I’m sure there’s plenty of NFL news and notes to update today, but the majority of games were on Saturday and you’ve probably seen Jerome Simpson landing a flip into the end zone 600 times by now (if you haven’t, it’s here). What you may not have seen nearly enough of are NFL cheerleaders dressed in all of their best holiday attire during the NFL’s Week 15 and 16 action. And I know that most of them are dressed like Santa Claus to honor Christmas, but I say holiday attire because the Indianapolis Colts cheerleaders wore blue and white so they could technically be giving the NFL’s Jewish fans some bigger candles this Hanukkah season.
Among the teams to feature their festive females were the Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles, Tennessee Titans, Baltimore Ravens, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Colts, Buffalo Bills, Oakland Raiders, among others. And even the Los Angeles Clippers’ dancers got in on the action, as if to say, “Merry Christmas, NBA fans who stayed up late to watch the newest media bandwagon darling lay a complete thrashing on the Golden State Warriors.” Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, indeed, friends of With Leather.
As a kid who grew up fearing the pink aisle because of what it said about me, I’m happy kids like this are starting to exist.
I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I spent Christmas Eve facepalming in Cowboys Stadium and I don’t even like the Cowboys. If you got gifts and want to let strangers know about them, tell us what you got in the comments section below. We’ve got staggered, “thread” style commenting enabled now, so people can troll you directly.
On A Christmas Story, Its Lessons For Hip-Hop & Biggie Smalls - “Rich and chocolate like Ovaltine!” – Ludacris, probably [Smoking Section]
New And Improved And Watchable Jingle All The Way - This makes me want to spend all day watching Commando. [UPROXX]
The 100 Greatest Christmas Shows - My pal Mike Westfall’s list from 2004, which sadly cannot include Annie Edison putting baby Jesus in the tree. Still a pretty definitive list. [Progressive Boink]
All I Want For Christmas Is A ‘Game Of Thrones’ Teaser And A Fresh Prince Reunion - My weirdest and most Abed-like career goal is to buy (or recreate) the set from The Fresh Prince, live there, and occasionally have James Avery stop by and hang out with me. Getting him to say WHAT THE BLAZES would be a bonus. [Warming Glow]
20 Screaming Santa Visits - I feel like kids who cry on Santa’s lap are fundamentally wrong, and this should be an indicator that what you’re doing isn’t working. A child should not be terrified of someone who wants to give them tons of gifts and already has their parents’ permission. They’re going to suck when they get older. [Buzzfeed]
The Colts Choked When They Tried To Suck - That gif is just the greatest thing in the world. And yes, the Texans blowing that game was a Christmas present to Indianapolis and/or St. Louis, you can’t convince me otherwise. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]
Hey Zelda Fans – The Timeline Exists, And Here It Is - I can’t believe I’m actually looking at this thing. It’s like I’ve found my way to El Dorado. [Gamma Squad]
Every Batman Suit Ever - Also, a great reminder that everything ever said by Batman not written for The Animated Series or the Justice League cartoon is f**king stupid sounding. [Film Drunk]
The 25 Greatest MMA Photos Of 2011 - MMA would be 100% better if they didn’t do that forced staredown thing every single time. Also, pro wrestling would be better if they didn’t try to do the MMA staredown for their video packages every week. [Cage Potato]
Lindsey Vonn Says She Isn’t Dating Tim Tebow - … but isn’t “opposed” to dating him. Well, hopefully that changed after this weekend. [Sportress Of Blogitude]
ACW: Delusions Of Our Childish Days 2011 - The Dirty Dirty Sheets review of the latest Anarchy show in Austin. Still not 100% on why I’m not their correspondent for these things, but hey. Rachel Summerlyn in a Santa suit. [DirtyDirtySheets]
Heisman Trophy winner and Jay Pharaoh character Robert Griffin III showed up on ‘Late Show With David Letterman’ to read the “Top Ten Thoughts That Went Through Robert Griffin III’s Mind When He Won The Heisman Trophy” and hit almost every necessary comedic note — Tim Tebow loving Jesus, the Indianapolis Colts being terrible, Kim Kardashian being a gold digging succubus who already has way too much of her own gold and so on.
You can check out video of the appearance below. I found it on YouTube so you didn’t have to watch it on the 100 x 40 CBS video player, so watch it quickly.
One of the NFL’s many official sponsors, Prilosec OTC has a new campaign called “A Better Way to Tailgate” to help fans avoid eating and drinking things that will give them heartburn, and that’s cool, because I suffer from heartburn a lot and I appreciate a billion dollar pharmaceutical company trying to knock the chili dog out of my fat mouth.
But to really hammer home their point, the makers of Prilosec have hired Larry the Cable Guy to travel to NFL games and interact with fans, because he is apparently also a frequent heartburn sufferer and he represents the average, blue collar NFL fan. Larry, whose real name is Dan Whitney, attended Thursday night’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns, as well as yesterday’s Baltimore Ravens-Indianapolis Colts game.
And I could get into some long rant about how much I can’t stand Larry or how I’d be irate if my team was letting him run around in a jersey or wave a Terrible Towel, but nobody can ever break down the mystique of Larry’s success better than the late Greg Giraldo.
Well, the time comes when the lights need to be turned on and the party must end. We had a good run of 10 weeks, as we watched the league’s worst teams flop around like wounded ducks as a few of them tried to convince us they weren’t losing on purpose for the 2012 NFL Draft’s top prize – Stanford QB Andrew Luck. Unfortunately, our party is pretty much over and we can stick a fork in this Suck for Luck campaign. Barring a miracle – and by that I mean the sudden desire to win – the Indianapolis Colts will have the first pick in the next draft.
And that’s fine, because that’s what their fans and ownership openly pined for to very little criticism. Apparently the Colts are allowed to lose on purpose, so let’s all tip our caps to the eventual team that will make Luck the No. 1 pick. In the meantime, we’ll take one last rundown of the power(less) rankings – and don’t worry, we’ll still review each game in our own fun way in the coming weeks – while I try to decide if I want the Miami Dolphins Whiffin’ for Robert Griffin III or Playing Lames for LaMichael James. Maybe Losing Whack, Son for Justin Blackmon?
Anyway, here’s the RULES AND HYPE paragraph, in case you haven’t played with us before:
The game happens this weekend, and it’s going to work a lot like our baseball games; you’ll sign up (for free, again, I’m not going to make you pay for anything) and pick your team, choosing two QBs, two WR, two RB and so on until you’ve exhausted your salary cap, and the team with the best performance in this Sunday’s games wins money. So do the next five top teams. That’s right, we’re paying out to the top 6 teams from a $250 cash pool.
I’m going to study and try hard (and get someone else to draft my team) so I can win this thing this time. We’re going to have reps from here, Warming Glow, Kissing Suzy Kobler and the UPROXX main page (as of now) playing along, so sign up and draft your team now to find out next Tuesday whether you’re better than me, a short-legged dog, a fictional version of Peter King and the Workaholics guys (note: Workaholics guys are not playing, to my knowledge).