Super Bowl Homeboy

…let us plead.

With many government entities trying to shut down the corrupt world of online gambling it’s amazing to me that I still manage to place bets on a daily basis. I have always been into underdog stories like Over The Top, so I enjoy the fact that a shady Caribbean bookie can still take on the US government and win.  One small caveat to these picks, I have been atrocious at NFL gambling over the last two years, like Denny Green in Arizona bad, so don’t necessarily follow these picks. Home team in Caps:

bengals (-2) over RAVENS

I hate taking the road favorites because home field in the NFL is (read was) important.  However, last season the listless Bengals only showed the faintest sign of a heart beat in the two weeks they played these purple wannabes.  If you want to get pumped for the bengals season visit here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yacGib1nPqQ

DOLPHINS (+3) over the bretts:

I know the blow hards on the NFL shows have mad this their BIG pick this week on, but those bearcats just stole the pick from me.   I love home dogs and I think the Jets are not quite ready to put it together here, not to mention if Bill Parcells was judging me on a daily basis I think my productivity at work would sky rocket due to the “Oh god I don’t want Bill to yell at me until I shit my pants in front of the guys” factor. Plus, if all else fails bet against Favre.

PATRIOTS (-15.5) over CHIIEEEEEEEEFFFFFFFSSSSSSSSS

The Chiefs have a terrible team in a terrible city with terrible coaches and terrible uniforms.  Well not really, just a terrible team with a terrible coach, and an average player age of about 23 years old.   Tom Brady shreds these guys like I will be doing to some cheese to make a  plate of Nachos for the Sunday Night Game.

houston (+7) over STEELERS

I think the Steel wins this game, but their offensive line is going to get hammered by Mario Williams and his bro’s on the D line.  The Steelers offensive line is about as legit as Oprah’s Book Club, meaning I want no part of it.

jacksonville (-3) over TITANS

Jacksonville is my AFC pick for the super bowl (write it down) they have a smart quarter back, MJD, an awesome front 7, and more players on life support than any team in the NFL right now I looked up the stats.   Plus I think Jeff Fisher has so much confidence in Vince Young he picked up 5 white kids from the local high school all-star game to play as his receivers this year.

lions (-3) over FALCONS

If someone farts in the Georgia Dome and nobody is there to smell it, did it actually happen?   I think that’s the way Arthur Blank put this team together.

BILLS (-1) over SEAHAWKS

Nate Burleson is the Seahawks number 1 receiver this week.   If anyone remembers when he was the vikings number 1 the year after trading Moss you know that Seattle is more vulnerable than a 14 year old boy at a NAMBLA convention.

SAINTS (-3) over the fuckinqueers

If anyone remembers the Saints first game back after Katrina it was a game won purely on emotion, and the fact that Michael Vick was playing for the other team.   Well this time around it doesn’t seem Gustav packed the punch that all of America’s news channels were hoping for (natural disaster=big ratings) but I think the ESPN bull shit machine can artificially make this game seem like it has similar significance this time around.

rams (+8.5) over EAGLES

I have never liked Donovan Mcnabb, not sure why, I never cared enough to really dig into my soul and ask the question though.   Here is one reason though, his receivers always suck.  I think the Rams have an improved pass rush and will disrupt DSmack enough to change the game.   Bet the under here as well, these teams are about as exciting as watching childhood videos of people you have never met before.

cowboys (-6) over BRWONS

Tony Romo is an idiot, obvious by his choice of female companionship, he is also headed down the road of taking the “Mr. Attention” tag from Brett Favre.  Anytime you date someone who tips off paparazzi on here whereabouts and talks to her father more often than she talks to you, you’re looking for media attention.  However, I think Tony will make the Browns regret the fact that they didn’t upgrade their secondary in the off-season to the tune of 4 TD’s.

cardinals (-2.5) over SAN FRANSISCO

If anyone caught last years Monday night double-header to open the season you saw the 20-17 snoozer that these two teams put up.   It literally was the worst non-Bengal football game I saw last year.   So what does the NFL, set em up again for a week 1 match up.  If you actually bet on this game you have to get a recommendation for a therapist and go visit tomorrow after work…before the vikes game.

bears (+9.5) against the COLTS

Colts win, Bears make it semi-close.   Mannings first game back, no Jeff Saturday, Marvin Harrison disappearing into anonymity and the Bears doing just enough.   Will most likely be an extremely boring game.

RAIDERS (+3) over broncos

Who cares, you will probably be asleep for the second half anyway.

vikes (+2) over PACKERS

SOUND THE HORN BRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRR!   Vikes injure Aaron Rodgers by removing his spleen through his nostrils rendering him lifeless.  On the following Drive T-Jax connects with Sid the Kid on a bomb down the field and the Packers fans burn the Packer Front Office at the stake after the game in a not suitable for children execution.

ENJOY THE SEASON!

With the shocking new development out of Green Bay that Jet Favre won’t be having his number 4 retired at the opening Monday Night game (I guess he’s busy washing his truck), ESPN has decided to pull the plug on sending all 3000 of their employees to Lambeau for opening night.  “Oh Dear! With out a lame pregame ceremony how will we find the story lines to entice Joe Six Pack and his kids to watch our big Monday night telecast?????”  Well ESPN you should get used to setting your sites on Eden Prairie, MN where Jared Allen and Pat Williams will be writing the headlines for you all season.

“Playing Green Bay on Monday night to start the season – that’s everything you want,” [Jared] Allen said. “Hopefully, I can put my helmet square in the back of his spine. If I can do that and knock the ball loose, it’ll be a good day.”

“They had a nice year last year, but they don’t understand that Brett made those guys better than they were,” [Pat] Williams said. “He has the game all figured out, and you’ve got to factor all that into the equation … People think it’s the system, but it ain’t no damn system. Brett Favre just knows where his guys are going to be at all times, and I don’t think Aaron Rodgers has got that yet.”

I’m in the camp that anyone with a name that can be used for both a girl or a boy probably sucks at football…last time I checked I know a ton of chicks named Erin (don’t spell check me nerd).

Skeptical as to whether the team of destiny will stumble in its quest for success as the real opening ceremonies get underway tonight?

Luckily there is, always has been and always will be one member of the Minnesota sports press who tells it like it fucking is: Sid the Elder. (Not to be confused with The Kid).

Here is what Picasso with a keyboard had to say about the chemistry master, JA69, in his latest, and may I add, dead-on, masterpiece:

“The guys really got along well, and the chemistry was good,” said Hutchinson, who came to the Vikings after Seattle failed to match an offer sheet extended to him in March 2006. “I think so far, out of the three years that I’ve been here, so far this is shaping out to be the best in that regard.”

Hutchinson said former Chiefs defensive end Jared Allen, who was traded to the Vikings and signed for six years and $73.3 million in April, will further improve the chemistry.

“Yeah, [Allen] will help,” Hutchinson said. “Not only is he a great player on the field, but he’s going to be a great guy in the locker room to help build and maintain that chemistry that I was talking about.”

If you can’t smell the air in Mankato, it tastes like camrederie - medium rare. This is the most explosive display of unification since Denzel led Sunshine and Julius out of the Gettysburg Graveyard. I can only imagine what Chilly cooked up behind closed doors.

Our nation’s bicentennial beckoned from a winter wonderland of patriotic fervor in the rugged frozen stretch of upper midwest known as Minnesota. Home of kings, pillaging patio for Vi-kings, the bloodthirsty pride of purple was as yet blissfully unaware of the dawning foreign impotence of the Carter administration or the lurking activism of Ralph Nader’s restrictive Raiders and their quest for ubiquitous seatbelt regulation.

Vikings fans didn’t wear fucking seatbelts!!!! This was THEIR team. This was THEIR country. And 1976 was just 4 days away. The Vikes knew how they wanted to enter it, damn it.

In fact, this was their universe. The Viking I probe was set to land on Mars, and the Viking X probe was set to punish the foreign cavities of all other Super Bowl 10 wannabes. Watergate hangover? The Vikings had a god damn morning hard-on. 10-0 start. Eighth division titles in nine tries. MVP of the league and offensive player of the year in Fran Tarkenton. Hungry and wiser after their Super Bowl loss to the Steelers the year before. The Vikings were hotter than Elton John in a Rod Stewart mask. (…or in Rod Stewart.)

Only one team stood between the Minnesotamerica Vikings and football immorality: RRRRRRoger Staubach and the Dallas Cowboys. With a minute to go at the Met, Minneapolis began to look forward to the reckoning.

…then the Hail Mary happened. This, for all of you jackhammers without access to The Wikipedia or a cripplingly alcoholic storytelling uncle, was the real day the music died. THE worst moment in the history of a team known for worst moments. This is Rob Schneider in a movie that DIDN’T get released. This was Keith and Mick drinking enough booze to land them in Saturday detox. This was the Joker ripping off Batman’s mask to discover beneath it….A FUCKING BATMAN MASK.

My father, then reveling in his senior year of college and eagerly anticipating the Vikings soon-to-materialize quest to erase the communist capture of South Vietnam from the public record, looked on as the Staubach Hail Mary played itself out. Before he realized it, a young Paul Allen had just unleased the petulent scream of an adolescent girl sporting a maxed out Mastercard. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”

My father had the dream TAKEN FROM HIM.

As I grew up in my father’s home, an autographed authentic football signed by none oher than the 1975 regular season MVP, Tarkenton, sat immortalized in my house. Upon my reluctant acceptance of the Vikings legend, my father bequeathed to me that very football.

“Son,” my father said, his voice and spirit lost to the windy expanse of Metropolitan stadium so many weeks gone and years left abandoned, straining as if a sports-induced mesothelioma haunted his breath, “We carry this burden, because we must. The Jews have waited thousands of years for a savior who might never come. So too, shall it be written.”

My youthful idealism in flux, I took his ball and I mounted it atop my moderately overpriced armoire as I pondered such a lamented existence. “Save yourself! No…grow some balls,” I calmly assured myself.

Then came 1998. Then came 2000. Then came Tempe and Ticey and Demetrius. Then came Randy’s Raiders and fumble-pepper and Red, and “Super Bowl Homeboy” and Love Boat and pretty much every draft pick not named ADRIIIAAAAAAANNN. Then came so many tears, that one day, I forgot how to cry.

***

But now….Ooh dare I say it, the day of salvation is upon us. No history and no wisdom and no sanity and no naysayer and no mathematician and no liberal-media-Packer-apologist-anti-American-sabertooth-swindler can deny the sultry brush of greatness wafting through the Sex Panthered ’stache of Chilly the Kid.

No nattering nabob of negativity can debate the HOT 69 license plate of the camoflauged pickup of the decade, Jared Allen.

No doubter or heckler, no rival or twista can help but blast from the mountains his secret collection of Robbie WIlliams’ greatest hits as the leader of the Sharper INTmage Nation screams his moniker from the lakes of Minnetonka to the fields of Mankato: “MILLL-ENNNNN-IIII-UMMMMM!!!!!!!”

And through it all shall rise our puka-shelled patron of god’s will embodied in the flesh of man.

T. JAX. Crunchy as a cereal. Ruthless as a serial. Fired up as Nick Punto at a backyard slip n’ slide.

So I stand here before you, the son of a battered man. I stand up because more than three decades after Richard Nixon, the Dallas Cowboys, OPEC and ABBA tried to kill America, three of those four still fucking are. I stand up because the dream IS NOT DEAD. The dream is as alive today as it was when FDR spoke of the freedom from fear. It is as alive as it was when Reagan yelled to tear down that wall.

For though Scar slayed Mufasa, Simba rose from the murderous ruins to enact vengeance.

TAVARIS JACKSON. “YOU ARE MORE THAN YOU HAVE BECOME. YOU MUST TAKE YOUR PLACE IN THE CIRCLE OF LIFE.”

Tony Romo shall be slain. Tom Brady shall be slain. And all that can be good will be good again — will be good for the very first time. For, mere days after Senator John McCain’s decision to deliver his nomination speech on the night of NFL’s 2008 kickoff reverberates into the inauguration of his competitor, so too will history be inaugurated and true independence from tyranny and the shackles of injustice be shed by fathers and their sons.

I leave you with Brad Childress’ February 1, 2009, pregame speech:

Good afternoon. In less than an hour, an offense from here will join a defense from around the locker room And you will be launching the largest downfield aerial battle in the history of mankind. “Mankind.” That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Super Bowl and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Freedom from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… and from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Super Bowl will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the Vikings Nation declared in one voice: “We will not go quietly into the night!” We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

Well we are here on the dawn of another Vikings season. Once again the players are all cruising down South 169, passing the Jolly Green Giant sign in Le Seuer and being greeted into Mankato by the giant Happy Chef. Those are the same landmarks that Koren Robinson saw fly by his window in a drunken blur at about 130 mph and Fred Smoot saw while planning the Lake Minnetonka boat trip that would earn our franchise a national media shit storm. Well those landmarks haven’t changed, but pretty much everything about the Vikings team has over the past couple years.

One other thing that hasn’t changed is my undying pre-season optimism for the squad. This is my favorite time of every NFL season. Its given rise to dreams of Troy Williamson’s off-season eye conditioning drills giving way to 1500 yard seasons, new rookie defensive ends like Erasmus James and Kenechi Udeze wreaking havoc on opposing quarterbacks and the free agent signing of savvy veteran corners like Dale Carter, Chris Dishman and Jimmy Hitchock finally giving us a secondary capable of winning in the playoffs. Well all of those hopes and dreams, along with plenty others, came to a screeching halt once the games actually began to mean something. Continue Reading »

Check out the photo of Jared Allen wearing his NFL fan costume. I think he did a pretty good job on this little ditty.

This was taken from his Facebook photo gallery, and the album’s title was, “I can’t believe these fools pay for this — Halloween ‘07″.

In any case, I’m really excited for Jared Allen to take it the next level in Minneapolis. Here is a little taste of some other do-gooders and their reaction to the utopia of the north:

• Dwight “Stairwell” Smith
• Randy Moss
• My personal favorite, Eddie Griffin, RIP.