THE 2019 CHAOS BANDWAGON GUIDE
THE PLAYOFFS ARE HERE! And they should be pretty good!
I love chaos. As I mentioned in the Patriots comic on Monday, the NFL playoffs lends itself to chaos. Chaos is what makes a sport watchable. Sure, excellent play is fun. But after a while, even that gets dull to watch. However nothing makes things interesting like chaos. The fact that a #1 seed could just simply have a bad day and get knocked out in one game. The fact that a highly structured chess game of a sport revolves around an oblong ball that famously becomes unpredictable once it bursts free of human control. Control is the illusion we admire. Chaos is the fuel that keeps us invested. Chaos allows us to believe. The allure of the unknown gives us hope and fills us with dread. Even the most pessimistic among us know that you never know when Chaos might strike.
Instead of doing my usual Bandwagon guide, which I think has gotten a bit stale, I wanted to focus on the aspect of football that gives me life. The unspoken underbelly of all sports spectator-ship. The wildcard. Chaos. So I’ve gone and ranked every playoff team by how much chaos I believe they bring to the table this year. Chaos is a lot of factors. Chaos is being an underdog. Chaos is being overlooked. Chaos is turnovers. Chaos is unpredictability. The 2019 NFL playoffs are set up to be pretty solid. Outside the Ravens, nobody really strikes me as the immediate favorites to contend. Not even the Patriots.
THE HIGH CHAOS TEAMS
TENNESSEE TITANS
The Titans snuck into the 6th seed on the AFC side by virtue of the Steelers fumbling away their chances late in the season. The Titans are a scrappy, gritty, punch you in the face team with the NFL’s leading rusher and literal monster Derrick Henry. Henry has found himself, and the results are terrifying. Ryan Tannehill has also found himself, and he has been unleashed. This team is hot and angry and they have nothing to lose. By sheer chance, Ryan Tannehill faces the Patriots in round 1, a team he has more experience with than most. The Patriots are flawed this season and the Titans match up well. If the Titans win on Saturday, they will have already introduced the largest amount of chaos into the playoffs as possible: making an AFC divisional round without Foxboro in it. How can anyone not be pulling for this team?
PHILADEPHIA EAGLES
Personal team biases aside, the Eagles are absolutely an agent of chaos this year. The sheer fact that they should be blown out by the Seahawks is exactly why I actually think the Eagles are gonna win. The Eagles are broken. They are starting guys they found in the local jails at WR. But…the game is in Philly. Wentz is a complete unknown in the playoffs. The team has won 4 in a row through sheer grit and gusto. The Seahawks have to travel east, and may in fact already be overlooking them. Why wouldn’t they? The Eagles are a broken 8-8 team handed a playoff position due to sheer virtue of being the best dumpster in an alley of 4 dumpsters. This team has playoff experience. The team may be too broken to make a deep playoff push, but the complete lack of expectations may be just the chaos factor they need.
BUFFALO BILLS
The last time the Bills were here they barely made it. This is a better team. A team we have written off due to historical failures. But this team has a defense, and defense is the best way to just fuck up other teams. If they keep the Texans from scoring, they absolutely can Josh Allen 200yard game their way into the divisional and maybe further. Plus, Frank Gore.
MINNESOTA VIKINGS
We’ve never seen Kirk Cousins behind center on a good team like this before. They drew the short straw and got the Saints in round one, which sucks for them, but that makes the possibility for chaos all the stronger. The Vikings and Saints are playoff cursed franchises who often have weird shit happen to them. There is no way some weird shit doesn’t happen this game.
THE MEDIUM CHAOS TEAMS
HOUSTON TEXANS
We’ve been unusually blessed this season with a plethora of fun willy QBs who do crazy goofy shit all make the playoffs. Russ, Mahomes, Lamar, and DeSean are all true QB agents of chaos in how they play the game. Outside the joy of Watson to Nuk, the Texans are just a solid team with fairly mediocre chaos potential.
NEW ORLEANS SAINTS
The Saints are a good to great team that somehow ended up without the bye week. By almost any metric, they aren’t that chaotic. Sean Payton may have some fun goofy shit in the playbook once or twice, but generally the Saints are just solid. The chaos comes in knowing the Saints are cursed. Every year brings a new tragic end. We can only anticipate this season’s moment of glorious chaos.
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
The Seahawks have been in a weird place all season where they don’t seem as good as their record indicates. But besides the confusion, Russell Wilson is the league leader in absolute bullshit.
BALTIMORE RAVENS
The Ravens are the clear frontrunners to win it all. Unfortunately when you are the frontrunners and you aren’t the Patriots, things don’t always work out. Expectations are weighty. Chaos reigns. On the positive side, Lamar Jackson has been such a fun watch all season that he himself carries this team to a new level of chaos.
THE LOW CHAOS TEAMS
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
This year the Mahomes flair is a little subdued thanks to Lamar taking all the shine away. While Mahomes is still fun and Andy Reid still guaranteed to fuck up a timeout, the Chiefs are just simply a good team we expect good things from. Them winning would not be a surprise.
SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
Shanahan likes to make fun offenses, but overall the 9ers are just a really good team. Consistency is an enemy of chaos. If they still had Jim Harbaugh, they might be ranked higher.
GREEN BAY PACKERS
How the fuck did this team get a #2 seed did anyone even give a shit about the Packers this year? They didn’t seem like any fun.
NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS
Despite this being the Patriots’ most chaotic year in a decade, it still feels irresponsible to give a higher rating to the league’s favorite fun-vacuum who always finds ways to be annoyingly competent. If this team makes the Super Bowl, it will simultaneously be very chaotic because they probably shouldn’t, but extremely not chaotic because that is just what this fucking team does.
Whoever you root for, prepare for some garbage refereeing that turns everything to shit!
The Philadelphia Eagles: the only dumpster not currently on fire.
The eagles were 9-7.
There are four ringless teams in the playoffs this year, up from two last year. If any of them win its gonna be a fluke, which makes me think it’ll be the Titans.
Titans, texans, Vikings, and….?
William Williamson Williams III.
Bills
I’m still trying to pronounce “Shanahanigans”
Packers should be higher on the chaos scale, I think. They have looked so bad and inconsistent all year outside of like two weeks but somehow managed to keep holding on to close wins. Playing like they have against other playoff teams should count for some chaos. Never have I seen a less scary 13-3 team.
99 Colts
Completley agree. The Packers are phony and they know it
I see your ’19 Packers (and your ’99 Colts, TargetToad) and raise you the ’08 Tennessee Titans. Even with that defense, there is no way a Jeff Fisher / Kerry Collins led offense should be the No. 1 seed. Ever.
Outside of the Boston area, there can’t be many people rooting against the Titans this week. The fact that Tannehill plays the Patriots in the first round and the fact that the SB is in Miami almost seems like it’s set up for the ultimate chaos run. Thus, the Patriots will beat them. This is the way….
You forgot that the football gods love one more thing than the Pats winning SBs: taunting Miami as much as possible about players and coaches that they should have had and just remember that Tannehill vs. Brees would be the worse nightmare for Dolphins fan.
“Being the best dumpster in an alley of 4 dumpsters” is my new favorite way to describe the winner of a trash division! Or anything described as the best ‘blank’ in Philly
*Kirk Coursins*
The Packers are 13-3 because they have a top 5 red zone defense and offense. Passers have a completion percentage of 43.7% in the Red Zone vs the Pack, the lowest percentage the Packers have had in 20 years. It’s a lot easier to win games when your opponents just kick field goals.
Kirk Coursins??
Hes more interested in golf than football this week
Hey the eagles are a 9-7 dumpster fire!
The Packers were a major nailbiter this season, I reused the old “Cardiac Pack” nickname for them.
The Chiefs’ defense (is it actually good?) and Andy Reed’s above-mentioned clock management skills (never good) should move them into AT LEAST the Medium category.
Lets be real here, and im saying that having become a bit of a Vikes fan over the last years…. we all know they are gona bust out this weekend cause of Cousins. I live in Germany and every single time I made the mistake of going to bed early and waking up at 2am to watch the Vikes on primetime Cousins choked yet again and they lost. I know he looked realy good in some of games this year but hes Mr. Anti-Primetime personified.
The only glimmer of hope I have left is that its actualy the timeslot thats causing him to choke and not being on national television… but even then they cant win the Superbowl unless Godell somehow moves the kickoff to 2pm….
Lets be real here, and im saying that having become a bit of a Vikes fan over the last years…. we all know they are gona bust out this weekend cause of Cousins. I live in Germany and every single time I made the mistake of going to bed early and waking up at 2am to watch the Vikes on primetime Cousins choked yet again and they lost. I know he looked realy good in some of games this year but hes Mr. Anti-Primetime personified.
The only glimmer of hope I have left is that its actualy the timeslot thats causing him to choke and not being on national television… but even then they cant win the Superbowl unless Godell somehow moves the kickoff to 2pm….
The titans look scarily legitimate. Like, they might be the most frightening non-division winner in recent memory and that’s considering this years Seahawks. Part of me knows that the patriots will probably be the patriots and beat them but it’s exciting to think about Ryan Tannehill going into Foxborough and beating one of the top defenses in the league. And plus, Derrick Henry is looking like Jim Brown out there, which should be scary for a Pats defense built for the pass that can also “sorta” stop the run
Do we still consider the Patriots a top defense? They’ve looked average at best against any good team. Compare how the Bills D handled Lamar Jackson vs. the Patriots.
according to football outsiders the patriots finish 2019 with the best Defensive DVOA at -24.6%
DVOA isn’t perfect, but I think it’s the best stat we have for “is a defense good?”
(SF is second at -19.8, Pitt 3rd at -18.5, then a huge drop)
Football Outsiders thinks Dak Prescott is the best QB in the league, too. Stat padding against inferior teams can fuck up results pretty bad.
Football outsiders top QBs by DVOA:
Drew Brees
Lamar Jackson
Patrick Mahomes
Matt Stafford
Ryan Tannehill
Dak Prescott
Russel Wilson
Seems pretty okay to me
You’re looking at “DYAR” which isn’t adjusted per play, and favors volume players
On one hand, my mistake, on the other hand, I told ya so.
I’m guessing some Saints key players gets abducted by aliens.
I don’t think your normal “bandwagon guide” has gotten stale, and have, in fact, been looking forward to it all week. This still scratches the itch, but just wanted you to know.
How fitting would it be if the Dolphins beat the Pats, sending them to the wildcard round where they lost to Tannehill?
SIX-SEED SUPERBOWL! SIX-SEED SUPERBOWL! SIX-SEED SUPERBOWL!
Ummm, NO.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa
seriously tho, as i have said many times, despite my moniker, i am more a fan of chaos (and safties!) than any one team. thus, MAXIMUM CHAOS PLAYOFF PICKS! all typoes are provided free of charge.
wlldcar round: in what is considered in retrospect the most normal game of The Days of Chaos; bills defeat texans in triple overtime with a safety.
the titans forfeit in foxboro as the pats’ plan to misroute their opponent’s equipment works this time. (“it is what it is,” belichick says. “we’re just gonna stay here and prepare for our next game. where-ever it might be. we might even have to travel,” he says with a dry chuckle.)
eagles squeak past the seahawks when russel wislon suffers a ministroke from all the nano-bubbles he’s been snorting on the sideline between series. no one knows this, but it’s why he throws seven consecutive picks-six in the third quarter before being benched for a “fuck it no qb give to beastmode every down offense”. eagles win on a safety when pete carrol mistakenly tells the kick unit to punt the wrong way with six seconds left in the fourth.
vikings win in new orleans when officials show up wearing kurt cousins jerseys instead of stripes and proceed to call OPI on the saints, regardless of whether their offense is on the field. still, it’s close. the vikings prepared for this eventuality however with multiple fake team jets, most of the decoys get burned on the tarmac or shot out of the sky by the louisiana national guard, but the team makes it safely home.
DIVISIONAL ROUND: bills dominate ravens in a wire-to-wire blowout after lamar jackson is disqualified because it is revealed he never actually graduated high school due to a clerical error. the final score is 68-2, with the lone ravens points coming on a runback of a two-point conversion attempt on the final play of the game, as the bills players simply allow them to score out of pity. jackson shows up at the stadium with a provisional GED twelve seconds after time expires. baltimore burns to the ground. the bills escape mostly unscathed due to their excellent knowledge of the patapsco river.
belichick’s seemingly absurd aside proves prescient when arrowhead stadium is declared unfit for human habitation due, ironically, to being built on an indian burial ground. with mere hours to go before game time, it is moved to foxboro. oddly, the pats hadn’t yet boarded their plane and crush a bewildered and exhausted chiefs team to the tune of 49-6 (three safeties). (“gotta cut down on those safeties,” a visibly frustrated tom brady says after the game.)
in the NFC, chaos continues as the eagles travel to san francisco whilst the vikings and their refs take on the green bay packers in an NFCN rivalry game for the ages. the eagles and 49ers battle to a quadruple-overtime zero-zero tie in which twenty safties are committed, then negated on review. jimmy g gets a handy (the patriot way) from a cougar pornstar in the medical tent sometime around 3 am, and sneaks past the sleepy eagles defense to score the deciding touchdown.
in green bay, a bad-weather game for the ages is decided for the vikings in the waning seconds when a mini-tornado flings both the packers would-be-game-winning-field goal attempt and a vikings defender into the opposite red zone. the corpse of the unknown viking is found with the ball permanently frozen in his grasp, and is given a viking funeral on the spot as both teams attempt to avoid frostbite. there are multiple stabbings in the parking lot as packers fans weaponise their frozen vomit as shivs.
(it isn’t until after the superbowl that anyone notices the seeding got reversed in this round, but no one speaks up, for fear of civil war.)
CONFERENCE AND SUPERBOWL PREDICTIONS TO FOLLOW
“…they found in the local jails at WR…”
That was a poor choice of words Mr. Rappoccio. I’m sure you did not mean it to sound bigoted, but with young African Americans comprising a disproportionate amount of NFL players and incarcerated individuals it kinda scanned that way.
my bills prediction came within two overtime periods of being true.
refs took away a safety lol
CHAOOOOOS IS AT AN ALL TIME HIGH
https://imgflip.com/i/3l81ir
Down go the Cheatriots. Belicheat keeps getting owned by head coaches who had long history with the Cheatriots and are familiar with the ways they cheat. Been the case ever since Mangini reported the first spygate. Fake dynasty
Nah Belichick normally owns his former coaches.
Tanny > GOAT
FUCKIN’ GET IN THERE TANNYSSEE!! Great night for ex-Miami players, with Stills making some decent catches for Houston as well.
And so the oversized anime nudists ate Tom Brady.
It. Fucking. Happened.
Boston Scott is now the only remaining Boston in the playoffs….
Ooops. Not no mores…
The Vikings and Titans deserve to be in the Super Bowl after this weekend. I LOVE chaos.
All this is happening just to force you to resurrect Tannehill in the Money Fort series.