Romans 12:17–19:
“Vengeance is mine, I shall repay, sayeth the Lord.”
Well, vengeance isn’t mine, and I certainly didn’t get repaid last week, thanks to the Tennessee Voles.
(Yes, I know it’s “Vols” with no “e” in it. The vole is a tiny rodent, and that’s what Team Tennessee is to me after their pitiful performance on Saturday. Rodents; rat bastards.)
Overall, no ground gained or lost for the week at 3-3, all picks, college and pro football.
NFL Recap
I took a loss with my PredictEm Forum pick on KC on Thursday in Dallas.
Who would have thought that after 12 weeks of football the Chiefs wouldn’t have a winning record?
“Oh my, how the mighty have fallen.” (*That’s the last biblical quote for today, I promise.)
In my article pick, the 49ers and Browns left me one point short of getting to the total I played, 35.
Sometimes I handicap a game incorrectly (like the KC bet), but though I didn’t get the interceptions I thought I would from San Fran and Cleveland, I had the game ‘capped correctly regarding the scoring opportunities I’d get from both teams.
So who’s to blame for the loss?
How about the Browns coaching staff, for installing a game plan that saw them put up only EIGHT points, at home, against a team that gives up an average of TWENTY-THREE PPG on the Rd.
I could blame the players, who had not one but two Red Zone turnovers that took points off the board.
I can’t blame QB Sanders — he played as expected.
He hasn’t got the tools, physical or mental, to be a successful quarterback at the NFL level.
A more likely candidate to point the finger of blame at would be San Fran HC Shanahan, who coached as expected.
With a 23-8 point lead, IN THE FOURTH QUARTER, he decides it’s a good spot to go for two after scoring a TD.
If he kicks the extra point they go up 24-8, meaning the Browns would have to score TWO TDs and make TWO two-point conversions just to tie the Niners.
It made absolutely NO sense to go for two points in that situation but, that’s Shanahan, would-be genius, Nepo Baby.
They didn’t convert and I ended up with a one-point loss.
But mostly I blame the Philadelphia Eagles, for blowing that 21-0 lead to the Cowboys.
(I told you I’m Sicilian; we never forget, we never forgive.)
So I was 0-2 in the NFL, but college saved my ass for the week.
College Recap
Okay, raise your hands — how many of you bet the Under 67 with me on the E. Carolina/Florida Atlantic game, and thought we were dead when they had 45 points scored at halftime?
Why are you raising your hands — I can’t see you!
And speaking of hands, how about a round of applause for the NP Under.
I gave you the stats at the beginning of the season:
2020: 28-4, 87%
2021: 34-21, 63%
2022: 34-32, 51%
2023: 21-17, 55%
2024: 23-16, 63%
Combined total: 140-87, 61%.
And during the season I posted a couple of reminders detailing that record.
This week saw the last game that will qualify for the regular season (there usually are no games that qualify during championship week or the bowls), and we closed with a winner.
Not only did the score stay Under but it did so by more than 20 points!
They combined for 45 points in the first half and ZERO in the second half.
I imagine there were some pretty pissed-off Over bettors on that one.
The 2025 season is now complete in my log book: 11-5, 68%.
And every one of them shared here at PredictEm.
SIX-year record: 151-91, 62%!
The number of games that qualify has decreased each year. This year there were only 16 of them.
The quantity may be diminishing, but the quality certainly isn’t — FOUR of the six years have posted records better than 60%!
I can’t wait until next year.
Vengeance (or Lack Thereof)
Now back to the theme of this article — vengeance, or lack thereof.
I went for revenge against Vanderbilt.
The Commodores screwed me when they went to the Prevent Defense and allowed a meaningless TD with under a minute left to go in the final seconds against Utah State.
After losing by picking against Vandy this week, I could go back to Handicapping 101 and preach about not using revenge when doing your ‘capping, but I won’t.
Why not?
Because in the 4th quarter, when I knew that my Tennessee bet was a losing cause, my quest for vengeance remained unsatisfied.
So I turned to my Revenge Target Number Two — Bill Belichick and North Carolina, who did me wrong the same way Vandy did — Prevent Defense, backdoored me with a minute left in the game.
About an hour before kickoff I went to The Forum and posted my pick on NC State -7.
The Wolfpack rewarded me with a 42-19 victory, easily covering the spread by 16 points and embarrassing both Bill and Steve, his Nepo Baby Defensive Coordinator son.
And vengeance was mine.
Final Tally
With the end of the regular season, the Mississippi Ov 8′ Wins bet was credited to my account, so along with the NC State win and the NP Under spot on Florida Atlantic, I had a 3-1 week in college.
For my NFL Regular Season Wins bet on NYG Under 5′, the Giants lost again this week.
They’re 2-11 now.
They have four games left.
They’re playing some teams that are equally as bad as they are, but they have to go perfect 4-0 for me to lose my bet.
In other words, “Chicken number one, chicken number two, chicken number three,” etc.
(That’s me, counting my chickens before they’re all but hatched.)
* There are two books that permanently reside on the end table next to my bed. Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, and The Bible, by God. Last week I quoted Melville to start my article so I thought I’d pull an apt quote from the other book for this week. The Bible is there because it’s a gift and I’m hoping that by keeping it close I’ll buy some good Karma. Moby Dick is there because as a writer I admire it — it has the greatest opening line of any novel, “Call me Ishmael.” (A very close second is the opening line from Doctor Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas — “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”)
See you later this week, when I’ll have an article up with a pick that fits the same scenario as I used with Tennessee in the Puzzle Pick two weeks ago . . .
