Chode Picks – Week 8

It’s here.  The best weekend of the year in Madison, or anywhere on the planet for that matter: Halloweekend.  Words cannot begin to describe how excited I am.  I’m like a kid in a candy store, or Jerry Sandusky surrounded by kids in a candy store.  Especially after the Packers embarrassed the Factory of Sadness that is the Cleveland Browns and the Wisconsin Badgers murdered our less-skilled neighbors from Illinois last week.  Life is good.  So forgive me for blowing my metaphorical load and getting right into the Picks.  This week’s edition is brought to you by Labatt Ice Lager.  Yes, that’s a real beer.  It’s cheap, strong, and tastes like this piss of Canadian Zeus.  Right up my alley. 

GREEN BAY PACKERS (4-2) at MINNESOTA VIKINGS (1-7)

It’s about damn time.  The Green Bay Packers are back on top of the NFC North, and for the most part, order has been restored to the football universe (Except for the Chiefs being undefeated.  No fucking clue how that happened.)  Better yet, Jay Cutler is out with a pulled groin for 4 to 6 weeks, or however long it takes for his menstrual cycle to reset.  But enough about Chicago.  I’ll get to them later.  Time to break down the good and the bad about the Packer-Viking game this Sunday night.

First, the bad news: too many injuries for the Pack.  Our best defensive player is out with a broken wrist, our best open-field threat is out for twice as long, two of our other best defensive players are out for another month or so, and our super-talented tight end nearly died on the turf in Lambeau last week.

The good news: we play Minnesota this Sunday, the worst-coached team in football.  You see, our less-intelligent neighbors to the west just happen to have the best running back in football, yet they insist on letting those three morons they call “quarterbacks” handle the ball more than Adrian Peterson.  And if you took the combined football talents of Josh Freeman, Matt Cassel and Christian Ponder into one quarterback and named him Jochrismatt Cassmander, he’d be approximately one eight as talented as Aaron Rodgers.  So I’m picking this injury-riddled squad to pound the Vikings in Lambeau West.  And I’ll be shocked if the Metrodome isn’t at least one-third full of Packer fans on Sunday.

GREEN BAY by 21

A couple more notes Minnesota football teams before we move on.  First of all, fuck you Blair Walsh.  You nearly single-handedly took me out of first place in one of my fantasy leagues last week.  You see, going into the Monday night Vikings-Giants game, I was just two points behind my friend Jon Erickson (pays for sex).  Jon had no players in the Monday night tilt, while I had Walsh as my starting kicker.  I didn’t even bother watching the game, mostly because I had a million antibiotics to memorize and also because I was fairly certain he could get me at least two points.  WRONG.  Thanks to the continued ineptitude of the Viking offense, Blair had just one extra point and a single 53-yard field goal attempt.  Which he missed, leaving me with ZERO points from my kicker, and with an embarrassing loss on my otherwise sterling fantasy record.  Damn it.  It’s weeks like this that make me wonder why I waste so much time on fantasy football.  But then I remember that I’m doing it for the sole purpose of making the Chode Picks more interesting.  Hey, speaking of the Picks…

BRETT FAVRE (0-0) vs ST LOUIS RAMS (3-4)

Yes, as you may or may not have heard, the Rams called up the old gunslinger this week and offered him the chance to play in the NFL again after Sam Bradford was lost for the season with a torn ACL.  Thankfully for all parties involved, he turned them down.  Probably because he realized the Rams’ offensive line is shit and at 44 years old, he has less scrambling ability than Oprah Winfrey.  Congratulations on your 3-13 season, St. Louis.  But on a more positive note…

FAVRE by default

ST LOUIS CARDINALS (1-1) vs BOSTON RED SOX (1-1)

Yup, it’s that time of year again, where I pretend to be a baseball fan for a couple weeks and arbitrarily pick a team to win the World Series based on nothing at all.  And while a few of my diehard Brewer friends have disowned me for jumping on the Cardinal bandwagon, at least we know Carlos Beltran isn’t going to cheat his way to the top, lie about it and then get suspended for half a season.  Yes, that was a shot at Ryan Braun.  Also, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez.  Deal with it.  I’m not sure when or how we let this happen, but the Brewers have now become the Vikings to the Cardinals’ Packers: a group of jealous, bitter, incompetent jerks rooting against everything good about sports.  And that my friends, is why I don’t follow baseball.  Go Cardinals.

St Louis in seven.

NEBRASKA (5-1) at MINNESOTA (5-2)

How the Gophers got five wins on the season is beyond me.  Hell, they might even beat Indiana this year and get to six wins so they can make a bowl and get crushed by the last-place team in the SEC again.  Regardless, they’re going down like Miley Cyrus on her coke dealer this week.  And believe it or not, there are a few people out there who think Nebraska should be ranked ahead of Wisconsin based on their “superior” record.  Bullshit.  Remember the last Big Ten Championship game?  That’s what I thought.  I can’t wait for the Cornhuskers to get mauled by Ohio State in December and watch the Badgers vault over them for a BCS at-large berth.  You heard it here first.

NEBRASKA by 17

WISCONSIN (5-2) vs BYE WEEK (0-0)

Damn it, Joel.  Either learn how to throw an accurate pass in the next seven days or prepare to hold a clipboard for the rest of your college career.

WISCONSIN by default

Quick note on last week’s Chode Points: I appreciate your collective enthusiasm in naming Barry Alvarez’s predecessor as UW athletic director: Pat Richter.  And I owe you all an apology for not making it specifically clear that I meant to award points to the first person to name him in the comments.  But since its my fault that I didn’t explicitly explain the rules, I’m awarding all of you ten Chode Points (even you, Nate).  But Ben King gets five extra points for naming him first.  I’ll be sure to make the directions more clear from now on.   So for this week’s edition, whoever posts the best Halloween costume below will be awarded with 20 Chode Points.  Pictures aren’t required, but they’re strongly encouraged.

NBA PREVIEW: CHICAGO BULLS (0-3) vs MIAMI HEAT (3-0)

Sorry, I couldn’t hold this back any longer.  I’ve had just about enough of my Illinois friends claiming that they’re good enough to “beat the Heat in seven” this year. HA!  Considering that Kirk Hinrich is already hurt and Joakim Noah’s estrogen levels are spiking again, they’ll be lucky to challenge Indiana for the honor of losing to Miami in the playoffs again.  Also, Greg Oden.  Greg fucking Oden.  He’s back, he’s relatively healthy, and he’s ready to kick some Eastern Conference ass.  Shit, we might as well just hand over the three-peat to the Heat and erase the ’96 Bulls from the record book.  And for those of you waiting for LeBron to leave so you can rub it in my face next offseason, I hate to crush your dreams (No, that’s a lie.  I love crushing your dreams.), but as long as Pat Riley is in charge, we’re going to keep racking up titles at the expense of our sad-sack friends in Illinois.  And nobody cares about hockey.

MIAMI by 3

FANTASY FOOTBALL:

FOURNIER’S SCROTEAM (3-4) vs MILSAP LOVES KIDDIE PORN (5-2)

First of all, congratulations to Alex Milsap on coming up with the second-best fantasy team name in our league.  For the rest of you non-doctor folk, go ahead and Google “Fournier’s gangrene of the scrotum” for reference.  I’ll wait.

…

Done throwing up?  Good.  Because statistically, that’s going to happen to at least one male reading this.  Anyways, I fully intend to keep changing my fantasy team name in my med school league to a personal insult about whoever I’m playing that week.  Deal with it, nerds.  And since Milsap’s team is terrible, I’ll take another victory on my way to TWO fantasy titles this fall.

MILSAP LOVES KIDDIE PORN by 9

KIDDIE KIDDIE BANG BANG (5-2) vs I’M FEELING LUCKY (4-3)

Yes, both of my teams reference pedophilia this week.  Don’t judge me.  But this is Bianca’s punishment for posting that God-awful song on the Chode Picks two weeks ago.  I’m going to kick her ass.  Also, I’m going to show up to your Halloween party tomorrow and puke all over the living room.  You deserve it.  Apparently I can’t trust you guys with anything.

KIDDIE KIDDIE BANG BANG by 40

I got sick this week for the first time since last winter.  THANKS, OBAMACARE.

May you all have the happiest of Halloweekends.  And remember to post a picture of your costume.

- Chode Out.