Week 13 Prognostications - Bill Makes A Candide Reference...Geez

Van and I are up early this week to accommodate an NFL game you probably cannot watch. Allow me to make some suggestions as to what you might substitute:

1. With a little channel-jumping, you could go right from What’s New Scooby Doo? (BOOM) to Pinky and the Brain (Disney) to Duck Dodgers (BOOM) to SpongeBob (Nickelodeon).
2. The Cave – I have never heard of this movie, but the description goes, “Deadly monsters hunt members of an exploration team within a vast network of caverns beneath the Carpathian Mountains.” How great does that sound? Morris Chestnut and Cole Hauser are in it, too. It’s on Channel 20 in Denver, so you may have to search for it a bit in your market.
3. The Good Times marathon on TV Land. Dynomite.
4. The Biography of Guns n’ Roses on the Biography channel. Its genre is listed as education.
5. Home Alone 4 on ABC Family. Seriously, there is a Home Alone 4, and it has two and a half stars.

Van: Amazingly, I got nothin’. But I guess this is what happens when you go from one game up to three games down in the short span of a week...you get a little unhinged. To see what salt rubbed into an open wound looks like (a/k/a my picks), click here.
Onward Christian soldiers!

Indianapolis at Jacksonville
Bill’s Pick: Jacksonville
Van’s Pick: Indianapolis
This is the classic less filling/tastes great debate between Van and I, and if he does not take Indy here, he is a miserable sell-out. Jacksonville wins ugly. Furthermore, they try to win ugly. They appear to choose their offensive personnel for the purpose of winning ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly. The Colts are beautiful. The Colts complete eight or ten passes a game that make the mightiest dilettantes bark, “Whoa! That was sweet!” Even their defense is pretty. It was pretty even when it was bad. You might mistake this for my own quixotic stand against aestheticism, which I acknowledge is completely my fault at this point, but in fact Indianapolis always struggles in Jacksonville. I like Indy as they get pieces back, particularly Dallas Clark, whose ability to misplace the linebacker trying to cover him in the end zone is one of the real wonders of football, but they have this last stumbling block before their late January visit to Foxboro.

Van: David Garrard has 0 interceptions in 209 pass attempts, which is good. David Garrard didn’t throw 6 picks in one game like Peyton Manning did (which is bad). Still, let there be no doubt about the superior signal-caller in this game: it is, am, are, was, and will be Peyton Manning. The Colts are better, they are at home, and they are still kinda miffed about the lack of love they aren’t getting. Woe betide the Jag-Wires.

San Diego at Kansas City
Bill’s Pick: San Diego
Van’s Pick: Kansas City
Ugh. The AFC West. Van proclaimed Kolby Smith “nobody” last week shortly before he went out and hung a buck-fifty and two touchdowns on the Raiders. Nope, no conclusion on my part, I just wanted to point that out. Brodie Croyle, whom I like even though he looks pretty clueless, is hurt and might not play. Van called him “nobody,” too. So if you’re down to nobody and nobody gets hurt, who exactly do you put in the game? Me? Can I play? San Diego is now my official second-favorite NFL team because, of the four teams in this god-awful division, they have the best shot of finishing over .500. Pride, baby.

Van: This is precisely the kind of game that San Diego needs to win to take some control of their division...which is precisely why they won’t win it. This team needs to go down the yellow brick road, see the wizard, and get hearts for the players and a brain for Norv “Al Gore” Turner. Watch: these knuckleheads will put nine men in the box to stop Kolby Smith, only to get burned through the air somehow. It won’t matter. They will invent a new way to get beat.

The Jets at Miami
Bill’s Pick: Miami
Van’s Pick: The Jets
The Dolphins are bad. This is true. They are not, however, 0-16 bad. This is a team suffering from a perfect storm of injuries, age, bad bounces and slow adjustments, but not an expansion team put together by a college coach who badly overvalued his old players (like his son – look it up). The Jets are also bad. People had great expectations for the Jets after they inexplicably went 10-6 last year, but many of us looked at them and saw no real upgrade from the 4-12 2005 team. The biggest factor in this game is that the Dolphins have to look at it and honestly believe they can win, while the Jets have to be absolutely terrified that they will be the Dolphins lone victim this year. Confidence beats abject terror. Almost every time.

Van: Right now, Eric Mangini is showing his Jets film of their surprising defeat of the Steelers, followed by film of the Steelers mud-wrestling match with the Dolphins, and he’s making one simple point: you’ve already beaten the better team. The Dolphins, meanwhile, get the benefit of Ricky Williams for six whole plays before losing him for the season and shake impotent fists at an indifferent sky. They are cursed and they know it.

Houston at Tennessee
Bill’s Pick: Houston
Van’s Pick: Houston
In his contract year, Albert Haynesworth has earned even more money being hurt than he has by playing. You know how you showed up at the theatre and settled down with your popcorn before you realized that they actually made Next Friday without Chris Tucker? That is how the lucky ticket holders at Titan Stadium have to feel. As the news that Haynesworth is inactive filters through the stadium, 70,000 people get whiplash adjusting their expectations at full speed.

Van: Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated made a great point about Haynesworth, that I’ll paraphrase: the man doesn’t play quarterback or coach, so why is this team 0-3 without him? Whatever’s wrong with Vince Young ain’t good, because he has become the anti-Randall Cunningham. Whatever Tennessee’s mojo was, they lost it when Fat Albert got hurt and they haven’t been the same since.

Denver at Oakland
Bill’s Pick: Denver
Van’s Pick: Denver
I hope the Donkeys are less demoralized by the Bears loss than I am. I think I’m suffering from ennui. Or perhaps reality. Maybe it’s just a headache. Watching me watch the Broncos has to be like reading Candide. I have this great Panglossian faith that all we need is (insert Insipid Concern A, not nearly sufficient to make the Broncos a playoff team), when in fact (insert any of a number of injuries or general inabilities), and you are thinking, “Dude, what the hell is the matter with you that you still think Insipid Concern A is going to help? Or even happen?” While I am compulsively sitting on my couch at 2 pm MST consistently surprised at the Donkeys’ infirmities, they will be feverishly making new running backs out of Play-Doh in the back room. This season will never end. It’s like that Twilight Zone episode…

Van: So, uh, I wonder how those special teams meetings went for Denver this week? And let’s not forget, it was Dre Bly who was getting consistently and successfully picked on by Rex Grossman last week, something that Daunte Culpepper is certain to notice. Still, I like the Broncos to bounce back, if only because it won’t allow me to demand Mike Shanahan’s head for one more week.

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh
Bill’s Pick: Pittsburgh
Van’s Pick: Pittsburgh
Last week, Cincinnati found Chad Johnson. This week, Ocho Cinco finds the turf at Heinz Field. You know those desiccants that come in the packaging for new cameras and binoculars? The ones you aren’t supposed to eat? Why couldn’t they just sprinkle those all over the field? The Steelers are playing wretched football right now, but such is my distaste for the Bungles that I cannot believe in them, and poor field conditions (nobody who has ever played golf can possibly believe that some horticultural wizard can fix that grass in six days) should affect the visitors more than the homesters.

Van: “Found Chad Johnson!” “Where, dude?” “Behind the couch.” “Cool.” “I found Hare Krishna too.” “Where, under the table? Ha ha ha.” “No, dude, I really found him. My whole life is different now.” “Oh...sorry, dude.” “...PSYCHE!! I found him in a shoebox!” "Niiiiice, dude."

New England at Baltimore
Bill’s Pick: New England
Van’s Pick: New England
Somewhere along the yellow brick road, Dorothy met a couple of flying monkeys who briefly delayed her. Tom Brady is Dorothy, the Eagles are the flying monkeys, and the delay is temporary. I don’t know who the cowardly lion is. Bill Belichick is the wizard and there is no Wicked Witch of West, but the wizard keeps telling people that there is. Randy Moss is the tin man with his brand new heart. Van can be Shlub, the yak-herding lollipop kid not pictured.

Van: Bert Lahr is the Cowardly Lion. Hilary Clinton hasn’t been the same since that house fell on her sister. New England wins going away...as do I, Shlub, the yak-herding lollipop kid not pictured.