogie Nights:

"Jack says you've got
a great big stadium."

Jones (sobbing): We've only won ONE playoff game since 1996!

Colonel James: Well. do you think this means that maybe you oughta think about hiring a general manager? Whaddya think?   

Jones: Yes sir.

Colonel James: Ahhh.

N.Y. Giants by 1 over Washington: The Pick - Redskins

Crap, I had a theory about betting on the Giants and now I can't remember what it was. Screw it. I'm just going to bet on RG, III or as he is now being called in D.C., "RG, Thresus" (speaking of that, what ever happened to the guy who used to kneel when he scored a touchdown? What was his name? Larry Lebow? Is he still in the league?).  

Last Week's Record: 7-7-2 . . . Season Record: 87-84-5

Email the FGR Here

Endnotes

* And there is no finer astrologer than Adam Sandler who once wrote -  "Virgo (Aug 23 - Sept 22) You are the logical type and hate disorder. Your shit-picking attitude is sickening to your friends and co-workers. You are cold and unemotional and often fall asleep while fucking. Virgos make good bus drivers and pimps." For the other eleven signs, check-out Sandler Astrology. 

Oops. Almost forgot
to take care of my
Ukrainian readers.

** The review was written by Pete Wells who is the FGR's new favorite food critic. (He's actually my first favorite food critic as this is the first restaurant review I've ever read but who's counting).

*** Tweet of the week from Letterman Show producer, Eric Stangel, "Pretty fun to watch A&M's 'Johnny Football,' as opposed to Jets' 'Mark Runintoownlinemansassfumbleandhaveitreturnedforatd.'"

**** And if that's how we're determining the line, it may be a couple points on the low side.