NFL Week 13 picks “A bad case of the toos”

Jim Vallet and Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

One of my many faults is that I tend to complain. My taxes are too high. My back and hip ache. Too much traffic. Too little money. My bike has too many flats. My golf game is too stagnant. My kids are too busy to visit as much as I want. The weather is too hot…no, now it’s too cold. The wind blows too hard. It’s too hard to get flights in and out of Reno Airport. A new car would be too expensive. My DirecTV goes out too much. The Lions don’t appreciate that I was loyal to too many terrible teams, and now have too many bandwagon jumping on “fans”. Professional athletes are too selfish. And on, and on..,

Oh, what am I doing, what am I thinking? Look what I get for my taxes. My body aches because I’m healthy enough to exercise. Traffic only bugs me if I let it. Although I don’t have all the money I want, I have all that I need. My new bike tires haven’t gone flat in 3 months. I have fun when I play golf. My kids want to visit and spend time with my wife and me. I should use the weather to my advantage and ski when it’s cold, and play golf when it’s hot.  When my wife called DirecTV to complain about prices and outages, they took $50 a month off our bill for a year. The Lions are finally good…Enjoy it! How do selfish athletes negatively affect my life?

My point is, I need to look at the flip side of my complaints and see the glass as half full rather than half empty. My life is pretty good. I have a living family and loyal friends. I don’t have to work if I don’t want to. I have my health, if not a body you would want to see in a swimsuit. I luckily chose a wonderful woman to be my wife, and (double bonus) she chose me, too. We’ve never had so much money saved. 

So why do I complain? I really don’t know. Of course I could be richer but I’m the one who chose to be a teacher knowing that teachers don’t get rich from teaching. If I wanted money, I should have chosen a different career path. That I didn’t is not Kamala Harris’, Joe Biden’s or Donald Trump’s fault. I knew what the weather was like in Northern Nevada before I moved here, but we thought being close to family was more important than mild weather. If I really think about it, many of the things I complain about I am responsible for. 

I am thankful for my life, my family, and my friends. I am grateful to my parents for raising and supporting me, and spending lots of money to educate me. I am thankful that I was, through nothing I did, born a citizen of the greatest country in the world that billions of people would love to be a part of. I don’t have to pay hoodlums and travel thousands of miles to get here…I’m here and I belong. I am thankful my country has protected me from what is happening in Gaza, parts of Africa, and Ukraine. I am thankful to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I am thankful that the only times in my life I’ve gone hungry are when I didn’t take advantage of available food. I am thankful for most of the roads in this country. I am grateful for the beautiful view out my bedroom window. I am grateful for the people I meet while riding my bike who smile and say, “Hi”. I am grateful that my son chooses to play golf with me and my wife every week. I am grateful for my granddaughter when she comes to me with a book and asks me to read it to her. I am grateful for football Sundays. I am grateful my wife wants to spend time with me. I am grateful for the opportunity to give my opinion on a myriad of subjects in a weekly column in The Fernley Reporter. I am grateful that so many “celebrities” act like fools and make it very easy to make fun of them. I am grateful for all the opportunities that have come my way during my life.

I am grateful and I think I have a duty to spread some of the reasons why. If just one person reads this and decides to view things in a more positive manner, that would go a long way towards making America great.

To me,Thanksgiving has always been the time when we can really evaluate NFL teams and their post-season chances. Right now, I see two clear favorites in the NFC- the Eagles and the Lions. The 49ers, Packers,  and Vikings could compete for the title with some help. In the AFC, the Chiefs, Bills, and Ravens seem the best to me, with the Steelers, Dolphins, and Chargers needing more to reach the top. There are other teams in both conferences that could reach the playoffs like the Texans, Cardinals, Seahawks, Rams, Broncos, Commanders, Falcons, and Buccaneers. Because of the way the divisions are set up, at least a couple of the second tier of teams will make the playoffs but probably bow out in short order. The rest of the teams…well, one can only say tha the end of the season can’t come soon enough for teams like the Jets, Cowboys, Bears, Titans, Panthers, and Saints. Hopefully for them, these teams use the time left in this season to evaluate what they must do to get better and not make excuses and blame each other the rest of the season. As an outsider looking in at the Jets and Cowboys, it seems to me that those two teams are behind the others not only in records but in, “getting over it”.

Here are my picks for this week against the spread. Lines are from espn.com on Tuesday, Nov. 26.

Miami Dolphins (+3 ½) at Green Bay Packers: The Dolphins are hot, and they can run the ball. The Packers struggle to stop the run.

Cincinnati Bengals (-3) vs Pittsburgh Steelers: The Steelers play tough, but I don’t think they can score as many as the Bengals will.

Los Angeles Chargers (-1 ½) at Atlanta Falcons: How do I say this…the Falcons struggle against very physical teams. Yeah, that’s it.

Minnesota Vikings (-3 ½) vs Arizona Cardinals: I don’t like giving that extra ½ point.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-6) at Carolina Panthers: Bryce Young is playing better and the Panthers can run the ball, but the Bucs can stop the run and score a bunch, too.

Los Angeles Rams (-3) at New Orleans Saints: The Rams will rebound this week because they’re not playing the Eagles.

Buffalo Bills (-7) vs San Francisco 49ers: Don’t make the mistake of thinking the 49ers can’t come back and still make the playoffs. But, I see a lot of things with the 49ers that I don’t like and the Bills are always tough and coming off a bye. 

Last week 4-2

Season 34-38-2

Robert’s picks

Arizona (+9) over Arizona St.: Interesting dichotomy here, because Arizona St. can earn a berth in the Big 12 championship game with a win, despite being picked last in the conference. Arizona was much more highly regarded before the season, but hasn’t put it together under new coach Brent Brennan. But we’re getting 9 point at home in a rivalry game against a team that doesn’t have a talent advantage.

Air Force (-3 1/2) at San Diego St.: After looking totally anemic for most of the season, Air Force has found some offense the past few weeks, enough to win three straight games. Now they take on the Aztecs, who have lost five straight. Even on the road, I’ll take the team ending the season on a high note.

LSU (-6) over Oklahoma: LSU snaped a three-game losing streak last week, while Oklahoma beat Alabama. Now the Sooners hit Baton Rouge for a night game, with an offense that only had 68 yards passing last week. Oklahoma has a legit defense, and that’s enough as long as they don’t fall behind. But if they do, they’re in trouble. Coming off that big win, in the most hostile environment in college football, trouble looms.

Indiana (-29) over Purdue: Slight pause here for something I’ve mentioned before, teams that suffer their first loss late in the season often have trouble bouncing back. But Indiana’s first loss against Ohio St. shouldn’t be a dream killer, because they’re still in good position to make the playoff. Purdue is the worst team in the Big 12 and has now lost five times by more than this spread.

Jaguars (+4) over Texans: Something I said about the 49ers in 2019 applies to the Texans in 2024. At that time, I said that making the Super Bowl was the worst thing that could happen for the 49ers future Super Bowl chances, because it made the organization think the rebuild was farther along that it was. Ditto the Texans after last season’s breakthrough. The Texans have a lot of talent and what looks like a franchise QB, but there are still holes to fill. That’s reflective in the pointspread results, where the Texans are 3-6 ATS as favorites.

Steelers (+3) over Bengals: The Bengals keep suffering one wrenching loss after another and are basically out of the playoff race at 4-7, but they’re laying points. I’ll take the team that keeps finding ways to win over the one that keeps losing.

Eagles (+3) over Ravens: Tough situation for the Ravens to face the Eagles coming off Brotherly Love with John vs. Jim Harbaugh, to now facing the Brotherly Shove. I don’t think we’ll see them quite at their peak, and it takes a peak effort right now to beat the Eagles,

Last week

College 4-1

NFL 1-2

Season

College 26-26

NFL 21-13-1