Just for the hell of it I decided to see how my picks stack up against the spread.

For the uninitiated, when you bet on an NFL game you don’t just win money if the team you bet on is victorious - they have to cover the spread. If I bet on the Patriots to beat Miami and they win by just 10 points - but the spread was 14 - then I lose my bet. The Patriots would have to win by 15 or more for me to win any money. Meanwhile, if I had bet on Miami I would have won money even though that team lost since the favorite - the Pats - failed to cover the spread. The system was created to encourage gamblers to bet on both teams rather than everyone just bet on New England every week and win. Unlike a lot of people I don’t predict versus the spread because I don’t gamble on sports. (Or in general, except for my marriage.)

Anyway, my record season-to-date against the spread is 116-99-10 (ten games met the spread exactly and are therefore a tie.) Last week I went 7-9 instead of 10-6 without the spread counting (the Pats, Colts and Vikings failed to cover.) Still not a bad mark overall, but I think I’ll stick to straight-up predictions.

16-0 last week…in case you missed it…and I’m already 1-0 this week after picking the Texas on Thursday. (It was in my Facebook status…I swears.)

• Albert Pujols was not named in the report. Neither was Darryl Kile. No matter what the list circulated before the report erroneously stated. For that matter, neither were Kerry Wood or Mark Prior. Given the limited number of witnesses, this doesn’t exonerate anyone. And more names may come out in the future after federal investigations are complete. But after years of random, pointless speculation about Pujols I’m hoping it shuts a few people up. At least for now.

• Roger Clemens is the ass we always thought he was, and his two month wait to join the Astros in 2006 was probably the widely speculated super-secret steroids suspension from Selig.

• Don Fehr is the ass we always thought he was, and he should be fired as head of the Players’ Union.

• Good timing, Houston. Enjoy your new shortshop.

• The Mitchel Report joins the chorus of recent studies that seem to indicate that HGH is pointless as a Performance Enhancing Drug and does nothing to help a player:

A number of studies have shown that use of human growth hormone does not increase muscle strength in healthy subjects or well-trained athletes. Athletes who have triedhuman growth hormone as a training aid have reached the same conclusion. The author of one book targeted at steroid abusers observed that “[t]he most curious aspect of the whole situation is
that I’ve never encountered any athlete using HGH to benefit from it, and all the athletes who admit to having used it will usually agree: it didn’t/doesn’t work for them.”

The report goes on to discuss the negative aspects of HGH, namely the side effects that include cancer, impotence and arthritis among others. Mitchell seems to feel that HGH should remain a banned substance because of the potential for adverse health effects, and that’s fine with me. But the public needs to finally embrace that HGH IS NOT A PED. Call Rick Ankiel a cheater all you want, but every study indicates that HGH does not enhance your ability as an athlete in any way. Perhaps it is a minor aid if you want to use it in tandem with a real PED like anabolic steroids, but without the presence of that greater sin you cannot accuse one of cheating. And the use of HGH does not imply that the player used steroids. It simply implies that he attempted to gain an advantage through the common incorrect opinion that HGH does a damn thing to help you build muscle mass.

I usually don’t do results posts for my NFL picks, but this week warranted such action. A screencap of my Excel spreadsheet:

(Yellow = correct.)

Oh my yes.

Last week wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, but the late games still killed me. 9-7 is not acceptable this week.