Week 6

I no longer have a clue what I'm talking about.

Yesterday morning I got a text from one of my oldest friends requesting the appearance of this week’s article so, for the first time I can say “back by popular demand”. Or at least by a solitary demand. I’ll take it with open arms. I’m thrilled you’re enjoying it as much as I’m enjoying writing.

Unfortunately, there is, once again, devastating news good people. For the third consecutive week, the name added to the winner’s tally belongs to my mother. And just like last week, two games made all the difference.

This was made all the more infuriating by the lady in question discovering she had won on Monday morning because she is in Europe at the moment. Thus I had to wake up to her celebratory text. Boo and Hiss.

Speaking of boo and hiss…

Eagles 17, Giants 34. You will recall last week the South divisions laughed in my face. Now, so have the Eagles. Two weeks ago I called the at the time 4-0 Eagles the most serious team in the league. They immediately lost to the Broncos in embarrassing fashion then followed that up by getting blown out by, and I cannot believe I’m about to type this, the New York GIANTS. I genuinely don’t think forfeiting the rest of the season would be an overreaction because losing to this team is bad enough, but by seventeen points????????? No team has ever gone from serious to unserious this quickly, including the Chargers who also lost to this Giants team and are the Chargers. I do have one serious question: does the title of ‘Exciting Whites’ transfer from the Eagles’ Cooper DeJean and Reed Blankenship to the Giants’ Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo?

Broncos 13 Jets 11. Speaking of those Broncos, they almost secured a seat at the unserious table by flirting with losing to the Jets. I’m still not really sure what to make of Denver. Meanwhile, my coworker is asking for some Jets praise so here’s the best I can muster. It could’ve been worse…? I guess? I’m sorry man. I’ve just looked at their schedule and 0-17 is very much on the cards. The good news is that will easily secure the number 1 pick because everybody else has at least one win right now.

Seahawks 20 Jaguars 12. Why I didn’t pick the Hawks in this game I still don’t know. They are so good in the Eastern 1 o’clock window for whatever reason and despite beating the Chiefs last week, the Jags are untrustworthy at best. I just couldn’t get that ridiculous Sam Darnold pick out of my head and it cost me and my brother for that matter.

Chargers 29 Dolphins 27. At halftime I was mentally scribbling the Chargers’ obituary. You can’t lose three in a row bookended by losses to the Giants and the Dolphins. That’s where they were headed. A 14 point third quarter put my fears to rest, but they gave up 14 in the fourth to Miami and trailed again. Once again Kal-El appeared. Sorry, that’s my bad. What I meant to say was, Justin Herbert made another ridiculous play and a successful field goal got the Chargers back to winning ways. But boy was that ugly.

Rams 17 Ravens 3. A far closer score line than it should’ve been in my opinion and, from my brother’s reports, a more stressful game at times than he anticipated. Unfortunately, the Puka Nacua injury is bad news.

Cardinals 27 Colts 31. I know I said last week I would give the Colts grace but if they’d lost this game I would’ve immediately labelled them unserious. Would that have been unfair? Probably. It’s just, the way the Cardinals lost last week was so humiliating, losing to them as the number one seed in the AFC would’ve been equally bad in my eyes. However, today there are only two teams to have played six games and only lost one so far. One of them is these very Colts.

Cowboys 27 Panthers 30. I told y’all the Cowboys were unserious. I understand the Panthers are now 3-3 and undefeated at home but journey with me here. Who have they beaten? A curious Falcons team, whom we will get to, the 1-5 Dolphins and now the worst defense in the league. I don’t put much stock into that. The Cowboys meanwhile only have two wins and those came against the two New York teams. I might have to swap them with the Bears as ‘the team I REFUSE to believe in’.

Patriots 25 Saints 19. After a five year hiatus the New England Patriots have returned to their rightful place at the top of the AFC East. Hope you boys enjoyed your frolicking time. Okay, fine. I can admit that is, in all likelihood, a massive overreaction but it’s so much fun to watch this team again. Drake Maye is the real deal and watching him play quarterback is so refreshing after some of the play the Pats have gotten at that position over the last five years. I do have to say the fact New England even won this game felt like an actual miracle, please skip to the next game Mother.

Now that she’s gone I can say what I want to about the atrocious, abysmal, embarrassing, pathetic, infuriating, disgusting performance from the inept, incompetent, unprofessional group of fools dressed in stripes known colloquially as ‘referees’. What utter woke nonsense. I tweeted “the refs should be fired into space with no oxygen tanks and without the opportunity to tell their families goodbye” after one of the inexplicably bad calls and I meant every word of it. Mother I told you skip ahead.

Browns 9 Steelers 23. I might have to reconsider my Steelers stance. Not that beating the Browns is worthy of an opinion change but maybe 4-1 is. Much to consider.

Titans 10 Raiders 20. Yes you guessed it. This is one of the two games my brother and I got wrong. But I absolutely refuse to give my mother credit for getting this right. Having not watched a second of this game I am going to say the Titans lost it instead of the Raiders won it. Can you believe she tried to gloat about this like choosing the Raiders was some masterstroke. Yeah right. I know luck when I see it.

49ers 19 Buccaneers 30. The Bucs have finally won a game by more than a field goal kicked in the dying seconds and are the other 5-1 team. Altogether a serious team while the 9ers continue to get more injured. That being said they are still top of their division, tied with the Seahawks and Rams at 4-2.

Bengals 18 Packers 27. The Packers absolutely had to win and they did, but this game was a three point game in the third quarter. The Bengals have the second worst defense in the league, so I’m rather unimpressed by Green Bay and that bums me out. I was so high on them after week two. I do want to point out the Bengals are 2-4 yet second in their division. Hilarious.

Lions 17 Chiefs 30. The Chiefs, after a blip on Monday, are back. The Lions were undoubtedly the most serious team in the league going into this weekend and the Chiefs handled them fairly comfortably. Their defense looks strong again and they are getting healthy. But I wonder about them. Through six weeks, they seem very bipolar. Against the Jags they made uncharacteristic mistakes, took 13 penalties and blew a 14 point lead. Against the Lions they were literally perfect. We’ve been trained over the past six years to presume they may maintain that standard or at least be quite close to it. We shall see. I’m not worried about the Lions. Week 1 Packers aside, I don’t think Detroit will be manhandled like that by any other team, including the Buccaneers, who they play next. However, knowing my predictive powers, Tampa Bay will now blow them out by 30.

Bills 14 Falcons 24. From 4-0 and the one seed to 4-2 and looking up at the Patriots. Just had to put that in there. Buffalo will be fine who am I kidding. The far more interesting topic here is the Falcons. They are 3-2, with primetime wins over the Vikings and Bills and a win over the Commanders, giving rise to a new theory from my coworker and I. We think if the Falcons started Kirk Cousins for every 1 o’clock game (where he is Tom Brady) and Michael Penix Jr. for every primetime game (he appears to be a bright lights merchant) these Falcons would go 17-0. We think Vegas knows it too and is doing everything in its power to ensure this doesn’t come to pass.

Bears 25 Commanders 24. Didn’t watch it. Obviously picked the Commanders. Disappointed they couldn’t come through. Onto the next.

One last thing. I have realized my mother’s run of victories has coincided with my compiling my thoughts. I regret to inform you good folk, should this continue to be the case I will stop these in order to get some wins again.

Anyway, there’s still 12 weeks to go. Plenty of time for the tide to turn.