College Football Picks 9/30/2009

That's how we bounce back (sort of).  Underdogs South Carolina, Iowa, Oregon, Southern Miss and Virginia Tech made me look like a genius, while Florida State, Illinois, Clemson, and Arkansas reminded me of how big a dummy I can be.

Power Poll Rankings of the Best 32 Teams In The Land: Week 3

The Browns have a quarterback controversy (with Nobody holding a slight edge over both Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson), Chad Pennington is out for the season, and New York has two very good football teams.  If it wasn't for that last part, I would say it's any odd-numbered year of this decade, but since both the Giants and the Jets are good, it must be Tuesday in 2009, which means it's time for POWER POLL RANKINGS!!!

Holy shit...

Diminishing Skills is on Deadspin.  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

WTF Brady Quinn?

Did anyone else find it strange that in the second quarter of the Browns' 34-3 defeat at the hands of the Ravens, right after Jerome Harrison broke a 17-yard run to the Baltimore 48, Brady Quinn rushed everyone to the line for a first down-and-ten-yards-to-go QB sneak up the middle?  I turned the game off at that point (yes, out of disgust, but also because my girlfriend's grandparents had just arrived for lunch and I didn't want to swear and bite my hat in front of them), and when I saw later that Quinn was pulled for Derek Anderson, I assumed it had to be immediately after that play call (unfortunately not, however, as Quinn was allowed to finish the first half).  I just can't imagine any scenario in which that play makes sense.  And why didn't the other players stop him or call timeout if that's what he was calling out?  Maybe he just got scared or something and as soon as the ball was snapped he jumped forward.  Regardless, it made me laugh out loud, and is definitely the highlight of what has been a truly magical Browns season.  (Can they just fire Mangini now and save us the 3 years of disappointment?) 

Lost Money and Earned Regrets: College Football Recap Week 4

What a weekend.  Two top 5 teams (Ole Miss and Penn State) fell, while Houston kept their BCS hopes alive.  Oregon proved they aren't as bad as people thought, while also showing Cal isn't as good as people thought and Boise State just may be much better than people thought.  LSU ugly-slugged their way to a win again, while Florida and Texas destroyed far inferior competition.  Virginia Tech asserted themselves as the premier ACC team, while Florida State fell to their second consecutive in-state foe.

NFL Picks: Week 3

Yowza.  Between my NFL picks and my college football picks, I'm in so deep that I've got guys named Nunzio after my foreskin.  Hopefully I can hold them off for one more week, because I'm having a hell of time trying to scare up a Mohel in Washington Court House.

The QB Class of 2007: Worst of the Decade?

Considering the struggles of the top two quarterbacks taken in the 2007 NFL Draft--Brady Quinn and JaMarcus Russell--, and that Kevin Kolb--the third quarterback selected in 2007--looked about as bad as someone can throwing for 391 yards, I started wondering if the quarterback class of '07 is the worst of the past ten years.  To find out, I looked over the quarterbacks selected in each draft from 1999 to 2008, and then rated each player and averaged out those ratings to determine the average value of each draft year.  To read more about how I came up with the ratings, go to the bottom of the page.  To see the crazy spreadsheet I used to determine all of this, go here.  The results are as follows, from best to worst.  Enjoy.

College Football Picks 9/24/2009: MattyWill Edition

MattyWill is back to make his picks this week, and I was hoping that he may have helped you a out a little bit better than I did last week, but unfortunately he went 7-12-1, same as me.  So as of right now, the season stands in a bitter, ugly, 0-0-1 tie between the two of us.  Let's hope for some improvement this week.

College Football Picks 9/23/2009

Yikes.  Other than Florida State over BYU, I would have  been better off flipping a coin last week, and the only lock about my locks of the week is that they will lose.  You can still get rich reading this; just make sure you do the exact opposite of what I'm suggesting.

Power Poll Rankings of the Best 32 NFL Teams In The Land: Week 2

The Monday Night Football game just ended 2 hours ago (approximately), so that can only mean one thing: more Power Poll Rankings!!!  (Note: last week's rank is in parentheses.)

An Experiment

Rank the following in order of most probable to least probable, with 1 representing the most likely outcome and 3 representing the least likely.

• Peyton Manning will throw for 300 yards tonight.
• The Miami Dolphins will beat the Colts by more than 30 points, and Peyton Manning will throw for 300 yards.
• The Miami Dolphins will beat the Colts by more than 30 points.

Let me know how you rank them and then I'll let you know if you're right or not.  

Lost Money and Earned Regrets: College Football Recap Week 3 (Box Score Edition)

Full disclosure: besides the last two minutes of the Buckeyes game and overhearing a guy talking about Washington beating USC at the Cincinnati Oktoberfest, I did not have a lot of exposure to college football this weekend.  I missed the Thursday and Friday night games due to work, and then missed all of Saturday's actions (including highlights) due to some debauchery in the Queen City.  Therefore, all of my comments are based on box scores, so if you saw a game and the numbers don't really tell the whole story, let me know that I'm full of it.  Also, I'm going to rip off Bill Simmons (more?) and start a new section where I predict the lines for game involving the top 25.  If you don't like it (or even if you do), let me know, and I'll adjust accordingly.

Weekend INTERNET Road Trip

Since I actually interact with people (ok, person) on the weekends, I won't (usually) be able to write the 2000 word posts you've come to ignore so fondly.  In their place, I'm bringing back the INTERNET Road Trip, a look at interesting sports-related things found everywhere on the World Wide Web but here.  Enjoy.

• Bill Simmons's Week 2 NFL Picks column might be his worst effort in at least a year.  I hope he's not getting into another funk like he did when he was writing for Jimmy Kimmel because of his upcoming book release.  His recent work has been his best yet, and it would be a shame for him to start mailing it in again (especially since I don't think he has another rebound in him).
• Football Outsiders on why Auburn may, in fact, be quite good.  (I told you.)
• Possible impropriety involving Rich Rodriguez, 7 of his assistants, and more than $4 million in loans from the Bank of Ann Arbor (founded by Michigan AD Bill Martin).  The most disturbing item in this story is the fact that banks are still SELLING MORTGAGES TO INVESTORS!  Who the hell is buying them?
• A retarded kid scores a touchdown.  Am I going to hell because A.) I could care less; B.) I was hoping #30 was going to turn it on and run him down; and/or C.) I'm jealous of the little shoulda-been-aborted since I never even got to run the ball once, let alone score a touchdown?  (If you've ever seen me move in ANY manner whatsoever, you know that I deserved the same treatment.)
• NON-SPORTS LINK:  Louis C.K. on Conan, telling an airplane joke, uttering the phrase "People aren't as nice as they used to be," and, despite all of that, still being funny.  (I guess.  I'm still not seeing the greatest stand-up working right now.)
  

I Could Have Done This...

...but Matt lost my copy of Super Tecmo Bowl.  (Who gives just the box back to somebody?)

via Joe Posnanski

Delonte West = BUCHO'S WORST NIGHTMARE

(via Ball Don't Lie) I don't know if anyone else saw this, but Delonte West just got picked up on a weapons charge.  Apparently, he was carrying two handguns and a shotgun while riding this:

Here's the excerpt from the Washington Post article on the affair:

That prompted the officer to call for backup and search West's vehicle. He found three guns -- a Beretta 9mm in West's waistband, a Ruger .357 magnum strapped to his leg and a shotgun in a guitar case slung over his back, said Maj. Andy Ellis, a spokesman for the Prince George's police.

I like to imagine Steve Buscemi telling that story while drinking Mexican piss beer served by Cheech Marin.



Seriously, though, is Delonte West Batman?  

NFL Picks: Week 2

What started out as a great weekend for my picks (at one point I was 8-3) turned to shit once the Sunday and Monday night primetime games were in the books.  Considering all three Packers-Bears was a miracle last-second non-cover (not to mention Washington's late touchdown to beat the spread), I'm not going to beat myself up over them.

College Football Picks 9/17/09: MATTYWILL EDITION

My homey Matt has been reading this stupid blog since I started doing it, so when he wants to participate, I'm all for it.  The following are his picks for this weekend's AP Top 25 games, as well as my picks for comparison's sake.  Either way, you will end up rich.

Dear 2009 MLB Season: END ALREADY!

I'm not just saying that because the Indians are terrible (and will be terrible next season, too).  If I were to rank how interested I am right now in any given sport, baseball would rank behind both tennis and golf (while holding a slight edge over soccer, if only because I can't bring myself to watch a soccer game).  I can't remember a more boring season in any sport ever.  Are the missing steroids the problem?  Maybe.  Just for shits and giggles (like this video, which involves George Brett shitting and you giggling), let's compare the 2009 season to the 1999 season.  While 1999 wasn't necessarily the beginning of the steroid era, it is smack-dab in the middle of its peak, and, besides, it's exactly 10 years ago, which is always a nice round number to use to compare eras.  I've broken things down into different categories, some of which are pretty cut-and-dry (best team, for example) and some which are a little more strange (appeal of the Colorado Rockies, for example).  Enjoy, if you dare.

College Football Picks 9/16/2009

 

That's more like it.  After performing about as well as a coin flip during the first week of the season, I rebounded nicely, nailing 63 percent of picks, including Wyoming over Texas, Florida International over Alabama, and South Carolina over Georgia.  Of my misses, LSU and Utah failed to cover for the second straight week, and my lock of the week fell through again as not only did my beloved Buckeyes lose to USC, they kept it within seven points.

Power Poll Rankings of the Best 32 NFL Teams In The Land: Week 1

For fans of the old days at Diminishing Skills (hi Matt), here's a real treat:  I've decided to bring back the Power Poll Rankings in lieu of an NFL recap.  The Power Poll has only one voter, but the identity of that voter may change from week-to-week.*  It doesn't really matter right now, but going forward, the Power Poll will take into account the entire season but will definitely place an emphasis on the previous week's performance.  Enjoy.

*No, it won't.