Here’s the latest installment of Nick Benvenuto’s college football picks. Coming off a 3-0 week, I’d say Nick’s on his game. Now’s the time to three-team parlay those picks down there! I also look forward to hearing Nick’s take after attending Ohio State vs. Penn State this weekend.
Don’t sleep on The Weekly! After getting a slow start out of the 2010 gates, we’ve chopped all the way back to the .500 mark with our first undefeated week of the season.
For the first time of the 2010 season, I went back to personal favorite football haunt Houlihan’s. No LT this time, but it was still a good time. As always, I offer the disclaimer that I’m hardly a football expert.
With the baseball season’s conclusion giving me a modicum of free time, I ventured back to familiar haunt Houlihan’s in Secaucus for the first time this season, and was unfortunately confronted with exactly what I go there to avoid:
Screaming, irrational fans. Specifically, two of them, loud enough to drown out a jet engine.
I continue to get closer to game time with this. This week, it’s because of a writing assignment for my day job, and taking down my Halloween decorations – which takes longer for me than it probably does for most. Regardless, I’ll try to scale this a little earlier in the week (i.e. not within 12 hours before the games start).
I work for a website devoted to a sport other than football, and it’s always the same routine when I work on Sunday. Everyone sits around and lobbies for the Colts to throw it to Pierre Garcon, or for the Giants to offer goal-line scraps to Brandon Jacobs, or some such.
Some might have been surprised by last Monday’s ratings, when a horrible Jaguars-Titans blowout beat a good Rangers-Yankees playoff game in the ratings, but it’s really not a shock if you think about it. Fantasy leagues and gambling have become the bedrock that forms the foundation for the entire sport of football.
Again, later in the week working better, because of baseball and LeBron starring in the best Nike ad in years. It may become a trend. My usual reminder: I’m a football layman.
When I showed up at work on Monday, one of my co-workers said, “Obviously, you’re going to write about instant replay this week.†Well, yes, but not in the way he was thinking
As a Dolphins fan, I do think they got shafted, much the way the Lions were in Week 1 when some obscure rule wiped out what was obviously a Calvin Johnson touchdown. They forced a fumble by Ben Roethlisberger before he crossed the plane of the end zone, and then Ikaika Alama-Francis recovered the ball and came away with it after the pile was sorted out.
And the referees said they couldn’t figure out who recovered it. I mean, that’s crazy. Anyone with eyes saw Alama-Francis with the ball.
But you can’t just roll over at that point. There’s still a game to win.
Way late with football thoughts this week due to Larry Johnson and the baseball playoffs, so it’s “The Afternoon Before.†I realize I’m beating a dead horse with the head injury thing, but as I was on this a few weeks back, I want to discuss this week, when it all came to a head, pun intended.
I remember way back in 1996, watching a rookie-year Zach Thomas’ first game for the Dolphins, when New England’s Shawn Jefferson came on a reverse and Thomas ran sideline-to-sideline, lowered his shoulder and leveled him, knocking him unconscious.
I still remember my reaction: Shock and horror at the brutality of the sport.
Except for the fact that it wasn’t my reaction at all. I told anyone who’d listen that it was obvious from his very first hit that Thomas was going to be a special player.
Something new we’re trying here – college football. Personally, I don’t know very much about college football, though I watch it casually. Luckily, I’ve been put in touch with Nick, who appears to be somewhat of a gambling expert and picks the games by an e-mail newsletter every week. He’s been doing this all season, but we’re jumping on board now. I’ve been reading his stuff and like it, and his record’s pretty decent, so here goes. We’ll try to get him a permanent posting name and such soon, I found this in my e-mail when I woke up today so I’m kind of working on the fly.
It took more time than we expected, but we’re grooving heading into Week 8. Our second consecutive winning week in a row still leaves us under .500 for the season, but gives us a renewed sense of optimism for the stretch run.
Here are my weekly thoughts on the game of football, with my standard disclaimer that I don’t profess to know a whole lot about the sport. Apologies for its lateness – baseball, some Halloween activities and hanging out with Larry Johnson (post forthcoming) got in the way a bit.
It’s amazing to see the fall of Brett Favre, considering the heights he came from.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not an enormous fan of Favre’s apparent heavy-handed attempt at simultaneous sexual harassment and adultery.
But the visceral jubilation I’ve seen for the destruction of Favre’s legacy is baffling to me. It seems to stem from a deep-rooted dislike of Favre that has grown over the years, and one that seems somewhat outsized.
I mean, if you took out of context the euphoria on Twitter after Favre threw an interception on Monday night against the Jets, you’d have thought we caught Osama Bin Laden.
Here are my weekly thoughts on football. As always, I’ll reiterate I’m hardly a scholar of the sport.
Having my beloved Dolphins on Monday Night Football last night really brought me back to when I was growing up, when that sort of thing was a very big deal.
A little later than usual due to Tuesday’s Drake concert, here’s my weekly football thoughts. Since I do picks now, I think a little later in the week is okay. As always, a reminder that I am genuinely far from a football expert, but I do enjoy the social constructs of the game.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that winning in sports is the great cure-all, the ultimate social antidote. It really doesn’t matter what you do, it seems, provided you’re good at your sport. Michael Vick is the epitome of that notion.
For a guy universally panned after having done reprehensible things, he’s sure made a comeback as far as the opinion-shapers in the media are concerned.
My weekly thoughts on football. As always, my disclaimer – I really don’t know a whole lot about the sport itself.
I ran a few miles yesterday on my town’s track, which circles the football field, and the local high school team was practicing during my workout. We coexisted just fine, though I did draw some quizzical stares for the fact I was running barefoot. Frankly, I don’t blame them.
At one point, a high school friend of mine who’s an assistant coach for the team sent one of the kids to the trainer, with the exasperated explanation, “Joey says his head hurts.â€Â