Dolla Dolla Bills Yall: Week 8 NFL Spread Picks

Welcome to the Halloween edition of DDBY! If you think the above costume is cool or funny, please go and toss yourself off a building. That costume is atrociously stereotypical and should not be forced on the eyes of anyone. Why are there so many awful costumes every year? If you're going to dress up and take part in the festivities, have some originality! Don't be like fake Cole Hamels here.

As a young lad, I was Rambo for Halloween once. It was quite badass if I do say so myself. If I had a picture, I'd attach it. I was like 7 shark years old, and had a way better costume that all those other kids swimming around as pirates and vampires. Ah, memories...

Last week we went 7-7 bringing us to 58-41-5 on the year. Not a fantastic showing, but the Shark has yet to finish any week below .500.  Hit the jump for this week's winners. 

A Player by Player Retrospective: Joe Blanton

Joe Blanton signed a 3-year, $24M extension last offseason, keeping him in a Phillies uniform through the 2012 season. This made some sense for the Phillies (minus the whole ‘should have just kept Cliff Lee with that money’ thing which I’m not going to get into) since he asked for $10.25M in arbitration, and the Phillies countered with $7.5M. Meeting in between was a good idea, since the arbitration process can be difficult to predict. Plus, the Phillies were keeping a reliable arm, someone that had just come off a pretty good year, who is fully capable of pitching 200 innings to a 4.10 ERA. That’s useful.

Yuck it up, Dipshits.

An article over at the Wall Street Journal has validated all of the hatred I have for NFL pregame shows. They are completely unnecessary, completely annoying, and completely un-funny. I haven't watched a pregame show in years, and I'm a much happier person for it.

I honestly don't know who is devoting their time to these shows. We don't care about the shitty montage you've put together of last week's big hits or an interview where Pam Oliver verbally fellates Drew Brees. There's better stuff on the internet. There was a time NFL pregame shows were a great source of last minute fantasy football updates, but no longer is that remotely true.  I can Google whether or not Joseph Addai is playing a helluva lot faster than it takes these dopes to shut up and turn it over to Jay Glazer.

But nothing is more annoying than the forced banter and jokes that fly during each week's pregame show. It's all fake and it's all very unfunny. I wish Strahan would just boo loudly off camera when Terry Bradshaw's joke inevitably bombs. Instead, they have a good chuckle that goes on 20 seconds too long.

Thanks to the WSJ, we now have statistical evidence:

"The amount of time they laugh, though, is what sets them apart. The five hosts on Fox’s show—Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan and Jimmy Johnson—had a combined laughing time of two minutes, 22 seconds. That’s about 11.6% of the 20 minutes, 27 seconds they were shown on set together. Mr. Bradshaw was easily the laughing leader, going for about 92.4 seconds—including 2.5 seconds at the start of the show before anyone said anything.

The CBS crew—Greg Gumbel, Dan Marino, Bill Cowher, Shannon Sharpe and Boomer Esiason—only laughed for 43 seconds. That’s about one-third as much chuckling as the group at Fox. CBS declined to comment. Fox Sports spokesman Lou D’Ermilio says, “If we didn’t tell the guys to stop they would laugh and crack jokes 100% of the time."

Nearly 12% of the time, the ass-jacks on FOX are yucking it up! This is why nobody likes you Terry Bradshaw. This is why.

Going Out for Halloween Looking for a Bag of NOSE Candy

h/t to Midwest Sports Fans and @Hoop_er

2010 Phillies Recap: A Player by Player Retrospective

I recognize that we’re all still very depressed from last Saturday’s events. While we may have considered the fact that we could lose to the Giants, I don’t think any of use actually thought that we would. However, after Cody Ross homeruns, Ryan Howard strikeouts and f’in Juan Uribe, our team is no longer playing baseball this year. That fact, sadly, isn’t going to change.

Autotuned Andy Reid To Brighten Your Day

DJ Steve Porter - the same guy who brought us the fantastic Press Hop and Press Hop 2 videos - gives us this outstanding little ditty.  Andy Reid spits hot fire son! 

It was a rought weekend; at least this video gives Philly sports fans a reason to smile.  You may now go back to calling Kenny Britt and Juan Uribe assholes.

Your 2010-2011 Sixers Preview

By TWW friend Eric

It’s that time of year: Halloween!!! Oh, and the NBA season starting, too. So, here’s a ridiculously in-depth player by player look into (at? on? around?) the 76ers. Coming off of a terrible season, there’s nowhere to go but up, right? Right??

At least Willie Green is gone.  And expect a lot of talk about ball handling. No homo.

Brett Favre Penis Jokes Are Hilarious

It sure is fun to make jokes about Brett Favre, isn't it? [insert hilariously clever joke about male genitalia here]. Zing!

In other (and older) Brett Favre Wrangler commercial spoofs...

The Fat Lady is Singing

I know we're all still depressed from a weekend of awful, but hey I've got a little good news for all of us: The Dallas Cowboys' season is over in October. Think about that for a second, they are 1-5. Tony Romo is hurt. BlueStarShockTrooper is still very much into penis (or onto penis, one or the other). Life isn't good right now for us Philadelphia fans, but this does make it a little better.

The fact of the matter is that the Cowboys had this coming. They are a team of douchebags, it's like Dez Bryant instantly quadrupled in douche-ness the second he was drafted. They gloat, talk trash and act like they've accomplished something in the past 15 years. No matter how intoxicating Miles Austin's eyes may be, it doesn't change the fact that the Cowboys deserve to lose. They just do. (Plus, it was only a matter of time before Wade Phillips utter inability to be a head coach reared it's ugly head.)

Anyway, let's all just be happy the Cowboys suck. We can all find a little bit of solace in that.

(Oh and check out this list from Bleacher Report. I know that site sucks, but still, this list is so awful I don't even know when to start.)

Image c/o Ronald Martinez/Getty Images.

Eagles 19, Titans 37: Wait...We Lost That Game?

Fuck This Weekend - Phillies lose on Saturday, Eagles lose on Sunday, and I head back to work on Monday. I check my fantasy scores and not only did I leave Kenny Britt on the bench, but I'm actually playing against him in two different leagues. So to recap, number 18 for the Titans scored 18 points against my real-life favorite football team, then he went for 47 and 53 against two of my fantasy football teams. I mean...what the fuck is the point? I know he's a Rutgers alum but can't you give me something, God? Anything?

Anyway, what else did we learn? Clockers, Kenny Britt Ate The Eagles, Touchback, Why Burn That Last Timeout?, The TOTALLY STRAIGHT Riley Cooper Dreamboat Meter, and The Eagles are Still Pretty Good.

A Few NBA Predictions to Chew On

With a separate Sixers Preview on it’s way, I figured I’d jot down some quick NBA predictions since, ya know, I do predictions so friggin’ well and all. This NBA season promises to be one of the most interesting in recent memory. LeBron's talents have been brought to South Beach, Chris Bosh joined him, Kevin Durant is the best pure scorer since MJ, Shaq is now a Celtic, Dwight Howard has something to prove, Melo should be a Knick or Net at some point, a pending lockout is on the horizon, Evan Turner might suck, John Wall is nasty, the Spurs make their last stand and the Cavs will be terrible. Ultimately, all of that should make for great theater.

So, without further ado: 5 Things That Will Happen This Year:

1) Kevin Durant will win the MVP. It will be difficult for LeBron to win a third straight when Dwayne Wade will likely be just as instrumental in the Heat’s success. Carmelo is too unhappy, Chris Paul doesn’t have enough talent around him and Dirk is simply too boring. I say the award comes down to Durant and an “on a mission” Dwight Howard. A dark-horse could be a healthy Brandon Roy, but that’s never going to happen (the healthy part).

So Game 7 Isn't Tonight?

As if we needed another name to add to Philadelphia hate-lore, Juan Uribe threw his name onto that list last night. Uribe's eighth inning, two-out, solo home run served as the difference in what was a weird, sad, unfortunate end to the Phillies season. Three straight World Series appearances just wasn't in the cards and it appears we'll need to put those Game 7 tailgate supplies away (or at least I will). Pure suck.

The Phillies had more than enough opportunities to score runs after their two in the first inning but nobody was able to come up with a season saving hit. Victorino, Utley, Howard, Werth...they all failed in big spots last night. It certainly wasn't something we were used to seeing the last two postseasons but it was something that happened plenty this year. Of course, that's a discussion for another time (and another post).

So, while there will be plenty of time to wrap up, dissect and eulogize the Phillies' 2010 season (there will be much more once I stop crying) it's now time to grieve. This Phillies team had the ability to accomplish something special and they weren't able to. That hurts, a whole bunch. I already miss baseball.

See you in the spring, Phils.

[photo c/o Tim Shaffer/Reuters]