Week 10- Fan Schizophrenia

This week’s picks are coming to you from the city of Denver, CO- dubbed Mile High both because of the altitude and the fact they legalized medical marijuana.

Denver is a great location to study the phenomenon of “fan schizophrenia.” It’s a malady that affects the fan base of every sport, city and political party. The disease leaves its victim in a constant state of agitation. Their emotions constantly fluctuate between euphoria and crushing depression. One week, they seriously believe their team will go all the way. They proudly fly their team flag on their dented up Corolla and search Priceline for tickets to the Super Bowl city.

Following a loss, they are inconsolable. They drive their dented up Corolla aimlessly around town hoping to get hit by a train. Their only friend is the sports talk radio host who rails about how terrible the team is and how everyone should get fired. The fan would also get fired too, but he lost his job months ago when, after his team lost in overtime, he showed up to work in his underwear and tried to crash a forklift into a pile of canned pears.

Denver has recently experienced an acute care of fan schizophrenia.

The season started with Broncos fans sniffing glue. Their team last year blew a four game division lead. They got a new, young coach who looked like he had no idea what he was doing. And they traded their all-pro QB for Kyle “Friggin” Orton.

Then as quickly as is takes a tipped ball to fall into the hands of Brandon Stokley, Broncos fans were slap happy ecstatic. They saw their team ride out to a 6-0 start. Josh McDaniels was the greatest coach ever. Kyle “Awesome” Orton was just the QB they needed. The defense was back to the Orange Crush days.

Now after consecutive losses to teams who made the playoffs last year, the town in back on the prozac. They should bench Orton and go with Chris Simms. Josh McDaniels has no clue on how to run the offense. The team is going to choke like they always do. All that was just from the 76-year old lady in line with me at the King Soopers. I fear Broncos fans are on another roller coaster ride that will leave their emotional state as scrambled as Evander Holyfield’s brain. The only consolation for Broncos fans is that 31 other football fan bases will share in this torment.

Sadly, no cure for this illness has been approved by the FDA, but there is some promising research being conducting in Detroit with Lions fans. We would love to learn more about this research but it seems the city is so broke they just lost their internet connection.


Suffering from a case of fan schizophrenia myself, I made this week’s picks in a locked closet, littered with Twinkie wrappers, with my shivering body wrapped in a Miami Dolphins Snuggie. My picks are in bold.

Jaguars at Jets -6.5
Broncos -3.5 at Redskins
Bengals +7 at Steelers
Bills +7 at Titans
Lions at Vikings -17
Saints -14 at Rams
Falcons at Panthers +2
Bucs +10 at Dolphins
Chiefs +2 at Raiders
Seahawks +9 at Cardinals
Eagles at Chargers -1.5
Cowboys -3 at Packers
Patriots at Colts -2.5
Ravens -10.5 at Browns


Thursday: 1-0
Last Week: 6-7
Season: 67-62-1