FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!
In all honesty, this week’s slate of games was kind of difficult. I’m not as consistently good at picking NFL games as I am at picking college football games. But what it does is force me to do more research to try to make the best decisions possible. So with that being said, here’s what I came up with for today’s games.
Chiefs (-6.5) š @ Lions
This is Patrick Mahomes first NFL game in an indoor stadium. Combine that with the fact that he’s already on pace to throw for over 6,000 yards and it spells trouble for the Lions. A hip injury to Matt Stafford that has is availability questionable further puts Detroit’s chances to keep this game close in doubt. I feel EXTREMELY CONFIDENT that Kansas City will cover this spread. I’m actually surprised that the number isn’t higher considering all the circumstances.
Panthers/Texans: Over 47.5
The Panthers’ offense looks like a rejuvenated unit with Kyle Allen under center in place of the injured Cam Newtow. They put up 413 total yards and 38 points last week. On the flip side, Houston’s offense is averaging a little under 23 point per game, but that includes a 13 point performance against a very good Jags defense. They’ve scored at least 25 points every other week. They’re going against a Panthers defense that has struggled thus far and isnt the same vaunted ‘D’ that we’ve know in the past. Expect both teams to light the scoreboard up.
Falcons vs. Titans (+4.5)
You never really know what Falcons team you’ll get from week to week. They’re like the NFL’s version of Jekyl & Hyde. One thing I do know about this league is that you don’t win games when you turn the ball over. Atlanta has 7 turnovers thus far this season and they’re going up against a very stingy Titans defense that has a knack for taking the ball away from their opponents.. While Tennessee’s offense is somewhat inconsistent at times,, they should be able to pound the ball with Derrick Henry & that’ll set up the playaction pass. Even if the Falcons get a win, I dont see it being by a large margin.
Giants (-3) vs. Redskins
A lot of people are wondering if the Daniel Jones hype is real. That can’t be fully answer after only seeing one game, but one thing is for sure: he’s going up against a Redskins defense that has given up at least 30 points every week. The Skins are looking to avoid their first 0-4 start in 19 years and will play motivated, but it won’t be enough to win on the road.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!!!
Okay, okay, okay. I know y’all have been waiting for my college picks so here they are. Be sure to follow these picks if you want to win some money and ride on 20" chrome this weekend. If you don’t, then that’s all on you playboi!
South Florida vs. SMU (-7.5) SMU has gotten off to a 4-0 start and has the 17th ranked offense in the country, averaging 43 points per game. South Florida isn’t a good team and Charlie Strong is proving how mediocre of a coach he is. This might get ugly. Lay the points.
Virginia (+12.5) @ Notre Dame
The Cavs come in with the country’s 12th best rush defense, allowing 2.2 ypc. Notre Dame does have the edge in the passing game but look for Fightin’ Irish QB Ian Look to be under constant pressure all day as the UVA front 7 has made a living in their opponents’ backfield through the first 4 games of the season. Virginia will play ball control to keep the game close. They may even pull off the upset. Take the points. And if you’re feeling super risky, take UVA on the money line. š
Marshall vs. Cincinnati (-3.5)
Both these teams have pretty good run defenses, so dont expect a bunch of scoring. Even thought this may hold true, Cincinnati is the more talented team. The Bearcats should be able to keep Marshall’s offense off the field with their defense and also control the clock with their running game.
Louisiana Tech (-9.5) @ Rice
Rice is horrible. Need I say more? They are winless and their offense can’t seem to get going. Louisiana Tech, on the other hand, seems to be hitting their stride at the right time and are going on the road to face an inferior opponent. This is a perfect opportunity for a confidence booster before they get into the meat of their conference schedule.
Antonio Brown likes to say his name and brand is ’Boomin’. As of late, he is correct. His name has been all over tv screens, internet articles, blog sites, has talked about in barbershops and has been all over social media. The problem is though, it has been ’boomin’ for all the wrong reasons.
Lately, Brown has outdone himself in self-sabotaging his playing career. For quite some time, he has exhibited behaviors that would make any reasonable person wonder if he is a 12-year-old adolescent stuck in a 31-year- old perennial all-pro WR’s body.
This latest revolution around ‘Antonio’s world’ started when the Oakland Raiders (whom he forced a trade to in March after a nasty break-up with the Pittsburgh Steelers) began their training camp and ’AB’ wasn’t present on the field. It was later revealed that he had frostbite on his feet from not wearing the proper footwear while in a cryotherapy chamber.
The next episode occurred when he refused to practice because the NFL banned the helmet he had worn for the previous nine seasons. Brown threatened to retire over the matter and even left the team in the midst of camp. Once that issue was resolved (and he secured a new helmet endorsement), he posted a copy of the letter on his Instagram detailing how had been fined for missing practices, team meetings and conduct detrimental to the team. He and Raiders GM Mike Mayock had a huge verbal altercation, the team voided his contract and AB demanded to be released via Instagram because as he put it "there’s no way I play after they took that (his guaranteed money) away and made my contract week to week." Later that same day, Brown’s wish was granted as he was released by Oakland before ever appearing in a game for the Raiders. He earned $0 of the $54 million contract he signed. Of that total contract value, $30 million was guaranteed.
Roughly 5 hours later, the New England Patriots announced that they would sign AB. Things appeared to be balancing out for Brown but the peace wouldn’t last long as his professional and personal life began to unravel even more. The day after he signed with the Patriots ($15 million total - including a $9 million signing bonus) he was sued for sexual assault by a former trainer (the statue of limitations had run out to pursue any criminal charges). Amid this news, the Patriots decided to stick with Brown, provided he could focus on football and not have any contact with his accuser(s). After his first game, Sports Illustrated’s website published a story where another woman accused him of sexual misconduct and filed a seperate lawsuit. Once the story broke, Brown broke the one cardinal rule New England gave him: he contacted the second accuser in a group message that also included his attorney and two people within his inner-circle. In the messages, he attempted to intimidate the woman and instructed his associates to look into her background. Once New England got wind of this incident, they released him. Brown appeared in one game and earned a little bit over $158,000 as a member of the Patriots.
For those keeping score, in the past 2 months, Brown has been released by 2 NFL teams, accused of sexual misconduct and sued by 2 different women, lost 2 major endorsement deals, and lost out on the potential of earning a total of $39 million guaranteed.
In the wake of all of the recent developments, Brown has taken to Twitter to announce that he is done playing in the NFL and is re-enrolling at Central Michigan University to finish school and earn his degree. He explained his main reason from walking away from football is the fact team owners and front office executives can void and not pay up on guaranteed portions of contracts. While he has long maintained that he doesn’t need football, it is hard to imagine a player of his caliber still in his physical prime just walking away from the game and staying gone.
Over the course of his 9 year career, AB has totaled 842 receptions (currently 28th all-time), 11,263 total yards (34th all-time) and has hauled in 75 touchdown catches (34th all-time). He has been named a first team All-Pro 4 times, has made 8 Pro-Bowl teams, and has led the league in receptions on two seperate occasions. These are numbers and accolades that definitely put AB on a Hall of Fame trajectory. Many would argue that what he has done up to this point already deserves a spot in Canton, OH amongst the other immortals of the sport.
While it seems right now that no one wants him, the NFL has constantly proven that no matter what is going on in your personal life that one of their teams will employ you as long as you can still play at a high level. Past examples of this notion can be found in the cases of Ben Roethlisberger, Greg Hardy, Richie Incognito, Donte Stallworth and Michael Vick to name a few.
The main problem with Brown finding a landing spot anywhere in the near future is the fact that he is viewed as an extremely selfish player that only cares about himself, his personal stats and is considered cancerous to any locker room he sets foot into. There have been several occasions where he has thrown teammates under the bus, gone against team rules in order to further his personal brand, and has generally not cared about collateral damage he causes as long as he gets his way.
A number of former players (Shannon Sharpe and Michael Vick to name a few) have publicly called him out for his destructive behavior. Former teammate Ryan Clark detailed how he saw the warning signs of AB’s behavior long before the general public became aware and even went as far as to say that Brown was just "not a good human being."
Simply put, Antonio Brown is seen as a toxic person that no team in the NFL wants to deal with at this point. He is the equivalent of a nuclear wasteland that no one wants to go near because they fear they’ll be contaminated.
If Brown wants to play in the NFL again, he needs to take a really long look within himself, do some serious soul searching and adopt more of a team friendly personality. He is already projected to be a first ballot Hall of Famer when he becomes eligible. It would be a shame for him to have to wait several years, similar to Terrell Owens’ ordeal, before eventually being enshrined.
The question is, does AB want to be as successful for himself as the people and fans around him want him to be? As long as his attitude doesn’t change, AB will never ride 20 inch chrome.
Bonus content:
Even though Brown has worn out his welcome in 3 NFL locker rooms, there are a few teams that may decide to take a chance on him before the season is done. The Miami Dolphins seem to be a logical destination seeing as though it is Brown’s hometown and the team needs some type of way to get fans in South Florida to attend games and drum up interest in the team.
Another team that could sign brown at some point are the Detroit Lions. The Lions have a very talented QB in Matt Stafford and a pretty decent offense around him, but there is no ’alpha’ type WR on their roster that is as talented or accomplished as Brown is. He would instantly make them better and a playoff contender. The Lions are also coached by Matt Patricia, a former New England assistant who comes from the Bill Belicheck coaching tree. It is feasible to think Patricia can do with Brown what the Patriots couldn’t.
Two other teams that come to mind are the Denver Broncos and Tennessee Titans as good on the field fits. In Denver, he would be reunited with former Steeler teammate Emmanuel Sanders. They both seemed to flourish together while in Pittsburgh and can duplicate that success in the Mile High City with veteran QB Joe Flacco (who needs as much help as he can get). Tennessee makes sense for all the same reasons Detroit does. Solid team ready to make a playoff push, but lack a truly dominant receiver that always commands attention and can take the focus off the run. The Titans are coached by Mike Vrabel, a former Patriot who played under, you guessed it, Bill Belicheck.
Its that time of year again — where HBCU football teams take trips to play their FBS counterparts in ’money games’ (that usually ends up with an embarrassing loss and a bruised ego for the HBCU). The main reason for these games being scheduled is for a easy win for the more dominant school and for the lower level schools keeping their respective athletic budgets afloat.
This practice has been pretty standard for quite some time now, with some host universities even going so far as to require the visting team’s band to show up and perform in order for the school to secure their paychecks (in which most cases, the band sees none of this money). The FBS schools that schedule these games know that in most cases, no one wants to go to see their beloved nationally ranked team beat up on an FCS school with ‘inferior’ talent, coaches, facilities and overall resources, so they require the HBCUs to bring their band along to try to maximize the attendance. Think of it as lagniappe.
In some cases, HBCUs schools keep the games competitive. Just last week, Alabama State University lost to the University of Alabama at Birmingham by 5 points - a big ’moral victory’ considering UAB was a 42.5 point favorite to win, won 10 games last season against other FBS schools - including a bowl game, and ASU finished last season 4-7.
In an extremely rare case, an HBCU pulls off an upset of their FBS ’big brother.’ In 2017, Howard University defeated UNLV in the biggest point-spread upset in modern college football history. They also received a $600,000 payday for making the trip from the nation’s capital to ’Sin City.’
It’s no secret that the majority of rosters of these Power 5/blue blood conference and ’Group of 5’ conference schools are comprised of African-American athletes. And more times than not, they are generally the best players on each of these teams. With the large success and profitability of college football coming largely on the backs of black players, one question always lingers — how and when will the best black athletes start choosing HBCUs over their PWI counterparts?
ESPN 2019’s number 1 overall high school football player Kavon Thibideaux signed with the University of Oregon. But before that, he made headlines when he made an official visit to FAMU (an HBCU). On the surface, there’s no big deal about it, but when you do a little deeper digging, you will find that players on Thibadoux’s caliber NEVER even consider visiting a black college, let alone attending one. So the fact that he even visited was considered a huge win and a ray of hope for all-black schools.
Some of the best players in the history of the sport have come from HBCUs, including several Hall of Famers: Jerry Rice, Walter Payton, Michael Strahan, Mel Blunt, Deacon Jones, Shannon Sharpe and Aeneas Williams just to name a few.
Other HBCU players who haven’t been enshrined imto the HOF but have made a profound impact at the highest level of football include Steve McNair, Doug Williams, Donald Driver, Ben Coats, Nate Newton, Robert Mathis, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Hugh Douglas.
The main argument against the top athletes choosing these schools is that the financial resources hail in comparison to PWIs, the facilities are not up to par for the players to fully develop (who could forget the fiasco at Grambling State in 2013?), and that the level of competition not being as strong as the FBS level. Another long standing argument against players going to HBCUs are that it will be harder for them to make it to the NFL and when they get there, they will be fundamentally ’behind the curb.’
To the first concern, there is a clear solution. If the top players choose HBCUs, the money will follow them to said universities - this helping them become better athletes and drawing more eyeballs to HBCU football, which will help money trickle into these universities & helping them prosper as a whole. If these players start going to these schools in droves, the level of competition will also increase, the top coaches will come and facilities will be substantially upgraded. From there, the product would be much better.
As far as it being harder to make it to the NFL from HBCUs, look no further than 2019 Houston Texans 1st round pick Tytus Howard - an Alabama State University product. Howard was the third offensive lineman taken in the draft and figures to be the opening day starter when the Texans take on the New Orleans Saints. Howard is a prime example of the old saying “if you’re good enough, they will find you.”
So with all of that being said, the question remains, what excuses do top athletes have now to not give back to the universities that gave so much to black people for so long? It is past time that our colleges and universities get the spotlight they deserve.
