‘22-’23 Record: 14-16
This weekend is hell for me. I had a wedding on Friday night and I have another one tonight, on Saturday.
The Friday night one was not just a night thing though. We had to get to the venue at 1 because we had to set up the whole goddamned thing. Normally I would be pretty bummed out by that, but when we got there and opened up all of the boxes, there were no less than 150 candle sticks that we had to set up on all of the tables. It was truly miserable. The bride wrote us some instructions for how to do it, but her instructions were terrible. I have a cousin with a learning disability who could write clearer instructions, both handwriting-wise and clarity-wise.
We just ended up mostly guessing and being pissed off about the whole thing.
Also, there were bees the whole time. Like a shit load of bees. Like 500 bees. It was awful.
And the wedding tonight? It starts with a full Catholic Mass. That’s selfish. Kill me.
Giants @ Jaguars: (Jags -3, O/U 43.5)
This seems like a trap to me, and maybe it is, but what if you think about it like this:
Maybe it’s not a trap.
Woah, right?
If you think about it like that, then this line really starts to make a lot of sense.
The only issue with thinking that this line isn’t a trap is that it’s a slippery slope to believing that the Giants aren’t huge frauds and they’re actually for real. So before we start believing that everything everyone says when it pertains to the Giants is a lie, we need to all hold hands and agree to draw a line somewhere.
Both of these things can be true:
This line is not a trap and the Giants can still be a garbage pail team.
Now that we have an understanding, let’s discuss.
Remember back on Hard Knocks, when Dan Campbell took 15 minutes to think about his answer to the prompt, “The Detroit Lions are…” and he said, “the team that can and will.” Dan Campbell took so long for his answer because he was thinking about other bad teams, and the team that he was referring to was not his Lions, but the New York Giants.
“That doesn’t make sense Jake”
Yes, it does because Dan Campbell is a dipshit.
The Giants are doing things to win games this year with absolutely nothing and I’ve been impressed. The Jaguars are doing things to lose games this year with considerable talent and I’ve been impressed.
I like the Giants in this spot, but I do have thing that I’m apprehensive about. Doug Pederson fucks the Giants.
Giants +3
Falcons @ Bengals (Bengals -7, O/U 47.5)
We’re all on the same page.
We know that the Falcons are 6-0 ATS. We know that they’re playing much better than they should. We know that the offense that they’re being forced to run is not the offense that they want to run. We know that they’re going to end up getting another top-6 pick in the draft next year.
We don’t know shit about the Bengals. In the past 6 weeks, we’ve seen the Bengals go back to the Bengals from 2020, and we’ve seen them play with the spunk they played with last year.
We can expect the Falcons to play a cover 2 shell because it’s been the only thing that has slowed the Bengals down this year, and we can expect that the Falcons are going to keep the game close by having Mariota and whoever the hell they have in the backfield, running the ball 100 times in a game. We can expect that they’ll keep ignoring their pass catchers because… uh. I don’t know why they do that, but they do it and it’s not been the worst thing for them for some reason.
I don’t believe in the Bengals. I don’t believe that they can be consistent. I don’t believe they’re able to keep the pressure on other teams for 60 minutes, or even 45 minutes. I don’t believe they’re going to be able to blow out the Falcons.
Falcons +7. Too many points.
Seahawks @ Chargers (Chargers -5, O/U 50)
Okay, so one Thursday I know I said I’ve got to stop taking Overs.
Here’s the thing, I’m gonna take this over.
I took the Over on the Seahawks game last week against the Cardinals because I thought the Cardinals' offense was going to shine.
Welp.
The Cardinals' offense is total booty butt, and now we know that for sure. I’m on board with saying it was the Cardinals’ fault for last week’s over not hitting. I’m going right back to that well this week.
The Chargers’ defense is fucked without Joey Bosa. On top of that, I imagine their offense is going to be more than willing to go for it on questionable 4th downs since they’re playing against a bad defense, Hopkins is out, and Branden Staley is a wild card.
The Chargers' offense is still more than capable of scoring a lot of points as is the Seahawks’.
Both defenses are allowing an average of over 25 points and they both played the Broncos, so that average is taken down by a significant outlier.
Give me O 50.
Steelers @ Dolphins (Dolphins -7.5, O/U 46)
The Steelers have nothing. With the weird win against Tampa last weekend, their record when TJ Watt doesn’t play is 1-7. I don’t think even for a minute that they’ll be able to do that on back-to-back games.
Aside from Minkah Fitzpatrick, their defensive backfield is a bunch of nobodies. Yeah, they’ll probably run that same cover 2 shell, but they have to worry about Hill and Waddle, not just one deep threat. When the Dolphins hit Hill in the middle enough times, they’ll abandon that shell and there will be at least one guy open deep. I don’t think that’s going to be a one-time thing either.
The Dolphins have a good offense. It’s not great because they can’t run the ball for shit, but that’ll just mean they get the balls to their playmakers in space.
I don’t like that 7.5 though. Tomlin is a great coach as a dog, so we’re going to tease this with Monday Night’s game.
6-point teaser: Dolphins -1.5, Patriots -1.5