By Jim Vallet and Robert Perea
It’s always dangerous to speak in absolutes when trying to interpret art. What was the artist/sculptor/musician/moviemaker/author trying to tell us?
It’s pretty obvious that the message of any piece of art lies in the eye of the beholder. I believed that the 70s song, “American Pie” clearly had an anti-religion message, yet singer/creator Don McLean said many times that there was no message at all. What did Shakespeare mean when Hamlet wondered, “...to be or not to be?...”, and how would I translate that into languages where there is no word for “to be”, like Hebrew? What is Mona Lisa smiling about, or is she smiling at all? Is J.D Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” a classic or too vulgar?
With the above disclaimer about art in mind, H.G. Wells’ famous book “The Time Machine” to me is a novel about the disparity between the haves and have nots progressing to the point of the haves actually eating the have nots at some point in the far distant future. While this may be far-fetched, the disparity of riches between rich and poor has grown, and a very small new demographic, the “super rich”, now controls over 90% of all wealth in this country. Is health care equal for all? Can I, with very little money, single-handedly affect the outcome of an election? No. Can others?
So too in education. According to CNN, test scores for American high school students in reading and math have decreased to the lowest level in the last 20 years. Even more concerning to me is that the gap between high and low performing students has increased to the highest margin ever.
Anecdotally, I noticed this trend in 31 years of teaching. While the “good” students are doing things that we did not do when I was in school like algebra in 8th grade, robotics, computer programming, and creating engineering projects like future cities, the “lower performing” students in 8th grade can’t read like we could in third grade. And how can they do algebra when they don’t even know the times tables or have the ability to correctly add two digit numbers? On top of that, or maybe because of that, I think “lower performing” students have learned to give up before they even start. It seems to me that when confronted with something that requires work, they go from, “it’s hard” to “I can’t do it” to “I quit” in a few seconds.
It’s a problem that educators have recognized, but have not been able to solve, and that’s not the only educational problem like that. We as educators can see what the problem is but have been unable to solve it.
If I were reading this, I would be wondering what all this has to do with a column that predicts football results. My answer is that the same problem of haves and have-nots exists in the National Football League, despite the league's efforts to alleviate the disparity. Look at the NFL Draft which operates in reverse order of success, results based scheduling where the more successful teams play a tougher schedule, revenue sharing so teams, theoretically, equally share resources, and scouting combines all seek the same goal-parity.
And yet, while individual games are usually close, long term success-measured by championships-has generally been reserved for the “haves” with some short term exceptions.
When I look at the haves, they all seem to have great quarterbacks and great front offices. The teams with some successes seem to have stumbled upon a great QB, and when he leaves so does that team’s championship hopes. The traditional have nots have chaotic front offices and bad quarterbacks.
So, if I’m in charge of putting the best NFL team possible, I MUST first get a good quarterback, either through the draft, trade, or free agency. The good teams, without exception, have done that. This year’s best teams-The Bills, Ravens, Chiefs, Chargers, Eagles have Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, and Jalen Hurts respectively. The teams that may be good like the Broncos, Patriots, Packers, Lions, Jets, Steelers, and Jaguars all need their QBs to play better than they did in their team’s first game. And the teams that will be bad-no matter what I think-will get bad quarterback play.
Knowing that I HAVE to have a good quarterback to have a good team, what were the Saints, Giants, Panthers, Browns, and Dolphins thinking?
Saints’ QB Spencer Rattler, Giants QB Russell Wilson, Panthers’ QB Bryce Young, Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa, and any of the Cleveland Browns’ army of QBs are either not good enough, or trustworthy enough to be good. I know I may have to eat some of these words, but you will not win with any of those guys as your primary guy in the most important position in sports.
So, when, not if, they fail - who should be held accountable?
I will accept responsibility for last week’s picks, although if I could, I would fire the oddsmakers. When I wrote last week’s column, Baltimore was a 1.5-point underdog. When I went to place my bet at my new, Nevada-less ESPNBet, the line had moved to Baltimore minus 1.5. The movement in the line was the difference between winning and losing for me as the Ravens lost by one point. Jalen Carter’s need to expectorate on Dak Prescott, I believe, cost me in the Eagles failing to cover against the Cowboys. I have no excuse for my Lions pick although some people are saying that the referees in that game were never Valleters. I am calling for an investigation and am appointing officials that will conduct that investigation for me.
So, this week I will try again. Lines are from espn.com on Tuesday, Sept. 9.
New York Jets (+7 ½) vs Buffalo Bills: It’s gonna be tough to get ready after that win on Sunday against the Ravens.
New England Patriots (+1 ½) at Miami Dolphins: The Dolphins stink. Drake Maye should have a really big day. The over/under on Tyreek Hill’s next sideline tantrum is 25 minutes, according to vallet.com.
Baltimore Ravens (-12 ½) vs Cleveland Browns: The Ravens tend to hammer the other team–or lose. I don’t think they’ll lose to the Browns, and I don’t think the Ravens will take their foot off the gas this week. 12 ½ is A LOT of points to give a pro team, though.
Denver Broncos (-2 ½) at Indianapolis Colts: The Colts aren’t playing the Dolphins this week.
Philadelphia Eagles (-2 ½) at KC Chiefs: I tried to pick the Chiefs, but what’s different that’s better this time for the Chiefs?
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+1 ½) at Houston Texans: The Bucs are fun to watch, the Texans are the NFL’s version of vanilla. For what it’s worth, I like and respect Nick Chubb, though.
Last week: 3-3
Season: 3-3
Robert’s picks
Georgia (-4) at Tennessee: The early money in this game was on Tennessee and the line has come down from 6 ½. The concern is that Georgia’s offense hasn’t been explosive in two games against lesser foes, but I think Georgia has kept things vanilla and will show more, and accomplish more, here. This is a prove it spot for Tennessee, but I’m skeptical of QB Joey Aguilar, who threw plenty of interceptions at Appalachian St. and will be facing the toughest defense he’s ever played against.
Duke (+1 ½) at Tulane: A lot of prognosticators think Tulane is one of the leading contenders for the playoff spot that goes to the best champion of one of the so-called Group of Six conferences, especially after the transfer of quarterback Jake Retzlaff from BYU. But the reason Tulane was in the market for a QB is because last year’s starter, Darian Mensah transferred to Duke. The Blue Devils lost 45-19 to Illinois last week, because they turned the ball over six times. Mensah torched the Illini for 334 yards, but his teammates couldn’t hold on to the ball. A well-coached team is going to bounce back from that kind of effort.
Cal (+2 ½) over Minnesota: When Cal true freshman Jaron Keawe-Sagapolutele beat out Ohio St. transfer Devin Brown for the starting job, I thought that might mean he was really good, but I still expected him to struggle to transition to major college football. Instead, hes been spectacular, while NC State transfer running back Kendrick Raphael has softened the blow of Jayden Ott’s transfer to Oklahoma. Now they catch Minnesota playing a late night game on the West Coast, and as we saw last year with the new conference realignments, teams traveling across the country struggled mightily. Cal is much better than I expected them to be, and Minnesota freshman QB Drake Lindsey is making his own first career road start.
49ers (-3) at Saints: No, I haven’t changed my mind about the 49ers. I still don’t see much, if any improvement over last year. They beat Seattle last week on a touchdown that had a 13 percent chance of being completed, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats. They gave Seattle every chance to win that game, and the Seahawks just couldn’t do it. But the Saints may well be the worst team in the league, so even with Mac Jones at QB, the 49ers should have enough to bag this one.
Lions (-6) over Bears: I was hoping the line would be a little less than this, but ultimately I don’t think the spread will be a factor. I like good teams coming off an embarrassing performance, and I think the Lions still qualify, and that they’re embarrassed of the way they played in Green Bay. On the other side, the Bears never recovered after a heartbreaking loss to the Commanders last year, so until they actually show some resolve, I’ll go against them whenever they’re off a disappointment, such as Monday night, when a game they were controlling got completely away from them in the fourth quarter.
Dolphins (-1 ½) over Patriots: This probably makes no sense to anyone who watched even a few plays of the Dolphins’ game against the Colts last week, but speaking of teams that are embarrassed, who fits that description more than the Dolphins? They may not be a good team, but neither are the Patriots. The Dolphins at least have weapons, and the Patriots allowed more than 400 yards to a Raiders’ offense that somehow only managed to turn it into 20 points. I’ll give the Dolphins a chance to show some pride here before I write them off.
Last Week
College 0-4
NFL 1-3
Season
College 2-5
NFL 1-3
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