San Francisco 49ers Forever

Like I said earlier, this is a pretty easy slate to pick from, fan-wise.

Fuck the Rams, fuck the Patriots.

• 38-28 KC over the Pats
• 28-27 Saints over Rams

Old guard vs the young guns. Tom Terrific is 41, Caterpillar-face is 40.

Jared Goff is 24. Patrick Mahomes is 23.

The thing about Brady is he gets so much more flustered when he’s under pressure, so they use a lot of quick passing to set up their big chunk plays. Mahomes is much better at improvising on the move. I think the Chiefs win this one pretty easily.

Saints Rams? I don’t know. Both these defenses can disappear for quarters at a time.That being said, I think this won'[t be as high-scoring as one would normally think.

My $0.02 anyway.

Rich Scangarello, the 49ers quarterbacks coach for the last 2 years, he of the molding of The Beater, Hoyer, Gabbert, Jimmy G, and most famously, Big Dick Nick Mullens, was hired by the Denver Broncos to be their new offensive coordinator. He is joining one Vic Fangio, he of the fairly recent defensive success of the 49ers, and more recently the Chicago Bearsss.

Looks like John Elway is working overtime to try and develop a team that can actually win games. Denver’s biggest problem? Well, it’s Elway’s position. Quarterback.  Since blowing off Colin Kaepernick 4 years ago, the Broncos have been a mess of shitty QB play, and truckloads of wasted money. 1st round pick Paxton Lynch hasn’t played a down since 2016, Trevor Siemien is a backup who didn’t play a down last year, Brock Osweiler, the $72 million man led the Broncos to 4 losses and no wins, and Case Keenum, the latest tire fire for Denver led the team to a 6-10 record. Denver’s defense did them no favors, but still and all, they are desperate for a bona fide starting QB.

Which leads right to Nick Mullens. He blew a LOT of people away with his play last year, and 3-5 record notwithstanding, played outstanding football and threw for over 2,200 yards and 13 touchdowns in 8 games. Which of course projects to 4,500 yards and 26 TDs over the course of 16 games. Good enough for 6th in the league in passing yards per game.

Far be it from me to want to see him go, and I would hate to see him go (anyone interested in a 1969 Dart slant-6? You know, The Beater?) but Mullens just became a giant blip on Elway’s radar with the hiring of Rich Scangarelli.

Think we can fleece ol’ horse-face for some picks and players for BDN? If the price is right, we have to. My best-case would be for Lynch to trade The Beater for a mid-level pick. All we could get is a 4th but it’s something.

If only for Philly. I really wanted to see Philly be forced into a move where their 2-time super Bowl winning QB was not the guy to go with for the future.  Sadly, that slipped through the hands of Alshon Jeffery late in the 4th quarter of their game against the Saints. Still and all, the conundrum that is Carson Wentz will play on. He’s had 2 shitty years around his one great one, so only time will tell what the Eagles will do with Pholes.

But I digress.

Next weekend is the penultimate weekend of the season. Usually a coupe of hard-fought games that everyone enjoys. Except for the losing sides.

For your football pleasure we have:

• Rams @ Saints
• NE @ KC

It couldn’t be much easier for me to pick teams to root for. I’ve been a fan of the Chiefs since the Otis Taylor/Lenny Dawson/Hank Stram days, and since the Niners didn’t have much playoff success back then, they were the team I rooted for in the playoffs back in the day. KC has had their own share of playoff failure, and then some, so there’s that as well. And really. Tom fucking Brady again? He’s at .500 now in Super Bowls. 5-5. Which is pretty incredible for him to play that many SBs. Esp still doing it at age 40. But Jiminy Christmas, go away already. The Pats regularly coast through the regular season like the Warriors cruising through theirs. 6 gimmes a season is a nice place to start from.

Fuck it. I think the Pats lose without their refs handing them 3-4 gift (tuck rule) calls a game. I think Mahomes outduels Brady, and the Pats defense folds under the pressure.

38-28 Chiefs

Saints Rams? As much as I like Sean McVay, I can’t even begin to hope the Rams get to the Super Bowl. Well, there’s a small corner in my heart for my ex-brother-in-law who passed away a couple years ago who was a die-hard Rams fan. From the late 70s till the Rams left in ’95, we had a ton of running bets on games won, head-to-head, and points crushed by, that usually involved whiskey and beer, so, Steve, if they make it, I’ll gladly raise a toast to you.

The Saints? Hey why not? Their defense held together pretty well after a rough start yesterday. And Brees was dealing like he does. Philly suffered a ton of injuries to their D line yesterday and that didn’t help, but NO is in. I think this game is a close one, but not as high-scoring as one would think.

28-27 Saints

Got the Colts and Chiefs as the afternoon tilt. Young upstart Patrick Mahomes vs the resurgent comeback player of the year Andrew Luck. KC is hotter than biscuits, esp at home, but they have a horrible playoff record since, oh, 1971. Indy’s getting 5 points.

Bucking the trend, I think KC wins but doesn’t beat the spread. 34-31 Chiefs

Dallas at LA? Part II of teams I don’t like, so in the interest of hating Dallas more I’ll take the Rams AND the spread (Dallas is getting 7?). Rams in a walk. 28-16 LARs

Chargers at NE. I’d love to pick the former San Dawgs, but the Chargers in the cold against Brady never works. SD is only getting 4, but NE by 7. 27-20 NE

Philly in the Big Easy. NO has been a bit erratic, and it’s hard to bet against the Philly Pholes Phenomenon. Good defenses have been shutting down Brees and Co, so Philly bucks the spread (+8) and and wins outright. 35-27 Iggles.

Kyler Murray, outfielder and the Oakland A’s first round draft pick (and Oklahoma star QB), is expected to come out and announce that he’s eligible for the 2019 draft. Why is this news to us? Well, Murray is getting a lot of hype as being the big prize now that he’s foregoing his senior year (which he told the A’s he was going to play), and enter the 2019 NFL draft.

Interesting still is the fact that new AZ coach Kliff Kingsbury was singing the praises of Murray last year as the head coach of Texas. Said Kyler was a first round talent. Lo and behold, look who holds the first round pick in the upcoming draft. Kingsbury. Could this possibly happen that AZ goes for Murray, trades Rosen, and basically gives us the first  shot at a premier pass rusher? Shit, we may even be in a position to do what we did with the Bears a couple years ago and trade down 2-3 spots and still get our guy should someone come begging to move up for Dwayne Haskins.

Great set of games last weekend, and a great set of games next week. The emergence of strong defenses during the waning weeks of the 2018 season continued, and the defenses did make their collective presences felt. No one scored more than 24 points (Dallas), and the only blow out was Indy over Houston 21-7.

Funny though was the fact that the top two defenses, Chicago and Baltimore both lost their games. At home, no less. Former San Diego zoomed out to a big lead, and nearly screwed the pooch as they sagged their defense midway through the 3rd quarter, and let the iffy rookie Lamar Jackson get his feet under him and nearly pull off the comeback.

Chicago on the other hand was pretty much dominated all game, yet still had the game within their grasp as a 43 yard FG attempt hit the left upright, AND the crossbar. Lost in all the anger around that kick, if you are a bears fan at least, is that the kick was tipped by Treyvon Hester. Juuuust enough to push the kick to the left.

The other games? Indy is looking fairly scary these days as they ride their 10-1 record to Kansas City. Indy dispatched the Houstons fairly easily as Houston never got rolling, and Luck played well, and Indy ran all over the Texans defense.

The Seattle Dallas game was a throwback game as both teams ran relentlessly all game. To the detriment of Seattle in my opinion. Seattle’s run game was stuffed all day, but Carroll kept going back to it time and again. 34 rushes for Dallas, and 24 rushes for Seattle. Which doesn’t sound like much till you realize that Seattle only threw 27 times, and Dallas threw 33 times. Elliot ran for over 100 yards, and pretty much kept Dallas rolling as Seattle had big problems establishing the run and had a shitload of 3-and-outs.

Good bunch of games, though.

The former SD on the road is a tough nut to crack as much as I’d like to see it.

Balt wins going away, 20 – 17.

Chi over Philly 14-7.