Jim Vallet and Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter
My dad was all in on Blanda. At the time, my father was 44 and probably saw the Raiders’ QB and placekicker as proof that he still had “it”, too. I remember my dad watching the Raiders as religiously as he watched the Detroit Lions, and luckily they almost always played at different times. My dad cheered for the Raiders even though we were 2,000 miles away as if they were his own team, even if he didn’t have a bet on them, which was rare during that season. If we did not get the Raiders on TV in the days before satellite he paced the floor waiting for word from our grainy black and white television set on how his favorite player was doing.
I thought of Blanda and my dad as I watched two NFL teams, the Carolina Panthers and the Indianapolis Colts, replace their first round, high priced and highly touted young quarterbacks with veterans considered by most “experts” to be far past their primes. And, in a development that would have made my dad very happy, both have them outplayed their much younger teammates, leading their teams’ to victories in which they were betting underdogs.
The Carolina Panthers turned to Andy Dalton, who will be 37 on Oct. 29, when starting signal caller and potential franchise saver Bryce Young fell from hero to backwards baseball hat wearing and clipboard carrying benchwarmer. The Panthers, a team that looked absolutely pitiful in their first two games after a whole prior season of merely looking bad, promptly won their first game in Las Vegas against the favored Raiders and looked pretty good against a desperate and talented Cincinnati Bengals team with Dalton as their QB. If the Panthers win another game with their very limited talent remains unknown, but certainly Dalton outperformed his first rounder teammate.
So, now I am cheering for the old guys, I guess to somehow validate the worth of athletes over 30. Reflecting, that doesn’t make much sense since it would take two 30 year olds and a kid to get to my age. But, in an age where logic doesn’t seem to carry as much weight as it used to, I feel I too, can be illogical on this.
Well, well, well, a much better week last week. My picks went 4-2, so if you bet eleven dollars on all my picks for last week, you would have bet $66.00 and received $44.00 back. I guess I better not quit my day job yet. But after the first three weeks, last week seemed great, so let me enjoy it without pointing out facts, ok?
NY Jets (+2 ½) in London vs. Minnesota Vikings: The Jets aren’t as bad as they looked against the Broncos, are they?
Chicago Bears
Cincinnati Bengals (+2 ½) vs Baltimore Ravens: The Bengals are desperate, like the Ravens were last week.
Buffalo Bills
New England Patriots (-1) vs Miami Dolphins: I was going to write this week about Tyreek Hill pacing back and forth behind his coach yelling during his team’s loss last Monday night, but I think I’ll wait until Hill beats up someone in his family again to get on him. The Dolphins are just so beat up, and the Patriots play hard. Beyond the injuries the Dolphins are dealing with, they have Jalen Ramsey along with Tyreek Hill to “encourage” their teammates.
Las Vegas Raiders
Seattle Seahawks (-6 ½) vs NY Giants: The Seahawks are pretty good, the Giants, well…
Last week 4-2
Season 9-16-1
Robert’s picks
I’m perpetually curious about the concept of “nature vs nurture” when it comes to which is more responsible for what kind of people we become. It fascinates me how siblings who are close in age and grow up in the same environment can become strikingly different from one another. But at the same time, I have no doubt that the environment you grow up in and the things you are taught have to have a huge bearing on who you become.
I bring this up because in looking at the matchup that became my first pick listed below, I started thinking about the differences between North Carolina coach Mack Brown and his brother Watson. Mack Brown comes into this week with a career record of 285-151-1 as a head coach, including one national championship when he was head coach at Texas, two Big 12 championships, and a total of seven division championships split between the Big 12 and ACC.
Watson Brown was also a college football coach, including as a head coach at six different schools. Watson is a year older than his brother, but in comparison to Mack, Watson was not very successful. In fact, he owns the most losses all time of any coach in college football history, with a career record of 136-211-1. He is the only college football coach to ever lose 200 games, which stands to reason, because most coaches who only win 40 percent of their games don’t last long enough to lose that many.
Being siblings only a year apart, the nurture part had to have been very similar for Watson and Mack growing up, so why was Mack so much more successful?
After 10 years as an assistant coach, Mack Brown has spent his head coaching career at Appalachian St., Tulane, North Carolina, Texas, and now North Carolina again. Each of those, except Tulane, is a historically successful program both before and after Mack coached there.
By contrast, Watson Brown’s head coaching stints have been at Austin Peay, Cincinnati, Rice, Vanderbilt, UAB and Tennessee Tech, and his only championship came as the Ohio Valley Conference champs at Tennessee Tech in 2011.
After about an hour spent down that rabbit hole, I’ve come to one conclusion – the reason Mack was more successful than Watson was elementary, my dear. He took better jobs. But was that nature or nurture?
The picks:
Pittsburgh (-2 ½) at North Carolina: Sometimes a game happens a week too late, and I hope that’s not the case here, but the circumstances are such that I can’t pass up this situation. A week ago, Pitt probably would have been the underdog in this matchup, but the Tar Heels are coming off the one of the worst two-week stretches I can remember for any team. Two weeks ago, North Carolina was embarrassed in a 70-50 loss to James Madison, and afterward coach Mack Brown asked his team if they wanted him to step down. He then backed off those remarks, and the Tar Heels played an inspired three quarters, only to blow a 20-0 lead and lose 21-20 last week in their rivalry game against Duke. If that team can rise up off the mat after those two losses and beat a 4-0 Pittsburgh team, I’ll tip my hat.
SMU (+6 ½) at Louisville: Obviously if you can find a 7 on this game that is much preferable, but I’ll still take the 6 ½ if I can’t find 7, just for a few bucks less than I would at 7. SMU came into the season-opening Nevada game talking about being contenders to win the ACC and go to the new 12-team playoff in their first year in the conference. Then they were wholly unimpressive vs. the Wolf Pack, and even less so in a loss to BYU. But the Pack is more competitive than expected, BYU is still undefeated, the Mustangs have scored 108 points the last two weeks against TCU and Florida St. Louisville can light up the scoreboard too, but I’m not convinced they’re the better team here, much less that they’ll win by two scores.
Michigan (+2 ½) at Washington: This is the first road game for Michigan, which is 4-1 despite averaging only 115.4 passing yards per game. But the Wolverines can beat Washington the same way they beat USC, by controlling the game on the ground, and breaking a big play or two. This is not the same Washington we saw last year, as we’ve seen in losses to Washington St. and Rutgers, and Michigan is better than both of those, even with the limited passing attack.
Browns (+3) at Commanders: Deshaun Watson is terrible, and Jayden Daniels looks great. But this is the NFL, and the time to buy is when the stock is low, or sell when the stock is high. Here we can do both at the same time. Watson’s biggest problem has been he hasn’t had time to throw, but the Washington defense is bottom seven in the league. That’s bad news for a team that’s bound for a fall from last week’s explosion in Arizona. By contrast, Daniels has faced the Giants, Bengals and Cardinals in the last three weeks, three of the worst defenses in the NFL. Similar to the Seahawks defense that feasted on weak foes before getting torched by the Lions Monday night, this Browns defense is a step up in class for Daniels and the Commanders, and it comes when their pendulum is due for a swing to begin with.
Jaguars (-3) over Colts: The Jaguars are 0-4, including two games they coulda, shoulda, woulda won, and didn’t. The Colts, meanwhile, are 2-2 but they’ve lost in Jacksonville nine years in a row. At 0-4, the Jags are probably already out of the playoff race, but this feels like a damn the torpedoes situation.
Raiders (+3) at Broncos: At one point last week, Denver QB Bo Nix had completed 4 passes for minus 8 yards, with a long of 0, and he did not complete a pass beyond the line of scrimmage in the first half. He ended up with 12 completions for 60 yards, including 3 for 60 to Courtland Sutton, which means his other 9 completions totaled 0 yards. Nix’s stat lines from his two previous games were a little bit more traditional, actually over 200 yards both times, but it seems fair to say the Broncos are fine with keeping him in his shell, especially as long as they can be competitive that way. This game has the look of a 17-16 kind of situation that will be decided by either a made or missed field goal at the end, so I’ll take the field goal with the Raiders.
Last week
College 3-0
NFL 3-0
Season
College 11-9
NFL 9-3
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