Last Week, Straight Up: Joe (3-1); Aaron (2-2)
Last Week, vs. Spread: Joe (2-2);
Aaron (2-2)
Total, Straight Up: Joe (6-2); Aaron (3-5)
Total, vs. Spread: Joe (3-4-1); Aaron
(4-4)
New England at Denver (-5)
Joe: There's no better time for New
England to get beat than when their fans have worked themselves up into a
lather of Manning-based overconfidence. It would be tempting to suspect that
the universe would be looking to correct their misapprehensions. But things
don't seem to be working out that way this year. There were good reasons to
think the Red Sox would lose all the way up until they won the World Series. Am
I really going to walk through that same hell-gauntlet with the Patriots?
Somehow the team that has decided to place its entire postseason hopes on the
unnaturally stocky shoulders of LaGarrette Blount is bound to succeed and leave
me with two weeks of "Greatest Team of All Time or GREATEST Team of All Time"
articles. Because there is no God, and nature is a hostile beast.
Pick: New England 31, Denver 21
Aaron: Look...MY Super Bowl was last
week. The Broncos wholly satisfying obliteration of (sigh) "Bolt
Nation" saved us all from a Chargers vs. Patriots AFC Championship game in
which there would be NO WINNERS. Like, tic-tac-toe or
WarGames (the 1983 movie, not the NWA/WCW innovation) or voting libertarian. The
Chargers played surprisingly conservative on offense against the Broncos. A
mistake that Mumbling Bill Belichick is unlikely to repeat. Equally unlikely?
That Broncos head coach John Fox will outcoach anyone. That
means Denver will have to win on talent alone. Now that Peyton Manning's "legacy"
appears to be on the line every week now, I'll predict guess
that he leads his team to a last second win with a perfectly-placed lollipop
pass to the back of the end zone and into the arms of, oh, let's say...Moe.
Pick: Denver 34, New England 33
San Francisco at Seattle (-3.5)
Joe: So long as the universe is being
hostile to me personally, they might as well throw Jim Harbaugh and WWE-level
diva routine along with everything else. The man is the Jimmy Hart of the NFL, hopping around
on the sidelines like he does. Get him a fleur-de-lis jacket and throw Canadian
Earthquake on the offensive line and call it a day. ANYWAY, this hostile-universe
theory hits a bit of a skid here, because it's not like Pete Carroll is in any
way supportable either. He's not as demonstrably objectionable, he's just kind
of a wiener. A wiener with a strong home-field advantage.
Pick: Seattle 24, San Francisco 20
Aaron: I've doggedly picked against
the 49ers all postseason, so I suppose I should ride this wave all the way to
shore. (Apologies...it's been 80 degrees every day since early December here in
San Diego. Consequently, the state of California is under extreme drought
conditions relating to both precipitation AND appropriate metaphors.) I do enjoy 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick's
burgeoning dickish-ness, on-field taunts and condescending interviews. I can do without the media's acceptable Negro positioning of Seattle
QB Russell Wilson -- articulate! prepared! classy! But, I don't expect either
quarterback to figure in the decision here. These two teams are similar enough
to play out the whole "irresistible force vs. immovable object"
dynamic that usually produces great drama in the buildup and a boring stink
bomb when the game plays out. Or, have we ALL forgotten the events in Pontiac, Michigan --
1987? This will be a low-scoring, ugly affair that the NFL will retroactively
describe as a defensive masterpiece in future season yearbook DVD releases.
Pick: Seattle 15, San Francisco 12
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