Let me start by first saying the obvious: Fuck Cancer. Let me continue by saying something else that is obvious: Norm Macdonald was one of the best, smartest, and most loved comedians that ever lived. The way he told jokes put him in a class all of his own. He never seemed to care about the trends of comedy. He never mattered much for kissing the ring of the latest sensation in stand up. For nearly five decades, he just went out and was quintessentially Norm Macdonald, a character nobody else could possibly play.
If your social media is anything like mine, the last half week has been filled with people angry at President Biden’s announced vaccine mandate. To summarize in case you haven’t picked up the internet: if your business has over 100 employees, they all have to be vaccinated or tested weekly or your business could suffer financial penalties.
“Tyranny,” some have cried out. “This is pure madness by a government gone wrong!” Granted, most of those people have been big gaping sacks of dumb, but they have a voice and we should consider what they’re saying. After all, we have to accept that there are people who just aren’t going to get vaccinated.
Not only that, but there’s good news: those same dummies crying “Tyranny!” are the same numbskulls who are going to fix another one of our nation’s current problems. I’ve figured it all out.
A while back, toward the beginning of the baseball season when every team except the Pirates, Rockies, and Orioles thought they might have a chance to make it to the playoffs, I wrote two articles.
Article Uno was the before the season really got underway and I explained how this year might – note the word might – be one of the easiest on record to predict regarding who will make it to the World Series. I said the Yankees and the Dodgers. The Dodgers, were 5 games back as of last week and are now one-and-a-half games back, and are still the NL favorite as well as the only team sitting at a whopping 23% chance to win the whole she-bang. Oh, gross.
Let’s take a long look at that – in spite of the surprising Giants, the Dodgers are catching up quickly. Mostly it’s a strength-of-schedule issue. The Giants simply have a harder schedule down the stretch. The Giants have the desperate Padres 7x in the next month. The Padres have completely drained their ‘sure bet’ playoff appearance by completely sucking in July and August. July they went 11-14 and for August they are sitting at 8-10 with three games against the Dodgers coming up this week. I hope they pound the Dodgers but odds aren’t good. Plus, they have 3 more versus the Dodgers in September and a whopping 7 against the Giants.
They are so bad they picked up Jake Arrieta. That’s a sign things won’t be going well for them for the next 5 weeks. Naturally, Arrieta’s first game may be his only one. We all knew he’d suck, he did, and suddenly got a hamstring issue. I fixed the headline for MLB.
Every year, I start these previews with the best of intentions. To talk some shit, have some fun, and preview the start of the football season. But by the time I hit the end every year, I want nothing more than to jump into a time machine and beat my own ass for thinking this is a good idea. The end is just me hoping i’m not reusing insults and puns and whatnot.
After this, i’m taking a few days off to not stare at my laptop. Then that will last about a day. Next week, i’m going to be bringing your my division picks, awards candidates, Super bowl pick, and what not. The week after that, i’ll drop my first Power Rankings, which is always going to be a little more sad when I don’t have Adam Gase to make fun of. Additionally, next week, over on Football Absurdity, i’m going to drop my first gambling article of the season, going over every team’s Super Bowl odds. After that, i’ll do a weekly column every Thursday over there an talk about my favorite bets of the gambling week.
That’s what you do when you truly, deeply hate something. You double down and do even more of it! Now let’s check otu the NFC West!
Much like Prince at a club in the 80’s, this division bores me. There is one good team and three teams that are already building their draft boards for next season. The Super Bowl champions reside in this division. But so does a team that decided to embark on the Sam Darnold Reclamation Project. Jameis is back! But so is Matt Ryan 😦
Well, it’s almost over at least. Both the anticipation for the rest of the season and me having to pretend to be excited to write about some of these teams. Lets get on with it. The NFC South, everyone.
It could have been so easy. It was right there for the taking. It took one decision to change everything. The axis of power forever thrown off it’s axle and for once a chance given to so many. ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS HIRE AARON RODGERS, JEOPARDY, YOU BASTARDS!
But no, instead King Shit Mustache is back to lord over the division again. Aaron Rodgers is like the band Kiss. He keeps threatening to leave our lives, making most of us happy. Then they keep coming back, infuriating everyone but a set of fat, white people. I’ve watched the preseason quite a bit because i’m dead on the inside. I like to make fun of the other shitty divisions in the NFL, but there is a genuine chance the Packers will have locked the division up by Thanksgiving. The quarterback situations range from “fans already booing the quarterback( Andy Dalton)” to “fans are hoping their quarterback gets a bad case of covid (Kirk Cousins)” to “eh, who the fuck cares anymore (Jared Goff).”
If you are going to anoint them, then just fucking anoint them. Let’s do the NFC North.
Oh yes. oh god, yes. I do these previews every year for one reason. To just asolutely shit on this moribound, pathetic division. Every team in this division deserves to be thrown into low orbit. Their pure existence is proof that bad things exist. It is the Nickelback of football divisions. The Guy Fieri of teams that don’t deserve the national television love they get.
Now would be a good time to remind everyone that the winner of the NFC East had a 7-9 record. Even in a division this bad, nobody in this godforsaken bracket could get fat enough of playing these terrible teams to get to a .500 record. None of them deserved to make the playoffs and at least Washington had the good sense to fuck off quietly in the first round to the eventual Super Bowl champions. But my god. The amount of trash you have to set on fire to burn the energy needed to make this epileptic syndicate of garbage teams with even bigger dirt bag ownership is almost unprecedented.
Welcome to the AFC West, which is ruled by one team until their quarterback leaves. Outside of the AFC East, this might be the most one sided division in the NFL. In one corner, you have the back to back AFC Champions. In the other three corners, you have a bunch of Barry Horowitz’s that are stepping in buckets and accidentally lighting themselves on fire and stabbing their own players in the lung.
The division is entertaining at the top end, because two of the teams have good quarterbacks. Two of the teams have rusty dildos playing the most important position in football. Those two teams aren’t entertaining. Alright, the week is almost over, lets get through this together. Welcome to the AFC West.
Well, damnit. I knew i’d inevitably have to do it. It’s a feeling of existential dread. I keep looking away from my computer. I keep looking for something else to do. I take the dogs for a walk. I wash some dishes. But I have to return to this computer. This sucks. This is so stupid.
I really do not want to have to write about the AFC South.
The AFC South is the sad steamed vegetable on the dinner plate. It is Creed in the era of Limp BIzkit. It is Crocs as a fashion statement. It exists to fill a void. It exists because it has to. It joylessly does it’s job and is only enjoyed by the type of people who keep TGI Fridays in business. It’s a combination of both the dumpiest and least interesting places on earth. The fact that these teams aren’t all just forced to play eachother every Wednesday morning instead of wasting anybodies weekend truly feels like a waste. Fuck it. Let’s just get into it.
Every division in the AFC feels pretty cut and dry. The Bills in the East. Chiefs in the West. Tennessee in the South. But then there is the AFC North. Every other division is a slap fight at an Arbys at 2am. The North is Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield. It is a full on heavyweight fiiiiiiight. Last year, the traditional powers were met by the unexpected Cleveland Browns arrival into the top tier. Last year, three teams in the division won at least 11 games. To put that in perspective, any of these teams would have clinched the NFC East by Thanksgiving.
The AFC North is a good reason for the entire concept of divisions and conferences in the NFL to be abolished. So everyone that can win as many games as the good teams in the North did last year can get their fair shake in the playoffs, and teams like the entire NFC East can be shot at the sun for their sins against this sport.
Will it happen this way again? Probably not. Attrition in the NFL is a very real thing. Also, at least two teams in this division have regression written all over them. Either way, all eyes should be on this division this season. This is where the big boys play and it’s going to be must watch television all season long. Let’s take a look at the AFC North.
