The Draw Play

THE WEEK IN CHAOS
–After a fun couple of weeks things were due to cool down a bit this week but it wasn’t all bad. We have a few really funny endings.

After spending several weeks looking pathetic the Jaguars faced the Lions and things went exactly as the jokes would suggest. I write this sentence on Sunday night, and if you read this sentence on Tuesday and Doug Pederson is still employed, I will be stunned. There has never been a coach more fired. The Dolphins took care of business against the hapless Raiders, the Rams took care of the struggling Patriots, and the Saints played like a good team again and beat up the Browns. The early slate of games went by with few surprises. Outside a 98-yard busted coverage TD, the Vikings also piledrove the worthless Titans. The Broncos embarrassed the Falcons badly enough to get Penix on the field for some reps. The Falcons felt like a genuinely decent team two weeks ago, now they look like this. Never take the Falcons seriously. The Steelers continue to have the number of the Ravens and now sit in control of their destiny.

Some of the more surprising results of the week was the opener on TNF with the Eagles and Commies fighting for control of the NFC East. If you listened to a lot of Eagles fans this year, they are absolute bums. Yet here they are at the top and they just dominated their biggest competitor. Saquon is healthy and is balling, Hurts is minimizing damage, and the defense is getting better. Nick Sirianni gets a lot of hate because he’s a big cocky douche but the team has been pretty successful under his reign and it would require another second-half collapse to fire him at this stage.

The Bears. Oh man. The Bears came out of the turmoil and looked like a football team again and almost took it to the Packers for the first time in, what, 6 years? All just to lose it at the end to a blocked kick. The loss is on Eberflus, who had more time to try and get some more yards to make an easier field goal and chose to just waste the time instead. Doug Pederson is turbo fired, but Eberflus better be at least very fired.

But the Bears weren’t the only team to get witching hour’d late on final drives. The Colts and Anthony Richardson marched the field and put away the Jets, making the Aaron Rodgers experiment even funnier. They were a better team last year under Saleh and Zach Wilson than they are this year on the Rodgers Buddy Squad. It is one of the most genuinely outstanding narratives this season. The 49ers gave up yet another late lead to a division rival, putting the team squarely in last place in the division. Geno Smith grew a massive pair of balls and drove the field to put it away with 12 seconds left. The Seahawks are a messy, messy team. The offensive line is a sieve. Geno Smith is incredibly streaky. One play you’ll see him force a terrible throw straight to a defender and you’ll just shake your head and wonder how the fuck this guy is a starter. Then he’ll spend an entire drive throwing absolute sniper dart after sniper dart, carrying the team on his damn back. It did help late in the game when Nick Bosa got hurt, but that’s the kind of season the 49ers are having. Total super bowl hangover. This isn’t the first time this has happened either as the 49ers missed the playoffs after their last Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs. The Chiefs got the same treatment, finally. The Bills held their own, stomped the squad down, and Josh Allen had the best run of the day to seal it with 2 minutes left, although you wouldn’t know it through Tony Romo’s Mahomes Glaze.

Lastly, bless you Cowboys and Texans for giving us some prime-time clownball to finish the week.

 

GIANTS CORNER
–Giants were on a bye but they slipped down the draft order, so they kinda lost anyway. But they just announced they are starting Tommy Devito! Hooray! Daniel Jones should never throw another pass for NY. We can’t risk him getting hurt and triggering the injury clause anyway. I don’t think Devito is much risk to win any games, at least not moreso than Jones was. Tommy gets a lot of hate from the tankers among the fanbase and is often blamed for the reasons the Giants didn’t draft high enough to pick a top 3 QB this year. I think that’s a load of hogwash. Those 3 wins were mostly on the defense. They had 6 turnovers vs Washington. They scored 10 points against New England. Jones probably wins both of those games too. Tyrod won 2 games last year as well, including the other Commanders game, why doesn’t he get blamed? The only game that I think Cutlets affected the final outcome may have been the Packers win where he led a game-winning drive. One less win last year doesn’t put the Giants into the top 3. Cutlets was pretty ass, he was just fun to root for. This year the schedule has a few mid opponents left (Cowboys, Colts, Saints, Falcons) but no surefire cupcakes unless you really hate Dallas (fair). If you want to tank, that’s good news. The bigger worry is will any of the other 3 teams that need a QB draft higher, namely Tennessee, Cleveland, or Vegas. The Jags, Cowboys, and Pats aren’t a risk to go QB. Carolina accidentally already won several games, but they remain an outside chance too. At this stage it looks like only Cam Ward or Shedeur Sanders are likely to be high QB picks. I’d rather have Ward.

CHAOS OF THE WEEK
–For one half of football, the Chargers looked like a normal team. BUT THIS IS THE CHARGERS. The Chargers must Charger. The Bengals came back with 3 straight TD drives to tie the game in the second half. But the story doesn’t end there. The Bengals must Bungle. When Bungle and Charger meet, who wins? We do. We win. The game became monumentally stupid. The Bengals shanked two straight field goal opportunities and then went 3 and out to give the Chargers the ball left with less than a minute. The Chargers managed to finally make the right plays to get into field goal range. Then it didn’t even matter because JK Dobbins just rumbled into the endzone with 18 seconds left for the funniest wild ending of the week.

CHAOTIC MOMENTS OF THE WEEK
–Is Justin Tucker dead now? The Ravens kicking phenom looks washed right as the rest of the NFL starts kicking 50+ yarders with ease. Maybe he was just ahead of his time.
–Taysom Hill season is back. Maybe that is why Dennis Allen failed, he didn’t value his team’s greatest weapon.

CACKLES OF THE WEEK
–Josh Allen’s scramble on 4th down is the stuff of legend. Give the ball to the large football moose and profit! When he got the first down I fist pumped. When he kept going I cringed. When he made the goalline I cackled. I don’t know what Josh Allen would do if football didn’t exist. Maybe he would just wrestle pigs.
-The loudest cackle I had all week was the clownball fumble Thicc Six. It was so long I was able to take a breath in the middle of the play so I could laugh harder.

BIG OOF OF THE WEEK
-Also Josh Allen! While he redeemed himself on 4th down later in the game, the first attempt to go for it on 4th down went very poorly.

CHAOS WATCH
–The Jaguars should presumably be operating under interim coaching now, so that officially makes them wildcards.
-The Saints have two solid wins in a row, looking like the team that started the season. The NFCS feels wide open. Even Bryce Young might manage to get another coach fired.
-Kliff Kingsbury offenses tend to take a massive dive in the second half of seasons. What we saw Thursday night for the Commies might actually be the canary in the coal mine.
–The Chargers Chargers’d. They won, but they are still the Chargers.
–The Falcons are frauds. They can be taken off the meter with another loss next game.

FRAUD WATCH
–THE CHIEFS! Finally! It felt like the Chiefs were going to spend the entire season fucking around and not finding out. They are not 9-1, even if they are still pretty damn good.
-The Ravens feel a bit off to me. They operate like one of the best teams in the league yet they have some baffling losses and many games that were closer than they should be. The Steelers just owned them with mostly field goals. They lost to the Raiders in week 2. They lost to Cleveland two weeks ago. Both Bengals games were insane. I’m skeptical.
-The Texans did nothing to beat the allegations against Dallas.
-The Falcons have been exposed

 

DISAPPOINTMENT DUCK
–Falcons, fuck you. At least try to not look so pathetic.

 

MOST UNWATCHABLE TEAM OF THE WEEK
–The Jaguars were so bad this week that the fans were actively cheering for it to get worse just so that Doug had no chance of surviving the week. I think. He’s still employed right now, on Monday night.

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BETS FOR NEXT WEEK – MEME WEEK

STEELERS @ BROWNS
The Browns would love to play spoiler here but they just suck even with Watson out. Watson was awful but he was clearly not the whole problem with this team.
If the Browns win, I will draw the Brownie as Skibidi Toilet

TITANS @ TEXANS
Texans get to beat up Will Levis, not a bad work week for anyone.
If the Titans win, I will draw Will Levis as Savage Patrick

VIKINGS @ BEARS
My prediction: the Bears put up more of a fight that anyone expects but it doesn’t matter because the Bears always find ways to lose.
If the Bears win, I will draw

COWBOYS @ COMMIES
Man, this used to be a bi-annual beatdown of Washington for 2 decades, outside the occasional upstart moment. This time the Commies might just keep it up.
If the Cowboys win, I will draw Cooper Rush as Communist Bugs Bunny

PATS @ DOLPHINS
The Dolphins seem to be back. The Patriots are bad. That’s okay, it’s a rebuild year for them. Just lie down and take it.
If the Patriots win, I will draw Lady Yelling at Cat, the Lady is Tua and the Cat is Maye

CHIEFS @ PANTHERS
Bryce Young has a chance to do the funniest thing ever.
If the Panthers win, I will draw Mahomes as Evil Kermit, telling himself to lose so everyone writes him off again

BUCS @ GIANTS
The Bucs need a quality bully game where they just beat the fuck out of some hapless team to get back in the division race and feel good. Giants, do your job.
If the Giants win, I will draw Tommy Devito as the man she told you not to worry about.

LIONS @ COLTS
The Lions are Super Bowl favorites for the first time in franchise history. The Colts are in their way.
If the Colts win, I will draw Anthony Richardson as Sleeping Shaq

BRONCOS @ RAIDERS
BONIX CONTINUES HIS REIGN OF TERROR AGAINST WEAK COMPETITION (He’s not that good but this season is a testament to Sean Payton’s coaching)
If the Raiders win, I will draw Sean Payton as surprised pikachu

CARDINALS @ SEAHAWKS
Who would have thought this game, in late November, would have major implications on the divisional lead in the NFCW. Wild stuff. The Cardinals have earned my respect for now so I’ll go with them.
If the Seahawks win, I will draw a Cardinal and Seahawk in the Annoyed Bird meme

49ERS @ PACKERS
The Packers might finally beat the 49ers! Too bad it isn’t the playoffs.
If the 49ers win, I will draw Jordan Love as the honest work guy

EAGLES @ RAMS
I want to believe in the Rams and the Eagles fraudulence but the iggles seem to have found their identity again and I just don’t think the Rams are quite good enough.
If the Rams win, I will draw Matthew Stafford as Would cat, saying Win

RAVENS @ CHARGERS
The Chargers in two straight primetime games? What did we do to deserve such delightful nonsense? Also: HARBOWL 2
If the Chargers win, I will draw Jim Harbaugh doing the Grant Gustin pose over John’s grave. As an aside, for the longest time, I thought that was John Mulany in the picture

A TIE
If we get a tie two spidermen pointing at each other