Jevon Kearse and the Titans celebrate a 9-0 record with a little wit
By my count, there were five games yesterday in which the team that had been outplayed most of the game had a chance to win or tie in the final two minutes — and all five lost.
Watch out! Grossman’s back! And he’s got a neckbeard!
The NFL script was flipped this week, as several sucky teams decided not to suck. So does that make this Opposite Week? Is this the Monday Blow-Off instead?
First, a hearty congratulations to the Bengals, who won their first game of the season behind the competent play of Harvard man Ryan Fitzpatrick and a resurgent Chad Johnson-Cinco, who caught two touchdowns in a departure from his season-long suck. All it took, apparently, was the threat of T.J. Houshmandzadeh walking 25 miles to the NFL Network studios. Elsewhere, the Chiefs, Lions, and Browns all flirted with upsets before succumbing to their inherent crappiness, as all coughed up 4th quarter leads.
At least those teams flirted with winning; several crappy teams mailed in predictably crappy games. I’m looking at you, Seahawks (26-7 loss to the Eagles) and Rams (34-13 to the Cardinals). And the Raiders… ouch. A 24-0 blanking at home against the Falcons that was sealed by halftime. (Thanks for those 2 fantasy points, Justin Asshole Fargas.)
And yet, none of these teams earned the Suck-Off title this week.
Three teams lost at the feet of kickers and their last second field goals yesterday, but if you’re a fan of the Lions, Redskins, or Bears (oh my!), you might already know that. And if so, congratulations on not committing suicide last night! We all know you had the perfect opportunity after watching New England get destroyed last night. Man, that game would have been so satisfying, had it happened in Week One, but with Matt Cassel dragging that team down to Special Olympian status, even the confused face of Bill Belichick couldn’t bring me the joy that flipping to another game would have.
You know who else sucked yesterday? The AFC North. Baltimore got whipped by an Indy team that’s been struggling all year, while Favre’s two picks and one fumble weren’t generous enough to get a Carson Palmer-less Cincinnati team past the Jets. As for Pittsburgh and Cleveland? Those turds didn’t even play.
The Tom Cable Era got off the only way it possibly could have, with the Raiders losing in a blowout to the Saints. San Francisco’s not quite ready for prime time, as the Niners let the Westbrook-less Eagles hang 23 points on them in the fourth quarter in a come-from-ahead loss. And Carolina lost a big division game against Jeff Garcia, who may have played well enough to usurp Brian Griese as the Bucs’ starting quarterback next week against Seattle.
If we were going to hand out some suck-off medals, the bronze would go to clockblocker Ken Whisenhunt, whose last-second timeout in regulation damn near cost his team a win. Any silver would be set aside for the officials of the Packers-Seahawks game, who seem hellbent on screwing Mike Holmgren on every conceivable gray-area call that arises. I suppose Dan Orlovsky could have made it here, too, but there was just so much novelty in unintentionally wandering out of the end zone…that’s more like “trailblazing” than “sucking” to me.
But the gold would have to go to the Miami Dolphins defense, who let Matt Schaub and his three picks drive down the field on them for the game-winning touchdown in the last minute.
Congrats to everyone that sucked this week. You are what makes watching the NFL so awesome.
This will be an abbreviated posting day because of the holiday. Seriously. WL will return in full force on Tuesday.
Minus a few blowouts, Sunday’s NFL action offered a good slate of closely fought games. The Redskins won another tough NFC East road game, beating the Eagles 23-17 to up their record to 4-1 and raise the special breed of Beltway-area douchey homerism to Bostonian levels. The Titans rallied late to eke out a 13-10 win in their slugfest against the Ravens; the lowly Bengals looked tough against the Cowboys, rallying from a 17-0 deficit before Dallas put Cincy away 31-22; and the Steelers were gutsy as hell in their 26-21 win over the Jags.
However, this is the Suck-Off, and the focus should really be on the teams and players who completely blew ass. And, as with almost every other week, the Lions and Chiefs looked horrible. Detroit were impressively awful in a 34-7 blowout at home; Jon Kitna left after a half with “back spasms,” which is coach-speak for “massive sucking.” Kansas City managed to suck even harder, getting shut out at Carolina 34-0. DeAngelo Williams ran for 123 yards and scored three touchdowns, meeting his quota of one good game per year.
Brett Favre likes football more than you do
Yes, yes, I heard: Brett Favre threw six touchdown passes. Now let us never speak of it again.
Unlike a mediocre AFC team blowing out the Arizona Cardinals, there were more tightly contested games that were more newsworthy on Sunday. Most notably, for perhaps the first time in the Dan Snyder era, the Redskins looked like a downright competent, tough team in beating the Cowboys in Texas 26-24. Later that night, their NFC East rivals from Philly came up inches short in Chicago, where the Bears’ 4th quarter goal-line stand preserved a 24-20 victory.
Ahhhh, nothing quite like a holiday Suck-Off to start the week. There's not a whole lot to say about the AFC Championship — the only thing surprising about the Pats' win was Brady's tendency to throw the ball to the Chargers, but you can get away with that when your red zone defense is wound tighter than Philip Rivers at the AVN Awards.
Over in the NFC, we learned that that whole Lambeau Field mythology is a steaming load of horse shit. Old Man Favre and the Cheese Brigade were gifted two field goal misses, a Plaxico Burress drop inside the five, and the ball to start overtime, but their magical gay stadium still couldn't get them a win.
After some deliberation, I've decided to name the entire city of Green Bay as the winner of the conference championship Suck-Off. It wasn't easy to wrest the title away from Lawrence Tynes, but Packers fans are such retardedly douchetastic homers that I want the Packers' failure to extend all the way to the people who were entirely too invested in it in the first place. Maybe next time don't go bragging about how your team's going to win just because someone had the temerity to predict a victory for the other team (ahem and ahem). Eat a dick, cheeseheads.
