CARTOON BETS – POKEMON WEEK
I never played Pokemon past Yellow, which ended up being my favorite Pokemon game because it didn’t have to be hamstrung by any of that “pick your version” crap they’ve done since the beginning. I’m not a JRPG guy, I hate grinding with turn-based combat, and the idea of trying to catch even more of the damn things after barely getting t0 150 as a kid didn’t sound fun, so I never picked up any sequels.
You didn’t ask, but here are my Pokemon opinions
– The best starter was Squirtle. Bulbasaur is also cool, and Charmander is extremely overrated. Charmander fans are the most insecure and go on and on about how good he gets meanwhile Squirtle and Bulbasaur fans are just like “whatever, got my boi right here” and beat up the elite 4 anyway
– The best legendary bird was Articuno. Zapdos was cool and a close second, but Articuno wins. Moltres sucks.
– The best Eevee was Jolteon. If I ever played any of the other games I’d probably go with Umbreon or Espeon though
– Hitmonlee > Hitmonchan
– Kabuto > Omanyte
– Always thought it was weird that Dratini/Dragonair evolved into Dragonite, because the two look nothing alike.
My favorite pokemon as a wee child was Caterpie. My long-time favorite pokemon, since the last time I played it, is Dugtrio. I beat Yellow pretty much solo with my boy Duggy 3 by spamming Dig. Dugtrio rules. Other favorites: Haunter, Vileplume, Sandslash, Tangela, Ditto
Anyway this was a week of bad football.
DAVES BRAGGING CORNER – The GIANTS ARE 6-1 BAYBEEEEEE, we barely squeaked that one out and lost multiple starters in the process but we did it. I am still waiting for the Giants facade to break and a lot of their wins seem less impressive than they did at the time. The Titans are not that good. The Packers are a pile of shit. The Ravens choked. But this season is still playing with house money and even if we ride an easy schedule to the playoffs and get bumped in the wildcard, I’m happy. It’s just fun to watch them again and that’s all I wanted.
DAVES ANGRY SOAPBOX – Man the officiating in the Giants/Jags game was abysmal. Both teams got absolutely boned by various calls and that game looks so different if they get even half of those calls/misses right. It feels awful to win a refball game, because opposing fans immediately start calling the refs Biased instead of being mad at the actual problem. The refs problems are not bias and we need to stop throwing that word around willy-nilly. The problem is the refs are doing a hard job poorly, being told to emphasize specific calls, and patrol an increasingly labyrinthine rulebook filled with more and more judgment calls instead of clearly defined rules. Worst of all, the NFL refuses to do anything to remedy the situation. Make some fucking changes!
THE OLD FOLKS HOME – Brady and Rodgers are having delightfully pitiful seasons and I am relishing every second of it just in case they get out of this funk. Both faced backup QBs today and lost. The Bucs were a deep embarrassment and I think the forceout of Bruce Arians had a bigger impact on this team than we suspected. I’ve never seen a Brady led football team kick a pity field goal late down multiple scores just to prevent the shutout. I once saw any game with (large score) – 3 be called “the gentleman’s shutout”, and that applied today. What’s outstanding was they lost to the PANTHERS, who just traded away their only great player days before and are openly tanking. Absolute embarrassment.
THE REDEMPTION ARC – I have been skeptical of the Seahawks pretty much every week, and they keep proving me wrong. I think I must finally believe in the magic of Geno.
THE JUNGLE YOU CANT TAKE YOUR TIGER OUT OF – The Browns and Chargers will never stop being the Browns and Chargers. Never trust them.
THE WHO CARES MAIN CAFETERIA – Nothing else of note really happened. Mid teams were mid. Good teams were good. Bad teams were bad. The Broncos offense is broken. The Lions suck. The Cowboys are solid. The Bengals are strong. The Saints are flawed. The Ravens almost gave up another 10-point 4th quarter lead. I highly doubt Patriots/Bears surprises us.
I did okay this week. Pretty average. I feel like most of my better ideas didn’t end up happening.
SPOOKY WEEK TIME
Halloween week is back. Time to get spoopy.
RAVENS @ BUCS
Brady isn’t known for losing multiple games in a row very much but this team might be one of the most underperforming, flawed squads he’s had recently. They look lost. I love it. I do not trust the Ravens but I’m gonna pick ’em.
If the Bucs win, I will draw Brady as Black Phillip
JAGUARS @ BRONCOS
The Broncos have one of the best defenses in football and it is being utterly wasted on this offense. A disgrace. The Jaguars aren’t awful and I want to put my faith in them here, so I will, and I will probably change this pick by week’s end.
If the Broncos win, I will draw Russ as Basket Case
DOLPHINS @ LIONS
The Lions were really fun for a few weeks! Not good, but fun! Now they just suck all around.
If the Lions win, I will draw Jared Goff as Pennywise
PANTHERS @ FALCONS
The Panthers shocked the Bucs but I doubt the high carries over week to week.
If the Panthers win, I will draw….someone, who the hell is left? as a xenomorph
CARDINALS @ VIKINGS
The Cardinals had their best win of the season on Thursday and get extra rest before heading into Minnesota to face the frauds. Sadly, it’s hard to pick against a 5-1 team until they lose, so I’ll go Vikings
If the Cardinals win, I will draw Kyler as Chuckie
BEARS @ COWBOYS
Oh man the Bears offense is going to be ripped to shreds
If the Bears win, I will draw Justin Fields as Leatherface
RAIDERS @ SAINTS
Raiders might be able to start stringing together some wins soon and the Saints are a big pile of mid
If the Saints win, I will draw Andy Dalton as Ghostrider
STEELERS @ EAGLES
The Battle of Pennsylvania is not very balanced. Eagles
If the Steelers win, I will draw Kenny Pickett as that serial killer from the stories with the hook hand, but it’s a pickaxe
PATRIOTS @ JETS
The Jets have a real test here, and I’m going to take the Patriots. If they beat the Pats, I’m on the Jets train. Plane? Blimp?
If the Jets win, I will draw Robert Saleh as Nosferatu
TITANS @ TEXANS
The Titans are reliably decent but not great. The Texans are reliably bad.
If the Texans win, I will draw Davis Mills as The Pale Man
GIANTS @ SEAHAWKS
I think the Hawks are a bad matchup for the Giants. The Hawks defense has tightened up somewhat as of late and the offense is still on fire. The Giants might be able to hold them down but probably not for the whole game.
If the Giants win, I will draw Brian Daboll as The Kraken
COMMIES @ COLTS
Denied the Carson Wentz revenge game we all wanted. I’ll go with the Commies though, probably explicitly BECAUSE Wentz isn’t playing.
If the Colts win, I will draw Matt Ryan as a centaur. In a reverse way.
49ERS @ RAMS
The Rams are not good this year and the 49ers made an upgrade, plus Shanahan owns McVay.
If the Rams win, I will draw Aaron Donald as the Babadook
PACKERS @ BILLS
Man this game probably looked a lot better before the season started
If the Packers win, I will draw Aaron Rodgers as Sadako
BENGALS @ BROWNS
Bengals seem to have figured it out.
If the Browns win, I will draw the Brownie as The Thing
A TIE
QBs as Freddie vs Jason
It’s funny to think that the Panthers are so terrible that they don’t even know how to tank properly.
I know it’s been said on here a few times, but the most dangerous teams are the ones that fire HCs in the middle of the season. Suddenly everyone’s playing for jobs at that point.
Even when we aren’t “good”, we’re still the Trollhawks.
Is Geno Leekspinning that Chargers pokeyman?
HOW DID THE PRATICE SQUAD D BEAT THE BUCS BUT A FULL MAN ROSTER LOST WHAT THE FUCK
First – the Panthers don’t know how to tank. Such a bad team
Second – Tom Brady’s tears taste amazing.
Third – If the Panthers beat the Falcons, please draw Brian Burns as a xenomorph, and send it to him. The guy would love it.
idk how we did this good its a mearical dave do you hate the steelers?
You should pick against the Giants every week.
If the Giants lose, you don’t need to do a drawing while sad about the loss
If the Giants win, you get to do another drawing celebrating Daboll / the Giants (the one where he was the queen was fantastic).
Kyler as Torchic is probably my favorite thing now.
I just can’t decide what I love the most about this season.
1) The Giants’ out-of-nowhere return to competent football!
2) Tom Brady completely unraveling. I bet he’s glad he forced out his coach and traded in his family for one more spin on the merry-go-round.
3) Aaron Rodgers looking like a lost puppy dog begging his teammates not to manifest negative energy in the locker room.
Love another Giants win, but I would trade it in to not have those injuries. Losing 2 Olineman and Bellinger is bad. Plus I was sick seeing all the blood from Bellingers eye, I really hope there’s no permanent damage. The Seahawks are going to be a big challenge. I’m not expecting a 42-7 blowout like Eli had there.
100% agree on your starter take. Squirrel is my boi, and Charmander people are annoying and should stop being lame. I do disagree with your Jolteon take though – Vaporeon is way cool.
I was and always will be a Bulbasaur fan. But I do agree with you that Vaporeon is the best Gen 1 Eeveelution. However, I always took Flareon since fire types are pretty rare.
You didn’t play past Yellow, yet you draw yourself as a Smeargle
Curious
I didn’t know Smeargle existed till someone pointed it out on twitter that an artist pokemon existed
Funnily enough these days I hear more about Charizard stans than I hear Charizard stans. Anyway, Squirtle is the best starter for soloing the game. Bulbasaur starts easy but becomes harder as the game goes on. Charizard starts hard (for Pokemon standards) but gets easier as the game goes on, basically the opposite of Bulbasaur. If you wanna have a balanced team though, Squirtle is the worst starter because there are just so many better options. Only Blue has better options for Grass and Fire types than the starter (Victreebel and Ninetales), while every game has plenty of great Waters. You even get a Gyarados by the third gym for the price of two pokeballs and a bit of grinding
You as smeargle is incredible, A+
When I saw that was coming on Twitter I was excited. I was not disappointed.
Charizard is like John Cena to me. I know he’s been shoved down everyone’s throats and there’s perfectly good reason to be sick of him, but god dammit I’ve loved him since I was like 4 and nothing’s gonna change that.
Matt Ryan has been benched for the season, and is injured to boot. Maybe do Jonathon Taylor instead?
Off topic, but are the Colts the new Hydra?
As a colts fan why even have a qb position anymore? Just remember we are the team that cut Peyton Manning. And benched Matt Ryan.
Also we are making a super bowl MVP a backup to our 6th round pick from last year
Matt Ryan wasn’t a SB MVP.
We cut Peyton Manning. We benched Matt Ryan.
You cut an aged, half washed, and far too expensive Peyton Manning because you won the Andrew Luck sweepstakes. Just about every team would do the same.
And you deservedly benched Matt Ryan because he’s coughed up the football a ridiculous number of times already this year. Isn’t he also hurt?
They cut a Peyton Manning who was still good enough to win 12+ games in a division with Andy Reid’s Chiefs for nearly the whole duration of Andrew Luck’s rookie contract. I understand the injury concern, but the Colts took a gamble and lost
I don’t want us to lose, and drop to 0-3 in the division but Brownie the Elf as the Thing sounds amazing.
Are they shiny?
Wow these last 2 pickem weeks have been some of your best work. Really amazing stuff Dave.
“If the Colts win, I will draw Matt Ryan as a centaur. In a reverse way.”
so, BoJack Horseman?