Looking Ahead To The Weekend
Worst NFL Game of the Week – Given the way they are playing, Chicago and St. Louis are not destined to make a classic – the Rams are absolutely terrible, and the Bears are in a sudden and dire slump. This should get the Bears back on track, but it won’t be pretty. There is worse, though – Buffalo at Kansas City. The Bills showed the world new and creative ways to throw away a win on Monday night. The Chiefs have a few things going for them – in Tyler Thigpen they may have finally found the QB of the future – but there are so many holes with the team that it’s almost sad. Ugly.
Best NFL Game of the Week – Indianapolis at San Diego should be a great game, but the Chargers have ensured by their play that it won’t be. Carolina at Atlanta is a surprisingly good game with high stakes. The Jets at Tennessee pits two hot teams at the top of their games together. The winner, though, is one that would have been terrible last year. The Pats and the Dolphins meet in a game that could go a long way to determining a wild card spot. Both teams can look very good when they want to, and both obviously have flaws. This game could be awful, but there is a much better chance that it will be totally entertaining.
Game With Teams With The Most To Prove - Minnesota at Jacksonville. The Vikings need to keep winning to earn a playoff spot. Jacksonville really only has pride to play for short of a miracle, but they need to show that they have that pride.
Oddest Line – The Dolphins are favored against the Patriots. That’s justified this year – it’s only one point, and Miami is at home – but given where the two teams were at at this time last year this is an almost impossible situation to believe.
Best College Game – I wish it was Michigan at Ohio State, but that one’s a million miles from relevant or interesting this year. Instead, the clear and obvious winner comes from the same place that the best games have come from for most of the year – the Big 12. Texas Tech at Oklahoma will quite likely determine one of the teams in the national championship. It also should go a long way to determining the Heisman winner. Scoring won’t be in short supply. This could be a classic – another one from Texas Tech.
Filling Me With Dread – Michigan has never lost as many games as they have this year, they are 20 point underdogs, and they stand virtually no chance of beating their biggest rivals. Or even making it competitive for that matter. I feel no dread at all – nothing that can happen this year will bother me anymore. I am immune to disappointment.
Four Interesting Games Between Unranked Teams – Miami (+3.5) at Georgia Tech. The winner here is in very good shape to win the ACC Coastal and make the championship game. Very high stakes, obviously. Washington (-7.5) at Washington State. This game is so irredeemably bad that you can’t hardly avoid watching. It’s like a train wreck occurring right in front of our eyes again and again. Sadistic pleasure. Stanford (+9) at Cal. This is Stanford’s last game. They have five wins. Jim Harbaugh will be incredibly hungry to get a sixth win to be bowl eligible. Stanford needs that badly. Very badly. Tennessee (+3) at Vanderbilt. Another one for your sadistic side. Here we get to see just how far Tennessee can fall. Losing to a lowly in-state rival for the third time in four years would probably cause mass suicide.
Biggest Line – Tulane (+28.5) at Tulsa. Tulane has lost six in a row. They aren’t good. At all. Tulsa, formerly undefeated, is reeling. They lost to Arkansas, then backed that up by losing to Houston by 40, and giving up 70 points in the process. The fact that Tulane is an underdog by more than four touchdowns to a team struggling that badly tells you just how bad they are.
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Tags: College Football, NCAA, NFL
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Manning will look to put one of his worst performances further in the rearview mirror today as the Indianapolis Colts try for their fourth straight win in a matchup with the Chargers – the team that also knocked the Colts out of last season’s playoffs.