Catching Up

Drugs are good!

Friends, family, loyal readers, and Fah T:  How the hell are you?  I sure missed all of you beautiful people.  Where have I been, you ask?  Well, mostly I've been busy with the 2nd child, constantly going back and forth on whether parenting is a sport.  All is well in the family land, by the by, and thanks for asking to those who asked.  Entire family got sick at one point, but we got through all that.  Been posting the picks on the tweets, pretty much at .500, as I had been all year.  Exactly .500, for the playoffs, to be precise, though 1-0 on locks.  Yee haw!


Anyways, been wanting to write about the NHL lockout being resolved and the ND/Alabama game, and just never got around to doing it.  So figured we'd hit them both this time around, and do neither of them their due diligence.  Cause that's what I do's.  So a here's we go...

- I decreed to the wife and others that I would be boycotting the NHL if they came back, since I was so pissed about the way it was handled.  I made three exceptions:

1.  The Red Wings make the Finals.
2.  The Flyers make the Finals.
3.  The 3rd period of clinching Finals games so I could watch Bettman get booed to holy hell.

Asshole!  Asshole!

So this lasted about three days, until my boys @zoowithroy and J.B. made plans for a group of us to hit the Vermont/Penn State hockey game in Philly this weekend.  I started just craving hockey, like a pregnant woman after a... let's not go there.  Anyways, that led to the following exchange, about 2 days after the lockout ended:

Me - I think I'm giving up my NHL boycott.  I can't do it.
Wife - Already?
Me - Yeah.
Wife - That was quick.

Yep, it was.  Why should I punish myself for the incompetence of one man?  Hell, I even once told J.B. I would turn down free center ice tickets to a Flyers game.  Wait, what???  I texted him today that we gotta hit a game together this year (honestly, there is no smarter hockey fan than this dude.  And it's fun to remind him of the 1997 Finals... hehehe).  Good for the NHL for learning from the NBA... if you idiots don't figure it out, we don't care.  See you next year, douches.  So they did what they could have done months ago.  Good for them.  But mostly, good for us.  And yet another year of not being able to go to a Red Wings/Flyers game here.  Idiots...

- ND v. Alabama - I mean, was anyone really all that surprised by that game?  I told one of my more loyal readers I needed at least 14 to take ND in a bet (I incorrectly assumed ND's defense would try).  If you read the Sports Illustrated article on the game, it basically proved what we all knew... give Saban 40 days, and you are fucked.  Period.  The disappointing part was I think we expected a better fight from ND... we got the ND team that showed up against Purdue, BYU, and Pitt.  And I think most Irish fans would admit that even the ND that came versus Oklahoma and Stanford would never have won that game.

Nothing to add...

Here's the thing, though... much like I said about my Tigers season, Notre Dame had a great year.  It's good for college football for them to be good, so it benefited everyone.  And (oh my God, I can't believe I'm about to write this... hang on, need to vomit...) they... deserved... to be there.  F**K!!!  It's true, though.  Sure, they didn't pass the eye test.  Anyone who watched two minutes of the SEC title game knew ND was screwed.  I think we all knew they probably weren't the 1st or 2nd best team in college football.  But they went undefeated, beat Oklahoma, Stanford, USC (preseason #1), and Michigan (initially worse than we thought, then with Gardner, maybe better than we thought...should have beaten South Carolina), and were the only undefeated team in D-1.  They deserved to be there.  To say otherwise is simply un-American... okay, it really isn't, but I had to work the pic in somehow.

** Editor's Note - Wrote this post before the Te'o news came out.  My quick takes:  1.  I feel bad for Te'o on one level because he clearly got duped by a bunch of douches.  2.  Part of this is on him - to not clarify that he "met" his girlfriend online and let these stories go on all season is what made this such a huge deal.  This isn't to say he didn't care about the "girl" and whatnot.  But for him to say "we met in 2009" without ever saying he never met her face to face???  Sorry, dude.  That's on you.

On to the conference title games...

Pats (-9) vs. Baltimore - Co-worker asked if Pats were a lock to win the Super Bowl... and I said no, but they were clearly the favorite.  I asked him back if he'd be surprised if Baltimore won this weekend, and he said nope.  We should like the Ravens for the same reason we liked them last week... veteran team, underachieving but talented, been to the playoffs a bunch of times lately, and clearly not intimidated by any moment.  On LB Rules alone, they lose and cover.  But this Pats team just seems like they're on a mission to prove to the critics they can win post-Spygate.  The lose of Gronk hurts, but not that much.  That line just seems about 1.5 points high... which means LB gives them.  The Pick - Pats 31, Ravens 20.

Atlanta (+4=3.5) vs. San Francisco - I was shocked by that line (we're going off opening lines here).  Wife and I both thought it'd be more like Atlanta -2 again.  Seriously, 14-3, at home, wait, what???  I know they have traditionally stunk in the playoffs, blew a 20 point lead last week at home, my new boy Kaepernick lit it up... But as someone who owned Kap in fantasy, he tended to slump after a badass week.  True, the 49ers were in the NFC title game last year, but Kap wasn't.  I think the Falcons put like 8-9 in the box and dare the 49ers to throw.  LB Rules say that 3.5 line is a complete "I dare you" by Vegas, FYI.  Especially that half point.  But you know what I say to that???  The Pick - Falcons 28, 49ers 27.

 ** Editor's Note - Posted that line and rant prior to Te'o, too.  That line is now Atlanta +4.5.  WHAT???  I LOVE Atlanta here.  And in scouring the Internets, I think I'm the only one...

One random college hoops thought that won't get its own post... Duke and Michigan, ranked 1-2, both lost to Top 20 teams on the road last week.  This week, they're 3 and 5, respectively... so if they were the last two undefeateds, and both had "good" losses, how are they all of the sudden not the best 1-loss teams in the country?  Not that it matters, since some genius came up with the idea of actually playing it all out in a big tournament and deciding who the best team is by actually playing the games.  Orevoure, BCS.

Guaranteed LB "sick" days this March

We'll sneak a Super Bowl post in, don't worry... yeah, you don't worry.  Contact Logical Betting at logicalbetting@gmail.com and twitter.com/logicalbetting.  Thanks again to all who emailed about the family and the blog.  Much appreciated.  Cheers!  Hasta.