Every week during the NFL season, FBC co-founder Brandon Andreasen takes a look at the NFL and makes fun of a bunch of teams and players and bets to make him feel better about the fact that he roots for the Chicago Bears and is such a degenerate gambler, he is probably betting on Korean Table Tennis at this very moment.
The Pregame Show
I’ve officially outgrown my ability to play in a dozen fantasy football leagues every season. Not outgrown as in size, though i’m quite rotund. Just outgrown in terms of life responsibilities. This actually goes for my gambling prowess, as well. I remember last year I was so hot betting on football, I felt like i’d been shot out of a cannon. I hit some massive early season bets that carried me throughout the season. This year, though? I feel like a fat toddler hopelessly throwing ping pong balls at gold fish bowls at some third rate carnival that smells like Burning Man.
I’d be better off just blindly slapping at my phone every Sunday. The same goes for my fantasy football season. Every year you come in, all cherubic and bright eyed, ready to take every team to an undefeated season. The week before the NFL season is magical. Half a dozen fantasy drafts. Hanging out and getting drunk with your friends. The upcoming season leaving everyone on a meth high they hope they never come down from.
Then the season starts and I feel like i’m just in a constant state of getting kicked in the shaft and balls. Over and over. Though 11 leagues. I’m 0-2 in more leagues (5) than I am 2-0 (3). I blame myself, mostly because my wife says i’m a jerk when I blame my six month old daughter. Being an old parent does that to you, though. My daughter just wears me the hell down. She learned how to crawl last week. We went from laying on her mat in the living room while I mindlessly watch food influencers cook steaks with magma hot glass one week, to me chasing her away from the dog food bowl every fifteen minutes the next. I love her, but I definitely blame her for my rough start.
I also got diagnosed with diabetes this summer, which marks the third straight August/September that I’ve caught my body trying to kill me. Two years ago, I had to have half of my colon removed. Last year, my heart quit working properly. This year, I was felled by Sour Patch Kids.
Let me tell you something: People who recreationally take those diabetes shots to lose weight are absolute psychopaths. Ever since i’ve been on it, my mood swings have been ridiculous. My sleep has been horrendous. I’m sick all the time. Taking the shots feels like giving yourself a low end flu at all times. I do it because I have to. Most people do it because dad bods are no longer popular.
The other thing it does is make my brain super cloudy. I cannot process thoughts. It’s terrible. I forget names. I forget days of the week. It’s not a thing people should have to deal with. I’m not even doing it because I want to lose weight. I just don’t want to die. The issue is, I can see my mental cloudiness up and down my FF rosters. Why did I go all in on Omarion Hampton? Why was Cam Ward a good idea to draft as a backup in every league? Especially the ones where Joe Burrow was my starting quarterback!
Anyway, I think next year I might just back it down to like seven or eight leagues. Someone please remind me I said this in 10 months, when I decide 2026 is the year to try 20 leagues.
First Down: The Bears Are Complete Ass
I know this is why most of you are here. I take no (some) joy in writing this. I think we all got a little bit too excited about this team. The first two weeks of the season kind of leave it pretty obvious too where the problems are. For those of you wondering, i’m in the “Blame the GM” stage of Bears fandom. Does Caleb Williams make too many stupid throws? Yes. Does Caleb Williams also make a handful of throws every week that one a handful of other quarterbacks in the league can make? Also yes.
I don’t put too much stock into that expose by a bunch of flapping anuses that comprise the anonymous former coaches who say that Williams is dyslexic, while providing zero proof or even anecdotal evidence of it. What I do take stock into is that Ryan Poles is a dogshit general manager who has built a terrible team on the foundation of terrible draft picks. His first draft produced Kyler Gordon, who has never played a full season in his career, and Jaquan Brisker, who is one concussion from his brain being the insides of a lava lamp. That’s also the draft that produced Velus Jones, a player so bad that i’ve been proven hilariously right over and over…..and over and over and over and over when I said that was an absolutely awful pick.
2023 gave us human penalty factory Darnell Wright, who was drafted after the Bears traded out of their pick so future Super Bowl champions the Philadelphia Eagles could draft Jalen Carter, who would look pretty damn amazing in this barn door masquerading as a defensive line. After that, they drafted Gervon Dexter, a member of that very defensive line. After that? They drafted the guy who spent all Sunday getting absolutely torched by Aman Ra St. Brown, and noted Hail Mary enthusiast Tyrique Stevenson. The rest of the 2023 draft isn’t even worth mentioning because Noah Sewell is the only one who has played a meaningful down for the team from it.
2024? Beyond Caleb and Rome, that was the draft they decided it was a good idea to draft a punter in the fourth round, only for their entire fanbase to realize how bad of an idea that was due to Tory Taylor being the definition of mid.
I’m not even wasting my time on the 2025 draft because it’s the one that makes me the most viscerally angry. Why draft help on the offensive line or defensive line, where there was so much need, or in the secondary, where the team was razor thin, when they could draft a tight end they don’t throw to, and in doing so, passing up a more highly rated tight end who has already been excelling in the NFL. Seriously, Colston Loveland over Tyler Warren has a chance to look incredibly stupid. Then they drafted Luther Burden in the second round to fill the vaunted role of backup kick and punt returner. Then they got around to drafting an offensive lineman and a defensive lineman. Neither of them play, but they exist.
Under Ryan Poles’ leadership, the Bears have drafted exactly zero Pro Bowlers, which is stunning considering how easy it is to be a Pro Bowler nowadays. The only person on the Bears who makes the Pro Bowl is Jaylon Johnson, who was drafted by Ryan Pace.
Now, let’s take a look at all of the successful free agent signings that Poles has made. I’ll wait.
The New England Patriots fired Bill Belichick when he started drafting this poorly, and he had six Super Bowl rings. Ryan Poles can’t even claim the award of “Best Ryan P who helped build this current roster.” And they gave him a contract extension! I’m not saying that Ryan Poles had sex with Virginia McCaskey and that she left him a forever job in her will. But i’m also not NOT saying that.
Second Down: Even Worse, The Packers Might Be Really Good
Until further notice, the Philadelphia Eagles are the best team in the NFL. Who is second? It very well might be the Green Bay Packers. While I don’t take a ton of stock into Thursday Night Football games, due to them being generally terrible because it’s difficult for any NFL team to properly game plan in three days, the Packers left points on the field in an easy win over Washington last week. The defense has been fantastic, with Lukas Van Ness looking like the second coming of Richard Dent coming off the edge, now that multiple defensive linemen are tasked with defending Micah Parsons every down.
Jordan Love has been fantastic as well. He has been making smart plays and keeping his team out of trouble. If they can get their running game really going, this team has a legitimate chance to be playing in the NFC Championship Game in a few months. And yes, it kills me to say that.
Third Down: Do Away With Two Monday Night Football Games
Not that the second game was worth watching, anyway, but two Monday Night Football games is just a little bit much. If you squint your eyes closely enough, you can almost justify it when we are balls deep into bye week season, since it gives you something a little extra to hope for during fantasy football that week, but for the love of god, just dump the second game into the 3pm window. Redzone deserves a full late afternoon plate.
The late game got going at 10pm on the East coast, which is full on sicko viewing hours. Did I believe in this a few months ago when I was still working nights? Of course not! But now that i’m a denizen of the daytime world, I have hard thoughts about late games.
Fourth Down: Kickers Suck Again, Just Like the Old Days!
In case you haven’t been watching, nearly every kicker in the NFL this season has been riddled with misses on makeable kicks. Hell, missing kicks actually broke Falcons kicker Younghoe Koo’s brain. This is just like the 80’s and 90’s, when you were happy with a guy making 75 percent of his kicks, and you envied whichever team had Morten Anderson. Only Brandon Aubrey seems exempt from this. That also might have something to do with the fact that he will, inevitably, be the first kicker to make a 70 yard field goal, and he will probably make it look easy, and probably against the Bears this weekend.
Top Five Power Rankings
1: Philadelphia Eagles-Best until proven otherwise.
2: Green Bay Packers-Their division might not be as tough as initially thought.
3: Buffalo Bills-Josh Allen is probably the best quarterback in the NFL at this point.
4: Baltimore Ravens-I still think they are fine, but they really should have beaten the hell out of the Browns.
5: Indianapolis Colts-Because why the hell not. Nothing else in life makes sense.
Bottom Five Power Rankings
28: Chicago Bears-I didn’t have the heart to rank them any lower, but we are getting reeeeeaaaaal close.
29: New York Giants-They will get off the bottom five if they continue their newfound offense of just throwing it 50 yards downfield to Malik Nabers every play.
30: Tennessee Titans-I’m throwing away my Cam Ward stock like it’s a cryptocurrency.
31: Cleveland Browns-I don’t know about everyone else, but i’m pretty excited to see what goes horribly wrong next for this franchise. My guess? A freak late season tornado rips the scoreboard off the stadium and crashes it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
3,852,943,211,560: Reading online discourse over the past week
3,852,943,211,561: New Orleans Saints-Not only are they 0-2, but those were both home games. Not that their fans know. They are too busy drinking mudslides out of an alligator skull.
Who’s Having a Worse Week than Saints Fans
Cracker Barrel executives. The first earnings reports since their failed rebrand came out, and it was bad enough to send shares tumbling on the day. The stock peaked in late July at around 77 dollars per share, and as of Wednesday night, is down to 44 dollars in after hours trading. THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR TAKING THE FOLKSINESS OUT OF YOUR LOGO YOU SONUVABITCHES! But seriously, even though the new logo was dumb, the meltdown people had over it was definitely dumber.
Fantasy Player That Ruined Your Week
Omarion Hampton-I’m starting to realize that Hampton might just be the byproduct of the fact that we, as a society, need to endlessly consume every opinion out there, meaning that every opinion exists, and then there are opinions to those opinions, and counter opinions, and hangers on to the original opinion, and so on and on.
Hampton looks ruthlessly average, which is ironic, because his backfield teammate Najee Harris is as ruthlessly average as it gets when it comes to NFL running backs.
Far too many people were jumping on the “Omarion Hampton could be better than Ashton Jeanty” bandwagon when it should have been derailed before leaving the station. While he hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, either, Jeanty was arguably one of the best players in college football last year. He was a highlight reel who gave you an actual reason to watch Sportscenter on Saturday nights. Hampton was just a guy who should have been used to contrast how good Jeanty was. Instead, because there are no consequences to the stupid things you say online, Hampton got hyped up the board. There is a nearly 100 person chance that Quinshon Judkins ends up having a better career than Hampton.
Thursday Night Bets To Ruin Your Weekend
Miami Dolphins spread/Under 49.5 point parlay: +256. Remember earlier what I said about Thursday night games? Well, this is a Thursday night game. I have no doubt that the Bills are going to win this game, and they might even win easily. But this game has 27-20 written all over it.
The Games
Until further notice, this is how lazy I intend to be about this section.
Gambling Lock
Green Bay -7.5(-105) on the road against the Browns. The Browns gave the Ravens their best punch. They won’t be able to do it again.
Gambling Long Shot
Philadelphia Alternate Spread -6.5 + Houston Texans Alternate Spread -3.5: +619. The Rams looks infinitely beatable, while the Texans are due for a win, and I refuse to believe that Jacksonville should be giving points. Ever.
Degenerate Bet
Buccaneers/Bills/Eagles/Colts/Packers/Seahawks/Chiefs/Falcons 8 team money line parlay: +902. I’ve gone 7-1 in each of the first two weeks this season. I can feel 8-0.
Fancy Boys Club 