The 2014 NFL Offseason Has Proved That Free Agency Hyperactivity Is At An All Time High, and Two May Soon Be The New Three…

Former Giants Defensive end Justin Tuck looks forward to another explosive sub-.500 season in a different jersey

Now that NFL free agency has kind of slowed down, we’ve really had the opportunity to sit back and let it soak in. We’ve seen franchise guys move around, and with every passing year it seems to surprise us less. As very well that it should, because free agency is crazy these days.

As you very well may know, I am a diehard New York Giants fan. The Giants had their most active offseason in recent history where they made some decent acquisitions, even garnering a B+ rating from their beat writer on NFL.com. They have brought back WR Mario Manningham, signed corner Walter Thurmond from the Seattle Seahawks and acquired a big name in Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie to help him try and repair that less than impenetrable New York Giants secondary amongst several other players. For the first time in as long as I remember, they really impressed me by going out of their way to make bold moves.

But as Dubsism would say…Here’s the $64,000 question: Did the Giants finally decide to make moves based on the way that they are going to run their own franchise for the next ten years; or did they make moves based on the way that they rest of the league seems to be losing their patience with players who do not perform? I personally think this is a case of monkey-see, monkey-do. The New York Giants will never be trendsetters; the franchise is just simply too old and doesn’t have what it takes to stick their neck out and lead the way due to their football-oriented conservative fanbase and ownership. So I believe that they have finally just caught up with the rest of the league, but in their defense the rest of this league has moved really fast. Just think about what’s happened this offseason already…

QB Notes: Painter Returns to Giants, Schaub to Oakland

Originally posted at http://www.obscureathletes.com

Matt Schaub always looks like the guy who drank too much at your party, and is just waking up at 11:30 in the morning after having passed out on your couch. So of course the Raiders had to bring him in. The Texans shipped the one-time fantasy football star turned Houston washout to the Bay Area for a sixth-round pick in May’s draft. By my count, the Raiders have started fourteen different quarterbacks since Rich Gannon won the NFL MVP by throwing checkdown after checkdown to Tyrone Wheatley and Charlie  Garner. That year, the Raiders won the AFC. Schaub is no Rich Gannon, but hey–he can’t be worse than Matt Flynn.

Curtis Painter, the man most remembered as a week 17 hero, and subsequent winless starter in Indianapolis, re-upped with the Giants last week. Painter has spent his entire career in the league backing up one Manning or another, and will once again sport a clipboard for Eli in 2014. Last year, Painter completed 8 out of 16 throws, for 57 yards. He threw no touchdowns and was intercepted twice. The 28-year old has a career passer rating of 57.6, and has thrice as many career turnovers (18) as touchdown passes thrown (6).  Hey, who wouldn’t want to bring this guy back?

Don’t look now, but Joe Webb is BACK! The Quarterback/wide receiver signed with the Panthers over the weekend. Webb has said he has no interest in playing quarterback ever again, and I’m sure Cam Newton is happy to be free from the pressure Webb would no doubt put on him. Webb caught five passes last season, and his production should be more than enough to make up for the losses of Steve Smith, Brandon LaFell and Ted Ginn.

 

SBM Exclusive: Conversations Not Meant To Be Public – Tom Coughlin and Giants’ Backup Quarterback Curtis Painter

by J-Dub and Meehan

When a football team becomes a train wreck, much like the New York Giants have become, sometimes the concept of “team” starts to show cracks. As we have been prone to do in this series, we find those cracks and expose them to you, the blog-reading public.

It seems that several such cracks have surfaced with the New York Giants. We recently illustrated one such crack between slacker quarterback and Nazi-wannabe Tom Coughlin. Well, it just so happens that we here at Sports Blog Movement intercepted* another such conversation between Coughlin and back-up quarterback Curtis Painter in which Painter is clearly trying to curry Coughlin’s favor.

*Legal Disclaimer – J-Dub and Meehan have a strange way of defining certain terms. “Intercepted” should be read as “completely fucking fabricated” by these two jamokes during yet another of their nights spent making Pine-Sol and Sterno shooters until 6 a.m. Despite that, we here at Sports Blog Movement would be willing to bet these guys probably aren’t far from the truth…

What We Learned From Week 7 of the 2013 NFL Season

By J-Dub and Meehan

Yet another week has passed in the sportsgasm that is the NFL season, and that means it is time for us to tell you some things you need to know without the self-serving spin those assbags at ESPN will never give you. We know this because if you think you can get real football information from whichever fat-bag ex-player they’ve trotted out who makes a $1,500 suit look like a bursting sausage casing with buttons, you probably also didn’t know that kit-flying is a professional sport in Thailand.

Think about that the next time you want to tell us how much soccer sucks.

1) Your Official Dr. Kelly Brackett NFL Death Watch:

We started this bit a few weeks ago, and in addition to the death certificates we mailed out last week, there’s another autopsy report to share with you.

Minnesota Vikings:

• Cause of Death: Multiple Organ Failure
• Autopsy Report: This  death didn’t exactly have an obscure pathology. Taking a guy who got run out of town by the most dysfunctional franchise in the NFL (holy living fuck, for the first time this century that phrase is not being used in reference to the Oakland Raiders) and making him your starting quarterback is like taking a needle from the arm of an Ebola patient and using it to shoot 30 cc’s of battery acid into your eyeball. Make no mistake, this team is dead. If it wasn’t the fact that you saw the Giants spreading Josh Freeman all over the turf like he was 250 pounds of Jif Extra Creamy Peanut Butter, if it wasn’t the fact that Adrian Peterson couldn’t get anywhere with the ball, then the sight of Christian Ponder sitting on the sidelines knowing full well he will never see the field again had to tell Viking fans everywhere this team is done.  The part that is hard for us to understand is that Ponder was HUGE in the Vikes’ playoff run last season, so what happened? He suddenly didn’t get any more mediocre; he’s been amazingly consistent in his level of meh. The simple fact is the entire team got worse.

SBM Exclusive: Conversations Not Meant To Be Public – Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning

by J-Dub and Meehan

When a football team becomes a train wreck, much like the New York Giants have become, sometimes the concept of “team” starts to show cracks. As we have been prone to do in this series, we find those cracks and expose them to you, the blog-reading public.

It seems that just such a crack has surfaced with the New York Giants. for quite a while, there have been rumors that Eli Manning may not be the most disciplined quarterback out there, and that may be a problem for Nazi-wannabe Tom Coughlin. We here at Sports Blog Movement intercepted* a conversation between these two that may bear out Eli’s lackadaisical nature.

*Legal Disclaimer – J-Dub and Meehan have a strange way of defining certain terms. “Intercepted” should be read as “completely fucking fabricated” by these two jamokes during yet another of their nights spent snorting Pixie Sticks and D-Con until 6 a.m. Despite that, we here at Sports Blog Movement would be willing to bet these guys probably aren’t far from the truth…

What We Learned From Week Six of the 2013 NFL Season

by J-Dub and Meehan

Yet another week has passed in the sportsgasm that is the NFL season, and that means it is time for us to tell you some things you need to know without the self-serving spin those assbags at ESPN will never give you. We know this because if you think you can get real football information from guys like Mike Greemberg and Mike Golic, you probably also don’t know that Alfred Kinsey, author of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948), had a collection of 5 million wasps and could insert a toothbrush into his penis, bristle-end first.

You know that bit of knowledge just changed your life. Now, here’s some football facts that will do the same.

1) Your Official Dr. Kelly Brackett NFL Death Watch:

We started this bit last week, and it’s already time to mail out some death certificates.

New York Giants:

• Cause of Death: Chronic Turnover Syndrome
• Autopsy Report:  After eight interceptions in the fourth quarters of the first six games, Eli Manning is once again reduced to being the one in the family who’s going through a rough stretch.  This has caused Eli and the Giants to let their injuries absolutely destroy their chances of being successful.  The 2012-2013 New York Giants season has become the longest tip drill in history.

Jacksonville Jaguars:

• Cause of Death:  Self-inflicted gunshot wound to genital area
• Autopsy Report:  Even when it appeared that they were hanging with a good team, the Jaguars proved that they have no real firepower, except when it comes to shooting themselves.

Atlanta Falcons:

• Cause of Death:  Burst rectum from repeated anal rape with a sharp object
• Autopsy Report: The Falcons training center is starting to look like Jonestown 15 minutes after they made the Kool-Aid.  With the popularity of companies using temp services to provide labor for their short-term needs combined with the fact the Falcons are blowing out their knees putting on their shoes, the Atlanta Falcons medical staff now employs 15% of the U.S. population.

Oakland Raiders:

• Cause of Death: Hit by a semi loaded with flaming double-edged razor blades
• Autopsy Report: The fact that their two “best” receivers are Denarius Moore and Rod Streater means the offense ranks 27th in passing.  That translates to  gets you 7 fucking points a game if they are lucky.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

• Cause Of Death: Acute Schiano-itis
• Autopsy Report: Forget about the fact this team has more problems with MRSA than John Holmes had with AIDS.  Do we really need to do an autopsy on a team that has gone 0-3 at home and probably couldn’t beat the Jaguars right now.

Pittsburgh Steelers:

• Cause of Death: Old Age
• Autopsy Report:  Most likely available on the entire server Drunkathlete.com has allocated to Ben Roethlisberger. Sure, that’s not new stuff, but losing means all your foibles get rehashed by bloggers who do little more than eat Hot Pockets and masturbate to pictures of Linda Cohn. This death is even stranger from a franchise that both has no sense of urgency and usually doesn’t put up with this kind of shit.

2) Teams that Dropped to the Critical List:

Houston Texans:

We know, we know…There’s still ten games left in the season, and a lot can happen in that time, but let’s not kid anybody here.  This team is one re-run of Grey’s Anatomy away from a dirt nap.  There is no conceivable way that the Houston Texans play past December.  Really, getting the Rams at home should have been a fucking gift; instead, the Texans turned it into the Christmas tree that burns the house down.  Not only did the Texans lick more taint than Andy Dick in a Turkish bath house, they did so in a stadium and in front of a crowd meant to scare the shit out of opposing teams.   The  Texans looked uninspired, uncaring, and unworthy of January football.  Right now, we are calling the Texans will not make playoffs; you have to remember that it only took us both six weeks to bail on the team we had in the Super Bowl from the AFC. The only question really left in Houston is this the year finally the one which ends with the “Koob” getting fired.

Minnesota Vikings:

The horror that is the Vikings’ season really could be all 856 of those Friday the 13th movies. Just when you think it’s over, just when the sheriff shows up at the lakeside cabin and empties his 12-gauge through the face mask of the slasher, the killer pops back up, rips the sheriff’s face off and the horror continues. Put hockey masks on whichever heap the Vikings are trotting out as a quarterback and the concept becomes as clear as used Neutrogena.

Not only was getting slam-fucked by the Panthers the worst showing of this ghastly Vikings’ season so far, but let’s talk about the really scary question we won’t dare mention. Suffice it to say that we know Christian Ponder was not the answer. Matt Cassel is not the answer, and if anybody thinks Josh Freeman is the answer, this unmentionable question will keep coming back to life like the horror movie slasher.

There’s actually a simple reason for this.  Instead of putting the slasher through a wood-chipper and setting the bits on fire, the Vikings continually think they can solve the problem by giving the killer a shaving nick, then going back into the cabin to the naked, horny teen-agers who get machetes through their eyeballs. Josh Freeman is just another in a long line of shaving nicks that have finally bled the Vikings out.

3) Week Six proved to be the Bye Week for Offenses

Just look at all the teams who had offensive performances like watching a blind seal work a Rubik’s Cube…

Houston Texans: The progression from Matt Schaub to T.J. Yates is like going from HIV to full-blown AIDS (Yes, that’s the second AIDS joke we’ve made. Go dig up Ryan White and cry to him if you don’t like it).

Oakland Raiders: To make our “blind seal” analogy work for the Raiders, the seal is not only blind, but is wearing boxing gloves and it’s flipper’s are loaded with pharmacuetical-grade cocaine.

Minnesota Vikings: Time for this week’s “Fun with Homophones” moment.  The Vikings are describing their offensive situation as being “week to week,” largely because that’s really what their quarterback situation is all about. But, it really could also be called “weak to weak.”

Tennessee Titans: One of several teams with exactly zero offensive touchdowns.  Their only touchdown came from the Seahawks’ decision to have a “Garo Yepremien” moment.  Only touchdown was a result of a single play that was botched from the get go.

Pittsburgh Steelers: See above, with the difference being Pittsburgh’s only touchdown came from a play that came off the chalkboard broken. Sure, the Steelers won, but beating the Geno Smith-led Jets is really just getting a ribbon at the Special Olympics.  Honestly, the only time the Steelers looked good in the air was on a single play where the Jets’ coverage was worse than CNN’s quadrennial election special.  What we’re saying is even Wolf Blitzer could play man coverage against the Steelers and he wouldn’t even need to change his Fruit of the Looms. 

New York Jets: Geno Smith is just a fetal Josh Freeman. Next…

Washington Redskins: We said this last week, and we’ll say it again. The “read-option” concept without the threat of a running game is about as dangerous as a girl scout with rubber numchucks.  A while ago, J-Dub did a piece chronicling the connection between the Washington Redskins and Andre the Giant.  If the Redskins don’t figure out their lack of offensive prowess soon, Robert Griffin III might start looking more like Andre Ware. 

4) Joe Flacco Is Being Reduced to $120 million Plankton

Everybody is just eating Joe Flacco up, especially large marine filter-feeders. The man who rolled through the play-offs last year like an apex-predator shark has now been reduced to microscopic plankton the the seas of the NFL. sure, he showed a flash of the Flacco of old yesterday with that two-touchdown comeback in the 4th quarter quarter against the Packers, but the fact he and the Ravens came up short has been a microcosm of the Baltimore season, especially since Flacco started doing those god-awful McDonald’s commercials.

The Ravens offense, led by Flacco, has been as impotent as Wilford Brimley chuffing anti-Viagra; we all saw it Sunday against the Clay Matthews-less Packers.  Baltimore didn’t get a first rushing first down until the end of the third quarter, and they still should have won this game because the defense was handing out more knee damage than the baseball-bat scene at the end of Casino.  The failings of the Ravens so far this season is all about Flacco.

5) The whole “Tom Brady/Peyton Manning” conversation is ridiculous, because Brady can win when it matters.

As a “big game” quarterback, Tom Brady is now, and will always be better than Peyton Manning.  Sunday was just the latest example why. And Sunday we saw exactly why. When 98% of guys who’ve started at quarterback in the NFL  since the mid-1980s would have hung their head and declared the moment a loss, especially after that bizarre Bill Belichick 4th-down call that should have lost the game for  New England, and after the Patriots’ most experienced wide receiver got hurt, Brady gutted up and led the shell of the Patriots’ on a game-winning drive over a legitimate Super Bowl contender in the New Orleans Saints.

Meanwhile, Peyton Manning went out and stumbled through an ugly win against an even uglier team in Jacksonville. It was obvious during large stretches during that Bronco-Jaguar game that Manning was mailing this one in, particularly when he gift-wrapped that pick-six to Jacksonville linebacker Paul Pozlusny. While we could, we won’t bore you with yet another rundown of Peyton Manning’s “big-game” failures. Instead, let’s just look at the moments of truth we saw on Sunday.

Peyton Manning looked pretty mediocre against a team of NFL rejects, all while he has an offense stocked with weapons suited to his liking; meanwhile Brady has an offense made from a slightly-better class of NFL rejects whom are 5-1 largely for no other fucking reason than Tom Brady. But the biggest moment came in the 4th quarter in New England, when not only did Brady pull out the most-improbable of victories, he did so after throwing one of the most hair-brained and confusing picks you’ll ever see leave his fingertips.  Brady is headed to the Hall of Fame based on his ability to be a big man in big situations, even if his team has done a wonderful job of failing him in the past few years.

Now, having said that, it is important to point out the Patriots may easily be the worst 5-1 team we’ve ever seen, and we sure as shit understand there are a ton of haters out who want to jump all over the Patriots, and to many of you, we have this to say…

6) There are far too many Patriots’ fans who are stupid Yuppie fuckwads who prematurely bailed on this team.

Gillette Stadium in the 4th quarter.

What happened yesterday in Gillette Stadium proves what J-Dub said about a lot of Patriot fans a long time ago.  The fact the tens of thousands of “Patriots Fans” heard Brady’s comeback drive on their car radios is an absolute fucking disgrace.  The “wine and cheese” crowd in Foxboro decided “beating traffic” was more important that hanging around for the outcome of a game that could prove pivotal in New England’s entire season.  Yeah, we get they may be the worst 5-1 team ever, but the fact remains they are still 5-1.  Considering the fact the Patriots were within a score of winning against a Super Bowl contender, and that the Broncos are going to lose eventually means many so-called “Patriot Fans” bailed on a moment which looks to have HUGE play-off implications.

Despite that, they turned their back on a guy that has led them to three Super Bowls; a guy who got the ball back two separate times with a solid chance to win after the “fans” headed for the parking lot.  All you had to do was wait for the obligatory “crowd” shots during that game to see that least half the “crowd” left in the middle of the 4th quarter.  People like this make us here at SBM want to force feed them their own methane gas.

The “I want to beat traffic” people are all useless pieces of shit who shouldn’t even be at sporting events in the first fucking place.  They should all be at home looking up what Cat Stevens changed his name to after he converted to Islam. These are the same assholes who wanted to get out of that parking lot because despite their “hardcore big city mentality” there is a hole in their soul that would widen substantially if somebody were to scratch their Prius. Worse yet, their Dave Matthews Band CD might skip and they might spill some Samuel Adams “Autumn Northeastern Liberal Prick” all over their cargo shorts.

These people are not real fans. These people couldn’t name position players, they’re there because their cousin (who follows the remaining members of Grateful Dead around the country) got tickets. They figured since the dank from Vermont wasn’t coming in until later that night, they might as well go a football game because it would increase the number of times they said “Hell yeah, dude” without getting punched in the throat.

EVEN THE DEVIL WOULDN’T RECOGNIZE YOU

By Ryan Meehan

On Sunday the Giants dropped to 0-5 after they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles 36-21, at home no less.  David Wilson left the game around the midway point and would not return.  Eli’s numbers were far from impressive and/or tolerable, and it was yet another an all-around weak defensive performance when you consider Michael Vick (One of the Eagles’ most athletic player without a doubt) also left the game early.

My father told me about an article on Sports Illustrated’s subscriber feed that cited the 15 biggest disappointments in the NFL.  The Giants held three of them.  Hakeem Nicks was one, and the Giants offensive line was another.

The other was Eli Manning.  (Actually, he was number one overall)  Although Eli has had his share of unlucky moments in this first third of the season, eventually when it’s not working it doesn’t matter who’s fault it is.

What We Learned From Week Three of the 2013 NFL Season

by J-Dub and Meehan

Yet another week has passed in the sportsgasm that is the NFL season, and that means it is time for us to tell you some things you need to know without the self-serving spin those assbags at ESPN will never give you. We know this because if you think you can get real football information from guys like Chris Mortenson and Adam Schefter, you probably also don’t know that everything at Taco Bell is made of the same five elemental ingredients and that they all end up in the same place.  Speaking of which…

1) The Cleveland Browns have already flushed the 2013 season.

Calcutta – The Cleveland of India.

This is just the Browns way of saying they have flushed on 2013 and are stocking up on picks for 2014. But that’s not always a bad thing.  If you never flush your toilet, your house will become Calcutta in about a week. Cleveland has already had it’s river catch fire more than once; the last thing they need is cattle running loose in the streets trampling children with flies on their faces.

Don’t pay attention to the fact they beat the Vikings after trading their best offensive player and started a third-string quarterback who couldn’t make the roster with the Arizona Cardinals.  Never mind the fact that how they ripped the guts out of Viking fans may be a hate crime in at least 23 states. What this all comes down to is the Browns are auditioning guys for draft day trades in 2014.  Believe it or not, the Browns have some depth almost everywhere except the offensive “skill” positions. This team is young, and with the right number of draft picks and the right decisions using them, they could end up with more positional talent than a copy of the Kama Sutra.

For old guys like J-Dub, well…those guys long for the Sam Rutigliano-led Cleveland “Cardiac Kids” of the 1970’s, and curse the Browns inability to recover from Earnest Byner’s notorious fumble in the 1987 AFC Championship Game.

For the younger guys like Meehan, the good news is that by this time next year, half of the current Cleveland Browns will be working at the Quad Cities Mall with them, and you just know those guys will have some pretty cool stories to tell about the Hooters in Akron. Face it, when you live in Bettendorf, Iowa, Akron is the fucking “City of Lights.” However, the bad news is that there is every chance that this new management approach in Cleveland may be (to quote Roger Daltrey)  just an exercise in “meet the new boss…same as the old boss.”

This is the part where we have to join in an ESPN-style speculation-fest as to what are the Browns planning to do with two first-round draft picks, one of which is as guaranteed to end up in the top three as it was that one of the “Saved by the Bell” girls was going to end up on a stripper pole. We don’t mean in the movies, either. Lark Voorhies, if you are reading this, please drop us a line…we’re concerned about you…really. In any event, it seems the pointy-heads at the World Wide Bottom Feeder seem to think this makes it metaphysical certainty that Johnny Football will be getting his mail in northeastern Ohio about ten months from now.

What We Learned From Week Two of the 2013 NFL Season

by J-Dub and Meehan

Yet another week has passed in the sportsgasm that is the NFL season, and that means it is time for us to tell you some things you need to know without the self-serving spin those assbags at ESPN will never give you. We know this because if you think you can get real football information from guys like Merrill Hoge and Trent Dilfer, you probably also think the earth is flat and that Kennedy was assassinated by Daffy Duck.

1) Either the Jets aren’t that bad, or the Patriots aren’t that good: Pick one. 

Let’s just cut through the bullshit here; the Patriots aren’t that good.  When you see Tom Brady mugging, screaming, and eye-rolling at his receivers, you know that Patriots offense is more out-of-sync than a 1985 Yugo with bad spark plugs.  In contrast, when the Orlando Magic were in their heyday, Shaquille O’Neal once famously called coach Stan Van Gundy the “master of panic.”  Bill Belichick couldn’t be more opposite when it comes  to being so stoic people are worried pigeons might start shitting on him, but make no mistake. Brady’s antics show there is panic in Foxboro.

If you are the Patriots, this is exactly the time to start panicking. In all fairness, the Patriots could easily be 0-2.  There’s exactly four points separating them from being winless. They haven’t covered the spread yet. They were beat by Buffalo for 59 minutes, and they played down to the level of the sorry-ass Jets, so we can clearly understand why there’s a panic breaking out in New England.  For all of us who have had to suffer through the pretentious attitude Patriot fans are known for, we love hearing the panic in your voices, because it’s better than your tacky Boston accent that sounds like somebody left an audio interview of Godsmack on in the background.

What We Learned From Week One of the 2013 NFL Season

By J-Dub and Ryan Meehan

Without any further fanfare, let’s just get to the stuff week one of the NFL season showed us.

1) Peyton Manning’s performance hid the fact the Broncos’ defense sucks.

If Thursday night taught us anything, it’s that the Broncos are indeed going to struggle on the defensive side of the ball.  By “struggle,” we’re talking something akin to a turtle on its back getting gang-raped by a group of Hell’s Angels all to an all Kenny G soundtrack. If you consider all of the mistakes that Baltimore made offensively, the fact that Denver gave up 27 points is pretty pathetic.  Ray Rice is a pretty solid “yards after contact” guy, but against the Ponies defense, he got more second chances than Robert Downey Jr.

Not to mention, we aren’t even counting the mistake made on the interception return that by all that is right in the football universe should have resulted in yet another Broncos’ touchdown. This is where Danny Trevathan had a “Honey Badger meets DeSean Jackson” level brain-fart. After making the pick, and cruising to what should have been the “pick-six” part of this, he inexplicably released the ball before he crossed the goal line in a momentary lapse of judgment reminiscent of a young DeSean Jackson.  As you would hope, Denver defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio ripped Trevathan’s ass open like he was Edward Norton in the prison shower scene in American History X, because Denver can’t expect Grandpa Manning to chuck 7 touchdowns every week.   

Besides, expecting Fetushead Manning to bail you out on a weekly basis is a reasonably solid plan in the regular season, it’s going to kill Denver in the play-offs.  Given the past history, Manning will get you a shit-load of wins between September and  December, but in January he becomes as dependable as a nine dollar cell phone. The problem is that after Thursday, Bronco Nation is “all in” on that phone you wouldn’t trust your grandmother’s life with; they now expect that every time the elder Manning brother steps onto the field, he is going to throw more successful scoring passes than a 1970’s Warren Beatty with a sugar bowl full of coke.  This will prove to be like expecting Wendy’s employee to give a lecture on nuclear fission in between the time it takes after you’ve consumed an entire a double Baconator combo meal with extra cheese and mayonnaise and when you regain consciousness staring up at the paramedics.

A championship-level NFL defense is supposed to dominate opposing offenses like the Red Army rolled through Prague in 1968.  Without Von Miller until week 7, and with no real replacement for Elvis Dumervil, the Bronco idea of defense is a bit like Saddam Hussein promising the “Mother of all Battles” while rolling out to meet the U.S. Marine Corps with a half-dozen Buick LeSabres.  To keep the military analogies going, the Ravens played the role of France as they let der grüppenfuhrer  Manning goose-step down the Champs-Elyseés while they were busy worrying about how to properly stomp the wine grapes.

But not everybody is going to lay down for the Blitzkrieg like Baltimore did.  To win in January, eventually this Bronco defense is going to have to show it can stop somebody.