GSoF: Week 7 Recap and Week 8 Picks

by R Dizzle on Oct 27, 2007 6:47 PM PDT in NFL

Week 8 baby!

I lost a lot of respect for the Patriots last week. What was the point of bringing Brady off the bench? And why is Boston becoming the city of sports? Patriots, Red Sox, and Celtics?

Things aren't too sunny in the Bay for football fans...

49ers and Giants.

Raiders and Chiefs

tut123408 must have some ridiculous time machine cause he hit up the highest Ballhype score within the GSoM Community for the third time! Back to back! Next week I'll tally up the leaderboards but, I'm gonna make the assumption that tut123408 is in the top three! Tut123408 - hit us up through e-mail goldenstwarriors@gmail.com and we'll figure out something to send to ya!

Click "Read More" to Hit up my Week 8 Predictions!

Picks

Week 8 Matchups		Prediction
Lions (4-2) @ Bears (3-4)
Wait wait, the Lions are still* #2 in the NFC North? Talk about a turn around! I see them pullin out a 5th win on this one!*

Steelers (4-2) @ Bengals (2-4)
Honestly, no one can blame Chad for the Bengals poor play this year. Their defense is collapsing on all fronts and it doesn't look like they'll be able to stop Willie Parker or the deep WR group of the Steelers.

Giants (5-2) @ Dolphins (0-7)
Are the Dolphins soon to be the first winless team?

Eagles (2-4) @ Vikings (2-4)
The season is over for the losing team.

Browns (3-3) @ Rams (0-7)
The Browns are thinking playoffs? What?

Colts (6-0) @ Panthers (4-2)
Vinny Testaverde did NOT look 43 last week as he threw for 206 yards and a 65 yard TD to Steve Smith locking down a W against the Cardinals. Do they have the firepower to give the Colts their first loss?

Texans (3-4) @ Chargers (3-3)
Things are red hot in San Diego in more ways than one. Good news - the Chargers now have Chris Chambers and are 2nd in the AFC West. Bad news - the wildfires have caused many in SD to evacuate their homes, including 18 players on the team. The game is still going to be played in SD, and with all the emotion in the area is going to guarantee the burning Chargers another victory! Our thoughts go to all those in San Diego affected by the fires.

Jaguars (4-2) @ Buccaneers (4-3)
Garrard and team morale is down after the crushing loss to the Colts. Time for the Bucs to capitalize!


Bills (2-4) @ Jets (1-6)
The people in New York are the only ones that care about this game.
Redskins (4-2) @ Patriots (7-0)
The Redskins have a much better defense than the Dolphins, but even that can't stop the Pats. By the way, the Patiots are a dirty, unsportsmanlike team. I don't care about records or about 6 TDs - what was the point of blowing out one of the worst teams in the NFL? They had last week's game over the Dolpins long before the 3rd quarter started - shouldn't they have just benched Brady and Moss?
Packers (5-1) @ Broncos (3-3)
First win for the Pack in the Mile High Stadium?

Some Tony.psd flavor in ya ear!

GSoF Golden State of Football		Prediction

Raiders (2-4) @ Titans (4-2)
8 Field Goals in a game? Are you kidding? That's how the Titans win? Either way, this might be a tough win for the Raiders, but they can still pull through!

Saints (2-4) @ 49ers (2-4)
No one would have thought these teams were going to be 2-4 at this point. The difference - the Saints are coming off 2 straight wins and the 9ers are coming off 4 straight losses. Remember last year when these two teams met? I'm looking forward to another exciting game by Cali's finest, Reggie Bush

Teams with Byes - Chiefs, Falcons, Cowboys, Cardinals, Seahawks, and Ravens

Go to Ballhype and throw down your predictions!.

Remember to hit up your comments about this week's games.

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Comments

Well

the Patiots are a dirty, unsportsmanlike team....but what about the Patriots?

Lol, all jokes aside, I honestly don't care if a team blows out another just for the sake of it, or for security. It's football, and that's what football is.

It's funny, because I think I can liken this to the Stephen Jackson situation.

East Coast- Hates Stephen Jackson, thinks he's a punk.
Bay Area- Thinks he's a great, team guy.

West Coast- Hate the Patriots, think they're dirty, unsportsmanlike cheaters.
Boston- Think they're just finding ways to win while protecting their lead.

Tony.psd = Da Man

http://adonalobsessed.blogspot.com/

by Zorgon on Oct 28, 2007 3:05 AM PDT 0 recs

Werd

Can you say Homer-itis?

Anyone who calls themselves a football fan should have nothing but respect, awe, and fear for what the Pats are doing right now. Honestly I've never seen anything like it. The Skins are a good NFL team who the Pats just treated like a bunch of high-schoolers.

The scary thing is this year's Colts may be almost as good, if not as good. Either way, it's probably safe to say that none of the Superbowls in NFL history has featured a matchup as powerful as next week's Colts/Pats game.

JRizzle, it's pretty obvious you wouldn't say the same crap about the Niners or the Raiders if they did the same "unsportsmanlike" things the Pats are doing. If you care about being seen as an actual football fan rather than just a pathetic homer you might consider shutting your yap and appreciating what you're witnessing.

by Sleepy Freud on Oct 28, 2007 4:51 PM PDT up 0 recs

You've got to be joking

It's about pure respect - something that YOU seem to lack. Shuting my yap? Are you kidding me? What's with the hostility?

I would not support any team, be it the Niners, Raiders, Warriors, Giants, A's, Sharks, or the Pats for running up a score unnecessarily. I had said nothing about the Pats not doing well or not having any skill - in fact, if you look at all my previous posts, I've only said how amazing and unstoppable they have been.

There was no point of them running up the score against the Dolphins, the 'Skins, or any team for that matter. It was stupid for them to bring Brady and all their starters off the bench just to boost stats or set records.

You tell me, how does that make me a homer? And who the hell is JRizzle?

I got a trivia question for you...who can stop number 5?

by R Dizzle on Oct 28, 2007 7:46 PM PDT up 0 recs

Heh

I was talking to JRizzle, not you. ;-P

Seriously, you're a homer because you wouldn't say the same things if the Niners and Raiders were pummeling their opponents in similar fashion. Your denying it doesn't make it any less true. More than likely, you'd say what Pats fans are saying: that the starters need to play more than three quarters a game if they want to stay sharp for good teams -- like, say, the Colts.

If you seriously think the Pats' principal concern is "boosting their stats" you're even more blinded by homerism than I thought.

No hostility or disrespect, RDizzle, just facts.

by Sleepy Freud on Oct 28, 2007 8:20 PM PDT up 0 recs

Huh?

What are these "facts" you're referring to? How do you know if R Dizzle wouldn't say the same things if the Niners and Raiders were running up the score? Haha, the Niners and Raiders haven't exactly done that this season. You're pretty much making a prediction about what R Dizzle would do in a situation and trying to pass your opinion off as a fact.

Sleepy I'm seriously shocked to see such a poor reasoned argument from you. How can you call R Dizzle a homer especially when he just picked both the Raiders and Niners to lose this week? You can't seriously buy you've just wrote.

No hostility or disrespect, Sleepy Freud, that was just some extremely curious logic.

by Atma Brother ONE on Oct 28, 2007 8:36 PM PDT up 0 recs

OK, not "facts"

But an extremely educated guess. You can go to any Pats board, populated by fanboys or more level-headed types, and not find one fan who thinks that the team has been "dirty and unsportsmanlike." Do you actually think RDizzle would have used those words if Brady and co. were wearing the silver-and-black? Come on, dude.

I guess I just think it's disrespectful and more than a little sour-grapesish to call a team that's playing at such a historically high level "dirty and unsportsmanlike." As a football fan, there are so many things to appreciate and analyze about that team above and beyond whether they scored 52 when they should have been content with 45. It just sounds petty, like a '90s Jazz fan griping about Jordan's gambling problem.

As for the Niners/Raiders pix: obviously, I'm not saying RDizzle is a homer in every instance. I've been a consistent defender of this forum. I just think in this case fans of the game deserve better.

by Sleepy Freud on Oct 28, 2007 9:21 PM PDT up 0 recs

Come on Sleepy

Did you really just say to go to a Pats message board to see whether they thought their team was "dirty or unsportsmanlike"? How are those Pats fans "more level-headed types"? You've got to be kidding me.

Look in the span of less than 2 months the Pats have been caught cheating and ran up the score unnecessarily. Who brings back the starters in a blowout like that? I don't think it's too far-fetched to say that they're "dirty and unsportsmanlike." Why was LT (a highly regarded man all over the league) taking so many so shots at Bellicheck and the Pats organization in last year's playoffs? I'm starting to see a trend here.

Seriously did someone steal your account or something? I've never seen you post so many illogical arguments in one day.

GO COLTS.

by Atma Brother ONE on Oct 28, 2007 10:14 PM PDT up 0 recs

Ah yes

The "did someone steal your account?" gambit when someone disagrees with you. Unfortunately, I've heard that one from you before, Atma Bro.

I should have been clearer: by "more level-headed" types, I meant in comparison to fanboyish Pats fans, not in comparison to the posters here. Obviously on this site, as on all fan blogs, you find a spectrum of fans who actually try to see things objectively, fans for whom their team can do no wrong.

Whether it's far-fetched to call the Patriots unsportsmanlike isn't the issue. The issue is whether you'd use the same disparaging tone if they were a local team. The answer to that, despite your and RDizzle's protests, is plainly no. I'd love to hear the logical contortions you'd go through to explain how what the Pats are doing is any different, from, for example, Baron dunking on AK-47's grill and exposing his midriff in a game that was already well in hand.

I'd go so far as to say that, as a rule, what you and RDizzle call "running up the score" is in fact far more sportsmanlike than even your garden-variety dunk, which gives you no more points than a lay-in and usually serves no purpose other than to humiliate the opponent and assert your awesomeness. In the case of the Pats/Dolphins game, tacking on an extra TD did in fact eliminate the remote possibility of a crazy Dolphin comeback -- in addition to, of course, asserting the Pats' awesomeness.

As I said, it's also an issue of focus: choosing to concentrate on two extremely tangential negative facts about one of the most impressive football teams ever to don cleats is mean-spirited, petty, and not really worthy of someone who says they love the game.

More broadly, I think you, RDizzle, and co. can choose to go a couple of ways with this forum: it either can be (1) a place for serious football discussion; (2) or a place for fanboyish trash-talking.

If you mean it as a place for serious football discussion, of course you're free to bring up the "running up the score" claim, but rather than simply name-calling, you could attempt to deal with it in a fair, clear-minded way, talking about the specific situations, how they could have been handled differently, and how they compare to borderline-disrespectful actions by other teams (Baron's dunk, for example). You could even broaden the debate, DJ Fuzzy Logic-style, to a larger discussion of what consitutes sportsmanship in our society. That would be pretty cool, and in keeping with this site as I know it.

If you mean it as a place for trash-talking and fanboyism ("Go Colts", "the Pats are dirty cheaters" etc.) that's cool too, just don't whine and call "disrespect" when fans of other teams return your fire. It seems like you expect to find a sympathetic audience to your dissing of the Pats and Boston teams in general. Sorry if I don't always fall into line. I was born in Boston and spent the first 17.5 years of my life there. Sue me.

Next non-basketball topic: Red Sox ... sore winners? ;-P

Anyway, end rant, 1dub, etc. Is it basketball season yet?

by Sleepy Freud on Oct 29, 2007 8:03 AM PDT up 0 recs

Come on man

Of course this is a place for serious football discussion and even fun fanboy thoughts, but seriously how are you going to play this victim role here?

Remember you started this conversation off by telling R Dizzle:

If you care about being seen as an actual football fan rather than just a pathetic homer you might consider shutting your yap and appreciating what you're witnessing.

That's weak. Just like you tried to define "facts" you tried to define what an "actual football fan" is, called him a "pathetic homer" (with absolutely no evidence to back up that claim), and told him to consider shutting up. Come on man you're above making such porous arguments and emotional outbursts.

by Atma Brother ONE on Oct 29, 2007 8:34 AM PDT up 0 recs

Yeah

The tone of the line you clipped was pretty harsh. Sorry -- it's not usually my style, but it was in keeping with the trash-talking tone RDizzle set by calling the Pats "dirty and unsportsmanlike."

You fail to note the IF in my statement, though. IF he cared about making this a place for serious football dialogue, he would dispense with the negativity and the simplistic sound-bites and get into some interesting, unbiased football talk. Whether or not that's what he's doing here I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.

"Pathetic" was way too strong a word, granted. It's no biggie, it's a hoops blog, and this part of it is just a part-time distraction. If it ends more good-natured trash-talk than fair-and-balanced dialogue, it's really fine with me.

Still, I guess little disappointed that you're not being honest about your biases and prejudices. Do you really think your take would be the same if the Raiders or Niners were looking like the one of the best teams in NFL history? Did you even consider the Baron/AK-47 analogy I put out there, or would your response simply be a Bush-ian "why ... how dare you compare US to the TERRORISTS?"

by Sleepy Freud on Oct 29, 2007 9:29 AM PDT up 0 recs

Look

It's pretty unnecessary for you to call me a "pathetic homer," telling me to shut my yap, or bringing such negativity as you did in your first post. I don't think that calling the Patriots a dirty, unsportsmanlike team is even on that level of personal attack and that is the main problem with your post.

No one's saying that the Patriots aren't a good team, make that, an amazing team, but at the same time I don't think they should be running up a score unnecessarily. Did you see that interview after the Redskins game where a defensive player (I forget who) was claiming the same thing? He was saying that a great coach like Joe Gibbs or Bill Walsh wouldn't play a game like that. They knew about respect.

You mention that the extra TD prevented the Dolphins from making a comeback - was that really a possibility? I think it was more as even you said, for the Pats to "assert their awesomeness." Again, where was the honor is that decision?

Speaking of respect, by saying things like I'm "blinded by homerism," or that you're presenting "facts" about my opinions is just ludicrous. You have no idea how I would feel if the Niners or Raiders would be doing what the Pats are doing right now, so don't make such claims.

As for the BD dunk, you have an extremely valid point. That was disrespectful. But again, you have no idea what I feel about that or I how treated the matter at the time. Look back at the posts and see what I said (the answer is nothing).

Furthermore, if you want to do some research about how I react to superfluous bouts in any game, look at the Stephen Jackson's report card. As I commented at a playoff game to Atma, Jackson's 360 pass was "UNNECESSARY."

If you want to say that I have biases and prejudices to the Raiders and Niners - fine. My earlier prediction that the Niners making the playoffs wasn't too off the wall (now it seems like it is) but I will admit that my 8-8 Raiders were extremely far fetched. But, if it were to happen, then what? By no means though, did I say I would condone unsportsmanlike conduct by either team in any case. I define picking on the Dolphins (the worst team in the NFL) unsportsmanlike. That is not, I repeat, not trash-talking or name-calling by any means. Apparently our two definitions of unsportsmanlike conduct by a team are different. That is fine.

Just to clarify, I did not call the Red Sox "sore winners" as you claim I said, I merely asked why the city of Boston was becoming the city of sports.

Just keep your negative crap to yourself man. No need to be calling me names or personally attacking ME. You don't like my analysis - fine. We can discuss that. But I refuse to discuss sports (or anything else for that matter) with someone that is going to jump to conclusions about my thoughts and opinions.

I got a trivia question for you...who can stop number 5?

by R Dizzle on Oct 30, 2007 10:27 AM PDT up 0 recs

Good thoughts

But actually on that BD dunk I would say it wasn't disrespectful. He went up for a dunk and made a great basketball play right before Nellie was about to sub him out for the rest of the game. It's not like Baron was on the bench resting and then Nellie brought him back into the game just to throw down that highlight or to embarrass the Jazz. He wasn't running up the score which is what the Pats were doing against the Dolphins.

And I don't mind Jax's pass to JRich at all- in fact I loved it. It's basketball and people are just having fun. It's not like they're intentionally trying to embarrass or pad their stats like the Pats were doing.

by Atma Brother ONE on Oct 30, 2007 10:37 AM PDT up 0 recs

Wow.

The Pats were up by 21 points (42-21) with over 10:00 remaining when Brady re-entered the game v. Miami.

The Warriors were up by 20 points (119-99) with 2:48 remaining when Baron dunked in AK-47's grill.

Which is longer, the list of football teams who have made up 21-point deficits in ten minutes, or the list of basketball teams who have made up 20-point deficits in less than three minutes? My money's on the former.

Either way, it's pretty clear that if there were an alternate universe "AtmaBrother2" who had a blog called "Patriot State of Mind," he would make the exact same one-sided judgments you've made, Atma, only with the two teams reversed. This conversation has long since run its course, but I guess I'm still kinda disappointed you don't see that.

by Sleepy Freud on Oct 30, 2007 12:17 PM PDT up 0 recs

Dude

Stop taking yourself so seriously.

Based on the number of replies your columns get, I'm guessing I'm in the minority of GSoMers that actually reads them regularly. Generally speaking, I like them, and, fwiw, have always defended their content and their presence on this site.

In this instance I misread the tone of your jab at the Pats as trash-talking and wrote an unduly harsh reply. My bad. My point about your being biased still stands (aren't we all?), but the harsh tone was really meant as playful trash-talk. No need to take it so personally. Nobody but you, me, and Atma cares. Lighten up.

by Sleepy Freud on Oct 30, 2007 11:50 AM PDT up 0 recs