by Chris Corbellini

Week 10 Picks: The Goff-Jobs Theory

I’m a big believer in Steve Jobs’ famed Stanford commencement address. Watch it right now on YouTube, if you haven’t seen it. His main thesis is hardly a novel idea – do what you love. But the tech innovator, gone too soon at 56, crafted one passage within the speech that struck me deeply the first time I watched it, and it has stayed with me for the last decade of my football life. In not-so-great times, it had to: “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Let me take you back five years now — I was crashing on the couch of a friend’s apartment in Los Angeles, working freelance and hoping to land full-time at the NFL Network – watching a skinny true freshman at Cal named Jared Goff. He was, to put it nicely, getting his ass kicked by Northwestern. I couldn’t even stay awake to see the finish. But I remember thinking this kid had something special. He was an overwhelmed 18-year-old, but at times on pure muscle memory alone the QB made some lightning-bolt throws.

I took a mental note. Goff. Real potential. Cal went 1-11 that season, but, somehow, I didn’t see it as a negative for him. I thought if this quarterback could shake all that shit off, he’d be the perfect pick for a rebuilding NFL team one day. He had thick skin, electric stuff, and all the intangibles a scout cannot see.

Things went well for me out in LA, but I didn’t land a full-time job out there. Things went well for me at another big network last year on the East Coast (Goff, now a pro, even played on that network during the NFL playoffs, a wild-card loss to the Falcons), but their football broadcast package was then cut in half when a rival outbid them for Thursday Night Football. So I didn’t land anything there, either.

And this season? I faced the possibility of not working at all. You are an ant in my industry if you have no say over a budget, and I didn’t. My current accounting professor at Columbia more or less confirmed this to me with his theory that the ginormous rights deals that ESPN signed (NFL, NBA, etc.) were in part to give the company a built-in excuse to let a generation of employees go in the years that followed (editor’s note: !). This professor is not a conspiracy theorist. He handles budgets for another brand-name sports company, and the assignments he gives us each week are rooted in real situations. I believe his theory. That is what working in sports today means. Your layoff is planned in advance.

Still, I believe in The Jobs Speech more.

With no safety net to speak of, and no feature producer gig available, I cannonballed into daily fantasy sports and sports betting. A total “fuck it, this is fun” move. And after a long Saturday night where I painstakingly plowed through game film and analytics research on an Excel sheet (and wrote for John Walters here), I had to make a final decision: Is Goff my QB for Week 9?

Right at me. TD. And the kid will have this on game film for pro clubs. pic.twitter.com/Mg6dcupylX

— Chris Corbellini (@ChrisCorbellini) November 9, 2018

I considered Goff’s opponent — the Saints and their atrocious pass defense. I looked at the Vegas O/U — the highest that Sunday. But mostly, I thought back to his first game as a Cal freshman. Thick skin, electric stuff, and all the intangibles a scout cannot see.

I went with a Rams pick (+1.5) in this space a week ago, and entered Goff as my quarterback in an LA-heavy DFS lineup. And while I got the bet wrong … I qualified for a World Fantasy Football Championship. I’m playing for a $500k grand prize against 73 other qualifiers, and Barstool’s founder, Dave Portnoy. By qualifying for the WFFC, I was also automatically entered into a fan championship which has a larger competitor pool, but nonetheless has a first-place prize of one million dollars.

In the words of Simon Pegg: “How’s that for a slice of fried gold?” And so I spent this week thinking about the Goff pick and The Jobs Speech in the Miami sunshine while working for The Spring League, which featured NFL hopefuls in a game setting and got the attention of scouts from the NFL, CFL and AAF. And I wonder if that experience will help me in the future — hopefully, you know, this week, while making my picks.

As always, home team in caps. William Hill odds. I also added some percentages to correspond with the winners I picked – they represent the calculations made by The Quant Edge that those teams will cover the Vegas line. Full disclosure: I currently work at TQE as an advisor. Another great gig that happened because a great gig in sports television didn’t happen.

BUCS (-3) over Redskins (60.1%)

Some sound advice that I overheard from a defensive coach this week: “What did I say? Remember? On the seam [route]? Outside leverage on the seam.” And it’s a shame the player he was coaching up didn’t absorb it, because that linebacker then let a Spring League tight end slip inside to score off a seam route the following afternoon. I see parallels here with the Bucs defense, who seemingly forget that the tight end position even exists, as the unit is ranked 29th against the position (courtesy pro football outsiders). This would suggest happy-fun times are ahead for Redskins tight ends Jordan Reed and Vernon Davis, but it won’t be enough.

Washington is hurting on offense, especially up front, and is just average defensively. The Bucs passing game will likely pick away at the left side of the field, where the Redskins D has allowed the most yardage. Receiver DeSean Jackson complained to reporters about his role in the offense this week, and so it’s not hard to imagine Tampa Bay force-feeding him short completions to the left flat, and in one case at least, I see him spinning out of a tackle and sprinting for a score to give the Buccaneers a win by 7.

Patriots (-6.5) over TITANS (62%)

So, anyway, yeah, New England is now the best team in the league. Color me shocked. The victory over the Packers last Sunday night confirmed it — the Pack were hungry, boasted an elite QB, and didn’t stand a chance. Former Patriots player and current Titans HC Mike Vrabel might know Bill Belichick’s tendencies better than most, but he doesn’t have the personnel to keep up at the moment. I don’t need to do the math on this one. With Julian Edelman back from suspension and Josh Gordon acclimating nicely to The Patriot Way, the offense is rolling.

Saints (-5.5) over BENGALS (63.2%)

It’s Alvin Kamara in a big way in this one, as the Bengals linebacker group is a good 2-3 adjectives worse than awful. Before this game is over we may be calculating what it’ll take for Kamara to get a 1,000-1,000 season. He’s everything we thought David Johnson would be for the Cardinals this year, and on a playoff-caliber team to boot. If the Saints only had a respectable defense to go along with the Brees-Kamara pass parade, Super Bowl LIII would be theirs to lose.

Chargers (-10) over RAIDERS (64.7%)

You can’t say the Raiders don’t do their due diligence when looking for players. Down in Miami, a member of the team’s scouting department got the measurables for all 153 Spring League players — height, weight, hand size, arm length, and wingspan. He plowed through it all in one night with a tape measure and a wall sticker. The organization certainly doesn’t cut corners. I was impressed. It won’t result in a win this week. Not nearly. Not against Philip Rivers. But he might have connected the dots with someone, and for someone. It happens.

Last week: 2-2

Overall: 14-19