NFL Picks 2012 - Week 13

So far this season, I haven't said anything about the NFL and I find that just plain unacceptable. I think most of it is fairly self-explanatory. Begrudging kudos to Robert Griffin III, begrudging credit to the Texans, credit due for the Atlanta Falcons, aka the Notre Dame Fighting Irish of the NFL.

What really irks me though is the idea that the Jacksonville Jaguars might retain Mike Mularkey even if Gene Smith is fired. WHAT?? Mularkey is just not cut out for the gig. He proved it in Buffalo and for all his nice words, he hasn't learnt anything in his second go around. He strikes me as someone who coaches scared. H was totally unwilling to give Blaine Gabbert the bit, either that or he failed to properly coach the kid that it was okay to take a chance. Either way, the principal reason he as brought in was to drag Gabbert kicking and screaming out of his comfort zone, something he categorically failed at. The fact that now Chad Henne has come out all guns blazing racking up the points and yardage is an indictment of Mularkey's inconsistency. it is no surprise given the shenanigans plainly evident with the unreliable Falcons offense prior to this year.

Couple his failure at the coaching level with his ludicrous preseason declaration that players who discussed their injuries with the media would be fined and you have a recipe for a guy who just doesn't get what being the head man in this era of football means. I don't have the belief that the Jaguars can move forward with this man as head coach and I'm not even sure why they hired him for that position in the first place.

Picks after the jump.

NCAA College Football Picks - Championship Week

Sadly I haven’t managed to devote the time I need to follow college football as closely as I’d like this season but even so I still have plenty of opinions! Isn’t that always the way? The first and most important thing going around of course is the Notre Dame Fighting Irish finally making it to the Championship Game after more than 20 years in the cold. How tragic and ironic that they should get there the year that famed Notre Dame homer (I kid) Beano Cook should pass away. I’d certainly have loved to hear his insight as although other parts of his expertise had begun to fade, you could always rely on him for top notch historical value regarding the Irish. Also ironic is that this is the year I managed to enroll one James Macswiney to pick games with me. Of course he dropped off halfway through, too lazy to check his Facebook but I know he would have picked his catholic brothers every single week in any case.

In the Pac-12 I think everyone except Colin Cowherd is happy that Lane Kiffin and the USC Trojans had such a disappointing season. It really couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, right? He won’t get fired, at least I’d be pretty shocked and I have a fairly bad feeling that once they get through the scholarship issues, they will be bouncing back harder than ever. Also disappointing was Oregon – just one win away from the title game, a los against a team they dominated in the past two years. Our own connections to the team notwithstanding, their dynamic approach to the game has been refreshing all these years. Up in Seattle, I am not on the bandwagon that is looking to oust Steve Sarkisian, even after the debacle of losing to Washington State. Considering where Ty Willingham sunk the Huskies to, I think Sarkisian has done a decent job returning the UW to relevancy.

Several conferences just failed to show up this season. It was the usual suspects too – the Big East was a non-entity once again, the ACC flopped when it came to big time matchups. The suspended Ohio State aside, the Big Ten was fairly anonymous also. I believe the Buckeyes though could stand toe to toe with any team in the nation. Urban Meyer was surely a canny hire there. The Big 12 on the other has had more ups and downs than Ted Mosby’s love life. I don’t think any of those teams, even the surprising Kansas State could have handled the title game anyway. As for the SEC… well, they are just the SEC, business as usual. I hope they are not too smug over there.

Picks after the jump.

Super Bowl XLVI Pick sponsored by Studio Yukupo

I haven't had time to write reviews for all the shows I've been watching since the turn of the year, unfortunately but I simply couldn't let this week's episode of Glee pass without comment - quite possibly the stupidest episode of Glee I've ever seen which is saying something because there have been tons of really stupid episodes from that show. As we all know, Kurt is the avatar of show runner Ryan Murphy and I'm presuming the ridiculously one-dimensional pantomime villain Sebastian is an avatar of some enemy of Murphy's. I really thought the Karofsky story last year was badly handled - way over the top and hammy, very special episode-like. What they've started here is worse and I don't have faith they have any intention of fixing it.

I thought we had all agreed that theme episodes were dumb. Multiple characters claimed in this episode that Michael Jackson was like, the single biggest influence in their life. But wait, I thought that was Lady Gaga or Madonna or some other singer gay people love! Just personally, I believe totally that Jackson was a kiddy fiddler and we are in no way far removed enough from his death to view him in the same light we do Lewis Carroll. To bear witness to all the posthumous fawning from the mouths of the 'kids' was really creepy.

One of the really major problems though is that the quality of acting is flat out poor. Part of the reason is that the show still can't settle upon a tone and I'm willing to guess that there's a lot of really awful direction but I know some of these people can do better. I'm a big fan of how Dianna Agron looks but she hasn't changed her facial expression or monotone voice in three years. A lot of the couple just don't pass the eye test, theya re very, very forced. Sam/Mercedes, Brittany/Santana, Will/Emma and now I'm really starting to feel Rachel/Finn are just phony as all hell. The more I think about it, the more I know that what this show needs is to boot Will and replace him with Eric Taylor. The only reason I still watch is abstract hope that they'll work Mike back into a storyline but I suspect they're done with him.

Pick after the jump.

NFL Picks Championship Week sponsored by Studio Yukupo

Many Americans view China as an enemy, some kind of threat so I really shake my head that the most expensive film in Chinese history is an epic about how white people saved China and romanced their women. Fuck you, Zhang Yimou. for allowing your pursuit of money and Western acclaim to corrupt your ethics and pride. When will the average Chinese wake up and realize that they have 5k years of history and culture and don't have to copy everything America does? iPhones aren't even the best kind of smartphone, they suck, why are they so worshipped? Also why is there this rash of films about white people providing salvation for the helpless little yellowpeople after they've been ravaged by war, such as "Emperor", an upcoming film starring the formerly great Matthew Fox who of course, takes a Japanese lover? It's like the old saying goes, wherever and whenever a film is set, studios will always find a way to make a white guy the star. I was going to post a recipe of the delicious, indeed, sensuous pistachio chicken I cooked last night but saw this news floating around the web and just got fed up again. Maybe it's time to get extreme with some of these fools.

Picks after the jump.

NFL Picks Divisional Playoffs sponsored by Studio Yukupo and NCAA College Football Picks Bowl Championship Week

I started reading Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch, the Russian supernatural thriller that was adapted into the most successful Russian movie of all time and it's pretty fantastic. There are strong references to destiny and pre-ordained events in the course of the book, partly revolving as it does around the star-crossed love between two magicians, a romance created by a meddling sorceror who tampered with the road of fate. The very tenuous link between that and what's happening here is, is any of Tim Tebow's run as quarterback of the Denver Broncos pre-ordained? There were an awful lot of 3:16 related coincidences stemming from his latest miracle, a passage referring to the most doubted person ever in human history. The answer of course i no, because first of all, miracles don't happen eight times in three months and secondly, he and the Broncos are going to get splattered against the wall this weekend by the Patriots and I am most definitely not saying that in the hopes of putting the reverse-jinx hex on New England. Definitely not.

Picks after the jump.

NFL Picks Wild Card Playoffs sponsored by Studio Yukupo and NCAA College Football Picks Bowl Week 3

I started losing interest in the middle towards the end of the season and a lot of it had to with the treatment of Tim Tebow. I think everyone gets at this point that he is a limited player but the attitude that nearly all of these pundits and ex-professionals in the media have towards, the poisonous contempt is so brazen and what's worth, they lie about it. They'll invent caveats and qualifiers like, "Oh, I'd love him to marry my daughter, hur hur" which are blatantly hollow and barely disguising the level of loathing they hold for him. The vile epithets spewed by Bill Maher went uncontested. What did Tebow do to these people? Why am I expected to hate Tebow but love James Harrison, a woman beater and steroid user? It's the kind of thing which turned me away from having any interest in the NBA and large swathes of big time European football.

That's why I take such joy in seeing a team loaded with idiots and villains like the Jets flop so miserably. I can't get enough of that - not to say that Greg McElroy did the right thing talking about it. That's the worst kind of profiteering - setting himself up for a career in media as he knows his football career won't get off the ground.

Picks after the jump.

NFL Picks Week Seventeen sponsored by Studio Yukupo and NCAA College Football Picks Bowl Week 2

Super Early 2012 Projections
It's way too early to even be thinking about this considering some teams don't have coaches, we don't have any idea yet how the draft will shake out, we don't know if a team might lose a key player to free agency (note that it never works the other way; losing a free agent hurts a team far more than it helps a team to gain one). With that said, what have we learnt from watching these teams all year?

NFC East
Basically, nothing. All the teams in this division, even the Redskins have the potential to be very strong but bad attitude from players stymie their efforts. Next year promises to shake out as tight as this one.

AFC East
Depending on their head coaching hire and QB status, you have to like the Dolphins to make a playoff charge - Good form late in the season usually means big things next year and I thought they were better than people thought at the start of this one anyway. The Jets meanwhile will continue to get worse unless we see a seismic shift in philosophy. Rex Ryan talks too much and won't last long that way.

More and picks after the jump.