We usually don't pick games here because that was so last year. Plus, offering point-spread picks of professional sports is de facto gambling and even though we aren't gambling nor are we encouraging others to gambling, it's kind of like watching a person being assaulted without stepping in to stop it. No, we didn't dive in and rain haymakers down on some poor fella, but we didn't do anything to stop it.
In other words, adjacent to refuse is still refuse. I was part of the problem and that's why I stopped the pretend gambling.
Besides, professional leagues and teams have rules forbidding gambling and claim they will revoke press credentials from those who knowingly engage in professional gambling. The leagues and teams also say they will penalize players and team employees who associate with known gamblers, too. They don't do it, but it's a rule nonetheless.
So just to be on the safe side, I'm going to begin my prognostication with a disclaimer... Don't gamble and don't use the wisdom herein for gambling. Though I am not morally opposed to gambling and even enjoy partaking from time to time, I must admit that I am a supercilious snob. For my brand of snobbery, the caricature version of the gambler with his gaudy clothes and jewelry - one which gives off the image of not only questionable character, but also of one who lives his life with a personal philosophy based on Exodus 21:23 - 27 - well, that's not the kind of person one would want to invite over for hot wassail.
Really... who can take those people seriously? And who are those folks fooling with their flashiness and hair coiffed oh so delicately with blonde highlights that is about as subtle on a man beyond middle age as a kick in the crotch?
They aren't fooling me. A person is known by the company they keep, is what I always say.
That said (or written) lets dive into the big football games that will be held this weekend at various times suitable to nestle gently into the nation television schedule.
New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys
I suppose this is the biggest game of the weekend. I suppose that's the case because it features a team from the country's largest media market and another team that supersedes such triviality as media markets. "America's Team" is what the Cowboys and their fans refer to themselves without irony. Any group that can make such a proclamation and not stifle a laugh midway through is one to keep at a distance or trapped in a reinforced box as if they were a wolverine on greenies.
The New York-Dallas matchup is also an interesting one for folks from Philadelphia, too. One reason is that both clubs come from the NFC East, just like the Philadelphia Eagles. Additionally, the Eagles fans claim Dallas as their biggest rival even though it should be the team from New York. In fact, the Eagles' hatred of Cowboys is a lot like a song by the J. Geils Band set on its head. Fans of the Eagles have manufactured a bitter rivalry with Dallas that goes unrequited because the Cowboys' biggest rival is the Washington Redskins. This makes perfect sense, because if historical precedent as our guide, Cowboys and Redskins should despise one another. Moreover, everyone should hate Giants, Raiders, Titans, Buccaneers and, of course, Texans.
Since we're doing some good ol' hatin' let's add racism in there, too. If a Giant is a good thing to hate, I suppose racism is a good thing to hate, too.
It would be one thing if the game was simply a matchup between the teams from New York and Dallas and that was it. Instead, there are subplots. No, it's nothing too interesting or odd like the little subplot involving Mike Yanagita in the film, Fargo. Instead, it's more like a dumb reality-show subplot like, "Puck put his finger in the peanut butter so let's kick him out of the house and cry." In this instance it's equally as lame...
Ohmigod Tony Romo went to Mexico during his week off with Jessica Simpson and some teammates and her dad! My world and my wife's world are colliding!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
OK, I can understand why this is a big deal to sports fans. Actually, there are a lot of reasons why the quarterback of a football team gallivanting at a resort in a foreign country is such a big deal. For one thing to the average, factory-assembled fan, sports and women do not mix. Oh sure, they can hang around as long as they are dressed in a bathing suit and serve dead animal carcasses and other fatty food to the rest of the gang, but if they sit in the room with the other guys and watch the game and - gasp! - ask questions... oh no! Like hunting or being an elite-level chef, sports is a man's domain. Better yet, most men only want to watch sports with other men. And yes, the notion that a bunch guys that only want to hang around with a bunch of other guys and share their turbo-charged feelings is... well... gay[1], is completely lost.
Perhaps that's because sports fandom, by nature, is a conformist activity. All sports fans speak the same language because they engage in all of the same media. Sports seem to be the only subset of the news or popular culture in which there is no alternative media or ideology. Yeah, there are different Internet sites and all of that, but though the style might deviate slightly, the tune is always the same.
Think about what it's like to go to a game... everyone waits in line, dresses alike, eats and drinks the same things and recites the same slogans.
"LET'S GO HOME TEAM, clap, clap, clapclapclap!"
So yeah, with everyone receiving their marching orders from the same sources it's easy to see why a guy going on a trip with an actress during his week off is a bad thing.
The Tony Romo-Jessica Simpson thing was such a big deal that the football stuff kind of got lost in the shuffle. For instance, Terrell Owens, the ex-Eagle, is attempting to play despite a diva-like injury. I'm not saying Terrell Owens is faking the injury for a little extra dramatic flair, but let's just say he's probably not pleased that it's another teammate involved in some sort of controversy instead of him. To make it worse, the controversy involves the quarterback and a model. All T.O. ever had was Drew Rosenhaus.
Oh yeah, there is Giants' quarterback Eli Manning, too. Manning, of course, is the underachieving little brother of MVP Peyton Manning and youngest son of ex-NFL quarterback Archie Manning. He also reminds me of the little brother who cried his way into the pick-up basketball game with his older brother's friends and followed that up by making a whole bunch of jump shots in a row. But just when little Eli pressed his luck and drove to the hoop, one of Peyton's classmates sent the kid flailing into the shrubbery bordering the driveway with a slight forearm shiver. Crying again with his bottom lip quivering while prone in a chalk-outline position half in the bush and the driveway, little Eli shouted, "C'mon dude, I'm only seven!"
For the Giants to have any chance of winning, little Eli is going to have to stay out of the lane and bury those shots from the outside.
Take the Cowboys.
While you're at it, take the Packers, Colts and Patriots, too.
What, do you want point spreads and statistics? Are you a degenerate?
[1] The word "gay" is being used in the fifth-grade sense of the word and is in no way being used as a term of derision or as a slur of any type. But then again if you couldn't figure that out after reading the rest of the crap in this essay, you're... um... dumb. Or possibly a supercilious snob.