Malaya and I keep meaning to get some housework done, and we keep not finding the time. We've got plans to rearrange the living room, to move a big bookshelf out of the bedroom, and to build a bike rack on the back patio to hold the bikes there and make space in the storage shed. And thanks to this weekend's NFL programming schedule, I should have plenty of free time Sunday to work on those projects.
It seems like the NFL on TV sucks every weekend in the Bay Area, and this one is... no exception. SF@Chicago early, NYJ@Carolina late. A pair of almost sure blowouts, with both visiting teams sucking, and worse yet, sucking on offense. Which means they'll lose, and they'll lose boring. SF has by far the worst offense in the league and Chi has the best defense, so the early game is one of those "resistible forces meets immovable object" mismatches. That being said, SF will probably get weird luck and lose like 21-23, when you'd expect them to lose like 3-17, after rolling up about 83 yards of total offense. Out of curiosity, I checked the odds and the Bears are 13 point favorites with a 31 point over/under. There are a number of
teams that average nearly 31 points per game! And while you wouldn't expect a NYG/Indy game to yield 57 points, it would certainly beat the #23 Chicago 17.4ppg offense hosting the #29, 14.6ppg SF juggernaut.
As for the late game, Oakland is hosting Denver, in about the first Oakland game I've wanted to see all year. So of course it's blacked out locally, your average Raiders fan being far more interested in slapping on a Raider Nation bumpersticker than in actually attending a game. Even the night game is suck, with punchless Cleveland visiting boring Pittsburgh. Gotta hope Big Ben's able to play, or that will be another field goal special.
Monday night's game caps off the weekend, when Dallas visits the inexplicably-favored Eagles, now minus their one interesting (and insane) player. I guess Philly is still trying this year, even in their harsh division and even with McNabb's steadily-worsening injury. I don't see it happening; they're 4-4 with fluke/luck wins over SD and Oakland, they've lost 3 out of 4, 2 of those were blowouts, and their one-dimensional offense was going downhill even when T.O. was playing. Without a freak FG block and fumble against SD they'd be 3-5 and thinking 6-10 and decent draft pick, and I won't be surprised if they crater now and end up around there anyway.
The question for Philly is, what if they'd ordered McNabb to get surgery after week 3 when the nature of his sports hernia injury became clear and everyone began to realize he could neither run nor step into his passes. McNabb would have required 2 or 3 months to come back, but in theory T.O. would (probably) have kept it together if he were the only star left, the offense would have grown more conservative, the defense would have clamped down, and I suspect Philly would have managed to be 7-5 or something like that, when McNabb returned to lead them on a late season run for a wildcard spot and playoff momentum. Instead he decided to play through a debilitating injury and postpone surgery until the off season, the rest of the team got a year older, and they pretty much threw away their season. That being said, I suspect I'll tape MNF this week and watch it afterwards, but I won't be at all surprised if Dallas tramples Philly nearly
as badly as they did last month in Texas. After all, how hard can it be to scheme a defense against a one-dimensional short passing offense when the only guy worthy of a double-team is a running back who never actually runs?
Overall it's another crappy NFL weekend, with only one game featuring two winning teams, and even that game is just inconsistent 5-3 Washington at 5-3 and collapsing Tampa Bay. It could be an interesting weekend for blowouts though, with 8 games featuring a road team with at least 2 fewer wins than the home team, highlighted by 1-7 Houston at 8-0 Indy. Next weekend should be better though, with 3 good (going by their records, at least) matchups: Tampa@Atlanta, Carolina@Chicago, and Indy@Cincinnati. It might also feature the single worst MNF game of the season too, with Minn@GB in one of those, "Well, somebody's got to win, right?" games. More than likely those two teams will be a combined 4-14 by then. Hoofah.
(Then again, check out MNF for
week 15; GB@Baltimore and a combined 3 wins between them at this point. Quite the early Xmas prezzie there, eh? When the hell does that new TV package start, where they'll have the option to switch out awful MNF games for better ones, late in the season?)
