Cold open right into Week 11 of the NFL before finishing off with Zach Bryan’s Heading South.
Week 11, ‘23
Thursday Nighter Recap
Cincinnati Bengals 20 | Baltimore Ravens 34
Well, that game was a bummer. On Wednesday evening, Bengals QB Joe Burrow was spotted with some sort of a wrap/device around his right wrist while boarding the team plane. He played for most of the 1st half and seemed to be okay until Jadeveon Clowney hit his wrist. Burrow actually stayed in the game after the Clowney hit and even tossed a TD, but it had no zip on it. As of right now, they are calling it a sprained wrist and most Twitter Doctors have him missing anywhere from a few weeks to the rest of the season. The Ravens didn’t get out of this game unscathed either. Their star TE Mark Andrews suffered an ankle injury and it sounds like he will be done for the year.
Once Burrow was out of the game, it felt inevitable that Baltimore had this in the bag. After Burrow went into the locker room, the Ravens scored 2 TDs to close out the half and then they went up 2 TDs after 2 Justin Tucker FGs to end the 3rd Quarter. RB Gus Edwards scored his 10th rushing TD of the season as the Ravens scored 30+ points for the 5th game in a row.
Besides that, some assholes were flying drones over the stadium, causing a bunch of delays. The part that sucks is, I’m sure we’ll see more of it now, and how will they even prevent this? Will Roger Goodell now be deploying NFL drones to fend off pedestrian drones? Only time will tell.
I had the Ravens winning 23-19 (-3.5 BAL & Under 46) so we’re 1-1 heading into the Week 10 weekend.
1 PM Slate
The Pittsburgh Steelers are heading west to the Cleveland Browns. Despite being 6-3, Pittsburgh has a -26 total points scored vs total points allowed on the season. The only other team with a winning record is the Seahawks and they are only -1. The only way to explain how the Steelers are pulling this off is Mike Tomlin’s coaching has got them winning close games. Pittsburgh is 6-0 in 1 score and has lost all 3 games by at least 10 points. Steelers’ star pass rusher, TJ Watt, has had a sack in each of the past two weeks. On the season Watt has 10.5 sacks, which is only a half a sack less than Browns’ Myles Garrett, who leads the NFL with 11. I’m burying the lead with this game as Browns’ QB Deshaun Watson has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a right shoulder fracture. Since becoming a Brown, Deshaun Watson signed a $230 million contract and will have missed 65% of Cleveland’s games due to injury or suspension. The hardest part for Cleveland to swallow is that most of his contract is backloaded, meaning he will start to carry a cap hit of $65 million dollars for the next 3 seasons. To replace Watson comes rookie QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson. DTR balled out in the preseason to the point where the Browns decided he could handle the backup role and traded Josh Dobbs. I’m expecting this game to be an absolute rock fight, with strictly field goals and safeties. Despite Cleveland playing with a backup QB, Steelers’ Kenny Pickett stinks and probably should be a backup too.
Prediction: 11-5 CLE (-1.5 CLE & Under 37)
Da Chicago Bears are heading east to take on the Detroit Lions. Da Bears announced that QB Justin Fields will enter back into the starting lineup after missing the past 4 games due to a dislocated right thumb. At 3-7, Da Bears should be keenly evaluating whether Fields is their long-term answer as their franchise QB or if it’s time for them to move on. I’m not saying Chicago is a better team with UDFA Tyson Bagent as their starter but the team is 1-5 with Fields at QB and 2-2 with the DII rookie from Shepherd University. Please ignore the fact that Fields would beat the pre-Antonio Pierce Raiders and Panthers. The Lions last week scored 41 points and were effectively able to dominate the ground game with their duo of RBs. David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs combined to rush for 193 yards and 3 TDs on 26 carries. QB Jared Goff also threw for 333 yards and 2 scores. I’d expect former Bears RB, David Montgomery, to be motivated for a big day after they let him go to a division rival in free agency. I like the Lions winning this game outright but expect Da Bears to be able to at least keep it close enough to cover the 10 points.
Prediction: 30-20 DET (+10 CHI & Over 47)
The San Diego Chargers are heading east to the Green Bay Packers. Last week San Diego’s Justin Herbert passed Peyton Manning for most passing yards through 4 seasons. The other cool stat that Justin Herbert is a part of is that in 59 games including the playoffs, the Chargers have scored 1,502 points and allowed 1,502 points with him at the helm. That means as a starter, the Herbert-led Chargers average 25.5 points per game and give up 25.5 points per game. Extremely middling if you ask me. The Green Bay Packers would love to get a bit more of middling stats from their QB as Jordan Love in their last 7 games has been below average, scoring 8 passing TDs to go with 10 interceptions. The Packers have stayed in most games this season thanks to their above-average pass defense which ranks 11th in yards allowed per game. That said, GB has no chance against Herbert’s record-breaking passing stats, right?
Prediction: 37-8 LAC (-3.5 San Diego & Over 44.5)
The Las Vegas Raiders are heading east to the Miami Dolphins. This week the AP reported that they are BFFs with AOC. I mean it’s fair to say that the American media slants a bit to the left, that’s understandably a good thing, but to outright say it is eye-opening?!?The AP and AOC marriage in LV is off to a 2-0 start. How are rookie HC and QB getting it done? Well besides the fact that they have faced both New York’s finest in Tommy Devito and Zach Wilson, the Raiders are running the ball. Prior to Pierce at HC, RB Josh Jacobs’ season high in rushing yards in a game was 77. The NFL rushing leader of ‘22 has now rushed for 98 and 116 yards in the past 2 weeks. It’s too bad the rookie Raiders are now playing the Miami Dolphins who are defintiely not frauds. Phins WR Tyreek Hill leads the NFL in both receiving yards (1,076) and receiving TDs (8). While that gets all the headlines, they forget that Miami has one of the best-rushing games in football, as a team averaging 147.9 yards on the ground per game. The #2 rush attack in football gets their star rookie RB De’Von Achane back in the fray. This does not bode well for the Raiders defense, which already allows 135.6 yards on the ground per game, the 4th most in the NFL. The Phins are not frauds.
Prediction: 35-10 MIA (-12 MIA & Under 48)
The New York Giants are heading south to take on the Washington Commies. I’m just going to come right out and say, I’m taking the G-Men here because of how they finished the Dallas game last week. Down 49-10 with 2 minutes left to go, instead of taking out his starters and letting the clock run out, coach Brian Daboll refused to quit. Daboll used his timeouts and the GMen found the endzone to make the score 49-17 with 6 seconds left. Washington’s Sam Howell currently leads the NFL in passing yards this season with 2,783 in 10 games. While that is very impressive from the 1st year starter, Howell has also gotten sacked 47 times this season, 14 more than the next closest QB. When David Carr set the NFL record for times sacked in a season with 76 in 16 games, he was getting sacked at a 4.75 times per game rate. Howell currently is getting sacked at a 4.7 per-game rate. They say there are no moral victories on the football field, but those doubters didn’t see how important it was for the G-Men to get that closing second TD down 39 points in Dallas.
Prediction: 6-3 NYG (+10 NYG & Under 37.5)
The Dallas Cowboys are heading east to the Carolina Panthers. Cowboys’ WR CeeDee Lamb was last week’s NFC Offensive Player of the Week for his 11 catches for 154 yards and 1 receiving TD to go along with a 14-yard rushing TD. Lamb has been on a heater of late, recording at least 117 receiving yards in each of the last 4 games. Including his 3 years at Oklahoma, Lamb has never had more than 3 straight games with 100+ yards. After his performance, he told reporters, "I'm the top receiver in this game. There's no question about it. If there is, I'll see you again next week." While I’m not sure I can anoint him #1 just yet, the 24-year-old is clearly a riser. The Panthers are in a brutal spot. After trading up to take QB Bryce Young at #1, they do not have their 1st Round pick next year, which currently would’ve landed them the #1 overall pick. The Panthers are not a riser, confirmed.
Prediction: 21-9 DAL (-11 DAL & Under 42.5)
The Tennessee Titans are heading southwest to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Mayo in his coffee drinker and Rookie QB, Will Levis, has been hit the 13th most times in the NFL among QBs, and yet he has only played in 3 games. Levis may be built like a wagon but getting knocked down 25 times in 12 quarters just ain’t sustainable. Lucky for Levis, the Jaguars aren’t great at sacking the QB, but their defense is elite at takeaways. Their 18 takeaways this season are tied for the most in the NFL. Their only problem is they give the ball up too often, as they have fumbled the ball at an NFL-worst 1.2 times per game rate. Jags QB Sunshine Lawrence had a rough go last week as he only threw for 185 yards and was picked off twice. Sunshine had a QB rating of 48.8, which ranks the lowest of his career since Week 2 of his rookie year under Urban Meyer. I’m expecting the Jags to right the ship this weekend.
Prediction: 28-7 JAX (-6.5 JAX & Under 39.5)
The Arizona Cardinals are heading west to Houston to take on the Texans. Heading into the season, I would have said this game would be an absolute snooze fest. Instead, it’ll be entertaining as the Cardinals QB Kyler Murray will make his 2nd start this season in his return. He told reporters, “I expect to go out there and make plays and do my thing. I think there's a lot of room to grow and improve, but it was a good start and I think we all can get better.” In his 1st game back, Murray threw for 249 yards while rushing for 33 and 1 TD. Arizona made a waiver pickup this week with former Jets RB Michael Carter. The 3rd year RB had a promising start to his career but wasn’t suited as a 3rd down back in the NYJ offense. He will likely be better off in a traditional early-down role with Arizona. Kyler Murray won’t be the only QB who can make throws on the move in Houston this Sunday, as CJ Stroud is blossoming into the next NFL star. The rookie QB is trying to drown out the MVP talk around his name, as he told reporters, “Just like they love me this week, they’ll hate me the next.” The rookie with the right attitude leads the NFL in passing yards per game with 291.8 and has thrown 15 TDs to just 2 INTs. I’m a little nervous that the Texans (5-4) are only favored by 4 points over the Cardinals (2-8), but my guess is Vegas isn’t quite sure how good Houston is just yet. This could be a trap, but I’ll be a rat and take the cheese here.
Prediction: 27-22 HOU (-4 HOU & Over 47.5)
4 PM Slate
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are heading west to take on the San Francisco 49ers. I’ll be honest the Bucs have killed me thus far this season as I am 3-6 when trying to pick their games. Since Week 7, Bucs RB Rachaad White has 228 receiving yards which is the most among all RBs during that span. White had a 43-yard TD on a screen pass last week. The newest Niner, Chase Young, made his presence felt right away last week when he and his former Ohio State teammate Nick Bosa combined for a strip sack on Sunshine. After losing 3 games in a row it was looking like the sky was falling in San Francisco, but they cleaned up their act last week beating the Jags 34-3. One of the only things that didn’t go right for the Niners was they didn’t get RB Christian McCaffrey a TD for the 18th straight game. McCaffrey’s 17 consecutive games with a score is now tied with Lenny Moore for most all-time for a non-QB. I would say that the Niners will keep it rolling but as stated above, I have no feel for the Bucs this year.
Prediction: 31-13 SF (-11 SF & Over 41)
The New York Jets are heading west to play the Big Bad Buffalo Bills. One of the QBs above leads the NFL in interceptions and the other is Zach Wilson. Alright, so after mulling about this for the past week, here is why I think the Jets offense is awful. It’s pretty simple and it’s going to sound like an excuse, but It’s Aaron Rodgers. This Jets offense was designed for Aaron Rodgers to go up to the line of scrimmage with multiple play calls in mind as he read the defense. Do you really think Nathaniel Hackett is telling Rodgers what to do? Rodgers is probably buddies with him because Hackett has a deep playbook that the QB1 knows like the back of his hand. This is totally me speculating and also coping but I’d guess Hackett is one of these OCs who grinds film and studies a ton so that when Rodgers came into work on Tuesday would have all the answers to his next week’s opponent’s quiz. My obvious point is that Hackett was not brought to New York to call plays and develop a QB. When you combine that Hackett has proven he can’t develop QBs with the fact that Zach Wilson has thrown 20 TDs in 931 career passes, a 2.1% TD rate that is the lowest in NFL history; these are the results we get. The frustrating part about all of this is that if the Jets were just below average on offense, not even average, but below average they would be a contender with their defense. Instead, their offense is the worst… or 2nd worst to the Giants. The Jets went all-in on Rodgers and we’re in the nightmare scenario. That said… the Big Bad Buffalo Bills just fired their OC and in the past, the Jets defense has made life difficult against Josh Allen, to say the least. Jets kick 5 field goals and win by 1.
Prediction: 15-14 NYJ (+6.5 NYJ & Under 40)
The Seattle Seahawks are heading south to take on the LA Rams. Seattle lost to the Rams in Week 1 when they allowed the Rams to score 23 unanswered 2nd half points. At 3-6, the clock is running out on the Rams so my hunch is they are bringing back QB Matthew Stafford earlier than they would hope. Last week, DK Metcalf proved to be a true WR1 when he caught a 27-yard pass over the middle in the closing seconds of the game which led to Seattle’s game-winning FG. After the game, Metcalf gifted Washington’s TE Logan Thomas his jersey so that Thomas could give it to his son, a pretty cool moment. I don’t think the Seahawks will look past the Rams like they did in Week 1.
Prediction: 26-24 SEA (-1 SEA & Over 46)
Prime Time
Sunday Scaries
The Minnesota Vikings will be heading west to play the Denver Broncos. Just a few weeks ago, I would’ve been @ing Roger Goodell to flex this game out. Now I would have looked foolish as this might just be the perfect game to fall asleep to on Sunday Night midway through the 2nd Quarter. The Vikings are on an NFL-best, 5-game winning streak, and are led by America’s newest favorite QB Josh Dobbs. The Vikings also have a chance at bringing back Justin Jefferson, who may or may not return from a hamstring injury. Jefferson is taking things day to day as hamstrings can be trickery but also probably loves the drama involved in this. The Broncos are preparing as if Jefferson will play and by preparing I mean they are going to assign CB Patrick Surtain II to match up with him. The Broncos are also one of the hotter teams in football, winners of 3 straight with the last 2 being against the Chiefs and Bills. One of these hottest teams in football is due for a letdown and I’m going to guess it’ll be the Broncos.
Prediction: 32-29 MIN (+2.5 MIN & Over 43.5)
Moody Mondays
The Philadelphia Eagles are heading west to take on the Kansas City Chiefs. Not only is this a Super Bowl LVII, but more importantly, it’s the Taylor Swift Bowl. Miss Swift allegedly was a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles her whole life up until Travis Kelce. We all know that Taylor Swift is very cunning and calculated, can we rule it out that this is all a part of her master plan to sabotage the Chiefs? I’m sure the Swifties on TikTok have been hammering this home all week. I’m going with Philly here because of this conspiracy theory and the fact that from a dumb sports fan perspective the Eagles will be more motivated to beat the Chiefs on Prime Time to avenge their Super Bowl loss.
Prediction: 17-12 PHI (+2.5 PHI & Under 45.5)
Last year during Week 11, ‘22, I wrote a piece with Zach Bryan’s Oklahoma Smokeshow on in the background, so this year I’ll go with another ZB modern classic with Heading South. This was the original tune that started Zach Bryan’s music career. In September of ‘19, while he was serving in the Navy and in the barracks, he released a simple YouTube video shot from an iPhone of him singing with his guitar. Cough, cough, today’s YouTube Rabbithole, cough, cough. The video ended up going viral, as over 30 million people heard it on Spotify.
Here Zach Bryan is describing himself as a dreamer who was misunderstood.
In the original Navy barracks verse, it was Boys we’ve got a dreamer, a dreamer in our midst. I like how he switched it up to riser once he got in a studio to record this. Here he’s saying he used to get caught up in the small-town drama and now he’s skipping town out for revenge.
Zach Bryan started writing music when he was 14. He’s from a very small town in Oklahoma called Oologah. Headin’ South is open to interpretation to multiple things but here are my guesses.
1) Physically heading out of his hometown to the south. This could mean heading south to Austin, Texas, or just the south of the US, which in general, loves country music.
2) His style of music has a much deeper emotional meaning to it than most country artists today. He’s not your typical singer, songwriter, or artist. Hell, he’s not even your typical commercial country artist who focuses on drinking an ice-cold beer with women in the backyard during the summer. He probably got a ton of shit growing up about he how he wanted to be a country artist. The lyrics to most of his songs have a therapeutic feel to them. They aren’t always sunshine & rainbows, but I think that’s why people love his music…
…they can relate to the words pouring out of his mouth.
Once he headed south, he experienced some success. As the masses scream the lyrics of a messed up kid is one of my favorite lines of his.
I feel like it’s human nature for people to root for somebody during their rise while some simultaneously hope for a downfall. Zach Bryan was on a revenge tour to make a fool out of those who didn’t believe in him. The fuckin’ dollar sign probably has to do with all the people who thought ZB was wasting his time writing music, his hometown skeptics, higher commands in the Navy, etc. It could also be about how Nashville’s music scene has become so commercialized and probably didn’t think they could market somebody like Bryan, which is nuts in hindsight, we’re talking about this generation’s Johnny Cash.
In the past few weeks, I’ve done a bit of this time last year, but that’s only because last year I had a month-long stretch where I learned my own firsthand version of what headin’ south means. Outside of Week to Week Notes, I have zero experience in media and no background in journalism so all of this stuff was new to me, but from my experience there is a reason why if it bleeds it leads is a real thing.
Last year, in an effort to grow Week to Week Notes, I tried putting a link into my hometown’s Facebook group. This was the response to Week 11, ‘22, (Oklahoma Smokeshow)…
It didn’t bother me that I had pulled an all-nighter writing the night before, only to be labeled a self-promotional, spam, and irrelevant link….
Nah, I’m kidding, it wasn’t a big deal. Wrong target demographic. Plus, honestly, I kinda needed last year’s month-long stretch to attempt drumming up a bit of controversy. It sounds ridiculous but a silly squabble with a hometown Facebook group was nice practice.
Somehow the link to Oklahoma Smokeshow made its rounds around town. It nearly doubled the most clicks I had ever gotten on a weekend at that time. This meant a lot of people read my stuff for the first time and must have thought I’m an asshole from back home, just like the song says.
Anyway, I get asked often about how much I make off Week to Week Notes or how many people read the blog. To all those who only comprehend to afuckin’ dollar sign, I’ve made $0, but I don’t just write with money in mind. The challenge of this all is genuinely fun. Sometimes, yeah, I probably should be a bit more controversial, but at the same token, I’m still human and I think about stuff like how this is the first thing my grandma reads as she’s sipping her morning coffee. Why would I want to be negative all the time, hi Nancy!
In terms of daily reads, this isn’t a cop-out, I shield my laptop when the stats from Substack pop up. I don’t want to live day by day based on how many people click on the link and overthink this stuff. Back when I would check the views, sometimes I’d write pieces that I was most proud of because I thought they were overwhelmingly positive and they would get the least traction. Then sometimes I’d write an introduction with some dumbass open about how Harry Styles is a homewrecker and it would get me more views than usual.
Sidenote: Walking around New York City looking for my next pint of Guinness while in the back of my head subconsciously asking myself if “I was a bit too harsh on Harry Styles” was something I never thought I’d ever conjure. Let’s also be real in the 1 in 1 billionth of a chance that Harry Styles ever read that I called him a homewrecker he wouldn't give two fucks what Tom Davis of Week to Week Notes wrote anyway, so fuck ‘em, he’s a homewrecker, and I’m still Team Ted Lasso.
Back on track, all I’m trying to say is as for the daily reads, I’m a riser, but that’s only thanks to readers like you. Thank you!
Sometimes I do Head South but believe me, it’s no longer forced like trying to get a link into a Facebook group designed for curb alerts and garage sales. Hopefully, the majority of you reading this understand the words I’m typing out.