Gross Football Lunch – NFL Week 11, 2023

Recipe of the Week: Takeout Chicken Parm Sub

Ingredients:

• 1 Takeout Chicken Parm Sub

Method & Analysis:

Once again, real-life circumstances have left me bereft of the time necessary to write actual instructions for cooking actual food. Therefore, this week’s recommended foodstuff is a chicken parm sub that someone else has made on behalf of another someone else, who has agreed to give you chicken parm sub in exchange for a nominal fee. In a better world, most of this money would go to the person who actually made the sub, but I think we all know this world ain’t better than jack shit these days.

This chicken parm sub hails from the Town Hall Deli of South Orange, New Jersey, located in an area of the country I had recent occasion to visit under mysterious and clandestine circumstances. The relative dimensions may be hard to parse from the above picture, but speaking as a (more or less) proportionally sized 5’11” gent, it was about the length and thickness of my forearm. In other words, it was rather fucking huge.

And it was pretty good all told, albeit not quite what I expected when I ordered. In my mind’s eye, I conceive of a chicken parm sub as being based around a whole chicken cutlet that has been parmed up and placed on a sub roll. As you can see here, for this sub, the cutlets were chopped up and sauced, then stuffed in the roll and topped with a single, thick layer of melted mozzarella. I’m not sure I prefer this method but I understand it; whole cutlets and bread could easily form separate tectonic plates that rend each other into pieces, and this sandwich was as stable as they come and still pretty tasty. I could have stood more cheese as well, ideally in a second layer through the middle. Still, pretty good.

With any luck, you are in an area where a halfway decent chicken parm sub is available. Check with your local pizza purveyors, as even the least ambitious hole in the wall pizza joints will have a chicken parm on the menu, because hell, why wouldn’t they? They have all the stuff for it. My point is, ask around so that you too may enjoy the fruits of someone else’s cheesy, crispy labor. Also, thank you for your patience with this column as I navigate some real-life stuff. This is a hobby for me, and while it is a hobby I take seriously it is still just hobby, and that means it has to take a backseat to more important things from time to time. Someday I intend to provide my actual chicken parm recipe in this space; that might not happen in the near future, but it remains one of my ambitions nonetheless.

Week 11 NFL Confidence Pool

My Week 10 picks are the very definition of a Mixed Bag. On the one hand, while 9 out of 14 correct picks isn’t great, it isn’t terrible, either; I’ve done far worse for myself this season. On the other hand, almost all of my misses were big point assignments. That sucks! Oh well, time to pick myself up, dust myself, and do a polite amount of whining about it before I launch into this week’s entirely vibes-based overreactions.

Week 10 Correct Picks: 9/14 (0.643)

Season Total Correct Picks: 110/150 (0.733)

Week 10 Points: 59/106 (0.557)

Season Total Points: 931/1,212 (0.768)

Bye: Colts, Falcons, Patriots, Saints

14 Points: Dolphins over Raiders

13 Points: 49ers over Buccaneers

12 Points: Cowboys over Panthers

11 Points: Lions over Bears

This week’s biggest mismatch on paper is the Cowboys/Panthers game, but a team that can lose to the Cardinals can lose to absolutely everybody, so I must hedge the assignment. Instead, max points go to the Dolphins; they might not be Contenders with a capital C (their 3-seed aura has become overpowering), but neither are the Cowboys, and the Dolphins are masters of stomping all over lesser teams. You could also put 14 on the 49ers if you want; these picks are as sure as they come, meaning their assignments are slightly arbitrary. The Lions/Bears game might be the second biggest mismatch on paper but I’m back to being overly cautious with division rivalries and therefore unwilling to go higher.

10 Points: Texans over Cardinals

9 Points: Seahawks over Rams

8 Points: Chiefs over Eagles

7 Points: Jaguars over Titans

6 Points: Ravens over Bengals

5 Points: Vikings over Broncos

4 Points: Steelers over Browns

After an off week, the only way to sensibly react emotionally is with Suspicion and Mistrust. Therefore, Week 11’s Tier of Suspicion and Mistrust is filled to the brim with shoulder shrugs. Everyone is crowning the Texans this week, which means that my Trap Game Sensors are spiking. The Seahawks are a playoff team, but more specifically they are Wild Card team so I’m not going to give them double digits if I don’t have to. The Chiefs/Eagles game could easily go either way; I’m taking KC for no real reason other than I feel like it, and I have some vibes-based questions about how good Philly actually is.

Both the Jags and the Ravens disappointed me last week, but so did the Titans and Bengals. The Ravens loss in particular was a deeply weird and at least somewhat fluky, and I’m done regarding the Bengals as actual contenders for the moment. That secondary has too many issues, and I can’t even be sure they’ll make the playoffs at this point. I would love to give my beloved Vikings more points, but embarrassing primetime losses are an honored franchise tradition. I trust neither Pittsburgh nor Cleveland; both teams are worth more than 4 points in an absolute sense, but each and every theoretically possible outcome is plausible in this game, including (and perhaps especially) a tie.

3 Points: Jets over Bills

2 Points: Chargers over Packers

1 Point: Commanders over Giants

Sean McDermott is cooked. It’s over, except for the crying; perhaps he can stave off the inevitable if the Bills do manage to sneak into the playoffs, but since I don’t think Ken Dorsey was the real problem I don’t see that happening. I’m also picking against them this week out of pure spite. What could go wrong?

Enjoy the games, everyone!