Gross Football Lunch – Week 14, 2025 NFL Season

In Praise of Computer Cleaning

While I was away for Thanksgiving, I had the best idea for my next column that I’ve had in some time. Finding something to write about each and every week down the stretch of the bloated 17-game regular season is a real bear sometimes. The temptation to simply throw up the previous weekend’s pool results and the next weekend’s pool picks without any commentary or reading material of any kind is often unbearable. But, because I am a good boy and I want to make my loyal readers happy, I soldier on anyway, often deciding on topics at great mental expense, and at the last minute.

All of this is to say two things. First, I hope you appreciate it, you lousy ADHD-riddled ingrates. Too many Gushers as a kid, that’s your problem. Second, this means it is a blessed and rare boon to come up with ideas in advance this late in the year. When inspiration strikes, it is imperative that I harness it to the best of my ability. What better to way to do this than by first raking my front lawn, then writing a personal essay about why I love raking the lawn so much?

I love raking! Raking my front lawn of modest but significant surface area is the ideal chore for me, a dedicated introvert who takes pleasure in light exercise. Now that I have kids, raking is one of the few opportunities I have to listen to music undisturbed, without needing to keep one headphone off of one ear so I can listen out for the latest crisis of toddler screaming, and because raking is easy, it is easy to reach the flow state with it. This gives me my best opportunity to play catch up with new releases that interest me, which opens up my brain’s creativity, which allows me to spend the next hour an a half engaged in physical activity I don’t have to think about that is also just strenuous enough to feel nice while also letting my mind wander in whatever direction it takes me. It is everything that I look for from Me Time in its purest form.

And, since we would be back home over the weekend after Thanksgiving, I had the perfect opportunity to rake either Saturday or Sunday morning, depending on which made the most sense. Except then, myself and the whole rest of the household spent Saturday taking turns praying to the porcelain gods for mercy from the currently circulating stomach bug, so in we spent all of Sunday recovering from said stomach bug. That wasn’t curtains, however, since both kids would be back at preschool Tuesday morning, which would give me time to rake. And yeah sure, I had to get groceries too, so raking would take a huge bite out of my writing time, but sometimes you need to sacrifice writing time to have things to write about. It was a fair trade in my book.

Then came Tuesday morning. Not only was it absolutely pissing rain outside, the 2-year-old’s teacher called the very second I left the grocery store (which I went to as soon as I was done dropping off the kids in the first place) to tell me she had popped a fever and needed to be picked up immediately.

FUCK

This brings me to today, which is not today as you are reading it (Thursday or later); rather, it is today as I am writing it (Wednesday). My master plan for the column is in ruins and I am left scrambling to write a column with no idea of what I should write about. Fortunately, while circumstance can and does taketh, it also giveth from time to time. I used what little time I had to myself yesterday doing what I always do when I have a little time to myself and played some games on my desktop computer. While I was playing, I kept having trouble with my headphones. Despite the fact that the headphone jack was staying place in the port, the headphones weren’t working reliably. They would cut out, the sound would instead come out through my terrible external speakers – when you build a PC intending to have your headphones plugged into it at all times, you don’t spring for good external speakers – and then cut back in for a little bit as I rotated the jack around in place before cutting out again.

The fact of this was annoying enough, but also slowed my games down. Computers, operating systems, and software programs alike all hate it when they can’t tell what’s going on, even when it pertains to frivolous crap like audio. The headphone jack was becoming a real problem that required immediate action. Since I knew the headphones themselves worked just fine when plugged into literally anything else with a port for ’em, I suspected something was wrong with either the jack itself and/or the jack’s connection to the motherboard. It was time to shut down, unplug the entire tower, and crack it open.

99.9% of the time, if you are having trouble with either a pre-built or self-built PC running Windows, the problem is with the software. Troubleshooting in Windows sucks, and often involves hunting high and low both on the internet and within the control panel and system files to find the one neglected setting that’s just a bit off that needs changing. In the unlikely event that the problem is hardware-related, the worst-case scenario involves swapping out a faulty component with an easy-to-find replacement. Very little of this is fun in the strictest sense, but I can do all of it myself, and it does come with a certain sense of accomplishment. That said, I had already opened my PC up to fix the problem at a time when it was less persistent and couldn’t even find any of the cables that connected anything on the front panel to the motherboard. I figured maybe, if I tried slightly harder, I would have better luck the second time around.

So I opened up my PC while the kids were taking their naps and, while I didn’t find any front panel connector cables, I did finally figure out how to snap off the interior dust panels, including the dist trap at the very front of the tower, which I hd never once figured out how to clean thoroughly. My PC tower is the cleanest it has been since February of 2021 and runs with hardly a peep. It feels good to do good. Also, I took a cotton swab to the headphone jack and it’s working a lot better, so I succeeded in my goal without succeeding in my task as intended.

What was the point of this story, you ask? I like stories. Time to talk football.

NFL Confidence Pool – Week 14

Bye: 49ers, Giants, Panthers, Patriots

The entire football prognosticating world – and, by extension, the suckers in your confidence pool who aren’t savvy enough to heed my advice – is sure to be a bit gun shy this week. The Rams lost, the Ravens lost, the Broncos almost lost, and the Eagles lost by two scores to the sort of young up-and-coming team with a dubious advanced statistical profile that a team of their pedigree and presumed caliber is supposed to shove into a locker and simultaneously swirlie, somehow. These are all games that burned me in Week 13, so you can imagine that I might be feeling a bit wary of my instincts, too.

But it’s possible to reach an incorrect conclusion from sound reasoning, and man oh man, give me every single point you can on the Seattle defense facing the musty-if-not-decomposing remains of Kirk Cousins. Give this max points and don’t think twice about it. The other three games in this grouping can be assigned in the order of your choosing. The Raiders are so pathetic on offense that no amount of Denver defensive injuries could keep me away from going big on the Broncos, and with Pat Surtain back I don’t think they even have too many of those. The Buccaneers’ aren’t quite done getting over their longstanding injury rash, but they are working on it, and the Saints really suck.

This brings us to the Rams, who docked me 16 points last week for disrespecting the Panthers, who if nothing else had already won too many games to be written off as a bottom-feeder. Without knowing the comparative tasting notes of Charlotte’s cold and rainy winter days and the ones we get in Raleigh, I feel safe in assuming I have some understanding of how Matthew Stafford could have had an off day under those conditions. Let’s all take a moment for a sensible chuckle at how Stafford couldn’t get it done on a cold and rainy night in Stoke. Done? Good, because the Rams have a #1 seed to retake, and the Cardinals play in a dome.

Once we get to these games, though, my muscles seize. I do not feel great about giving the Ravens double-digits, but the Steelers have a host of problems all their own, and sloppy Ravens losses tend to be separated by at least a couple of weeks. If they do lose, however, I’m prepared to stop giving them big points as a door prize for having one of the ever-elusive Elite quarterbacks. If it weren’t for the Texans’ dreadful offensive line I would give them the 10 points instead; their defense is going to fashion a garrote out of KC’s every offensive weakness. I believe in Mahomes Magic more than any rational person should, but even I can’t see him winning in the nightmare pocket he’ll be stuck in all Sunday night.

This brings me to Sunday afternoon Packers/Bears contest, a celebration of the league’s oldest rivalry that is also a celebration of the increasingly rare times when a Packers/Bears game is in any way interesting. Surely this must warm the hearts of neutral fans, football historians, and self-hating Vikings fans who are also amateur football historians alike. Both teams appear playoff bound despite neither inspiring any confidence in their potential for a deep playoff run (I hesitate to call either frauds, because what you see is what you get in both cases), but at least the Packers already had a positive point differential before last week.

The Lions are in the deepest of donkey droppings after getting swept in their Packers season series, but at least they kept it close the second time. Make no mistake, they are vulnerable against Dallas, who have kept their season alive on a steady diet of vulnerable teams, but they also have that air of prestige and dignity that makes me think the Cowboys, a franchise with a long and rich history of eating shit, will be forced to kowtow to the team with superior vibes. In all seriousness though, the Cowboys defense is still terrible and the Lions still have scored the third-most points in the league. This isn’t rocket science; hell, it isn’t even astrology.

I know, I know, I’m going long here, but I have something pithy to say about all three of these games so hang on, we’re almost done! First, if the Bengals do win this one, I will be forced to take them seriously again, and so will you. Plan accordingly. Second, and speaking of taking teams seriously, this is the Colts’ last chance to remain in those hallowed ranks. Their final four games are a horror to behold, the Jaguars have tied their record, and the Texans have emerged from the Pit of Baphomet covered head to toe in blood with a smile on their face and the gnarliest fuckin’ greataxe you’ve ever seen. Third, I have no idea how the Chargers are still winning games, and I refuse to investigate with my remaining writing time. Best to assume the Eagles will bounce back with the pluck and resilience the Nick Sirianni regime is known for. Hang on a sec, there’s a note in this sock full of dead batteries someone just whipped at my head. I wonder what it says…

Listen, I don’t want to talk about the Vikings right now, and you don’t want to hear about them. It’s bad enough that I’m already planning my yearly Vikings obituary with five games left to play, and it’s even worse that I’m planning two versions because I don’t know whether or not Kevin O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah get to keep their jobs afterwards. I’ll tell you what, if you had to watch quarterback play this dire, you would treat Marcus Mariota with a lot more respect. If the Vikings are to somehow win another game before the end of the season, it would almost certainly be this one. But they ain’t winning this one.

Enjoy the games, everyone!