Too Much, Too Many People, Too Much

 

The Jets went from 4-12 last year to sneaking into the playoffs when the Broncos lost. They are coached by former Belly Check spear-carrier Eric Mangini, who isn't known as "Mangina" but should be. They went 1-1 vs. the Pats, taking an ugly 17-14 upset at Foxboro.

   The Patriots are a veteran team with a wall full of trophies. The Jets are just happy to be here. By any logic, we should stomp them like they have WELCOME written across their chests. Most likely, we will. It's what I'm rooting for, and I like getting what I want.

   When the ship hits the fan and the slave states secede, New York and New England will grab muskets and fight until they run down Bobbie Lee or chase out the British. Only the most depraved managed to utter "Yankees Suck" after 9-11, although I must add that it was almost playoff season. We were all New Yorkers that day.

   But for the other (365x)-1 days of my life (with x=my age) beyond 9-11, I really have no use for the city of New York. It's a teeming mass of too many people in too little territory. Even the wealthy parts are dangerous.

   While Cape Cod has a sort of symbiotic relationship with NY tourists, any debt is more than covered by the assault Wall Street and Madison Avenue makes on us. Every anorexic cheerleader, every suburban kid dressed like 50 Cent, every soccer mom with a 19 foot SUV... all were somehow brought ahbout at some board meeting in that Rotten Apple.

   I pretty much exhausted any NYC sympathy I had from 9-11 during the 2003 ALCS between the Sox and the Yankers, the one where Boone hit a homer that ripped out our hearts for yet one more year. After that, we were enemies again. I was giving out purposefully wrong directions to NY tourists as early as Halloween, 2003.

   I was just a kid when the Buckner thing happened, but still that stood a pretty good chance of screwing me up for life until we froze Hell by winning the 2004 World Series... whipping the despicable Yanks in the process. I know several people who went from cradle to grave without seeing the Sox win the Series, my parents among them. I won't be one of those people.

  New York Chitty is bigger, more cosmopolitan, more powerfiul, more stylish and will always be what New England will never be. We're the kid brother, and our elder sibling is a big, mean SOB. We can make up for all that this Sunday, by taking their football team out onto our field and slapping them around like they were a cheating wife who came home with her blouse on inside-out.

   Anything can happen, but I'm thinking New England...30-13.

 

Kansas City as Indianapolis

   Indy can't stop the run, and KC has a guy named LJ who gets the ball 30 times a game to just hammers the defense. Ty Law has owned Peyton Manning like a prison bitch for the whole of this millenium. Indy is slumping, and their playoff failure is actually regarded as a harbinger of winter in some cultures.

   It won't happen this week. Indy will stomp the Chiefs like one of those doggie bags that you light on fire and ring the doorbell over at the house of the guy who gives out toothbrushes on Halloween. Kansas City deserves to lose Big, if only for not actually being in Kansas.

Indy, 41-17

 

Dallas at Seattle

   Dallas looked like contenders until they bit the shed like a teenager's car in late December. Parcells still misses Belly Check, and Tony Romo has recently looked like a guy who was mentored by Nancy Drew Bledsoe.

   Seattle seemed to use up all their luck up last year, and they don't look like any sort of threat to a serious team heading into Playoffs 2007. Them being in the Super Bowl last year speaks of how farthe mighty have fallen in the once-proud NFC.

   I'll pick Dallas, if only because they'll make a more interesting opponent in the later rounds.

Cowboys, 16-14

 

New York at Philadelphia

   Both of these teams blow, but someone has towin. Why not the Manning kid? I'd like to see him win a Super Bowl before Peyton.

NYG, 17-14