BAD BEATS: NFL WEEK 9

BY ADAM GREENE

This week had a couple of games toss their feted hats into the Bad Beats ring. And while we had a plethora of outright upsets, none of them qualified for the job.

The Baltimore Ravens winning 34-31 over the Minnesota Vikings in overtime was an early contender and certainly affected me personally. I never doubted, even as the Vikings took a 14-0 lead early in the game that Baltimore would fail to cover a -6 spread. The fact that they did it, only to give up a tying touchdown before the end of regulation would have all but certainly landed that game here.

I wouldn’t have needed to come up with a fanciful plan to spend the pretend winnings stripped away as I personally dropped money on that game. You would have gotten the real story, a gonzo journalism tale at how I saw the Ravens as a lock at a single touchdown and the way they specifically let me down, while still winning. Which is, honeslty, the most frustrating thing to happen.

If I lose, we should all lose. I don’t want Baltimore to celebrate on the field while I’m out cash. We should suffer together.

But before the night was over, we would have a contender enter the ring and much like the old Road Warriors tag team, clear the place to the tune of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man and take the title outright. I’m talking, of course, about Kansas City Chiefs 13, Green Bay Packers 7.

The spread leading up to the game hovered around Chiefs -7.5 and all you needed to happen was for Kansas City to come alive while the Green Bay Packers melted into the turf with their MVP quarterback out with COVID-19 and embroiled in controversy for not only lying to the public about his vaccination status, but flouting the NFL’s own COVID protocols all season.

Suspensions were on the table. Certainly fines for both Rodgers and the Packers and among all those distractions, Jordan Love was making the first start of his career. Love, a guy Green Bay traded back into the first round to take out of Utah State in 2020, while never informing Rodgers of the move, caused a rift with their future Hall of Fame QB and current deceitful Plague Rat that has yet to heal.

The Packers had obviously not been pleased with what they’d seen of Love last season and in the preseason, as they have been desperate to mend fenced with Rodgers. To the point where they’re now facing team fines because no one in the building had the balls to force Rodgers to comply with the NFL’s unvaccinated player rules when he was speaking inside the building to the media. They all, together, effed around and found out.

And Love was about to show everyone exactly what the Pack had been panicked about for a year and a half.

So seeing that all happen in real time, you plunked down your cash on Chiefs -7.5. Surely there was no way Kansas City’s offense would bog down two weeks in a row. And there was a real possibility that Green Bay would be shut out thanks to a guy who not only shouldn’t have been drafted in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, but probably shouldn’t have been picked in the second or third. This was a kid who threw 17 interceptions in his final year with the Aggies. Completed just 61.9 percent of his passes for 20 TDs. Sam Ehlinger out of Texas had better stats than that last season and didn’t get selected until the sixth round by the Indianapolis Colts.

You were confident and already planning on what to spend your cash on once that final whistle blew and hopped online. After a year in lockdown and now, with everything reopening, it was the perfect time to finally live that dream you always had to hit the open road. But you’d do it ensconced in your own bubble, as Rodgers proved, you can’t trust anyone to keep this pandemic in check. Not even the Rodgers Rat himself.

So you pulled up the specs on the Freedom Traveller A32 motor home with the 10 inch Touchscreen Dash Radio and 360 Siphon RV Holding Tank Vent cap.

But you never really got to relax and imagine yourself parked off at a campsite in Arizona, enjoying the 39 inch LED TV in the living area while cooled by the Ceiling Ducted Air Conditioning system. Because Kansas City’s offense struggled to get going.

Of course, you were bolstered by the fact that Love was proving exactly why the Packers should fire the entire scouting department by doing absolutely nothing. The Chiefs went up 13-0 at the half and you had all the points you’d need to enjoy watching the sunset outside under the luxurious awning while simultaneously enjoying whatever sporting event was happening at the time on the exterior 32 inch TV on a swivel bracket with the custom soundbar.

Six more possessions between the two teams and not so much as a dent in the scoreboard. Green Bay threatened once, but Love threw a stupid interception that had you relaxing in the A32’s 72×76 king bed in your mind, the desert winds blowing in through the open windows. Maybe in Santa Fe or outside the Grand Canyon. The kids were going to love that.

But Love loved to take it away from you more as he made his only play of the game, a 20-yard prayer pass to Allen Lazard on fourth down that the wideout not only pulled in, but juked away from a tackle to trot into the end zone. The Packers would still lose, but so would you.

There would be no giant RV in your life, no traveling through the desert on a glorified land yacht. With five minutes to go, there was always a chance that the Chiefs could break loose on a play and score one to put them back over the 7.5 points, but that was the old Chiefs. Last year’s Chiefs. That Kansas City team would have sent you across the country in luxury. This year’s squad wouldn’t even help you off the couch to stumble into the kitchen. Patrick Mahomes took a knee with 33 seconds to go and with it, your dreams of coasting down the blacktop arteries of America, having adventures, solving mysteries and righting wrongs in a 33-foot five star hotel room on wheels.

Follow Adam Greene on Twitter @TheFirstMan

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