"More Weight!"

So tonite is clearly make-or-break time for The Olde Towne Team. Bronson “Don’t call me Brandon” Arroyo (I’m lookin’ at you, McCarver) versus Kevin “Clubber Lang” Brown. As is well documented, the Sox have something like two hits total in the first six innings of the first two games combined. Jesus himself was 0-for-New York, including five strikeouts (escalating speculation that the stadium in the Bronx in fact is the House that Satan Himself Built). Curt “More Weight!” Schilling looks to be out of the picture for the rest of the post season. Sox team doctor Bill Morgan’s description of Schill’s ankle tendon “flapping against the bone” had me tasting warm saliva for all of game two…that and the continuous Fox close-ups of the hide-the-children ugly Jon Lieber in the home dugout after pitching a gem for seven innings. Oh, and did you notice Tito rocking on the bench like the second coming of Leo Mazzilli? Not a good sign. He’s six hitless innings away from loading up the shotgun and sitting on the clubhouse crapper with Kevin “Private Joker” Millar trying to talk him down. Then again, the Sox’ bats could wake up early tonite, stake Arroyo-yo to an early lead, cruise to victory, win two more this weekend in the Fens and head back to New York with a 3-2 series lead. And if not…

There’s always football.

Da Picks (home team in CAPS):

N.Y. JETS over San Francisco – San Francisco ruined a whole bunch of pick sheets last week with a stirring come from behind overtime win against and upstart Arizona squad, but lost their best defensive player, Julian Peterson, in the process. As the Ken Dorsey watch continues, the Niners find a Jet much harder to swat than a Cardinal. Ouch. Did I just write that?

PHILADELPHIA over Carolina – The Panthers have been decimated by injuries this year, losing their top three runningbacks, their best receiver and now Kris Jenkins, their game changing defensive tackle. Without Jenkins, Carolina will prove soft up the middle, but lucky for them, the Eagles’ power running game is non-existent. Even so, a bruised and battered Stephen Davis will find things slow going against the Eagles D and Donovan McNabb’s mom will slather the Panthers’ secondary in Chunky Beef and Cheesy Potato soup and eat them alive.

Kansas City over JACKSONVILLE – The Chief Revival continues. Woe be the man that counted this team out, as their defense clearly needed time to gel. This team WILL be a force in January.

San Diego over ATLANTA – Drew Brees continues to impress in his apparently season-long audition for a starting quarterback gig in Miami/Washington/Cleveland/Oakland/Dallas/Montreal next year. Do you realize that this team is scoring 28 points a game? And that Drew Brees has a higher QB rating than Jake Plummer, Tom Brady and Matt Hasselbeck? Do you realize that the Falcons defense boasts three of the top seven sackers in the NFC (Is that a word? What do you call someone who performs a sack? Sackist? Can I get a ruling on this? Someone call Bill Safire) and are averaging just over 70 rushing yards a game allowed? Does anyone know what the record for number of rhetorical questions in a row on one blog is? Is there even a stat for such a thing? Am I still talking about this game?

Miami over BUFFALO – Only because, by immutable NFL law, it’s apparently impossible for BOTH teams to lose.

Washington over CHICAGO – Ditto.

CLEVELAND over Cincinnati – Can’t you just see the NFL North standings ending up something like this:

Baltimore: 9-7
Cincinnati: 8-8
Pittsburgh: 8-8
Cleveland: 7-9

Would anyone object to the winner of this division simply being drawn out of a hat? Or a game of H-O-R-S-E? Or having the respective head coaches battle to the death in a steel cage lined with spikes? Mebbe a Survivor Series-style tag team with Butch Davis and Marvin Lewis vs. Bill Cowher and Brian Billick, with the winning team then facing off against each other in a winner-take-all blood bath at the hollowed out site where Three Rivers Stadium used to stand? Am I doing the question thing again?

NEW ENGLAND over Seattle – The Patriots have not lost since September of 2003.

Green Bay over DETROIT – The wheels are falling off the Joey Harrington is better than David Carr train…riiiiiiight…aboooooooout…NOW!

TENNESSEE over Houston – I went back and forth on this one probably seven or eight times. I had a whole paragraph written up about David Carr, the way he’s buoyed my fantasy team this year, how this is his breakout year and the Texans had an outside shot at a playoff birth if they could knock off the Titans this week. Then I looked at the score of last week’s Monday night game against the Packers. Then I looked at the who-the-effers starting in the defensive backfield for Houston. Then I remember that Steve McNair is not only AS good when injured as he is when healthy, he’s actually better. He’s one of those “pain helps him focus” guys that leaves me scratching my head and wondering if I wouldn’t be a better writer with an icepick stuck in my head. Yes, I’m looking at you, Stu.

Denver over OAKLAND – Here’s the Vegas line I wanna bet this weekend: Over/Under on how many times the Shanahan grudge is mentioned by Dan Dierdorf during CBS’s telecast of this game vs. combined INTs thrown by Kerry Collins and Jake Plummer. We’ll set the number at seven.

DALLAS over Pittsburgh – The Cowboys are hungry for a win, and despite Ben Roth’s (spell check just ain’t worth it for this one) brilliant play over the past three games, he will fall short this week for the following reasons:

1. The teams the Steelers have beat since he took over are a combined 3-11.
2. Bill Parcells has made an art form out of absolutely KILLING inexperienced QBs.
3. The Steelers have won three in a row with a rookie quarterback and Duce frickin’ Staley at runningback!
4. Before last week, Plaxico Burress was absolutely KILLING me in the fantasy football league, and I have to imagine that he will return to form this week.
5. Vin-ny! Vin-ny! Vin-ny! Vin-ny! Vin-ny!

Minnesota over NEW ORLEANS – If you see Jim Haslett bagging groceries in your local supermarket next year at this time DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT. Any attempt to console or converse will be met with stony silence, followed by a slight twitch in the corners of his mouth, followed immediately by berserker rage. Just take your frozen pizzas and goat cheese and be on your way.

ST. LOUIS over TAMPA BAY – I’d lay odds right now that Brian Griese will one day lead a team to the Super Bowl. I’ve just got a feeling about him. He has a way of popping up as the backup quarterback on an underrated team with a shaky/injury-prone starter, and I can see him leading a team on a four-game win streak to end a season and a march through the playoffs.

Yes, I have been drinking heavily since I found out the Sox game has been rained out. The good news about this is that:

a. Sox fans get one more night of drunken delusions of three-game streaks in Boston
b. Pedro will now pitch Game 5 in Boston instead of Game 6 in the Big Crapple.
c. Bill Morgan now has one more day to attempt emergency leg replacement surgery with Schill. Hey Bill, I heard that D-Lo likes to hang out at Daisy Buchanan’s and never checks his drinks for rufies. I’m just sayin’s! I’m just sayin’!

Last week: 7-7 (again)
Overall: 43-31