Are You Ready For Some Football?

If you're answer is an affirmative with some enthusiastic profanities, then you're in the right place. We've been emotionally ready for about six months now, and although the season is still 33 days away, our new website (www.thespreadzone.com) is set to launch in less than two weeks. Marco and I are excited and proud to kick-off our second season of NFL more picks and parlays, facts and fiction, fun and yes, forgettable moments, too.

A lot has happened since last I wrote. First of all, our staff has more than doubled thanks to a few passionate sports fans/gamblers/readers who are hard at work writing pre-season articles on all of the divisions. Secondly, we will be using an entire panel of "experts" this season in hopes of improving upon our already stellar 51-30 ATS Friday Five record. And finally, in more recent news, Greg Oden has shocked the world by choosing to take his banged up knees and ninety-three year-old face to South Beach to see if he can replace Juwan Howard's size and forty year-old bone strength on the Miami Heat bench. Wait, that's only funny if Howard retired. Did he retire yet?



Miami Heat players Chris Bosh and Udonis Haslem both acknowledged that it will be "amazing" to have another interior presence on the roster, but neither admitted participating in a viral YouTube video where they practiced passing on the the Ugliest Player in Miami trophy they've co-owned since Joel Anthony's departure in 2012.

        

I'm probably losing readers with every Heat bashing sentence I write and picture I post. Greatness, like the truth, is vehemently opposed until it is accepted as fact. Now that Miami has won two titles in a row and looks to be building towards a third, I'm sure some haters have been swallowed up by the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy. I'll accept their greatness, but I'll never root for them and I'll never stop making fun.

In lieu of football, and by no means a satisfying substitute, we have some picks for you, sent by overnight e-mail from north of the border. That's right, although Kyle's job with the Canadian CIA - responsible for uncovering such subversives as non-hockey fans and imitation maple syrup purveyors - has been intense and time-consuming, he took a few moments to send his thoughts on tonight's UFC line-up. Since I know only what Google images tells me, I'm not even going to trying to describe the why and the how - let's just say globally that the winners are probably faster, stronger, smarter, and have watched more Jean Claude Van Dam movies.

I should and will add that Kyle's UFC Record to date:

Last Fighting Weekend: 5-1

Total To Date: 19-9

KYLE's CORNER: UFC picks for tonight's bouts

1. Ian "Uncle Creepy" McCall to win



2. Neil Magny to win (underdog)



3. Amanda "Lioness" Nunes v Sheila "The German Tank" Gaff: Fight does not go 2 full rounds.


4. Vinny "Pezao" Magalhaes to win (probably by submission)



5. Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida to win

6. Jose "Scarface" Aldo to win

The play of the day is to parlay Jose aldo winning with Lyoto Machida winning. I'm giving this parlay over 90% chance to win.

Kyle