Professional Football Analysis for the Uninformed Part One

Ohio State 42 – Oregon 20

(my prediction Oregon 47 – Ohio State 28)

I was worried in the third quarter when the score was exactly what I wrote up for half-time (Ohio State 21 – Oregon 20.) Thank goodness the rest of the game didn’t go as I predicted. The pressure is off. You see, I made a side bet. Walter Bego, the head screw-up at Go Figure Reads told me that picking Oregon was a sure thing. I said, if you’re such an expert, why don’t you put your pixels where your mouth is. If Ohio State beats Oregon, you have to do the pro picks.

He agreed! (sucker)

Now be prepared to go 0-2 for the NFL conference championships (or just bet against this guy.) So – Here’s Walter (Jockstrap) Bego!

I'm not saying he's old, but...

There isn’t much on the line here. Winning a conference championship is like buying a Powerball ticket – there’s no reason to celebrate getting there unless you win the next one. Ask the Vikings, the Bills, the Eagles, the Chargers, the Panthers and the Bengals. Still, the victors this weekend have a much better shot at taking the Super bowl than I had at winning 176 million on last night’s drawing.

So – how should we pick them? Let’s go by the last game.

AFC

The New England Patriots were pretty much dead, smothered by a cloud of large carrion-eating birds. Unfortunately for the Ravens, Bill Belichick snuck the UMass Minutemen onto the sideline and they added their firepower to pick off the Baltimore Birds.

Why is it that teams from Massachusetts (Patriots, Minutemen, Revolution) get to carry fire arms? I never thought of Massachusetts as a big 2^nd Amendment state (excuse me, Commonwealth.)

The Indianapolis Colts had much less trouble with the Denver Broncos. Colts are just younger and friskier Broncos that haven’t been regularly abused in rodeos. It showed on Sunday. It might have been Peyton Manning’s last rodeo.

So… men armed with muskets against a bunch of young horses. That doesn’t sound too tough to predict – the Patriots win in a shoot-out (see what I did there?)

New England 41 – Indianapolis 35

NFC

The whole fire-arm thing didn't work out for the pistol-packing Cowboys. Maybe because Lambeau Field is a gun-free zone. They ended up with empty holsters in a frozen locker fighting against meat packers with those nasty hooks they use to make your steak look like it died in a horror movie. In the end, the third team on the field (the guys in the old fashioned prison uniforms,) decided the game. These zebra-striped felons are guilty of stealing outcomes too often in recent weeks. Ask the Lions whether they, or the refs belong in a cage.

The Seattle Seahawks watched their opponent blow the game without any help from the officials, and little help from the Seahawks. Had the Panthers not made so many mental and physical errors early on, might they have made a better showing in the second half? We’ll never know. But we do know that the Seahawks have learned how to straighten up and fly right. They don’t seem to make mistakes anymore. Is this the same Pete Carroll that coached the circuses in New York and New England back in the 90s?

If this game was in Wisconsin, the Seahawks might find the weather and the cheddar too much for them, but as it’s in a stadium intentionally designed to amplify sound, I expect that the Packer line won’t hear a thing Rogers says in the second half.

Seattle 24 – Green Bay 17

Thank you, Walter Bego

And now you know why no-one has asked Walter to write a blog. To wrap up, Walter picks the Patriots and the Sea Hawks. Now where can I lay down a bet on the Colts and Packers?

Let's see, a football video?  The best one will ALWAYS be...

College Football Analysis for the Uninformed Part One

Memo from the Boss:

Headley – 2014 was too dreadful to be funny and 2015 doesn’t look hopeful. Talk about sports for your New Years post. I know you don’t know anything about the subject, but do the best you can.

Walter Bego – Go Figure Reads

So today begins the playoff for the NCAA college football Bowl Division national championship. This is opposed to the NCAA national championship in their playoff division… and their other playoff divisions. There’s also the NAIA’s playoff division for schools too small to be owned by multi-national corporations, the AARP touch football, run slowly, and try not to break a hip playoff division, and the pros who are different from the college guys because they don’t have to pay someone to write term papers for them.

What do you say we just scrap the NCAA, NAIA, NSA, IRS, AARP and anything else that uses letters to hide their name?

This afternoon we have the Florida State Seminoles against the Oregon Ducks, and then tonight we have the Ohio State Buckeyes against the Alabama Crimson Tide.

What – no SUNY Albany Great Danes?

Let’s forget the Xs and Os (along with the other 24 letters in the alphabet,) and focus on how the mascots would fare against each other.

Game One – Seminoles against Ducks

Seminoles are Native Americans that once wandered the territory we now know as Florida and Georgia. They were nomadic hunters from a number of Native American tribes and were known for their independence and fierceness in combat.

Ducks are waterfowl that can fly and taste really good with Dim Sum.

The Seminoles have sharp spears, and keen hunting skills; the ducks have webbed feet, and look cute when the walk.

Too easy – there has to be a catch here. I better go with the Ducks.

Game Two – Buckeyes against Crimson Tide

      Buckeyes are nuts. Really, they’re nuts that come from trees. They don’t do anything except provide ammo for nasty little kids that like to throw things. They don’t even taste good.

I know what a tide is – it’s a phenomenon of (among other factors,) the rotation of the earth and the moon’s effect on large bodies of water – usually oceans. I’ve never known it to be crimson, though I remember something about a red tide when algae with high mercury levels clog the shore and poison everything.

What am I supposed to do with this? You throw a bunch of nuts into a poisoned ocean and they bob around for a while, collecting mercury residue until the tide brings them to shore? This could be the most boring game of football since Howard Cosell retired.

But!!!!!!!!!!!! Mercury laden water is NOT the mascot for the Crimson Tide! An elephant is, because as everyone knows, elephants can always be found bobbing through the tide in the Gulf of Mexico near where Alabama has its 37 feet of coastline.

Elephants eat nuts; nuts can’t do anything to elephants. They can’t even run away without nasty children to throw them.

Again – too easy. I better go with the Buckeyes.

So, our National Championship game (not to be confused with all the other National Championship games,) will be the Oregon Ducks vs. the Ohio State Buckeyes, (assuming that neither Dim Sum nor mercury poisoning interfere.)

Please inform your bookie that you got your tip from Headley Hauser’s Just Plain Stupid blog, (so I can get my cut when you lose.)

What about the pros? I’ll give it a shot. Name the four teams involved…

What? Twelve teams!? I better wait until they whittle that down a bit.

Yes, it's a replay video, but I like it, and football games are 40% replays and 40% beer commercials.