Week Nine Wrapup

Another good week in Ye Olde NFL. Not sure if it's parity, or lack of talent, or just the sheer fact that "on any given Sunday" is a saying for a reason, but a lot of teams won or almost won games that they shouldn't have.

One team that did NOT do that was the Oakland Raiders. Good lord, has there been a more pathetic display in the NFL in recent memory? I say this as a 49ers fan who suffered through the league's worst offense for several years, and they NEVER had a game like this. (At least not one I can honestly remember. Pain may have numbed out some actual examples.)

But other teams had suprisingly good Sundays. The Lions almost beat the Bears, and Dan Orlovsky looked like a capable NFL QB in the process. (Of course, this being Detroit, he subsequently got hurt.) The Chiefs should have beat the Buccaneers, but suddenly remembered that they suck and choked away a sizeable lead.

But the real shocker was the Cincinnati Bengals beating the Jacksonville Jaguars. Honestly, I'd bet that even those who picked the Bungles in our league this week thought they'd beat the spread but not win outright. And yet, they did. It gets crazier -- Cedric Benson, late of the aforementioned Bears, ran for over 100 yards and was praised by his teammates for being a hard worker and a good locker room guy.

I'm sorry ... what? There aren't TWO Cedric Benson's right? It's not like the two Adrian Petersons? Cause that makes no sense to me.

Picking the Bengals was a good move, though -- and it was one of the keys to Scottie Schwartz's Cecil Snotz and Hanky's win this week - his second of the year. (He joins Studs Urkel in that regard.) Scott won't get paid until I get some sort of explanation for what his team name means, by the way.

Another key to his success was choosing his hometown New York Giants over the Dallas Cowboys. That was a pretty solid beatdown. As was the Monday night game of the Steelers - who lost Ben Roethlisberger -- over the Redskins. That was UGLY football from Washington.

BEFORE I FORGET -- Picks need to be in on Thursday this week, as Cleveland faces the Broncos on Thursday night! So excited about football on more nights of the week. This game will feature Brady Quinn, who was named the starter over Derek Anderson. I find that sort of interesting -- I haven't watched that much Browns football this year, but the offense had started to produce in recent weeks. In fact, they led the Ravens pretty substantially (I think Baltimore scored 24 unanswered points). I know some of that was DA not controlling the ball, but I'm not sure he's the problem the Browns have right now. Or, at least, replacing him won't cure their ills.

I know I don't have to remind all you socially aware folks, but if you haven't taken advantage of early voting, make sure to go to the polls tomorrow (or today, if you are reading this on Tuesday) and take advantage of our democracy, okay? Vote.

Congrats again, Scottie!