Last week we won, improving to 8-15. We capped the year off with a nice little victory. And last time I checked, you’re only as good as your last game, right? Which makes us some sort of combination between Miss Cleo, John Edwards (the one who talks to dead relatives on TV), and Mike Ditka. So, riding last week’s wave of creativity, we’re trying something new this week.
This week we’re using the good folks at Google to help us to decide. The Google dudes were like, “Hey, want us to sponsor you?” And we were like, “Psh, no way.” We are not sellouts*.
For each team, we typed “[Team name] Good Men” into the Google search bar and then pressed “I’m Feeling Lucky.” Wherever that brought us determined the pick.
*Google, if you’re reading this: We’re very interested in a sponsorship.
New Orleans Saints at Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks are one of the worst professional sports teams to make the playoffs (they’re 7-9). Seattle and Good Men brought us over to our friends at SportsGrid. They’ve got a nice little roundup, asking if the Seahawks deserve so much hate. Our thoughts: it’s fine the ’Hawks are in the playoffs—they won their division—but there’s no way in hell they should be hosting a playoff game against the 11-5 defending Super Bowl champs.
You know, with Drew Brees winning “Sportsman of the Year” and GQ’s “Patron Saint of the Year,” you’d think the Saints would’ve been a lock here, but no. We found ourselves back at SportsGrid. This time it was Saints running back Reggie Bush asking a genius question on Twitter. Bush tweeted, “If someone says ‘no homo’ is that offensive towards gay people?” Yes, Reggie. It most definitely is. And it makes you sound like a moron. Let’s go Seahawks!
New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts
For the Jets, we found ourselves in the team’s official forums—specifically, in a thread about the “best movie scene …EVER!!!!” One poster wrote, “Any movie with Christopher Walken is great,” which we wholeheartedly agree with. However, this is not OK: “That scene in Twilight when that guy turns into a werewolf was awesome. And pick any scene from Sex and the City you can’t go wrong.”
Dammit.
There’s no way around this. The Colts and Good Men brought us to a story I wrote. For all the excuses I’ve used to pick the Jets in the past, my loyalty cannot overcome the insatiable love that I have … for myself. Colts it is. (I just threw up.)
Baltimore Ravens at Kansas City Chiefs
As I started to type “Baltimore Ravens Good Men” into the Google search bar, my computer began to smoke. The keys on my keyboard became too hot to touch. Thunder crashed outside, rattling my house’s foundation. Lightning lit up the night sky, and a hooded guy on a dragon flew by my window. At that point I remembered Ray Lewis was on the Ravens, and I decided it would just be easier to pick the Chiefs.
Green Bay Packers at Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles + Good Men mix, once again, sent us over to SportsGrid. It was a piece rounding up the reactions to the Eagles-Vikings game being postponed two weeks ago. Vikings tight end Visanthe Shiancoe said, “You know what, the roads are bad for East Coast standards. But if this was in the Midwest, there would be no way that this would be delayed.” Yeah, because it’s not like the roofs of stadiums in the Midwest can’t withstand blizzards or anything like that. And obviously Ed Rendell’s brilliant comments about the Chinese and advanced math were in there too.
Which makes it that much easier for me to pick myself again. Although the Week 15 picks were tough, any time a search brings me directly to something I wrote, well, first thing I do is I go look at myself in the mirror and say, “You are the greatest man alive.” But after that, I’ll thank whoever or whatever it was that inflated my already too big ego. So thanks, Green Bay. You’re the pick.
—Photo laxstar263/Photobucket