Week 10: Let Us Never Speak of it Again

If this week's column seems a bit short (hold your applause), blame it on last week's winner, David McLinn. Mr. McLinn didn't respond to the Couch Potato's requests for interview answers, so the logical assumption is that he's absconded with our $300 (his winnings this season to date) and headed for Bali. For shame, David, for shame. (To make things fair, I'll still post his interview if he replies before we know this week's winner.)

Moving right along…

If any week illustrated exactly why the Couch Potato stopped picking games in his column (and has begun wondering what the point of picking games is anyway), it was Week 10, when chaos reigned supreme. Let's review the carnage of the, gulp, 9 games the Potato picked wrong last week (and which many of you undoubtedly blew, too):

St. Louis 37, New Orleans 29: All the ducks were in a row for the Saints. A four game winning streak had them back in contention, and a home game against the winless Rams would kick off a second half schedule that featured only one team with a winning record (Tampa Bay, that 5-4 juggernaut). And did CP mention that the Rams had yet to score a single TD on the road ALL SEASON? If anybody out there picked the Rams this week, you're either a genius or an idiot, or both.

Atlanta 20, Carolina 13: Let's see—the train wreck that is the post- Michael Vick Falcons, playing on the road, QB'd by Joey "Flailing Chicken" Harrington, and without the rising Jerious Norwood, against a Panthers team trying to move into a tie for the division lead, armed with a stout run defense and (one would hope) an air of desperation. So, of course the aging Warrick Dunn runs for an early 30-yard TD and chalks up a clock-hogging 140 yards of total offense. At least the game wasn't a total loss: CP started Dunn on his fantasy team.

Buffalo 13, Miami 10: The Bills nice little win-streak notwithstanding, the Couch Potato certainly wasn't the only one who saw this as a golden opportunity for the Dolphins to get in the win column. They've got to win a freakin' game sometime, don't they?

Jacksonville 28, Tennessee 13: How could this one go wrong? Tennessee not only was bringing one of the league's most physical defenses into a game against the equally physical Jaguars, but the Jags are still being QB'd by Quinn "Who?" Gray. And then Vince Young has probably his best game of the season. Naturally, the Titans get their helmets handed to them. Why do we even bother trying to pick these games!?

Denver 28, Kansas City 11: If there's one team that's really started to piss off CP, it's the Broncos. They're like the stock market these days—up for no particular reason, then down in mysterious fashion. Who could explain this one a week after Jay Cutler & Co. lost 44-7 to Detroit last week? Then again, we all should have guessed this one was an oddity when we checked in throughout the first half and saw scores of 5-3, 6-5 and 8-6.

Arizona 31, Detroit 21: See summary of game above. The Lions were coming off a 44-7 slashing of Denver, and needed a win to stay one game behind Green Bay with a Thanksgiving show-down looming. Which means none of us should be surprised that they were thoroughly dominated by a reeling Cardinals team. Try to fathom this: The Lions had minus-18 yards rushing. That's minus, as in less than zero, as in going backward. Against the &?$!*#@ Cardinals!

Philadelphia 33, Washington 25: Okay, it needs to be acknowledged that the Eagles are just as maddening as the Broncos. How can one team, in one half of a season, fly for 56 against the Lions and then get sacked 12 times the next week while scoring 3 against the Giants? And that looks downright predictable compared to this bizarre 5 week run for Philly: 0-2 at home, 3-0 on the road. Yeah, THAT makes sense.

Cincinnati 21, Baltimore 7: So maybe that season-opening win over the Ravens should have been considered here. But it was the opener, and it was at home. Not that Baltimore's been all that impressive, but the Bengals have been downright awful—the only win they've gotten since that game 9 weeks ago was over the even more awful Jets. Not to mention that given how bad the Cincinnati defense has been all season, this had to be the week the Raven's anemic offense would come to life, right? Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

San Diego 23, Indianapolis 21: Of COURSE the Potato should have seen Peyton Manning's 6 interceptions coming—who didn't? So what if he'd never thrown more than 4 in a game. Oh, yeah, and the Chargers getting TDs off of kickoff AND punt returns—shoulda seen that coming, too. What's next, Alex Smith throwing touchdown passes?

At least the Pats are returning to action this week and restoring order to what was a temporarily nonsensical football landscape. Well, nonsensical to everyone but the AWOL Mr. McLinn, that is.