Fancy Boys founder Matt Drufke doesn’t know anything about football. Lucky for him, Brandon Andreasen and Jack Baker do.
Each week, Matt emails Brandon and Jack NFL questions, they then immediately go and make fun of his lack of knowledge in a secret group chat. They then go and answer the questions. Here are those answers.
Right now, the wildcard teams are the Bills, Steelers, Seahawks, and Vikings. Which team has the best shot of playing in the Super Bowl? And which team should probably just stay home and watch the playoffs from their couch?
Brandon – If the Seahawks take care of business on Monday Night Football, a case can be made that they are the 3rd best team in football, behind the Ravens and Saints. They have a huge home field advantage. Nobody wants to play the NFC Championship against them in Seattle.
The Steelers are on their third string quarterback, their third string running back, and third string wide receiver. This team is gonna drag its gangrene ridden ass to the playoffs exclusively because they play in a garbage conference.
Jack – The Bills are not good despite what their record says. Their best win was this past Thanksgiving over the Cowboys, another team who is decidedly not good. As Brandon mentioned, the Steelers are down to their third QB and have no shot at making it to the Super Bowl.
Both the Vikings and the Seahawks have a good shot at making the Super Bowl, although you have to like the Seahawks chances better as Russell Wilson is a big upgrade over Kirk Cousins.
With last night’s loss to the Texans, the Patriots are the #2 seed in the AFC behind the Ravens, the only other team to beat them so far. What do the Texans and Ravens know that the rest of the league doesn’t? Or, to ask it better: how do you beat the Patriots?
Brandon – No big secret: the Patriots offense is terrible and Tom Brady looks toast. I know people have put the nail in the Patriots coffin before, but they do have serious issues. The Texans and Ravens play fast. They throw out multiple looks on offense.
It was easy for the Patriots defense to look historic when they were playing Sam Darnold. They don’t look as good when they play real quarterbacks.
Jack – The Patriots have beaten up on the same garbage schedule that’s allowed the Bills to win 9 games. They’ve lost to the two real teams they’ve played so far this year. I expect them to lose to the Chiefs next weekend.
With yesterday’s win, the Bengals guaranteed that they won’t be winless. There’s been a lot of crappy NFL teams this season. Who is, in your mind, the worst of the worst?
Brandon – J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS! If you lose to the worst team in football, and the game isn’t even really that close, that makes you the worst team in football.
Jack – The Giants and Redskins are the two worst teams in the NFL. The Dolphins were at least bad on purpose. The Jets season went completely off the rails the minute Sam Darnold got the kissing disease. The Bengals have a new young coach and are just biding time until they could rid themselves of Andy Dalton’s contract and start over with a new young QB from next year’s draft.
The Giants started Eli Manning this year for reasons. Their GM is on some kind of Anti-Analytics crusade and will probably be fired for it next year, while also wasting the prime years of Saquon Barkley. The Redskins started Case Keenum, are still paying a ton of money to a QB who will probably never play again, drafted a QB in the first round, and refused to trade their one moveable piece for draft picks because their owner is a dick and didn’t want to admit their medical staff missed the fact that he had a cancerous tumor growing on his face.
Let’s focus on Chicago, just because that’s probably who you both follow the closest. At the start of the year, Jack picked the Bears to go to the Super Bowl while Brandon had them winning the division. Literally two weeks later, you both basically called them one of the worst teams in the NFL. Yet, here we are in week 13, and the Bears are 6-6, which would have them tied for the best shot in the NFC East. So, which is it: are the Bears a great team that’s wildly underperforming or a terrible team playing as good as they possibly can? And what hope is there for their 2020 season?
Brandon – I let my fandom get in the way. Before the season, I said that the Bears would be worse because they were great at 2 things last year: turnovers and health. I said that because these two things don’t have a year to year correlation, it would be hard for them to match their record last year.
I then proceeded to ignore what I said and picked them to win. What has happened? The Bears have not been as healthy and haven’t created turnovers at the same rate, leaving them essentially as a .500 team.
Jack – I greatly overestimated how good the Bears offense was going to be. As it stands now, the Bears have a good defense and a really bad offense. Some years that’s good enough to make the playoffs, some years it isn’t. The hope for 2020 is that they will bring in a new QB to compete with Trubisky and that combined with a softer schedule will propel them back to the playoffs.
IT’S NFC EAST TALK! I know Jack’s nipples are hard. Right now, the Cowboys lead the NFC East with a record of 6-6. I want to make a rule that says if a team wins their division with a losing record, they have to forfeit their playoff spot to a wildcard team with a winning record. Here’s my question: why aren’t I commissioner of the NFL?
Brandon – Truly one of the great mysteries in life. I’d like to see that just so I can be a fly on the wall the first time you say something wrong at a press conference, and Jerry Jones beats you with a belt.
Jack – Just last week you said the NBA was better than the NFL, so maybe I’d start there. Don’t think that’s an opinion the owners would like in the face of the NFL.
Fancy Boys Club 