Hello everyone and welcome to America’s favorite game show that… has never actually happened before and no one has heard of it… it’s Pitch That Game!
Here’s how it works. As your host, I have one sentence to pitch a sporting event. If, after my pitch, you’re interested in watching, I get a point! That’s it! Usually I do this in podcast format, but I’ve got a cold this week and no one wants to listen to me cough and sniffle over a microphone, least of all me. So, the pitches will be in written form only this week.
In this episode, I pitch you, the reader, all of the NFL games this weekend, on Sunday October 25 and Monday October 26. If you want to know which games will be available on your TV this weekend, check out 506 Sports NFL. If you need help figuring out how to make sense out of what you see there, use my explanation of how to use 506 Sports NFL here.
Enjoy the show!
Sunday, October 25, 2015 9:30 a.m. ET
Buffalo Bills at Jacksonville Jaguars
All of the NFL games in London are part of an experiment to see how global American Football’s reach is. This game takes that experiment one step further in a particularly interesting way: it will be broadcast only online. It’s the first NFL game in memory that won’t be available on television, it’s only streaming on Yahoo!. This means that it will be completely free to viewers and totally global. Depending on the response, we might be seeing the first step toward a television-free or at least blended future of entertainment.
Sunday, October 25, 2015 1 p.m. ET
Cleveland Browns at St. Louis Rams
This is my choice of the week for being the game between two kind of crummy teams that turns into the most exciting, high scoring, close game of the week. The Browns have had surprising success on offense this year, thanks to much-traveled quarterback Josh McCown and a slew of underrated receiving weapons. The Rams took a big gamble during the offseason by trading quarterbacks with the Philadelphia Eagles and the jury is still out on new quarterback Nick Foles. He’s looked good at times and bad at times but so far, he’s always been on the field, competing, which they could not say for their last quarterback.
Minnesota Vikings at Detroit Lions
The Lions finally won their first game of the season last week and they did it by embracing who they really are this season: a somewhat crummy team with one absurdly prolific wide receiver. Quarterback Matthew Stafford stopped trying to play in a controlled way and just started chucking the ball to Calvin Johnson and it worked. We’ll see if they stick with this new-found devil-may-care attitude this week. The Vikings, on the other hand, play exactly the way the Lions thought they should play. They run the ball and make safe, careful throws. Unlike the Lions though, it’s working for the Vikings. They’re 3-2 and looking to pick up another unremarkable but effective win.
Houston Texans at Miami Dolphins
The Dolphins came into the season with high expectations, based largely on the perceived strength of their defense, started the season poorly, got to their bye week with a losing record, and then fired their coach. In their first game under new head coach Dan Campbell, they looked better by several degrees of magnitude and won. The Texans came into the season with high expectations, based largely on the perceived strength of their defense, and started the season poorly. Their bye week is the week after this one, and given what just happened in Miami, you’ve got to wonder if Houston’s coach feels like he’s playing for his job in this game.
New Orleans Saints at Indianapolis Colts
The Saints and Colts have both been like high performance cars with bad spark plugs this season. Both teams have great quarterbacks who are used to being able to score, almost at will, but who have struggled this year. Both Drew Brees for the Saints and Andrew Luck for the Colts have also been dealing with shoulder injuries. Both teams play their home games in domes on artificial turf. What is going on here?!? The parallels are uncanny. Here’s one big difference – both teams are coming off games last week against their team’s arch-rivals but the Saints won their rivalry game against the Atlanta Falcons while the Colts lost theirs against the New England Patriots.
Pittsburgh Steelers at Kansas City Chiefs
The Steelers will be playing with their third string quarterback because of injuries to their first and second. The Chiefs will be playing with their first string quarterback, but fans are close to the end of the rope with him. Quarterback Alex Smith has long been thought of as someone who succeeds despite lacking the arm-strength that most NFL quarterbacks have. That deficiency seems to have gotten to his head. These days, he’s not even attempting any long throws. This fact has been seized on by opposing defenses who now focus on taking away the only thing they know Smith will do. It’s a bad situation and one that doesn’t seem like it’s going to get better any time soon.
New York Jets at New England Patriots
Last week’s Patriots game was the ultimate game in terms of emotional and off-the-field plot-lines. This week’s game may be even more interesting, but all the intrigue is on the field. The Jets have one of the league’s best defenses, thanks in part to cornerback Darelle Revis who is usually able to take the opposing team’s wide receiver completely out of the game by himself. The Patriots best wide receiver is Julian Edelman, but their best pass-catcher is tight end Rob Gronkowski. If we assume Revis will nullify Edelman, than it will be up to Gronkowski to carry the Patriots to a victory and up to the Jets to figure out how to stop him. It’s an intriguing game of cat and mouse and cheese and elephant.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Washington Redskins
It’s the rapist vs. the racists. Let’s move on to the next game.
Atlanta Falcons at Tennessee Titans
The Falcons got off to a hot start this year with five wins in their first five games. A loss last week to the New Orleans Saints, a divisional rival, took just a single petal off the rose. A loss to the titans this week and the entire bloom will be off. A suspicious or pessimistic Falcons fan will have spent the past week noticing that all their team’s wins came against NFC East teams, who seem generally bad this year, and the Houston Texans, who are definitely bad this year. The Titans are no great shakes, so Falcons fans shouldn’t have too much to worry about, but the bulk of them will be worrying nonetheless.
Sunday, October 25, 2015 4:05 or 4:25 p.m. ET
Oakland Raiders at San Diego Chargers
The Raiders and Chargers are two of the three teams rumored to be moving to Los Angeles next season. If that’s true, this intrastate rivalry will deepen to new subterraneous levels of interest. As it is, they provide an interesting contrast. The Raiders are an up-and-coming team trying to take the next step and the Chargers are an established but slightly over-the-hill team trying desperately to hold on for another season of success. They’re like two ships passing in the night except they have to stop and play football against each other.
Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants
If you took away any concern about the quality of the teams, this matchup would be consistently the number one draw in the league. The Cowboys are the most loved and most hated franchise and the Giants are their biggest rival and not far behind in terms of notoriety. The mammoth character of this game in principle helps boost it up even during years like this one, when the two teams aren’t actually all that good at playing football.
Sunday, October 25, 2015 8:30 p.m. ET
Philadelphia Eagles at Carolina Panthers
The Panthers defend their undefeated record this year against one of the most confusing teams in the league. When the Eagles offense is clicking, they look unstoppable. Why they can only get it to click once every other game for about a quarter is the primary question their fans are struggling with. You get the feeling that if it could click steadily for a whole game, it might jumpstart the team and launch them into Super Bowl contention. The Panthers defense has been rock solid this year, propelling their team to five straight victories despite the team’s offense being as under-the-radar as any team’s in this era of easy name recognition. Seriously – ask a football fan to name four players on the Panthers defense and see if they can do it.
Monday, October 26, 2015 8:30 p.m. ET
Baltimore Ravens at Arizona Cardinals
Uh oh. The Cardinals have one of the league’s best passing offenses and the Ravens have one of the league’s worst passing defenses. This could be a catastrophe of colossal proportions. It could be bird on bird violence unlike any we’ve seen before. It’s truly difficult to imagine a tactical path that would allow Baltimore to slow Arizona’s offense down enough to win.