What the hell are you looking at? The Week 9 picks of The Brooklyn Hillbilly

Tampa Bay at Kansas City(+8.5, 36.5)

First of all, condolences to the 15 Devil Rays fans from last year that saw the heights of ecstasy and the pits of despair in this miraculous season. I do hope that the Drays are back in form next year and replace the Yankees as the dueling partners for Boston(tho the Sox dont play as well against them as the Yankees). And its likely to happen, as this is the Yanks plan:

1. Sign at least one and, preferably two, starters from among free agents. 2. Re-sign either Mike Mussina or Andy Pettitte. 3. With the rotation deepened by free agency, use pitching prospects in particular to obtain a prime-age, high-ceiling player at first or in the outfield.

What could go wrong? Sounds like the plan theyve followed the last few years, and that always worked out well.

Anyway, on to football. I picked this game because I dont think Ive covered the Bucs yet this year. And Im getting tired of writing about the Chargers, Bills and the NFC North. Now, the NFC South is an under the radar division, or maybe it isnt and I just dont pay enough attention. Either way, apparently my boy Jeff Garcia is doing his thing once again, winning some football games on the down low.



They are by no means tearing up the league, but they did beat Carolina a few weeks ago and look to be one of the mid-season favorites to make the playoffs. Now, most of their success has been happening on the ground, with Earnest Graham and Warrick Dunn ably playing the inside/outside, thunder/lightning, good cop/bad cop routine. BUT, for a team that runs as well as they do, they should be scoring more. Maybe its the 6 picks that Greise has thrown, I dunno. With a D that is fair-to-middling, they are going to need to put up more points if they want to make a run this year. Anyway, none of that should really be a problem this week in KC. The Chiefs suck, and I will continue my practice of not speaking about the straw men teams in these lopsided games. Suffice it to say that Tampa will get an ego boost from this game, but to ensure future success, they are gonna need to get that defense on lockdown so that their running tandem can dominate games. Tampa has at least one winner this week, 21-7.