Trout's Picks of Contrariety (Week 2) (for Week 3)

So my dearth of posting lately has really been due to two factors: I am disillusioned with sports right now. Just journey over to South Side Sox and read any number of posts about the White Sox (a team that is 1-7 in their last 8, a team that has only won 2 of their last 12 series), and you'll see why. After writing this team off when they got swept by Oakland, I was briefly under the illusion that they had a chance after yet another near perfect game by Freddy Garcia, but then I watched their beating at the hands of the Tigers on Wednesday night, and it just pissed me off all over again. It's a good thing White Sox games aren't on in Boston. This team is playing like they're tired and they want to go home to their wives and kids. Whatever. Factor #2 is that school started this week. Hooray, reading!

Despite all this, I still have enough time and desire to post my picks of contrariety. Lucky for you.

New Orleans (+4) over Atlanta
Gage speaks of two bullshit teams that New Orleans has beaten; apparently he forgot to look and see that Atlanta has beaten a Steve Smith-less Carolina team and a shitty Tampa Bay team (Caddylacky looks more like VW Golf. That's right, I made the car comparison. Fuck off). I'm picking New Orleans for yet other reasons: Drew Brees' face-eating mole, Reggie Bush's crazy running, and they're the feel-good story of the year (seriously, how smart was it to get rid of Aaron fucking Brooks? That, and the whole hurricane thing.) Atlanta is also the most apathetic sports town in the country (see the Hawks and the Braves... especially the Braves), and their team's defense only succeeded in shutting down two crappy offenses.

Minnesota (+3.5) over Chicago
My heart's really not in this one. I think Chicago will cover. Nevertheless, Minnesota does have players named Joey Goodspeed and Napoleon Harris. Those are cool names. Plus Fred Smoot. Don't underestimate Fred Smoot.

Miami (-10.5) over Tennessee
This seems like a ridiculously large spread for two awful teams. That said, Daunte Culpepper will not crap the bed in this one. Tennessee is so awful and Miami's defense is so decent that Culpepper will at least have many, many, many opportunities to drive the field. He will blow several of these, but by the law of averages alone, should score a few times. I need to believe this because I idiotically drafted Culpepper in my public fantasy league. Thank god I also drafted Chad Pennington. hahahahaha. No, really, I'm serious. Chad Pennington has bailed my ass out the first two week. Anyway, Culpepper can always just hand off to Ronnie Brown all game. Foolproof, right?

Tampa Bay (+3) over Carolina
My heart's not really in this one either. I'm kinda rooting to see Jon Gruden blow a gasket. He won't, though, because Mike Alstott plays like it's 2001 and rushes for 2 TDs. Man, do you remember when he used to pull trucks in the parking lot back at Purdue? That shit was legendary (I looked for a link, but I guess it's hard to find local news articles from 1994 on the internets. Who knew?).

Houston (+4) over Washington
Mario Williams decides it's time to play like he's the #1 pick. What better time to do it than against a brittle, slow, and retarded-looking Mark Brunell? There is none. Brunell is sacked by Super Mario 4 times, finally forcing Daniel Snyder to wake up from his coma and say, "Wait, you mean to tell me that MARK BRUNELL is the quarterback of my team?"