Hurley's Picks: Kaepernick Headed For Failure In Seattle, While Griffin's Situation Growing Dire
BOSTON (CBS) -- Roger Goodell: Emotionless puppet, cover-up master, aimless leader ... Man of the Year?
That was a real possibility, after Time Magazine released its list of candidates for "Person of the Year" this week. He did not win, but NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was listed as one of the finalists.
Past winners of this honor include Mahatma Gandhi, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, JFK, Pope John Paul II, Pope Francis, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Of course, such a distinction is not necessarily an honor. Time says that the title is given to the person who "most influenced the news this year for better or worse." Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were given Man of the Year titles back in the '30s.
But for the most part, the Person of the Year shines a light on someone or a group of people who have accomplished something remarkable, who have striven to change the world for better. Doctors who risk their lives to treat Ebola, protestors who push for social change, leaders who deal with complicated relations among states -- these are the people who earn this type of attention.
But a 55-year-old man whose largest aspiration in life was to become NFL commissioner, who's helped the league become more profitable than ever but still denied the impact of the sport on concussions and their long-term replications for far too long, who seemingly had no idea that a man punching a woman and knocking her out was an offense that warranted a severe punishment, who in turn lied about what he had known about the incident so that he could save face and further sully the reputation of the bad guy -- this is not a man whose face should be on a magazine cover. Not for better, not for worse.
Despite the fact that he would have been named "Person of the Year" for all the wrong reasons, you know that weirdo would see himself on the cover and feel great about it.
Goodell is someone who denied concussion awareness, denied knowing things he had clearly known and all too often denied common decency, so it's only right that he was denied the opportunity for more positive attention.
But hey, Goodell's league is outrageously healthy, as evidenced by all of these NFL picks I'm about to make.
(Home team in caps; Wednesday lines)
ST. LOUIS (-4.5) over Arizona
Am I getting to the point where I have to start believing in the St. Louis Rams? Life was so much easier when I could just ignore them. But this is a team that has outscored opponents 83-0 in the past eight and a half quarters. With two straight shutout victories -- 52-0 over Oakland, 24-0 over Washington -- the Rams got their point differential to an even zero in just two weeks of work, making their entire season seem like a work of mediocrity instead of a grand waste of time.
Are the Rams legit? I don't know, but Jeff Fisher has them doing everything right at the current moment. Drew Stanton is not capable of going on the road and getting in the way of that.
Ridiculous Quote From Last Week's Picks: "All of that 'might the Cardinals host a Super Bowl?' talk is going to quickly become 'how did the Cardinals miss the playoffs?' talk."
Note: OK, so I got a little to toasty with my take on that one. Toasty Takes With Mike Hurley ... kind of has a nice ring to it.
Green Bay (-4.5) over BUFFALO
The Packers are apparently winning games without even trying very hard now. I see no reason to believe this will be any different.
CAROLINA (-3) over Tampa Bay
I didn't really have much to say about this game before Cam Newton got in a car accident (glad he's OK), and I have even less to say about it now that Derek Anderson will be the starting quarterback. Really, the NFC South is such a disgusting excuse for a division that I refuse to talk about any of its teams. Instead I will tell you that I watched the dog show on Thanksgiving morning, and I didn't like it. That ain't right. Dogs aren't supposed to be all prim and proper. They're dogs! They poop on the sidewalk! Parading them around like they're pieces of fine china ... it just ain't right!
Give me that dog competition where they measure longest jump and other physical feats. That competition is badass.
RQFLWP: "While I'd rather not take the Saints to cover 10 points against anybody, the Panthers' putrid road record (plus the Saints' 28-10 win in Carolina a month ago) are reason enough to make that choice this week."
Note: Burn the NFC South. Burn it to the ground.
Houston (+7) over INDIANAPOLIS
The Colts are 9-4, comfortably in first place in the AFC South, but they're just not very good. They're mediocre.
Against teams with winning records, they're 4-4, outscored 219-210. They've won big once; they've gotten blown out twice.
They're average.
The Texans hung with them once this year, losing by five points. They can outright this time around.
BALTIMORE (-14) over Jacksonville
I don't have much to say about the Jaguars, so here's a photo of Tom Coughlin chatting with Steve Beuerlein and Mark Brunell at one of the first practices in franchise history.
There's a 99 percent chance that Coughlin still owns and wears that exact pair of socks.
Oakland (+10.5) over KANSAS CITY
The Raiders have gotten 10 or more points on four occasions this year, going 3-1 against the spread in those games. Overall, they're 7-6 against the spread and 4-2 against the spread on the road. Who'da thunk it, right?
The Chiefs, meanwhile, essentially suffered the beginning of the end of their season a few weeks ago in Oakland. They now need to win three straight to even have a chance to make the playoffs, and with a trip to Pittsburgh and a home date with San Diego on tap (and with Alex Smith as their starting quarterback), the Chiefs have to know their season is done.
On the other side, the Raiders seem capable of being blissfully unaware that their season is over. Or perhaps they came to terms with it long ago, thereby allowing them to put forth random spurts of great effort. Whatever it is, the Raiders will do all right in Kansas City this weekend.
RQFLWP: "That one win was all [the Raiders] aspired to get, and that's what they'll finish with."
Note: I picked the Raiders on so many weeks when they played terribly, so I was just releasing some leftover rage.
NEW ENGLAND (-8) over Miami
The Patriots don't lose at home. The Patriots don't lose in December. The Patriots don't lose to Miami at home in December. The Patriots don't lose twice to any divisional opponent ever.
But mostly, the Patriots don't forget. So they locked a few items in their memory banks from that Week 1 loss in Miami, and they'll be looking to unleash some revenge on Sunday.
Also, in an unrelated note, this is very important:
Thank you for your time.
NEW YORK GIANTS (-6.5) over Washington
I really hate this game. I really hate this pick. In no way are the Giants objectively a touchdown better than another team. Really. Unless that other team is Washington.
The Giants beat the Redskins 45-14 in late September, and Washington has only gotten worse since then. The players all seem to (rightly) hate their head coach, they can't even come close to competing, and their benched franchise quarterback is spending his time at practice by kicking punts into the air and chasing them down as if he's the 96-pound equipment manager for his high school team.
No, really.
This is from a real-life football reporter, who witnessed this. In real life:
"After practice, he was on the field by himself for like 40 minutes, just punting the ball, and running after it, and punting the ball and running after it. The guy looks like he's lost, doesn't know what's going on, and so I did feel bad for him. ... Out there on the practice field. He stayed there. This was outside, after everybody's in the locker room changing their clothes, getting ready to go, and he's just out there for like 40 minutes punting the ball, he'd run after it, punt the ball."
My goodness.
You cannot pick Washington right now. Can't do it.
RQFLWP: "TENNESSEE (Pick 'em) over New York Giants"
Note: I didn't actually say anything about the game. Instead, I wrote that I'd prefer playing Russian roulette over having to trust either of these teams to win a football game. But still, after the Giants won 36-7, that pick is ridiculous in and of itself.
Pittsburgh (-2) over ATLANTA
After Julio Jones caught 11 passes for 259 yards at Lambeau, people are going to start believing in the Falcons. Not me.
The Falcons are still the Falcons, which is to say they're a 5-8 team that owns just one win all season against a non-NFC South team. They stink. They trailed 31-7 at halftime on Monday night, so don't let the fact that they climbed back into the game against a disinterested Packers team trick you into believing they're not the Falcons. They're still the Falcons. They'll always be the Falcons.
RQFLWP: " The Falcons are about to get run over. Avert your children's eyes. It could get ugly."
Note: I will admit that the Falcons played a decent football game on Monday night. Granted, the Packers appeared to be giving it about 50 percent of their collective attention, but it all counts.
CLEVELAND (-1) over Cincinnati
Marvin Lewis is a moron. A complete idiot.
Denver (-4) over SAN DIEGO
I really wrestled with this one. It was last year around this time that the 11-2 Broncos stumbled with a surprising loss to the Chargers. It was their only blemish in the month of December.
So with the Broncos not playing their best game last weekend in Buffalo,and with the Chargers absolutely scrapping for their playoff lives this weekend, might the time be ripe again for another San Diego upset?
I thought about it ... but I can't.
There's still a lot on the line for the Broncos. They want to win out, keep the pressure on the Patriots and hopefully oust them for the No. 1 seed. Given Peyton Manning's awful track record in Foxboro, the Broncos have to know how important home-field advantage figures to be in January.
So I expect the Manning special in San Diego this weekend: Four touchdowns, zero QB hits, 75 snaps where he makes it all look too easy.
New York Jets (-1.5) over TENNESSEE
The Titans are going to lose in consecutive weeks to a pair of New York (New Jersey) teams that are a combined 6-20.
Curious as to what sort of climate the Titans are operating in, I checked out the Tennessean sports section this week. The top story was about the Volunteers opening their 2015 season against Bowling Green after a 6-6 season. So there's that.
SEATTLE (-10) over San Francisco
I picked the 49ers last week, because I figured they could handle the mighty Oakland Raiders. Yet I underestimated the effect that a coach already being out the door and a quarterback who doesn't understand football can have on a football team. Silly me.
And a trip to Seattle, where Colin Kaepernick always turns into a puddle, is not exactly what the doctor ordered to remedy San Francisco's problems.
Kaepernick has completed 54.5 percent of his passes at CenturyLink, throwing two touchdowns and six interceptions while taking six sacks and averaging 175 passing yards per game. The 49ers have averaged 11 points per game in their last three trips to Seattle. And given the fact that Jim Harbaugh has both feet and most of his torso out the door already, I kind of expect him to just let his quarterback crash and burn on Sunday afternoon.
The Seahawks are rolling right now, and they always bring an extra dose of emotion when they play the 49ers. This one will be ugly.
DETROIT (-8) over Minnesota
Sometimes, I just want to write, "Because Minnesota just isn't very good at the sport of football," and then leave it at that.
You know what? I think I will.
PHILADELPHIA (-3) over Dallas
Poor Tony Romo. The man would have to die on the field for the Cowboys to ever consider taking him out for good. And even then, as a perished Romo lay flay on the 43-yard line, you know that Jerry Jones M.D. would be in Jason Garrett's ear, saying, "If you don't find a way to get Tony back in this game then I'll be hanging your ass upside down from the roof of the stadium all week."
But yeah, I guess what I'm trying to say is that Romo might not make it through this game, bless his heart.
CHICAGO (+3) over New Orleans
I've jumped ship on the Saints on at least three separate occasions this year, but I've always come back to believe in them at the worst possible time ... such as last week, when I picked them to cover a 10-point spread at home but they instead ... well lost by 31 points ... to a team that was 3-8-1.
So I'm out on New Orleans. I know Brandon Marshall's done for the year. I know the Bears aren't good. But I also know it's going to be freezing cold in Chicago, and one random win in Pittsburgh isn't going to suddenly change my views on Drew Brees' team when it leaves the dome.
But my greatest recommendation for this game is for all viewers to take the night off. It's the holiday season -- why don't you fire up some hot cocoa and watch Rudolph? Come to think of it, maybe the teams should do the same. There is no reason to play this game, and for the sake of keeping 60,000 nice folks from having to sit outside on a Monday night in mid-December, movie night sounds much more preferable.
Last week: 8-7-1
Season: 111-95-3
Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here, or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
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