Dear Fans...

...stop caring.  Seriously...stop.  The biggest complaint I hear from sports fans is how overpaid and selfish professional athletes have become.  I agree.  So what do you do, you keep caring and feeding their egos and bank accounts.  What have the athletes done to deserve this undying adoration?  Why keep putting your heart and soul into cheering for organizations full of millionaires that are being paid by billionaires?  Last night provided another great example.  For one time this season, the city of Cleveland was the center of the NBA world.  Basketball fans everywhere were pulling for the Cavs to give it to the superstar that chose to play in another city.  The fans showed up and created a NBA Finals type atmosphere.  Then the game started...and the Cavs players forgot there was a game.  They literally laid down and allowed the Heat and Lebron to have their way with them.  They went as far as to chat Lebron up during timeouts and joke around with him.  I didn't see one hard foul all night long.  As a fan, I would have been booing my own team by the end of the night and if I was the jilted owner who is obviously taking this personal, I may have 12 new players today.  That performance told me that the players, across the league, and probably all leagues, see themselves as members of an elite club.  They don't truly care what the fans think.  Who can blame them??  No matter what they do off the field or no matter how many teams they play for, if someone is on the team we cheer for and they are winning, all is forgiven.  We immediately open up our wallets to buy tickets, merchandise and watch on television to justify those enormous advertising deals.  Players and owners will continue to act this way as long as money keeps flowing into their accounts.  In fact, over the next year or so, the NBA and NFL will bicker amongst themselves on how to divide up all the money we give them.  The fight may get so bad that they don't even play games for awhile.  But we won't care.  As soon as they decide how much of the pie each side gets, we'll come groveling back, and do all we can to make their next pie even bigger.

It was a pretty good week for our picks.  The Texans lost for us...thanks Matt Schaub.  Fortunately the Sun Devils covered in Tucson and actually won outright.   Then there was the Duke-MSU basketball game.  I said don't lay more than 6 with Duke and line came out minus 11 and closed at minus 10.  Taking all those points made you an easy winner as MSU went down by only 5 points.  The 2-1 week puts us at .500 for year as we are now 11-11-2.  First up for the weekend is the SEC Championship game, where South Carolina looks to revenge a regular season loss to Auburn.  The Tigers are currently a 5.5 point favorite.  From the chatter I am hearing, South Carolina seems to be the pick.  There are many factors to support this position, including beating a team twice in one year, all of Auburn's games are close and South Carolina is playing very focused at the end of this season.  Normally, I don't like to be on the side of the masses, but in this case I'll take my chances as I think the Gamecocks will actually win the game.  That being said, I'll still be taking the points.  The second big game this weekend is Oregon at Oregon State.  The Ducks are favored by 16.5 on the road, and this isn't just any road trip.  This is one of the most bitter rivalries in the country.  Oregon now only cares about one thing, winning.  It won't be easy in Corvalis, so once again I am taking the points.  Finally, a third pick for weekend is coming from the NFL.  The biggest game on Sunday is the night game, between the Ravens and the Steelers.  Both teams are 8-3 and the loser will have to be careful the rest of the season in a cloudy AFC playoff picture.  With the foot injury hampering the Steelers QB, I expect the Ravens to get to him and get him down more often than normal.  The Steelers defense hasn't looked great against the pass, losing to both the Saints and the Patriots this year, so look for Flacco to put it in the hands of Boldin and Heap quite often.  I will be laying the three points with the home team and will watch as the Original Cleveland Browns beat down the Steelers.  Good luck and remember, never bet what you can't afford to lose.