I don’t know where to begin.
Mere words cannot begin to explain the emptiness that I feel
inside. As I sit here in the house where
I spent my first 18 years of life, I can’t help but wonder how everything that
was good turned so horribly wrong in a span of less than 72 hours. My mind goes back to last Saturday afternoon,
when I was flush with success, coming off of a fantastic semester, readying
myself for a trip to Minneapolis where the Green Bay Packers would clinch a
first-round playoff bye and the Wisconsin Badgers would lay claim to their
first Rose Bowl Championship in over a decade.
Three days later, my sorry, defeated, dejected ass returned to
Menomonie, hungover and depressed by the realization that I would be forced to
spend another six days in this miserable city trying to find ways to distract
myself from the combined failures of my favorite sports teams.
I’m sure you all watched as the Badger football team lost
their third consecutive contest in Pasadena, so there’s no real need for me to
re-hash the events of the game here. The
only thing I’ll say is that after the previous two Rose Bowls, I was angry
because I felt like we had opportunities to win and threw them away. This time though, it seemed like we lost to a
team that was just flat-out better than us in nearly every facet of the game. Give Stanford all the credit in the world,
they controlled the line of scrimmage and basically beat us at our own
game. My only regret is that Joel Stave
didn’t get a chance to throw more, especially with our running attack stymied
for most of the afternoon by the Cardinal defense. Damn it.
We’ll be back soon enough.
Anyways, I was going to name that horrific three-day stretch
of failure as the Worst Weekend of All Time, but then I (vaguely) remembered
how much fun I had on New Year’s Eve in between the games, so I guess the trip
wasn’t a total disaster. Also, I decided
that no matter what happens from this point on, I am never going back to that
hideous city to watch a football game. I
had to shower three times and perform my Packer cleansing ritual (burning a
Brett Favre jersey, the Raji dance, and an animal sacrifice*) to get the stench
of losing off of me after I got back.
In other depressing news, the University of Wisconsin School
of Medicine and Public Health resumes classes on Monday, which means I have to
start waking up early for class again.
Better yet, I’ll probably be doing so hungover, since the majority of my
friends are still in undergrad and will be pressuring me into getting drunk on
week nights before their classes start again.
Not a huge problem I guess, since I’ve gotten a fair amount of practice
over the past 4.5 years. What is a
problem though, is that it’s been almost three weeks since final exams and we
still have not gotten a single score back.
How fucking long does it take to grade a computerized, multiple-choice
test?!? I guess a PhD doesn’t fully
prepare you for the arduous tasks of being a professor, like “counting” and
“grading exams”. So in response, I am
refusing to fill out my end-of-course surveys until I get my damn scores
back. And if you’re wondering why I care
so much about my scores when I already know I passed anyways, well shut up,
nobody asked you. And I’ve got a bet
riding on Genetics.
Well, you’re probably sick of hearing about my life, so
let’s get to the Picks.
AMERICAN FOOTBALL CONFERENCE:
INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (11-5) at BALTIMORE RAVENS (10-6)
Yup, that’s right.
Baltimore gets to host this game despite having the inferior
record. Welcome to the NFL’s playoff
seeding, where the rules are made up, and wins don’t matter! Anyways, this game features Colts coach Chuck
Pagano, who recently beat leukemia, against Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who
just one-upped Pagano by announcing that he’ll be retiring after the
season. Needless to say, one of these
teams is going to feel like they let their guy down in a big way after the
game. My money says it’ll be
Indianapolis, since they’ve been mostly terrible away from home this year. Something tells me we’ll see Andrew Luck here
a few more times though.
Ravens by 4
CINCINATTI BENGALS (10-6) at HOUSTON TEXANS (12-4)
Four weeks ago, the Texans were 11-1 and had seemingly
locked up the #1 seed in the AFC. Since
then, they’ve went 1-3 and just about everybody has written them off as a Super
Bowl contender. But keeping in tradition
with the Chode Picks tradition of terrible predictions, I like them to make it
to New Orleans this year. Yeah that’s
right, you heard it here first. Matt
Schaub and the Texans are going to knock off the Bengals, Patriots and Broncos
on their way to Super Bowl XLVII, where they will lose in agonizing fashion the
Green Bay Packers when J.J. Watt forgets to take his “herbal supplements”
before the game and gets run over by Aaron Rodgers to give up the winning
touchdown. Discount doublecheck. By the way, I reserve my right to alter my
Super Bowl pick if either the Texans or Packers lose this weekend. But don’t bet on it.
Texans by 10
NATIONAL FOOTBALL CONFERENCE:
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (11-5) at WASHINGTON REDSKINS (10-6)
Russell Wilson vs RG3.
RG3 vs Russell Wilson. Is
everyone cool with clearing the field and just letting these two guys play
one-on-one? Okay, good. I’d be betraying my alma mater if I didn’t
take Wilson’s side here, and to be completely honest, I want the Packers to
play Seattle in the NFC Championship game to get revenge for the Inaccurate
Reception anyways. Don’t let me down
again, Russell.
Seahawks by 3
MINNESOTA VIKINGS (10-6) at GREEN BAY PACKERS (11-5)
Well, this looks familiar.
Before I get to the rematch of the season, I’d like to say a few words
about Adrian Peterson. First of all, I’d
like to tell you that I have nothing but the utmost respect for this man. He’s hardworking, humble, and talented as
hell. He is far and away the best
running back in the NFL, and will probably go down as one of the greatest of
all time. If he was a Packer, he’d
probably be my favorite player. Every
time he touches the ball against Green Bay, it scares the living shit out of me. Now, with all of that said… Adrian Peterson
is not the MVP. Allow me to pull a
Simmons-esque stunt on you to explain. I
present to you, Player A and Player B:
Player A: 2,097 rush yards, 217 rec yards, 13 total TDs, 4
fumbles
Player B: 4,659 pass yards, 37 TDs, 11 INTs, 2 fumbles
Now, I can already hear the Minnesota fans screaming “but
what if Player A was one year removed from a season-threatening knee surgery
and led his team to four straight wins??”
Well, in any other year they would have a damn good point, but what
everyone has seemingly forgotten is that last year Player B had FOUR
CAREER-THREATENING NECK SURGERIES and this season Player B has also led his
team to ELEVEN WINS IN A ROW.
Checkmate. In case you don’t
actually watch football, Player A is Adrian Peterson and Player B is the NFL’s
most valuable player, Peyton Manning.
Now, I don’t have a problem with awarding Offensive Player of the Year
and Comeback Player of the Year to Adrian Peterson, but anybody who actually
knows football also knows that Manning, Brady and Rodgers will always be more
valuable than any running back. Now,
despite these blatantly obvious truths, I fear that Peterson will be given the
MVP anyways by the same sportswriters that crowned Miguel Cabrera king of the
MLB despite the fact that Mike Trout was far superior in every meaningful advanced
statistic (sorry, that still bothers me).
And I’ll admit that this week Peterson has given me nightmares based on
what he’s done to the Packer defense this week, but even so, I’m really not all
that worried about this weekend’s matchup at Lambeau, for the following
reasons:
-
I spoke to a lot of Viking fans in Minneapolis
after the game, and the prevailing opinion was “damn I’m glad we made the
playoffs, but I really think we’ll need some luck to beat you guys in Green Bay
next weekend”
-
I spoke to a lot of Packer fans in Minneapolis
after the game, and the prevailing opinion was “damn it’s too bad we couldn’t
get a first round bye, but I’m really not worried about playing them again next
weekend”
-
I couldn’t agree more. In fact, if Green Bay had decided not to take
the first quarter off last Sunday, I don’t think we’d be in this situation
anyways. Sometime during the second
half, it became obvious that Rodgers had figured out Minnesota’s secondary and
the only way we would lose is if the Vikings scored last and didn’t give us
another possession. So to recap, we
didn’t actually lose, we merely ran out of time. Fortunately, we have 60 more minutes on
Saturday night to restore order to the football world.
-
I’m 80% sure that McCarthy threw that game to make
sure that the Bears and Giants would miss the playoffs. Suck it, Chicago and New York.
-
My team still has Aaron Rodgers. Your team does not. And being a part-owner of the Green Bay
Packers, I had a chance to speak with Aaron yesterday. I called him up late last night, and I told
him “Aaron, on Saturday you’re going to go out there with a dick full of
confidence, and you’re going to shoot that confidence all over the damn
field”. To which he responded naturally,
“who the hell are you and how did you get my phone number?” before hanging
up. Needless to say, he’ll be on his A
game.
Packers by 12
I suppose I should wish you all a belated Happy New
Year. I hope 2013 is at least half as
awesome for all of you as 2012 was for me.
Unlike everyone else, I decided not to make a new year’s resolution
because hey, why mess with success? Wow,
I’m sorry, that looks a lot worse on paper than it sounded in my head. What I meant to say was, I’m not making a new
year’s resolution this year because I am already perfect. There, much better.
In other world news, the new US Congress was sworn in today,
containing a historically large proportion of women, which apparently is a good
thing according to the news program I just watched. Now, I know that occasionally in the Chode
Picks I can come across as a little chauvinistic, so I’d like to take this
opportunity to let you all know that I’m thrilled for all of those uppity
broads in Washington, and I think they’ll do a fine job. After all, women can do anything men can do. Except you know, math, chess, running,
jumping, lifting stuff, fixing things, making money, hockey, basketball,
driving, making decisions, being tall, taking out the garbage, tipping,
fishing, being funny on purpose, reading maps, writing, running the country,
drinking or inventing anything important.
I probably forgot a few things.
Sincere apologies to my female readers (all six of you) and a tip of the
cap to Daniel Tosh.
Well, it’s about time to call it a wrap for the week. I’m running short on youtube videos, so I
need one of you to step up and provide one for me again. Not you though, Biceli. Your last two were absolutely terrible. Isn’t there anything I can trust you to do
without fucking it up horribly? Happy
early birthday.
* no animals were harmed in this week’s edition of the Chode
Picks
- Chode Out.
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