Hi, I'm Bill Simmons and Rather Than Admit I Have No Idea What I Am Doing, I Will Make Up More Gambling Rules

Again, today I think my title accurately put forth what I am thinking about Bill Simmons' writing today. Bill went 0-4 last week so he follows it up this week with making more rules on gambling. You know a true pro is able to make up rules AFTER he is completely incorrect, no one else is able to have the hindsight that is required to do this. Only professionals. Bill also gives out some more fake awards that we have all started to not look forward to and that makes this such a great column. You ready for more self referential jokes and jokes that have the same punchline as the same one told 100 other times? No? Me neither. Again, no Sports Gal, I just hope she leaves Bill the house in the separation.

Its Simmons time.

If you picked the Super Bowl MVP quarterback who mysteriously turns into Steve Walsh on any windy day, and it turned out to be a windy day, you just went 0-4 on your playoff picks.

ANY windy day, excluding last year's NFC Championship Game and every other game that had been played at the Meadowlands last year and this year of course.

If you picked a California team that ended up playing in snow and cold, you just went 0-4 on your playoff picks.

Excluding the 2002 Raiders who almost beat the Patriots in the wind and snow of course. Granted they lost even then but it was close.

These are some very steadfast rules. Stick with these and there is no way you can go wrong gambling. Just trust Bill.

If you spent a week writing a November column about the death of home-field advantage, then you ignored it in Round 2 without thinking twice, you just went 0-4 on your playoff picks.

Parity and the fact EVERY SINGLE TEAM that lost at home last weekend played that exact same team at home this season already could help explain this. Basically, the visiting team was not intimidated by the atmosphere because they had been there before. Quit talking about your shitty ass homefield advantage column that was not even about homefield advantage but about the home team not covering the spread. Also, the teams that all lost were not in new stadiums that were under your rules you wrote about in the column, so they had nothing to do with your column.

Just know that I hate myself. Not even Morrissey hated himself this much when he was writing the "Viva Hate" album.

We hate you also and I actually like that album. I have come to the conclusion I do not like Bill's taste in music.

I might as well be Louden Swain in "Vision Quest" right after Carla moved out without telling him.

Vision Quest. Soundtrack by Journey and an early 80's movie. Very, very modern.

Will I be telling my kids next December that they're getting a puppy if I finish 11-0 on my 2010 playoff picks?

You have kids? Why have you never mentioned this? I really hope we can get weekly updates on their exploits like Peter King did with his kids, because we all know everyone gives a crap about how other people's children are doing.

But how can we top Tony Siragusa's intro from the field at Carolina, when he yelped out a few overstimulated sentences and two of them ended in "baby"? As in, "I'm on the field and you can feel the electricity, baby!" Was he inspired by a "Kojak" rerun or something?

The field was certainly electric for about 10 minutes, then the Panthers were able to take the crowd out of the game. No one can take their own home team out of a game like the Panthers. A Kojak reference? Is there a Murder, She Wrote reference coming soon? Please say yes.

I am immediately adding this to my Sports Czar campaign: If Collinsworth is gig-less for an NFL playoff weekend, either CBS or Fox has to hire him for one of the games or risk a $1,000,000 fine from the FCC.

Someone make this Sports Czar crap stop immediately. Some stupid ass Simmons reader had to write in and suggest this idea and of course Bill has run with it because he is beyond self involved. I don't know what is beyond self involved but this is what it types columns like.

both won championships as huge underdogs that, in retrospect, make absolutely no sense whatsoever; both received serious officiating help during those titles (Eli for the various holding infractions during the Helmet Catch that weren't called, Daniel-San for winning the All-Valley Karate title on an illegal kick to the face);

Holding happens on every single play in the NFL in every single game. Get the fuck over it and stop whining and bitching about how the Patriots got the Super Bowl "stolen" from them by a team that outplayed them. Simmonsologists know that Bill's teams never have lost a game, they have been dragged down by bad officiating or some other event that had nothing to do with the fact his team got outplayed.

How can ESPN let Bill's sour grapes fill up his columns like this? Is his editor mentally deficient and can't seem to see that comments like this ruin any credibility Bill may have and undermine his ability to write one semi-objective column? This holding comment is coming from a guy whose team molested the Colts receivers so badly in the 2004 AFC Championship Game the NFL tightened the rules of pass interference to make sure it did not happen again.

Can you tell "Teen Wolf" has been on a lot lately? I can't stop mentioning it in columns.

Honestly, I can't tell that Teen Wolf has been on a lot lately because you mention old movies in nearly every single column. If that is the case Victory, Karate Kid, Vision Quest, and Heat has been on a lot lately as well and I would like to find out which stupid channel is playing all of these movies and try to predict when this channel will go under. Here's a hint, it will be soon.

I like how Bill tries to play off all of his dated Teen Wolf references by claiming it has been on a lot lately. Like this makes up for the fact he has always made Teen Wolf references and yet doesn't explain all of his other dated 1980's movie references.

How bad was Jake Delhomme? I sent a text to my buddy Geoff wondering if we were witnessing the worst performance in playoff history ... and he threw three more picks AFTER THAT TEXT! The good news: We have to redo the Mount Rushmore of Faces.

And you thought I could not hate Bill Simmons more.

Let's all lay off the curb kicking of Delhomme for a minute to think about this. Larry Fitzgerald outgained the Panthers in the first half by himself and the defense gave up 5 straight possessions of scoring drives. Delhomme was beyond horrible but if you are going to actually attempt to do any analysis on the game and just not spit shit out of your mouth like you know what you are talking about you, would see partially what affected Delhomme's performance was the defensive and offensive game plan. Delhomme was horrible but the secondary was equally as horrible in the first half. Not to take anything away from the epic Delhomme collapse but there was more going on then just that.

And just for the record, I'm adding this to the Playoff Manifesto next year: "Never lay significant points with a QB whose name rhymes with 'snake.'")

I think Bill should have this added to the Playoff Manifesto: If you ever go 0-fer on a weekend of playoff games, you are not qualified to to a Playoff Manifesto in any fashion.

The Kevin Connolly Award for "Funniest Reaction To Something That Never Should Have Happened To Begin With"

Anyway, this goes to Steve Smith, who was steaming on the bench in the fourth quarter with one of those "If I jump Jake right now and punch him out, would I get suspended without pay again?" faces.

I know, as usual, Bill is reaching for a joke here, but I don't get this. If the interceptions never should have happened, then Jake should not be considered that bad of a quarterback, because he is supposedly better than that. Tell me if I am missing something but the joke doesn't make sense if you don't assume Jake is good...which he actually is not, but regardless, I can't have Delhomme on any Mount Rushmore's of anything for Bill Simmons. I want this to all go away.

Bronze (to U. Howard in Philly): "Damn you. I just realized that you went 0-4. It's a good thing you're funny or else I'd stop listening and reading religiously. Keep making with the laugh laugh. You're like that girl we all dated for a while in our early- to mid-20s that was only good for one thing. She couldn't cook, couldn't take care of a pet or a plant, barely could read. But she did one thing well."

U. Howard in Philly, if you exist, you are incredibly incorrect. Bill is not funny. The one thing he actually does well is cheer with his favorite team, which puts him in the same company as every other diehard fan in the world.

For the poor Tennessee fans ... you could actually hear their sphincters collectively tighten as that game dragged along and the mistakes and bad signs kept mounting. Nobody knows that haunting sound better than Red Sox fans; that's the way Fenway sounded during every Big Game That's Not Going Quite The Way We Want from Yaz through Nomar.

Nobody knows that sound better than Red Sox fans. They just knew something was going to go wrong as they won 2 World Series in the past 5 seasons. It just had to happen. No one knows being tortured like Red Sox fans, despite the fact the team is currently very, very good, they still want to be known as tortured.

As Bill Simmons would say, the Red Sox fans are similar to a kid who got his ass kicked throughout high school but then hit puberty in college and made the college football team, but keeps reminding everyone what a wimp he was in high school for some reason.

Red Sox fans and the team have had it worse than everyone, you think Jewish people in Germany had it bad during the Holocaust? Try being a Red Sox fan, it was much worse I am sure.

I was there. I can still see him leading off first base and being utterly convinced that he could steal it, even though we had 86 years of bad luck working against us. We all felt that way. It was weird. I cannot explain it. Like we knew.

That's because Red Sox fans are omnipotent and they know EVERYTHING. Bill thinks they are the most special fan base in the entire world because they KNEW. They just knew.

I know the home team is done from my pre-2004 Fenway experiences. It's a lock. So how do we explain that? Is there a term we can come up with? Maybe CISSESP (Collective In-Stadium Sports ESP)? I believe in ghosts, I believe in bad karma, and I absolutely believe in CISSESP.

Bill, I believe this is killing me, (a smile goes away from my face), but I am sure you could try to be a movie star if you could just get away from ESPN.

(Little odd the line in Piano Man that starts with "Bill, I believe this is killing me..." came on the IPod as I was getting ready to type that sentence. So just paraphrased it and let everyone know I have Billy Joel in my ITunes.)

being officially unable to tell the difference between the NFL playoffs and March Madness

The only difference I can see is that I want to watch every single game of March Madness and I don't care about half the games of the NFL Playoffs, no one in my office really cares about the NFL playoffs as much as they do March Madness, and there are 63 games to entertain me in March and only 11 games in the NFL playoffs. Other than that, great observation.

I love the NFL Playoffs but after my team gets eliminated/doesn't make it, I find it hard to follow as closely, meanwhile for a Texas-Memphis game I will skip an important event to watch in March. It may only be me though.

5. Take it from someone who got crapped on by a bird right before the 2004 baseball playoffs: Any time something weird is going on with birds and sports, you roll with it.

You got crapped on by a bird before the 2004 baseball playoffs? You have to mention these things when they happen Bill! If you don't mention them at the time, at least bring them up a few years down the road so we can understand your self absorbed/referential humor. I am not sure you have mentioned this event since at least last week's column.

Sorry, Pittsburgh fans, you're stuck with me this weekend. You may now light your Terrible Towels on fire.

Hahahahahahah!! That's like when you say, "I will now light myself on fire," but different because you put a different word in place for "myself!" What a great and original column closing sentence! Brilliant!

(Swallows cyanide capsule)