What We Learned From Week 14 of the 2013 NFL Season – The “Truth Or Lies” Edition, Part II

By J-Dub and Meehan

As we have been doing all season, we are breaking down things that you need to know as we head into the play-offs. As we get closer, that means that issues with team get more magnified. That also means that a lot of assumptions that have been held about the teams who are still play-off contenders become true or get exposed as just another pack of lies. So, without any further adieu, here are this week’s questions…

1) Truth or Lie: Nick Foles is the real deal

Meehan’s Thoughts for the Day 11/22/13

In the sports world there are certain things that as writers that call for us to voice our opinions, yet don’t warrant an entire column in their honor. So from this point forward, I’ll be popping in from time to time to let you know what I think about some of the recent happenings in sports. Let’s get started…

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.

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM WEEK THREE OF THE PRESEASON, PART ONE

Above: Frustration sets in

by Ryan Meehan

Thursday night began the beginning of week three in the NFL preseason.  While a majority of the preseason is useless, week three is usually the last game where the first string guys start so it holds a little bit of water.  Not much, but seriously – How big does your bathtub need to be?

Needless to say, there were a few things that I picked up from the first two days of this weekend nonetheless.  Although the games do not count in the standings, there are some warning signs that can alert us as to what might happen once the games do finally begin to matter.  This will be the first part of a two part series where I outline what I saw in the Thursday and Friday games…

Eight Simple Rules for Winning Your Fantasy Football League

People seem to think that Fantasy Football is this vast and complicated game. Everyone creates their own player ranking system and participates in mock draft after mock draft. They stress over match-ups and have a heart attack when they realize their two best players have the same bye week. Fantasy Football is not a science. You can never predict the amount of fantasy points a player will put up from week to week. Most of the time, it’s completely random.

With that said, there is a system that you can use that will help you at least give yourself a chance to win your league. I’ve used it in the past with great success. It doesn’t involve player rankings or mock drafts. All you really need is a general understanding of NFL teams and how the NFL game is played. Here are eight rules, which if followed will at the least, put you in position to win your Fantasy Football league. Because when it comes down to it, your fate is mostly up to chance.

1. Understand the Nature of the NFL

The first step to winning a Fantasy Football league is coming to grips with the fact that you can never be the reason that your team wins, but you can sure as hell be the reason that it loses. NFL coaches aren’t concerned with fantasy points. They’re more concerned with keeping their job and pissing away valuable years of their lives. The sooner you realize this, the better off you’ll be. To that point, players will have off games. Either because they weren’t featured in the game plan that week or maybe they just had a bad game. Players will always regress to their mean. If you have a good player, don’t bench him after one bad game or even two bad games. If you’re confident that he’s a good player, ride out the slump until he gets back on track.

TIM TEBOW TO THE PATRIOTS AND JASON KIDD WANTING TO COACH THE NETS: TWO IDEAS I CAN GET BEHIND‏

by Ryan Meehan

There are a couple developing sports stories I’d like to discuss briefly, and one of them I can honestly say I didn’t see coming.  Feel free to use the comments section to weigh in on what you expect out of these two situations, that’s what that space is for. 

2013 NFL Draft: Unnecesary Mock Draft #12,402,387 Ver. 1.3

Since the mid to late 90’s most teams outside of Dallas and Washington realized that the key ingredient in the recipe for NFL success included a generous amount of astute drafting. Free-agency is useful for short term solutions and adding a last final piece. But since the invention of the salary cap the teams that have spent the most on free-agent contracts have more often than not been very disappointed.

Conversely the teams that have found the win column with more regularity than the rest have done their best work in April, not March. The only times teams like Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New York (Giants) or Green Bay is mentioned in free agency is, for the most part, when some other team signs one of their players. It took some teams longer to figure this out but over the last two decades teams have scaled back their free agent spending and focused more on the draft.

Until this year. Actually, until this past week.

(Read the full story here.)

Super Bowl XLVII Prediction: Potato Chips

As in who cares? Its the Ravens and 49ers. Its two brothers staring at each other, each trying to look more puzzled and confused than the other. It’s listening to two insufferable fan bases who know more about crabs and oysters than football. I’m fairly certain I speak for most of the NFL when I say: Nobody gives a shit, now go make me some crab cakes.

For me the NFL season ended two weeks ago. Even the alternative to this match-up would have been annoying. Matt Ryan and Tom Brady are two of the more fake, pre-programmed Ken dolls the NFL PR department has churned out in decades. Had the Falcons advanced we would have had to listen to the vomit-inducing nickname “Matty Ice” a few million times. (And by the way, that nick name sounds like the stage name for the world’s first openly gay rapper, not an NFL quarterback.) If Brady had advanced the term “passing the torch” would be uttered more often than the coverage of the Olympics. The sale of hand lotion and Kleenex in the Bristol, CT are would have skyrocketed, so nobody is more disappointed with SB XLVII than the folks at Lubriderm.

Read the rest here.

SBM Exclusive Feature: Sports Doppelgangers, Volume 15 – The Conference Championship Losers’ Bracket

The Atlanta Falcons:

1) Wide Receiver Julio Jones and allegedly talented singer Seal.

 

2) Current play-off “bust” quarterback Matt Ryan and all-around “bust” quarterback Ryan Leaf.

3) Head Coach Mike Smith and the Wizard of Oz.

The New England Patriots:

1) Head coach Bill Belichick and Emperor Palpatine.

 

2) Quarterback Tom Brady and Transgender Barbie.

 

Why We Continue To Wonder About Tom Brady

Just look at that picture. Here’s a guy who has multiple Super Bowl rings and bangs supermodels on a giant pile of money, and for some reason he keeps trying to destroy the idea he is heterosexual.