There are only three weeks left of the NFL regular season and I am sad. The 17 NFL regular season Sundays are 17 of my 20 favorite days every year, with Thanksgiving, Selection Sunday, and the first Thursday of March Madness rounding out the set. Read More
Those picks we talked about in this column last week went 4-1. We only lost one! And even that could’ve been avoided if I hadn’t bitten off more than I could chew with the Bears playing on Thanksgiving. We are in the home stretch of the season now. I have only 20 picks left this regular season to prove my worth. I currently stand at 31-34 on the year, much improved from a few weeks ago but still far from a profitable year. While we are too far out of the money to make a run in the SuperContest, we are in striking distance of a winning percentage of 53%, which is what you need in order to make money in Vegas. Read More
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. Read More
Things got weird this week at the Hypothetical SuperContest. If you’re just here for the picks, you can find them below, but then you’ll miss the joy that is Kendrick Lamar serenading my process. I hope you enjoy our experiment.
Picks:
Bears (-3) over Vikings
Buccaneers (+7.5) over Redskins
Steelers (-6) over Titans
Cardinals (-2.5) over Lions
Giants (+3.5) over 49ers
Last Week: 3-2
Overall: 21-29
Courtesy of sportsmockery.com, because of course it is.
Derrick Rose found himself in a boiling pot of chicken broth earlier this week when he said that he does not want to sit in “meetings all sore or be at my son’s graduation all sore just because of something I did in the past,” and then promptly went out and re-injured a different part of his sore-all-around body. The 2011 NBA MVP continues to seem light years removed from relevance, but he has now stepped a few bounds outside of reality, at least in the eyes of some angry fans. Elsewhere, the Grizzlies are starting to Grizz in a monumental, significant way, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has called for legalized and regulated gambling, surely to the delight of at least one TwH contributor.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep going. In the throes of what I can say with confidence is my worst gambling season since I was initiated into this fraternity of degenerates, it’s difficult to figure out why exactly I am doing this. I write a gambling column out of a love of the game and a love of the gamble, but in a season this brutal, it is challenge enough to continue loving the process, and even more challenging to write about it. My failures have not only been greater than ever before, but also more public. I am shitting my pants on stage while the spotlight is on me. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I am at the very least, publicly failing at picking football games. And that sucks.
So I look myself in the mirror and ask, with sincerity, “Why are you doing this?”
Not simply gambling, not simply writing, but living, existing, breathing. What’s the reason? Why are you here if you are just going to keep making awful picks, Tyler?
Sorry I’m late. It was a weird week.
But gambling! Gambling on Sunday football is only three hours away! And we have games to pick! How exciting. Last week, I went 0-4 on Sunday, after entrusting my picks to some of the NFL’s heroes of facial hair. The only thing standing between me and a second 0-5 week (and probably giving up on life in general) was Colt McCoy. It was a situation I hope none of you ever find yourselves in.
But Colt came through! Washington not only covered, but actually won the game, knocking the Cowboys down a peg in those pesky Power Rankings which I despise so much. How did he do it? Read More
Last week, I felt great about my NFL picks across the board.
My father was wrapping up his time working in Las Vegas, meaning that it would be the last week of him betting my picks without telling me even though I had a hunch he was doing it. I wanted to make him back some of the money he had undoubtedly lost as I continued to pick Derek Carr to cover the spread over and over again. I did a good amount of research, mixed it with a dash of nonsense, and found myself five underdogs that I felt confident could win my pops some money. Again, one of them was David Carr.
The Raiders failed to cover. My picks went 1-4, and I went into Monday morning feeling like a failure once again.
I have to stop feeling confident about my picks. In gambling, confidence is a myth. It cannot exist, because everything is chance and no one knows anything about anything, especially football. I wanted to remember this fact while making my picks during Week 8. I wanted to focus on facts and emotions and up to date injury information all while knowing that it was ultimately a crapshoot. I took to Twitter with intentions of making my usual pre-picking rounds: checking in on Adam Schefter, Stephania Bell, and a few NFL players that might give a little hint towards their team’s mindset heading into Sunday. But I got distracted by Zach Mettenberger.
We’re back home.
We got off to a blazing 5-0 start in Week 1 of this Hypothetical SuperContest, but after a few down weeks and a Week 4 that I wish to never speak of again, our record against the spread was looking woeful. Last week we were able to grind out some winning favorites thanks to coin flips and confusion. Now we are back in striking distance a .500 record, and we are going to depend on the dogs to do it.
Why all the dogs you ask? Read More
Back on the horse.
After a demoralizing 0-5 in Week 4, we rebounded back to stasis in Week 5, putting up a record of 2-3 ATS thanks to a lot of hard work and Excel spreadsheets. I believe that gambling well has a lot to do with hard work; if you know what to be looking for and when to be weary of Vegas, you put yourself in a position to be more successful than the average schlub that rolls into Vegas.
But, as with many aspects of life, greatness cannot come from hard work alone. Every once in a while, you need a little bit of luck. I’ll explain further. For now, just take a gander at the Week 6 slate. Home team gets the asterisk.
Tuesdays With Horry 
