The Hypothetical SuperContest 2014 – Week 13

Last week we took ALL OF THE POINTS and rode it to our third straight week of 3-2. Winning is good! Let’s keep doing that. Way better than losing.

Here’s the Week 13 slate, home teams get the asterisk.

Unfortunately, I only have the three picks left to make after a football-filled Thanksgiving. Check the timestamps on my tweets, or you could just be cool and trust me. I wouldn’t lie to you.

Bears (+7) over Lions*

This one was a bummer. I didn’t love the Bears in that I didn’t think they had a great shot at winning the game. But I am a sucker for points, and seven points was simply too many to pass up, even if it meant backing Smokin’ Jay Cutler. The Bears jumped out to a 14-3 lead in in the first quarter. I was winning my bet by 18 points, and felt pretty confident, considering that the Lions offense had been sputtering all season and hadn’t scored more than 24 points in a game since Week 1. But alas, after a first quarter filled with things to be thankful for, the Bears fell apart and were outscored 31-3 over the final three frames.

This is what addiction looks like.

I took the Eagles game off in terms of my picks because I was concerned for my mental health. I don’t think my brain could handle a Birds loss that affected both my column and our chances at a first round bye. But the Eagles won and I was happy and I moved on to the night game.

Seahawks (+1) over 49ers*

This, in gambling, can be considered “chasing.” Gamblers chase when they lose earlier in the day, and thus bet more later in the day with the hopes that they will win back what they lost. This is usually a bad look, especially when gambling with real money as opposed to Internet credibility. Chasing puts players in a position to lose more money than they can afford and lose their kneecaps if they aren’t gambling with the right people.

Always gamble with the right people.

Anyways, this time, chasing worked out. The Seahawks reestablished themselves as a force in the NFC (to an extent) and took control of the last Wild Card spot from the Niners. The postgame press conferences from Richard Sherman and Colin Kaepernick were both glorious. Plus, Sherman and RUSSELL HUSTLE BUSTLE WILSON won the “Gruden Gobbler” or whatever the NBC equivalent is, resulting in this wondrous picture.

#blessed

SO. We got three picks left to make and I only have 47 minutes to do it. I need to work on timing. Last night was weird, but in the good ways. Eventually someone will be paying me to write these and I will have a hard deadline and an editor that is calling me at 5am when my shit is not posted in time. For now, I pick.

Rams* (-6.5) over Raiders

My love of Derek Carr and the Raiders this season is well documented. But I like the Rams here because they may be the greatest 4-7 team to ever play in the NFL. It insults me that a team from the NFC South will make the playoffs and the Rams will be shunned. Maybe we need some sort of BCS Rankings system in the NFL in order to keep calamities such as this from happening. I don’t know.

Also, if you missed the Iron Bowl last night, first, pity. Second, that means you missed TwH heroes Jimmy and Rory as they hijacked Paul Finebaum’s call-in show with talk of Fordham Football.

Finebaum, expecting callers to excitedly chime in with cries of “War Eagle!” and “Roll Tide” found himself in uncharted waters when REAL RAM FOOTBALL was brought into the conversation. The world found delight in the bit, as stories covering the hijacking appeared in both SB Nation and SI. Tuesdays with Horry now has its own Baba Booey and have further proven the fact that we are, indeed, outchea.

#GoRams

Falcons* (+2.5) over Cardinals

This doesn’t make any sense. The Falcons are an embarrassment of a football team with arguably the worst/most fireable coach in the league, playing against the most impressive football team of the last 20 regular season games and lead by almost undeniably the best coach of the 2014 season. This line should be six. I look at this game and I want to think of that glorious new Star Wars trailer, but the ghosts of Star Wars past are the ones I cannot escape.

It’s a trap game. You know it. I know it. Admiral Ackbar is fully aware of it. As dirty as it feels, we need to take the Falcons here and then just avert our eyes until the game is over. Do not fall for trap games. You are better than this.

Texans* (-6.5) over Titans

My family always goes to the movies on Thanksgiving. This year, the consensus movie pick was Hunger Games Mockingjay: Part I. I had two problems with this. First, I had not seen any of the previous Hunger Games films. Second, I was not about to miss the Eagles most important game of the season to watch some girl named Katniss shoot arrows in the name of revolution. So I pitched my family: Could we stay in and watch football on Thursday, and then have a #StayHungryForHungerGames marathon on Friday? I was committed to the idea of seeing all three films in one day, as it makes for an okay bit. So this Friday I watched almost seven hours of Jennifer Lawrence feeling anguish and dealing with the responsibility of being turned into a meme for the purposes of propaganda.

The movies are okay. The second one is inarguably the best. And I am 100% #TeamGale over #TeamPeeta.

But I digress…On the Grantland NFL Podcast Bill Barnwell and Robert Mays debated which players would win an NFL wide Hunger Games, and I felt no one better qualified to answer the question than myself.

The answer is JJ Watt.

JJ Watt could out Hunger Game the entire league. I am almost sure of it. The only people I would be concerned with taking him out are Steve Smith Sr., Bill Belichek, and the Legion of Boom if they were all working together.

I am 100% positive that JJ Watt could kill the entirety of the Tennessee Titans in the Hunger Games with relative ease. It would probably take him a while to catch Nate Washington, but he would get the job done.

Okay, I’m out. This is the latest my picks will ever be, as we are now just nine minutes from early kickoff. Thanks for putting up with me.

Happy Sundays.

Last Week: 3-2

Overall: 27-33