Frey's NFL Picks Week 8: Wow Broncos. Just....Wow....

I have always found that a coupling of humor and perspective is a fool-proof formula for the lifting of spirits.

This week, the Denver Broncos were kind enough to provide me with liberal amounts of both.

In most circumstances, a 2-2 week of prognostication would generate disappointment and/or consternation.  In lieu of recent events, however, I thought I would measure this against the week the Broncos just enjoyed.

·        Plausible and verified trade rumblings involving DT and Bradley Roby surface suggesting that the team may be packing it in.

·         Our head coach denies that any such talks are occurring making him look like a puppet at best and nincompoop at worst.

·         CBS reports that, due to Case Keenum’s continued struggles, backup QB Chad Kelly will begin getting meaningful snaps in games.

·         Von Miller throws a Halloween Party for teammates whereupon 2 prominent players dress up like cocaine addicts and waive bags of white power around.  The videos are promptly posted to social media.

·         That same evening, QB Chad Kelly (dressed like Woody from Toy Story) gets hopped up on goofballs and starts trying fight everyone at the party.  Team security escorts him out to cool off but, as expected, he valiantly escapes the tacklers and takes off down the street to freedom.

·         Seeing a young woman nursing her child on her couch, Chad makes the only decision that seems appropriate at the time and enters the home to sit down next to her so that he might engage in some friendly incomprehensible rambling and occasional shouts of “There’s a snake in my boot!”

·         Her concerned husband comes out and beats Woody with an aluminum vacuum tube until he departs the house so that he can be promptly arrested.

·         Chad Kelly is fired the next day and an agitated Vance Joseph acts like nothing happened.

·         The team boards a plane to Kansas City.

You can't make this stuff up.  Even Buffalo is laughing at us.

Yep.  I’ll take the 2-2.

Denver Broncos @ Kansas City Chiefs (-9)

Do I really even need to elaborate on this one?

You know what’s going to happen here and so do I.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Cincinnati Bengals (-3 ½)

Fans of the NBA might remember a guy named Alex English who played for the Denver Nuggets in the 80’s.

After a game would end, you’d look at the box score and say, “Wow.  English had a great game.”

Then you’d think back and start to remember a quiet but extremely effective 30 point night.

Jameis Winston is similar in this respect.  After the game ends, you look at the box score and notice some pretty solid numbers. 

But then you think back about the game you just watched and realize that he kind of sucked the entire time and it still doesn’t make any sense how he put up the numbers.

If this were fantasy football, I’d say look to Jameis to do some damage.  Since it isn’t, take the Bengals to cover.

Green Bay Packers (+9) @ Los Angeles Rams

That the Rams are a much better football team than Green Bay is not in dispute.

That having been said,  tepid fans and a negligible home field advantage make giving up 9 points to a Hall of Fame QB is a sucker’s bet.

The Pack covers here.

Cleveland Browns (+8 ½) @ Pittsburgh Steelers

When selecting this week’s picks, I simply could not force my brain to stop coming back to this game.

Pittsburgh is definitely playing better of late and the Browns are….well….exhibiting some very Brownesque tendencies again.

Still, in week 1, Cleveland was an abysmal Tyrod Taylor performance and 4 missed chip shots away from coming away with a win.

A spread this large looks trappy to me which means it probably is but I’m going to hold my nose and take the Browns anyway.

Week 7:  2-2

2018 Record: 15-12-1

Trap Game Record: 4-3

Frey's NFL Picks Week 7: It Can't Get Any Worse ....Right?

Well last week’s 0-3-1 record was the most pitiful display of prognostication since the week prior.

That having been said, my weekly picks differ from my beloved Denver Broncos in three important ways:

1)      I still have a winning record.

2)      A return to competence is likely.

3)      It’s fun to watch me try.

Winston Churchill once said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

The Prime Minister is unhappy with my effort but lauds my persistance.

You can’t see me right now, but I am enthused.  I’m aquiver with anticipation of my next round of picks and brimming with confidence.  And I’m not talking the fake, drummed up braggadocio that we’ve been hearing from Von Miller this week, but real confidence.

I know Von Miller cares, and I bet that he will kick multitudes of butts tonight, but his is a lonely voice among a chorus of behaviors and body languages that scream “here we go again”.

My uncles may have partaken pretty heavy in the leaf back in their days in the Navy during Vietnam, but the proud nautical tradition I enjoy in my blood can tell when a ship is sinking.  

I’m not abandoning the vessel yet, but I’m stealthily edging toward the lifeboat.

I’d pick the Cards to win tonight but they are far too crappy for that type of nonsense.

So let’s pick some real games instead.

Detroit Lions @ Miami Dolphins (+3)

This would be my Admiral Akbar Game of the Week were it not for the fact that Brock Osweiler always poops the bed in the game immediately following an outing where he saves the day.

Moreover, the Lions are largely healthy and, despite their inauspicious 2-3 record, are playing pretty well for their new coach, Rubius Hagrid.

On the other hand, this is a road game, Miami is 4-2, and the Lions are….well…the Lions.

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I had to re-check to make sure this one wasn’t in London given the spread.  I’d be happy taking the fins straight up much less getting 3 points.

Minnesota Vikings (-3 ½) @ New York Jets

Sorry Jets.

The Vikings already had their trap game when they played Buffalo.

The Bills caught them off guard.  The Jets will not.

Vikings roll here.

Dallas Cowboys @ Washington Redskins (-1 ½)

If there is one constant in the treacherous world of prognostication, it is that the Dallas Cowboys will always be overvalued whenever they show the slightest signs of not sucking.

Jerry Jones at his press conference proudly detailing Dallas' resurgence.

“Not Sucking” is not enough to win a road game against a division opponent and heated rival whose 2018 campaign can also be denied as “not sucking”.

It’ll be close, but the skins should win by 2 or more.

New York Giants @ Atlanta Falcons (-4 ½)

And so it comes to this.

Ever since I swore off picking the Bills (win or lose, it mattered not), the New York Giants have become my new kryptonite.

This team is a dumpster fire.

They also keep covering spreads.

But, to paraphrase Dottie Hinson from A League of Their Own, I can’t pick them, and I can’t lay off them.

A more apt comparison might be Norm Peterson's inmability to stop eating at the Hungry Heffer

I know the Falcons defense couldn’t play dead in a western but they really need this game in order to stay relevant.  How this spread can be anything less than 6 ½ is dumbfounding to me.

I’m falling for the trap.

Week 6:  0-3-1

2018 Record: 13-10-1

Trap Game Record: 4-2

Frey's NFL Picks Week 6: Well....Last Week Sure Sucked. But I Got Better!

I’ve often lived under the axiom that if you cannot be a shining example, than become a cautionary tale.

My braggadocio at going 4-0 last week resulted in a resounding 0-4 bitch-slap from karma.

Sorry for the foul mouth (I know that kids read this blog before they call their bookies) but it is important that the truth be spoken.  

Never use a Boromir meme lauding your awesomeness this early in the season.

Now that balance has been restored to the universe, let’s pick some games and get them right this time.

Kansas City Chiefs @ New England Patriots (-3)

Harry Truman once said, “There is nothing new in the world except the history you don’t know.”

For much of the last decade, New England launches out of the gate, trips on their own badoinker, lands face first in the dust, and then pops back up to smack everyone else around for the next 3 months.

I love me some Mahomes, but let’s be honest here my friends.  The rook is due for a letdown and a road game against the Patriots is as good a place as any for it to happen.  

Moreover, Andy Reid seldom comes through in big moments.  Excepting, perhaps, his curling medal from last year’s Olympics.

Congrats to Andy Reid on finally capturing a championship

Take the cheating rat-bastard Bostonians to win and cover.

Los Angeles Rams (-6 ½) @ Denver Broncos

All week long, I keep hearing local radio pundits insist that the Broncos need to run the football more.  

If the defense is in the nickel then run the ball.  

If they stack 8 in the box, then run it anyway because that is what we do best.  

Don’t be tricked into throwing by the defensive scheme, keep pounding the rock!

I love Phil Lindsay.  Freeman is a boss.

But why the $#%& did we pay a QB $18,000,000 a year if launching rookies into a stacked line is a superior alternative to throwing to one of the highest paid receiving corps in the whole freaking league?

The Broncos are done.  Keenum sucks. These clowns are cooked. 

Wade Phillips and his revenge game will go very poorly for the good guys.  

Letting this guy go was almost criminally stupid.

The complete collapse of a once proud franchise will continue unabated.

Jacksonville Jaguars (-2 ½) @ Dallas Cowboys

Tune into any national (and occasionally local) radio show and you will, invariably, hear the big personalities say how much better the NFL is when teams like the Raiders and Cowboys are good.

Nonsense. 

Their fans are insufferable and it’s awesome when they suck.

Take the Jags this week.

Chicago Bears (-2 ½) @ Miami Dolphins

Can you imagine anything more intimidating to an outstanding defense then coming off your bye week and running into Ryan Tannehill?

If you can’t, then you have a lot of problems.

This game looks pretty trappy but the Bears are the correct choice here.

Week 4:  0-4

2018 Record: 13-7

Trap Game Record: 4-1

Frey's NFL Picks Week 5: More Angst. More Excellence.

While I know that most of you would love to talk about my impressive 4-0 record last week or, perhaps, my robust 13-3 mark this season, I’m not going to do that.

Instead, I am going to continue my rant from last week about my beloved Broncos.

Watching us play the Chefs was like sitting in a movie theater watching that movie about the US Olympic Hockey Team in 1980 except in this particular film, Herb Brooks leans over to assistant coach Craig Patrick and says:

                ‘Our plan of attack has kept the Soviets off-balance for almost the entire game.  But they are expecting us to continue to do what works.  Let’s change it up and start doing things that don’t work.  If that doesn’t do the trick, we can always give up the lead late in the game and then go back to what was working before but do it in a really vanilla and uncreative way that is unlikely to still work.'

Dwight Eisenhower said that, in war, plans are worthless but planning is indispensible.

We had a good game plan but sometimes you need to step back and look at what is actaully going on  instead of adhering to preconceptions or running the numbers.

Don’t be the idiot who throws the football from the 2 yard line in the Super Bowl when Marshawn Lynch has been violating the Patriots defense with impunity.

The ubiquitous buffoonery from Bolles and the continuation of rubbish QB play notwithstanding, this extremely important game was ours to lose.  Of course, we did just that.

Denver Broncos (+1) @ New York Jets

I know, I know.  I just got done trashing the Broncos. 

But have you actually seen the Jets?

If there is one type of team that Denver matches up well against its teams that are really, really bad.

If the Broncos lose this game to this team, heads are going to roll and everyone in the organization knows it.

The orange and blue win here.  I hope…..

Arizona Cardinals @ San Francisco 49ers (-3 ½)

It causes me physical pain to even mention that a game this crappy is even being played.

Let us speak no more of this.

Baltimore Ravens (-3) @ Cleveland Browns

It is important to note that in order to be a true fan of a bad organization from an inferior city (Jets/Browns/Bills/etc), one must surrender their critical faculties and equate the absence of sucking with actual competence.

The New Browns Media Campaign 2018

Well done Browns.  You didn’t go 0-16 this year, almost won a couple games against teams that took you lightly, and valiantly choked away a contest against a terrible Raiders team.

It’s a step in the right direction considering the historical ineptitude of your recent past, but not enough to get this type of respect against a solid Ravens squad.

Take the Rat-birds to cover here.

New York Giants @ Carolina Panthers (-6)

Riddle me this good readers:

Why is it that a 1-3 Giants team whose signature win this season was against a mediocre team led by a guy named “Blaine Gabbert” but is still only a 6 point road underdog to a solid team like Carolina?

The Panthers beat good teams at home by more than six points.  They should stomp these buffoons right?

There is one answer and one answer alone:

I know I shouldn’t so it, but I’m falling for it.  Carolina should roll here.

Week 4:  4-0

2018 Record: 13-3

Trap Game Record: 4-0