Kevin Hogan Should Start, Football Betting Tips, And The Tribe

The Bottlegate “staff” has officially grown from 2 to 3. Excited to welcome Dan Whalen to the team.

Here’s his new weekly column (we’ll think of a name for it soon.) Go give him a follow on Twitter at @dwhalen5

Like most of you, I felt no need to tune into the Browns game this weekend. Misery turned to apathy a while back-if I can remember correctly, for me it happened right around the time Johnny Manziel was drafted by Ray Farmer and the gang. So I’ll start my weekly diaTribe of five feelings here:

1. I’m not revealing anything you don’t already know when it comes to the team, the franchise, the management yada, yada…but I came instead to shed some light on the quarterback situation and how it should play out for the remainder of the year, since they, ya know, passed on the guy I touted as the best in the draft, on the day of the draft. See: @dwhalen5, dak in your closest twitter search bar. Do you know we’ve had EIGHT general managers since 1999?

The Browns have to go with Kevin Hogan as long as they can, until and maybe even after Kessler is healthy. And I’m not “stats tell the full story” guy at all, but if you go back and look at Andrew Luck vs Kevin Hogan, you get ALARMINGLY similar statistics and win/loss records when comparing the two. Except Hogan went 3-1 in bowl games and Luck wend 1-2. But WHATEVER. Point is, the kid can make plays, he learned from the best, in arguably the most pro-friendly offensive college system there is, and quite honestly, sometimes the second quarterback you draft just ends up being better than the first. So drop the ego, change the culture, and let the kid sling it while Kessler picks his fragile ass back up off the ground.

Otherwise, they may miss out on him altogether, he’ll go be a stud for somebody else, and we will draft another shitshow who sets the squad back another three years.

2. I fancy myself a bit of a football handicapper, especially when it comes to picking the correct underdogs on the money line. So here are a few picks for the weekend:

A) Va Tech to cover -4.5 at Pitt for a little Thursday night action if you’re itching to make a play before the weekend. I think the defense is too good, and Pitt’s defense is woefully bad. When Pitt plays good teams, they lose.

B) Washington -10 at Utah. Huskies are the real deal. And they’ve got a hell of a defense. I get to watch Utah every single week due to rooming up with a former Ute footballer, and their offense has a tendency to sputter at times when they get inside the red-zone. This game will have some turnovers, and they’ll all come from the red and black side of the football. Pac-12 south runs through Colorado this year.

C) Auburn -4.5 at Ole Miss. There’s a trend this week with the road favorites, but trust me that’s coincidence-like I mentioned above, I’m an underdog guy. However, if you witnessed what LSU did to Ole Miss on the ground last week (312 yds/8.6 avg), and you had a chance to see Auburn’s ground game against Arkansas (543 yds/9.5 avg), then you should see that this could be another bloodbath of sorts. Even with Chad Kelly being night and day when he plays at

home vs on the road, he ain’t getting in a 3-technique to stop the deluge.

D) Cowboys -4 vs Eagles. The Eagles are a different team when they have to travel. And not a single defense has shown they can stop Zeke. Cowboys have been money at home. Oh, and Dak.

E) Underdogs to keep an eye on straight up: Navy, Texas Tech, Nebraska, Arizona State, Redskins, Lions, Raiders

3. Also, was happy to see that Indians beat writer Paul Hoynes took this kind of chilly dip instead of this kind of chili dip for losing a bet to a clever Tribe fan. One time I’m sure he’s happy to be wrong.

4. The only thing better than being there when the banner is raised tonight in Cleveland, is being there tomorrow night for game two, which I’m pretty jacked up for.

5. That said, with respect to my most beloved franchise in town since age seven, I’m going with Indians in six games, starting with Kluber tonight. From my perch here in Chicago, Cubs fans are a bit out over their skis and are already planning their parade. And if we know anything about being underdogs, it’s that they play these games for a reason, and you shouldn’t count anyone out before the fact, because you never know when you might blow a 3-1 lead in The Finals.

PS: If you couldn’t tell this was supposed to be posted last night but Austin and I were downtown all afternoon. Stay tuned for the next installment on Tuesday.