If you can get past that whole “They’ll stab you if you look at them wrong” vibe that they carry so well, Oakland Raiders fans are a pretty fascinating bunch. For starters, they put up with so much, from years of inept ownership and horrible decision-making to, well, that pretty much says it all right there. But they’re a loyal crew, as they sit patiently through season-after-season of Darren McFadden injuries and porous defenses, while the Denver Broncos pile up wins around them. Hey, at least they aren’t Kansas City Chiefs fans, amiright guy with spikes all over his body?

Anyway, GQ recently sent reporter Lauren Bans to a Raiders game to embed herself in a crew of female Raiders fans that included women who refer to themselves as “Metal Cindy” and “Dre of the Dead”, among others. It’s a fantastic read, and I encourage you to check it out in between crying over poor gambling decisions today, but this is probably the most important excerpt…

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Earlier this week, in the Fantasy Football Support Group post, I broke down the strange, new curse that is the Thursday Night Football QB conundrum. Basically, with very few exceptions, quarterbacks – and a lot of stars in general – have been terrible on the NFL Network this season. As I finished writing that, something horrifying dawned on me – I have Peyton Manning on Thursday night this week in the first round of my main fantasy football league. F*********************ck me.

Even worse, I’m playing against Demaryius Thomas while I have Eric Decker. And I know that none of you care, but I’m FREAKING OUT, damn it. What’s that? I should just not play fantasy football, you say? Who let the devil comment on this website, anyway?

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"You're the best at being the worst!"

Doug Martin had 8 carries for 31 yards heading into halftime of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 42-32 win over the Oakland Raiders. In the second half, the rookie out of Boise State carried the ball 17 times for 220 yards and 4 touchdowns, in what is one of the most ridiculous non-QB fantasy football performances of all-time. I bring this up not to celebrate the rookie of the year frontrunner, but to bitch about him instead. Welcome to my new Monday feature – the With Leather Fantasy Football Support Group.

Years ago, when MySpace was a thing and not a Justin Timberlake paycheck, I used to have a group for my friends in which we would ask each other advice about trades, bye week pick-ups, whose mom had the hottest cans, etc. and I always meant to bring that here, I just forgot because I’m an idiot. But that ends today, because each Monday I’m going to reach out to people who have been scorned and destroyed by the biggest fantasy football performances of the week. It starts with Doug Martin, because I traded him two weeks ago and yesterday that bro’s team tore my balls off and used them as a hackey sack.

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Watching Detroit Lions quarterback Matt Stafford poop the bed against the St. Louis Rams yesterday was rather bothersome for me, as I spent a quarter of my auction league cash on his three-pick-throwing ass a week ago. But then I remembered the above commercial for Monday Night Football and the irony tickled me enough to make me forget that he almost cost me my suicide pick, too. Seriously, just too much stress in one afternoon.

Speaking of football and quarterbacks that cause migraines, Philip Rivers and the Chargers headline an evening that features two fierce NFL rivalries. And if you’re a communist or tree-hugger and you don’t like watching the NFL, I’ve found some alternative programming for you as well.

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The immediate future, I guess.

If you wanted to feel really f**king super old today, this year’s college freshmen were born in 1994. This is a drag, especially for freshman-level college professors who accidentally say “Pulp Fiction” in class and get stared at until they mention it’s what Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam were parodying in Space Jam. Then you have to explain what Elmer Fudd, Space Jam, movies, parodies and references are. (Tip: they’re the thing from Family Guy.)

The Beloit College Mindset List helps combat that by putting out a yearly list for college professors, reminding them via nonscientific study that kids born in 1994 “see the world in a different way”. If you’re wondering what this has to do with sports, one of the notes mentioned is that kids grew up in the 1990s having no idea that L.A. had a football team (much less two of them) or that Cal Ripken wasn’t just given the consecutive games record by default.

From CF News 13:

Remember when suitcases had to be carried instead of rolled? Or when an airline ticket was a booklet of pages separated by carbon paper? Maybe you remember when Lou Gehrig held the Major League record for consecutive baseball games played.

This year’s college freshmen don’t.

They never lived in a world where Kurt Cobain was alive or an NFL team played its home games in Los Angeles. The Class of 2016 has no need for radios, watches television everywhere except on actual TV sets, and is addicted to “electronic narcotics.”

The article goes on to say kids think ‘The Twilight Zone’ is about vampires and quickly includes a quote from an 18-year old saying “no we don’t”, so remember that this is intended to remind teachers how ignorant their kids are gonna be and is in no way accurate. I mean, hell, I know Cleveland had an NHL team even if they merged with the North Stars two years before I was born and like 27 years before I moved to Ohio.

For anyone reading this who sincerely doesn’t remember the Los Angeles Rams, watch this video. Never forget.

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The marketing gurus at Pepsi have teamed up with the NFL to create 5 new NFL team anthems by pairing franchises with their biggest pop star fans, and Dallas Cowboys fans are first up with Kelly Clarkson’s new single, “Get Up”. The Texas native and American Idol winner is famously a fan of America’s Former Team, and that must be comforting for her fellow Cowboys fans as they watched their team herp and derp to a 3-0 preseason loss win to the Oakland Raiders last night.

But preseason jitters aside, Clarkson is excited about her team’s chances this season, so she wants you to picture one thing and one thing only when you listen to her new jam – her mother giving birth.

“When you’re born in Fort Worth, you come out of the womb loving the Cowboys,” she says. “In Texas, people love football more than anything. Once they find out about this, I’ll be golden.” (Via USA Today)

And don’t worry, folks, Clarkson didn’t want this to be a friendly little PR stunt. She also wanted to do her part in crapping all over the team’s rivals.

The team is simply iconic, she says. “People overseas know the Dallas Cowboys. They don’t know the Denver Broncos or the Philadelphia Eagles. The Dallas cheerleaders are more famous than some of the NFL teams. I know I sound biased.”

I really wish she said the New York Giants instead of the Denver Broncos, because then ESPN could devote hours of coverage to analyzing what the star of From Justin to Kelly means when she says the Eagles aren’t known overseas. “With more on this developing story, we take you to Ron Jaworski having a stroke,” an anchor would say while I made fart noises with my hands.

Clarkson’s Cowboys anthem is joined by Tavie McCoy’s “All In” anthem for the New York Giants, as well as yet-to-be-announced instant classics by Kid Rock (Detroit Lions) and Ice Cube (Oakland Raiders). Also, Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow” will be remixed, because someone got lazy toward the end of planning this.

After the jump, check out Clarkson’s “Get Up”.

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