Bill Simmons on sports today:

[Kingdom]

The defending Super Bowl champs are 2-6.

Emmitt Smith is one of the two celebrity finalists remaining on "Dancing with the Stars."

Our reigning World Series champion is an 83-win team featuring Jeff Suppan and Jeff Weaver as its Nos. 2 and 3 starters.

The Clippers, Hawks, Hornets, Nets and Jazz are leading their respective divisions right now.

In the annual Pats-Colts showdown, Tony Dungy outcoached Bill Belichick and Peyton Manning outplayed Tom Brady.

Until last weekend, all four of our heavyweight champions were Russian or Lithuanian.

If somebody gets you an official NBA game ball for Christmas, that means they spent only $25 on you.

John Cougar Mellencamp ended up having a bigger impact on sports in October and November than anyone who actually played in a game.

A seventh-round draft pick from Hofstra University is going to win the NFL Rookie of the Year.

I have readers openly rooting for Osama bin Laden to become the cover boy for "Madden 2008" -- and they're dead serious.

Heath Shuler is now "Congressman Heath Shuler."

The NHL regular season is being shown on a network called "Versus."

A few years from now, we will be casually referring to pro teams named the Santa Clara 49ers, Fremont A's and Oklahoma City SuperSonics.

The best running back in football continues to call himself "LT," with no repercussions.

Three of the top college football teams are Louisville, West Virginia and Rutgers.

"Rocky VI" comes out next month.

Our president signed a bill to outlaw Internet gambling, but I could drive to a gas station right now and buy $500 worth of scratch cards.

The most famous active American male tennis player is Andy Roddick.

You can turn on one of the HBO channels at just about any time of the day and see Adam Sandler playing Paul Crewe in "The Longest Yard."

Ultimate fighting and poker are both more popular than boxing.

Because of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, every "live" sporting event runs on a televised delay that extends between four and 12 seconds.

Lamar Odom
Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Images
Think the commissioner would drop dead handing Lamar the trophy?

If the NBA season ended today, Lamar Odom would be the MVP.

You're better off having money against Brett Favre during the final two minutes of any close Packers game.

The first pick in last June's NBA draft has the same name as the girl who had the crush on Brandon Walsh while they were working on the Beverly Blaze together.

Three of the most depressing franchises in sports right now are the Celtics, Knicks and Raiders.

Just in the past eight months, the best American baseball players, basketball players and golfers all had their asses handed to them in international play.

Steve Nash is the reigning two-time NBA MVP.

David Eckstein is the reigning World Series MVP.

It would be shocking to most people if they found out that the greatest baseball hitter and greatest baseball pitcher did NOT use performance enhancing drugs.

Ben Wallace makes $15 million per season.

One of our "Monday Night Football" announcers openly talks about his fantasy football team on the air.

ESPN Classic shows re-runs of "Arli$$."

NFL By The Numbers
Through nine weeks, against the spread:

Favorites: 54-69-5
Home teams: 69-54-5
Road favorites: 14-27-3
Dogs covering + winning outright: 49 of 696

A few weeks ago, a Huard brother came off the bench to save Kansas City's season and turn the Chiefs into a playoff contender.

Screw it, you get the point. Everything's been turned upside down. And I'm not sure I want to live in this sports world anymore. I feel like Brooks in "Shawshank." I want to go back to the place where everything makes sense. Give me a time machine. Give me my sanity back.

What does this have to do with a football handicapping column, you ask? Well, we're nine weeks into the NFL season and the underdogs are 15 games better than .500. Just in the past four weeks, 27 of 33 underdogs covered AND won outright. It's a financial catastrophe. It's a gambling quagmire. I have friends calling me just to say, "Yo, I closed up shop -- going cold turkey until the playoffs." I have readers e-mailing me just to tell me, "I've lost 14 of 16 teasers this season." I have other readers telling me that they did a George Costanza a few weeks ago (went the opposite of what they would have done) and had big weeks ever since.

When we were going over the lines this week, my buddy Sal and I tried to figure out the question, "If you had to bet your life on a two-team tease involving two 2006 teams, and the top 10 teams in the league were all playing at home against mediocre-to-decent opponents, which two teams would you pick?" Guess what? We could only come up with the Colts, a team that's currently giving up the second-most yards per carry in the history of pro football. We couldn't think of a second team.

It's an unpredictable, chaotic, inexplicable season. Teams look great one week and Shat-tastic the next. (Note: thank you to ABC for creating the word "Shat-tastic" in its promos for the Shatner game show this week. I wish ESPN would promote the rest of its Monday night schedule this way. "ESPN's 'Monday Night Football' ... it's Shat-tastic!") Belichick and Brady are no longer reliable at home. Neither are the Steelers, Eagles or Broncos. Bad quarterbacks routinely win on the road. Monday night home teams routinely lose. Terrible coaches can cover against good ones. And you know what? I'm throwing out every rule I ever had and basing the rest of this season's picks around one rule, and one rule alone. Here it is:

"Always take the underdog unless it literally pains you not to be backing the favorite."

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...simmons/061110

[DirtyKash]

BSG has been slipping in his picks, even his wife is beating him. And she writes better columns.

[777rak]

Wow interesting article.. good find

[realmofotalk]

I should send a reminder to Bill that Len Bias would've turned 44 next week, in case Bill forgets.