The coffee shop I’m in has Katrina & The Waves’s 1985 hit ‘Walking on Sunshine’ playing as I walk in. Something about how brassy the horns sound in the call-and-answer part where she’s singing, “..and don’t it feel good?”; this is probably the least shy song of all time. It must’ve required confidence to release such a loud, not-ultra-poetic song back in ’85. But it was a hit! The Lion’s are perhaps this NFL season’s version of “Walking on Sunshine”. At any rate, through the first 8 weeks The Lions definitely epitomize that song’s central thrust. Their play hasn’t been the most consistent force in football, but they’re getting good wins in different ways: they’ve had one where they dominated from start to finish, they’ve had a comeback from a late deficit, they’ve won games when they’ve played kinda poorly and things weren’t going their way. We know how to win. And we’re getting healthier. Now the coffee shop is playing Donovan’s 1966 hit ‘Season of the Witch’. Check this out: instead of the “season of the witch”, like ol’ Donovan was crooning about, what if this one is the season of the Lion? Right? This is a bye week, and we’re sticking with stream of consciousness-style writing. It’s not laziness if you’re doing it for artistic reasons. I think that’s one of the most alluring parts of creative endeavors. Think about that excellent Donovan word swticheroo I just pulled plus the Katrina & The Waves thing before that. Think of those little nuggets. Gosh this blog is so good.
Speaking of nuggets, I wanna talk about the best NFL commercial I’ve ever seen. Maybe not the best TV ad overall, but at least home to one of the funniest line readings in all of recent commercialdom: the one with Andy Reid across the fast food table from Mahomes and The Jake from The State Farm (I say it like a Russian because I refuse to play these games for advertisers like these characters are part of my life). Reid asks them to re-explain the basics of bundling different insurances but only does it to gain access to Pat Mahomes’s nuggets. He says, “explain it again… with those nuggies” in a way that is just perfect. They should have a CLIO award for Funniest 2-5 Seconds. Do they? I don’t know much about the CLIO awards. I’m only like 80% sure they’re capitalized like that. Not gonna look it up. The coffee shop is now playing The Psychedelic Furs’s 1982 song ‘Love My Way’. So we’re doing the column my way. Time for Bye Week Pickstravaganza, which is just the picks column with an extra pick because I can’t pick a Lions game. And also it has a special name. I want special credit because oh dear, there were some tough picks this week.
WEEK NINE’S CALLS TO BANNERS
Miami (+1.5) @ Chiefs, but Frankfurt am Main — The coffee shop is now playing Carole King’s seminal 1971 hit ‘I Feel the Earth Move’. I don’t know if it’s justified or not, but the Dolphins fancy themselves a Super Bowl-contending squad. Anything less, in their eyes, and the season would be a disappointment. Time for them to make us feel the Earth move, so to speak. They can become AFC front-runners, and I think they will. This is their chance to take it to a Chiefs squad that has showed the formula by which to beat it: aggressive pass rush and tight coverage out wide with one safety dedicated to bottling up Kelce, rely on an effective ground game to take time (and further, limit turnovers) and keep Mahomes off the field and out of rhythm as much as possible. I think Miami can expand on, and accomplish, the goals in those tactics and put together a good game plan. I think they’ll be hungrier, so Miami is the pick to pull the upset. If they’re giving points, all the better. I should note that “gimme those nuggies” gave me pause in making this pick. Also, the Chiefs are good and I’ve barely ever even thought-picked against them in the last ~5 years. Still, going Dolphins here. Either way, let’s hope for a playoff rematch.
Vikings (+3.5) @ Falcons — I’m now out of the coffee shop, so no random playlist from which I can make nauseatingly corny connections to the pick paragraphs. I don’t think the Falcons are so great. I get the feeling they’ll be taking the Vikings lightly because Kirk Cousins is out. I think there’s not a lot of tape on rookie Vike QB Jaren Hall, but everyone who talks/writes/podcasts about him says he’s better and waaay more poised than your typical rook. As good as Cousins was playing, I think this adversity galvanizes the Vikings and makes them play more cohesively. Gimme the Vikings plus those points.
Rams (+3.5) @ Packers — I was a little confused by this line, if I’m being honest. The Rams have played tougher teams than the Pack and looked better most of the year. Despite their record, there’s undeniable talent on the Rams’s roster that can break a game wide open, quickly. Stafford will really be amped up for this chance to stick it to the Packer fans in Lambeau for what may be his final game there. A late-in-the-weekend-developing story was that Puka Nacua is gonna suit up. I think I like the Rams being road dogs here.
Seahawks (+5.5) @ Ravens — This is more a pick against the Ravens, and there’s not a lot of solid reasoning behind it (what else is new), more just a vague feeling about up/down and regression and yada yada. This is a matchup of the only two teams to beat the Lions this year, and although the Ravens beat us way worse, the Seahawks beat us at home. And it wasn’t a game in which we made a billion mistakes, they just executed better. I think they’re really good. The Ravens are too, but after their remarkable triumph against us and a long road trip to Arizona, I think this particular week they’ll look a little more like the slugfest-prone Ravens we saw in the early season. In that particular brand of slugfest, I like the Seahawks’s chances to win, certainly to keep it close. Road dogs ride again! Let’s take the Hawks and lay that Vegas Zone line.
Cowboys (+3) @ Eagles — The Eagles are, at least currently, the class of the NFC. They’re devoid of any glaring weaknesses. When they’re clicking on offense they’re nigh unstoppable. And I can’t pick against them in NFC East games that matter, at least not until they start losing them regularly. They love being kings of their (usually pretty good) mountain, and Dallas is the only challenger this year that has the horses to keep it close. So I’m zagging on that predictable closeness and saying the Eagles have themselves a good ol’ Statement Game this week against the ‘Boys. I think Dallas is talented but just not quite tough enough for these situations. This is a critical mid-season division games (at The Linc, of course) that could make them NFC front-runners in a lot of people’s eyes. I don’t think they have that gear yet. Being a little injury-hampere on an otherwise great defense seems like an Achilles heel for this otherwise pretty good Cowboy team. We will soar on the wings of Eagles to a comfortable W here.
REVIEW CORNER PRESENTED BY THE USUAL SPONSORS, CIGS AND MICKEY
Last week saw us go, 3-1-1, with Philly and Washington giving us the season’s first push. That brings the season total to a respectable 25-13-1. Nearing the midway point of the season, picks-wise and luck-wise, we’re feeling pretty good. Luck’s had her/its (At the risk of getting all “gender police” in the middle of the Disney and R.J. Reynold’s segment, I feel compelled to say that Luck is definitely not a him.) moments of mystery, and as stated before, this week’s slate of games felt tough to pick. Not a lot of surprisingly off-feeling lines out there. And the lines that did seem a bit spooky, you could easily talk me out of because the NFL’s beginning to see some significant injuries as the season rolls on. But c’est la vie in the figuraitvely-high-but-literally-low-stakes world of hobby-level NFL gambling pick publication. We resume our more traditional schedule and more Lions-focused perspective next week. Maybe a Psych Check as the Leos head into what everybody seems to be alleging is an easy part of the season. Fie on that, I say. I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Be good my friends, Auf Wiedersehen!
(P.S. note: my alarm came on as I was finishing my final edit before publishing this column and it was “Fa Fa” by Guster. I didn’t give Guster their due until they’d been around a while. They had a really fun sound and put out some a few seriously good songs. It hit me as it was playing: for me, “Fa Fa’ is good song to wrap up work to. If you’re finishing a medium task, maybe cue up “Fa Fa’ by Guster and try to time if for your ending. Strong-sounding song, despite the un-strong-sounding title.)
