Pickin' Pigskin: Week 9 (and the Moss-Childress Split)

Matt: So, that was a short Randy Moss return. I'm not sure what exactly is going on with the Vikings, but I really hope someone is writing a book about this season. It's shambolic. Childress had lost the dressing room before Moss, but at this point, I wonder why even bother holding on to him to finish out the season. I'd have more confidence in Leslie Frazier.

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Bob: My real question, Matt, would be why Childress was ever around in the first place. It's not like he had done a stellar job (last season wasn't exactly attributed to him--in a season where the Vikings went 12-4 and had an argument as one of the best teams in the league, Childress got one vote for Coach of the Year) and he was already fairly notorious for bad clock management--a key skill for NFL coaches. In a world where Jon Gruden, Brian Billick, and Bill Cowher are on TV, it's inexcusable to keep Childress (or Wade Phillips) as a coach.

In other news, I'm not sure how the reports of Randy Moss lighting into the Vikings' caterers makes me feel. I have always been very sensitive to how people treat service staff, particularly because my mother was once a waitress and I cut my teenage chops at a Blockbuster Video. I think it's a real measure of someone's character when you see how they treat some poor bastard who is earning minimum wage to deliver you food or other services. A lot of people really take the opportunity of having someone serving them to be a bully, and I think that proves what jerkoffs some people really are. Randal Graves was right when he said "this job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers."

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Steve: I totally agree with you, Bob. How people treat minimum wage workers is typically a pretty good judge of character. Then again, like you, I might be biased because I worked at Dunkin' Donuts for two years. As a wise man would say, go spit Randy Moss.

Matt, I think they keep Childress out to play the string just so they don't have to deal with even more chaos by getting some new, lame duck coach in for the rest of the season. Anyone good - Parcells, Cowher, Dungy - isn't going to want to take on that quagmire (giggity giggity) in the middle of the season. Anyway, on to the standings:

Bob: 56-56 (6-7)
Steve: 54-58 (5-8)
Matt: 53-59 (6-7)
Kristin: 52-60 (6-7)

	Steve	Bob	Kristin	Matt
NYJ (-4) at DET	NYJ	NYJ	DET	NYJ
SD (-3) at HOU	SD	SD	HOU	SD
TB (+8.5) at ATL	ATL	TB	ATL	TB
NO (-6.5) at CAR	NO	NO	CAR	NO
CHI at BUF (-3)	CHI	BUF	BUF	CHI
ARI at MIN (-8)	MIN	MIN	MIN	ARI
NE at CLE (+4.5)	NE	CLE	NE	NE
MIA (+5.5) at BAL	MIA	MIA	MIA	BAL
NYG (-7) at SEA	NYG	NYG	NYG	NYG
IND (+3) at PHI	PHI	IND	IND	IND
KC at OAK (-1)	KC	OAK	OAK	KC
DAL at GB (-7.5)	GB	GB	GB	GB
PIT (-5) at CIN	PIT	PIT	PIT	PIT

Pickin' Pigskin: Week 6 (may or may not be about Jenn Sterger)

Matt: I'm heading out of town, so I figured I'd better get my picks sent off. Basically, I want to give up on our season, but I just can't quite bring myself to yet. Soon.

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Steve: Dear Matt,

First off, how about you change the subject line on your e-mail picks? Week five was last week! What do you think this is, amateur hour? Listen, I can banish you back to the minor leagues of game picking if you aren't careful! I'll cut you, fool.

And second, I'd give the Vikings a bit more time to gel into a cohesive unit with Moss. By the way, I used "unit" in my preceding paragraph. You get it? It's a Brett Favre joke! Because it refers to slang for PENIS. (Also, this whole paragraph now gives me justification for including a photo of Jenn Sterger.)

Speaking of Jenn, did you know she once had implants? Actually, I'm assuming she got them out since she did blog about how she wanted them removed. This disappoints me a bit - I don't mind implants. At least, I don't think I do - I don't think I've ever been with someone who has them. But implants in and of themselves aren't evil. I wouldn't rule out dating someone just because they had implants. (Now if they smoked and weren't trying hard to quit? No way.)

I hope that paragraph causes an awkward exchange and distraction in the Hanson household that will allow me to vault ahead of Bob in the standings. In a switch from last week, overall records are presented, with the past week's schedule in parentheses:

Bob: 35-37 (6-7)
Matt: 34-38 (7-6)
Steve: 33-39 (7-6)
Kristin: 30-42 (5-8)

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Bob: Dear Steve,

You should know you could never distract me with a picture of Jenn Sterger. I've always said there are two types of people I couldn't date - Republicans and Yankees fans. It is well-known that there is a correlation between being a Yankees fan and a Jets fan. According to the Transitive Property of New York Douche-ery, then, I have no interest in Jenn Sterger. It's not even a matter of just dating - I don't consider people to be worth my time if they are either of those things. (According to the Transitive Property of Republicanism, that means I also can't date racists. ZING.)

Now, if you want to post a picture of Dichen Lachman, that could be distracting to me. There are rumors that she might be in the new Star Wars television show, and that could be even more distracting. Maybe we can put her in a metal bikini?

As for football... wow, I can't think of a single interesting thing to say about football. I don't care about Brett Favre's penis. Really. I don't. At what point are we going to stop becoming excited about the fact that professional athletes are pigs, just like politicians, businessmen, reality television stars, actors, musicians, and basically any profession someone can be. AOL has a top 10 list of most famous affairs of 2009. At what point does this become old hat? Men cheat, and apparently the best way to do this now is to send somebody a picture of your dick. I'm sorry, allegedly send a picture of your dick.

According to ESPN, I should also care about concussions, minor-to-mid-level important players being injured, and the fact that in the NFL you aren't allowed to tweet too close to kickoff (which is BS). If I was Terrell Owens, I would pay my fine in a jar of pennies.

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Kristin: Dear Favre,

If you want to sleep with women that aren't your hot blond brunette wife and mother of your children, giving them the lasting mental image of your penis appearing only the two inch length of a cell phone screen is probably not the way to go.

Love,
Kristin

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So without further delay, here be some picks:

	Steve	Bob	Kristin	Matt
ATL (+2.5) at PHI	ATL	ATL	PHI	ATL
KC (+4.5) at HOU	KC	KC	HOU	HOU
NO (-4) at TB	NO	NO	NO	NO
MIA at GB (-3)	GB	GB	GB	MIA
SD (-8.5) at STL	SD	SD	STL	SD
BAL (+2.5) at NE	NE	BAL	NE	BAL
DET (+10) at NYG	NYG	DET	DET	NYG
CLE at PIT (-14)	PIT	PIT	CLE	PIT
SEA at CHI (-6)	SEA	CHI	SEA	CHI
NYJ (-3.5) at DEN	NYJ	NYJ	DEN	NYJ
OAK (+7) at SF	SF	OAK	SF	OAK
DAL at MIN (-1.5)	DAL	MIN	DAL	DAL
IND (-3) at WAS	IND	IND	WAS	IND
TEN (-3) at JAX	TEN	TEN	TEN	TEN