Note From the erm…’Editor’s’ Desk: Due to my entire family getting sick (including me), this week’s Gross Football Lunch is heavily truncated. This is a particular bummer because next week’s column will feature confidence pool picks only,as my current holiday obligations leave me with approximately -0.74 hours to whip it together. At least it’s just a cold and not COVID (yes, I checked).
Recipe of the Week: Strong Black Coffee
Ingredients:
- Coffee grounds
- Water
- Absolutely fuck all else
Method & Analysis:
At the risk of being a cultural chauvinist (I credibly suspect that at least one Jewish person may read this column; ‘sup Jordan), I think it’s fair to say that there aren’t too many of you out there who need my help in order to poison your body this weekend. Your innards and arteries are gonna congeal whether you want them to or not. Therefore, I am offering an alternative recipe, one which will help you stay regular, keep you awake when someone at your gathering inevitably throws on The Polar Express for fundamentally unknowable reasons, and get you mad enough to scream “GODDAMMIT MAKE THE FUCKING TACKLE” at the TV at antisocial volumes while remaining fully sober in the eyes of the law.
You will need a drip coffee maker with a filter and some sort of coffee grounds. Use nice ones if you want, but in my house that fancy lad shit is for lazy Saturdays and days when we have house guests. For all other days, I stave off my crippling withdrawal headaches with whatever barely palatable fuel injection byproducts are close at hand, which are invariably of the kind sold in disreputable plastic or cardboard barrels approximately the size of one of Neil Peart’s rack toms. Grab some sort of spoon and spoon your hell grounds into your filter; aim for at least a heaping teaspoon of grounds per cup of coffee you intend to make, as measured on the side of your coffee pot. Eyeball it, erring on the side of putting too much in the filter. The only shitty coffee is weak coffee.
Fill you pot with cold water to the desired line, then dump it in the…you know what, you don’t need me to be this much of a patronizing dickhead, and I don’t need to be for my own purposes, either. You know how a fucking drip coffee maker works, and if you don’t, use the internet, it’s the future and all that. I’m sure there’s any number of youtubes and such out there that can help you through it (DIY youtube remains the best youtube). Just make sure you don’t end up getting converted into a pour over scumbag.
Enjoy your coffee with whatever cloyingly sweet baked goods and other confections are at hand, or after meals, when the contents of your G.I. Tract inevitably hop on the radio to declare the situation hopeless and request extraction. Happy whatever it is you end up doing, I guess!
Week 16 NFL Confidence Pool
That was a pretty neat little bounce-back in Week 15 there, wasn’t it? I didn’t have a perfect week by any means but after the disaster that befell me in Week 14, I’ll take it. Again, time’s a wasting so let’s get to the picks without further ado.
Week 15 Correct Picks: 12/16 (0.750)
Season Total Correct Picks: 153/224 (0.683)
Week 15 Points: 106/136 (0.779)
Season Total Points: 1,317/1,797 (0.733)
16 Points: Bills over Chargers
15 Points: Chiefs over Raiders
14 Points: Eagles over Giants
13 Points: Cowboys over Dolphins
12 Points: 49ers over Ravens
11 Points: Rams over Saints
10 Points: Broncos over Patriots
9 Points: Browns over Texans
What sucks about this week from a picking perspective is exactly what’s nice about it from a pure entertainment perspective: all the good teams are playing other good teams. It seems unthinkable that the Bills could blow it against Easton Stick and Friends, but those of you have been following the column this year are fully familiar with how dire things must be in order for me to assign the Bills max points. I fear it’s going to happen simply because my capacity for manifesting negativity is unmatched. But the alternative, as I see it, was putting max points on the Eagles in the midst of their continued unraveling, as I respect the Raiders too much to go max against them against their arch rivals (which is to say, I probably respect them too much).
13 on the Cowboys also seems real rich, but I’m going to pick any good team that’s facing the Dolphins until the Dolphins actually win one of these games, and I don’t see anyone else in this lineup I feel comparably good about. This may seem curious given that both the 49ers and Ravens are demonstrably better than Dallas, but hell if I know who’s actually winning this one. I’m going to give it to the home team for my own reasons, all of which came to me when I tossed the scrying bones while uttering guttural intonations unto Tempus, the god of war and also football.
These last three are pretty self-explanatory, although I will say I was this close to giving the Broncos 12 before recognizing this maneuver as the symptom of incurable madness that it so manifestly is. Also, while I will always carry a torch for Case Keenum, it remains the case that C.J. Stroud is unlikely to play this week which means that it remains the case that the Texans are unlikely to win.
8 Points: Packers over Panthers
7 Points: Lions over Vikings
6 Points: Steelers over Bengals
5 Points: Colts over Falcons
4 Points: Bears over Cardinals
3 Points: Buccaneers over Jaguars
2 Points: Seahawks over Titans
1 Point: Jets over Commanders
I have even less to say about this sorry lineup, except that if you are blessed with common sense and good taste you are most certainly not a Vikings fan, and therefore you are free to put more points on the Lions than I could bring myself to. I’m still not over the double tush push, and I’m starting to fear I won’t be until the Vikings do the right thing and exit the playoff conversation, whenever that mercy is finally visited upon me.
Other than that, these games are the consequences of a regular season that is ever so slightly longer than it needs to be. I enjoy the playoff chase as much as the next gridiron enthusiast, but let’s face it: by this point in the season, there can only be so many interesting games. This is doubly true in a season where there’s a division as sad as the NFC South; yes, the Bucs and Falcons are technically relevant to the playoff conversation, but they’re not fooling anybody. Let us all use this fact as a reminder that it’s OK to do other things for parts of your Sunday; the sport exists to entertain you, and not the other way around.
Enjoy the games, everyone!
Rob Writes About Whatever 