Stupid Jim Harbaugh.
Let me start by getting something off my chest. I am a Seahawks fan, I play fantasy football, and I pick each NFL game for fun. I enjoy winning, and I enjoy being right. So, all things considered, I would prefer to win each of my fantasy games each week and I would prefer to "win" all of my picks. But given the choice, I'd take a Seahawks victory and an 0-fer-the-rest each week in a heartbeat. I'm a fan first.
So did I make my pick at least partly with karma in mind? Sure I did. Would I have loved to have been wrong and seen Seattle win? Absolutely. But as soon as Seattle was called for a (wrong) foul in the end zone that resulted in a safety with less than 2 minutes left, any chance of Seattle winning was gone. Out the window. But if I was going to see my team lose, it would have been nice to finally break my 0-fer-season streak of picking Thursday night games. Given that the line was SF -7 when I made the pick, a 9-point win for the 49ers would have given me at least that.
Then Harbaugh declined the safety, instead taking the turnover on downs. Was it the right move? Sure. Even though I don't believe a team has ever executed a free kick (you don't get a tee on a free kick after a safety) onsides-kick, and San Francisco was up 9 with 43 seconds left, and Seattle had no timeouts, and the Seattle offense hadn't moved the ball really all second half long, I guess it was still theoretically possible for Seattle to come back.
But geez, Harbaugh, couldn't you give me this one?
Anyway, while I'm still 0-fer, I did break my losing streak, as with San Francisco winning my 7, my pick pushed and I get credit for a tie (or a half-win). And alongside that tie I figure I have some karma built up with the gambling gods, so let's consider that a streakbuster and the start of a glorious new midweek picking era. One where I look like a savant, instead of like an idiot. I can dream, can't I?
MINNESOTA (-5.5) over Tampa Bay
These short week games are killer, especially for the road team. It's not easy to play 2 games in 4 days, and if Roger Goodell actually cared about player safety, this wouldn't be a season-long feature. But it certainly makes the NFL lots of extra money, so I'd bank on the Thursday Night games as a season-long feature being here to stay.
All season long, exactly two teams have won midweek games as the road team. One of those was week 1, where neither team had played any game (let alone a regular season one) 4 days prior, so we can throw that one out. That means the road team has won just 1/6 times. And they've covered only twice.
I'd like Minnesota in this game even on a neutral site. Tampa just isn't that good. They've looked dangerous offensively these last two weeks, but that's been against terrible (KC and NO) defenses. No, Tampa's game is to play within themselves and hope to frustrate the other team into enough mistakes to win. The thing is, Minnesota plays that way too, only they're much better at it. Tampa's offense falls back down to earth, and their defense acts as more of a speed bump than an immoveable object against Adrian Peterson, Christian Ponder, and the Viking offense.
Midweek Record: 0-6-1
No comments:
Post a Comment