Welcome back, football fans, to our quasi-professional football picks! Each week we will pick game winners based on Vegas over/under lines, and add some sharp commentary to the games.
While many of the winners in our contest seem to be in order down this last stretch, the most important game cannot be overlooked, for the sake of the NFL: the Pro Bowl! Where else can you see a scrimmage game between the top athletes that aren’t in the Super Bowl that means absolutely nothing? At least MLB’s All-Star game gives home-field advantage for the World Series.
Sunday, January 29th, 2012
VS
AFC VS NFC
LINE: EVEN
Darby Shaw:
Welcome to the most pointless game of the season not involving the St. Louis Rams. It’s a game involving the best players in the league! Well, okay, the most popular players in the league. Well, okay, the most popular players who aren’t in the Super Bowl. Or injured. Or faking an injury. This year’s roster is full of rookie quarterbacks, over-the-hill name-recognition picks, and the usual blend of “who’s that guy” on the offensive lines (well, except for D’Brickashaw Ferguson, after whom I will name my first-born son). This year’s exciting news about the Pro Bowl is two-fold. First, it has returned to Hawaii, so now super-rich players once again get a free tropical vacation. And two, there will be a “Twitter zone” where players are allowed to tweet during this game; expect lots of plays with only 7-10 players on the field as big-mouth technophiles fiddle with their phones rather than paying attention to the game. Pick: NFC-LOSS
Rob Wheatley:
I’ve been reliably informed (or blatantly mislead into thinking ) that this game is a bit of a comedy strap-on, bunged onto the end of the season in order to give the sponsors a fighting chance at actually selling some product at this commercial dead-zone time of year. For me though, it’s a total pain in the arse. There are no overly dramatic or animalistic team names to get my teeth into, so no chance of any flights of fancy delving into the sex life of the Viking or debating whether dolphins really do have buttocks. No chance even of making endless filthy anagrams containing the word ‘pants’ out of team name ‘Carolina Panthers’.
But at least there will be a bunch of shiny helmets, and that always makes me laugh.
I’m going with the AFC to win, I’ve seen that Nelson Mandela on the news, and I reckon if he can do all that President of Africa stuff, then he can probably throw a ball at someone for an hour. Pick: AFC-WIN
Evil Peyton Manning:
While many football fans believe they have a week break to actually do something besides watch football this Sunday before the culmination of the season with the Super Bowl and an unrelated sick day in the morning, this is just not so. The biggest and brightest stars of the most followed sport in America will…wait…Some of the best players not in the Super Bowl will empty the tank in a spectacular showing of…er…Randomly selected football players from each conference will face off in an All-Star game of honor and…crap…The NFL has rented out a stadium in Hawaii to televise some randomly selected professional athletes playing catch for an hour. This is the Pro Bowl. Excited? You betcha. Pick: NFC-LOSS
Steve Elle:
(Apparently, Steve Elle was so excited about the Pro Bowl that he promptly forgot that such a game existed. Either that, or his team had a poor showing in votes, and he is revolting against the game.)-LOSS
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RECORDS
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ANALYSTS
Rob Wheatley: 134-120
Darby Shaw: 127-127
Steve Elle: 122-132
Evil Peyton Manning: 122-132
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CONTEST
T.O. : 140-114
Obi-Wallace: 134-120
AmyC: 130-124
Beta Boy: 128-126
JMcG: 124-130
Corrupted Clown: 124-130
RickyB: 122-132
Giants Chick: 113-141
Mike Marbles Francesa: 113-141
Angelicus Rex: 111-143
La Princessa: 13-241
JohnnyO: 9-245