The Picker: What's wrong with football today
BY The Picker
Thursday, September 20, 2012
9/20/12 at 6:13 AM
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Original Print Headline: Pointing out what's wrong with football
Football isn't perfect.
Here's some of what's wrong with it.
The Kansas City Chiefs games are on TV: Which is enough to make a person think about picking up a book or subscribing to a multi-game package on the cable.
USC quarterbacks: Did you know that there has never been a great one in the NFL? This school puts out pokey quarterbacks with soft arms, your Cassels, your Peetes, your Palmers, your Marinovichs, Sanchez and the former Heisman candidate Matt Barkley. The mighty West Coast publicity machine is the source for such tomfoolery.
Real NFL refs: The union guys are holding out so part-time workers can get fat pensions, heretofore unheard of in labor relations.
Replacement fans: Last week many of you criticized our pick of Kansas plus 21 points versus "powerful" TCU. Yeah, well, KU covered easily and could have won the game. Where are those fans now? They're acting like local TV meteorologists and are probably hiding under the bed until another sorry prediction drifts away and is forgotten.
Ball cap language: The bill ironed flat says I drop a lot of passes. The ball cap worn backwards says I'm a quarterback who will never win a playoff game.
Drugs: Somehow football has gotten a pass. Think the juice and the raw power it creates might have anything to do with all the injuries?
Big Ten football: The Indiana-Purdue winner could play in the conference championship game.
The spread offense: Can't rush for a first down on third-and-one and is the offense of choice for pretenders.
Phil Simms: Never stops talking and never says a single thing.
Bob Stoops puts on a couple of pounds: Nerves or confidence?
Vegas point spreads: Too good.
PICKS Tonight
Giants (-2 1/2) at Carolina: The replacement zebras are apt to confer about which one is supposed to wipe blood off the football. These replacements seem vulnerable to home-field anger.
Giants by 1.
Saturday
Kansas State at OU (-14): Just what an overrated home team needs - a foe even more overrated.
K-State runs the single wing, with the quarterback taking the snap and following big people into piles of humanity.
The Wildcat play book could fit on a Band-Aid.
The quarterback is a more tolerable version of Tebow.
You'd think this was a Heisman confrontation. But it's amazing how far OU's Jones has fallen - all the way out of ESPN's top 15!
The K-State battering ram quarterback is ranked sixth on that list.
What has changed that much since OU blasted these people in Manhattan?
OU by 17.
Fresno State at Tulsa (-6): Lots of people are acting like rinky-dink Fresno is a real team all of a sudden after it got behind to Oregon by 30 and didn't take off its pads and send out for food.
Had Fresno pegged as its typical crew of late-hitters who played hard until the other team made a first down.
But the truck driver-type coach is gone.
The clocking of the Colorado Thin Airheads barely counts.
After losing at Iowa State, talking up foes is a major part of the TU game plan.
TU by 4.
Rutgers at Arkansas (-3 1/2): Does anybody over there have any guts? Any heart? Any fight? Any pride? Any loyalty? Any shame? Any free tickets?
Everybody says Rutgers, the best in the East, in a walk.
We say Shreveport Bowl here we come.
Ark by 6.
Clemson at Florida State (-13): State has a joke schedule full of eastern lollipops, there's no sweat until the last game Thanksgiving weekend, at home versus Florida.
State torches leaky Venables pass D.
State by 14.
Arizona at Oregon (-24): Oregon has a spread defense, it's spread thin.
Oregon by 21.
Oregon State at UCLA (-11 1/2): UCLA follows successful Pac-12 game plan: Fire coach, get ranked.
UCLA by 13.
LSU (-18) at Auburn: Loopy Les wouldn't recognize a good quarterback if one bit him on the hat bill.
LSU by 17.
Missouri at South Carolina (-10 1/2): Think they're still chanting "SEC" in Columbia?
Sounds more like "SOS."
SC by 10.
Michigan at Notre Dame (-5 1/2): Audition for the NFL as a drop-back passer got the Mich quarterback a fat lip, now it's back to the sandlot.
ND by 4.
Utah at Arizona State (-7): Todd Graham still at State after a couple or three whole weeks.
Home team by 10.
Sunday
Tampa Bay at Dallas (-7): Cowboy's Jughead Jerry apt to mike himself in the owner's box for more publicity.
Dallas by 9.
Eagles (-3 1/2) at Arizona: First one to 14 could be only one to 14.
Eagles by 6.
Houston at Denver (-1): Manning is like a pitching machine, keeps on chunking, only now he's issuing change-ups.
Denver by 3.
New England at Baltimore (-3): Is Brady a man or a model?
Old Ray Lewis still screams a good game.
Balt by 6.
Monday
Green Bay (-3 1/2) at Seattle: Rah-rah Seattle stuff should get the fake refs all fired up.
Great show business: Seattle by 3.
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