It Comes Down To This

This is the end. For some.

Penultimate

Almost there.

A Play Here or There

Make a play. Win the game.

The Other Fifteen

A little shout out to Matt Schaub who got to ride fate’s savage roller coaster Thursday night. Banished to the bench in favor of Case Keenum thanks to a penchant for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory with ill-timed interceptions was summoned by ex-HC Gary Kubiak when Keenum struggled against the #31 defense of the Jacksonville “Good Seats Still Available/Will Play in London for Food” Jaguars. The Texans trailed 17-7 at the half and fell further behind in the third quarter at 24-10. Schaub had rallied Houston to a 24-20 deficit and had the ball on the 22-yard line with 2:21 to play. It was redemption time for Matt Schaub. When his agent is looking for another team for him this off-season he could point to this game and say that Matt Schaub still has it. And then we saw that Matt Schaub indeed still had it. Instead of a game-winning TD pass, he threw an interception, effectively ending the game. After the chip shot field goal made it 27-20, Schaub was sacked for an 18-yard loss. Game over. He went from future starting QB for the Minnesota Vikings to backing up Andrew Luck in Indianapolis and not taking a snap for the next three years in two minutes.

Can you imagine the dark, foul ball of psychic energy that flooded Matt Schaub’s brain when he threw that interception? I can imagine him thinking for just a moment, “I’m in Hell. I’m doomed to throw ill-timed interceptions for all eternity! What did I do to deserve this? This seems way out of proportion to whatever I did. What? God is a Houston Texans’ fan? That’s kind of random isn’t it? It is what it is? Oh. Even so, isn’t God supposed to be love? Forgiveness? Oh. Except where football and specifically the Houston Texans are involved. I see. Oops! Threw another INT. Maybe there’ll come a time when this will all seem funny.”

Maybe it’s already funny.

Sometimes Life Intrudes

I'll get to the rest of the picks before Sunday (I hope). For now...

Houston 20, Jacksonville 31 - The Texans gave it everything they have to beat the Patriots last week. A third win in a lost season is insignificant unless that win is a pride-saving victory over one of the best teams in the NFL. That did not happen. Having taken pride off the table, Houston will bring its moveable feast of pigskin pain to Jacksonville to face a Jaguars team that beat them just two weeks ago. The 3-9-0 Jags are playing hard for a team whose best case scenario is 7-9-0. One thing's for certain with this game. I won't have any problem switching over to "Project Runway All Stars" at 9:00pm. 

Lucky 13

Happy Thanksgiving!

Don't Cry for Me, Carolina

I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just move on.

Three Strange Days

The more we know, the more we know we don’t know. Our understanding grows arithmetically while our understanding of reality grows geometrically. If not algebraically. Is that a thing? I’ve learned enough math to know I don’t know a lot about math. The pie chart of my math knowledge requires a call out to document the less than single digit slice of my math knowledge. It goes without saying that my knowledge of temporal physics is similarly limited (given, you know, the math involved). So time maybe multi-dimensional. Time may go forwards and backwards at the same time (it feels like that at work sometimes). I know this. Some threads in that big ball of yarn that’s time are finite. They have a beginning and an end. Like the 2013 NFL Season. We’re on the back nine. Well, the back seven. It’s Week 11. Fates are in the process of being sealed.

Take the Points

I had this crazy dream where I was back in 2007. Randy Moss was throwing his hand up. Tom Brady was carpet bombing defensive backfields with touchdown passes. Wes Welker was roaming free over the middle. I don’t remember that gigantic tight end though. You’d think I’d remember somebody that big, and athletic, and – wait. What?

That wasn’t a dream?

Midpoint

Anything can still happen, right? Well, almost anything. You know who you are.

The Minor Fall

I suspect some pretty important plot points will be revealed this weekend. As usual, not all of the news is good.