NFL 2012 Week 3: AFC North & East (1st Quarter)

We are two weeks into this NFL season, halfway through our first quarter, and the most obvious thing thus far is replacement referees are severely altering the game. There is a lack of confidence evident with them that is making games disruptive at times, and rarely as smoothly flowing as the ever-corporate-minded NFL would like to see, I am sure. And though the term “player safety” has become the NFL’s race card, so to speak, and is thrown out by anyone looking to force their point, there is less worry over player safety with these refs than there is miscreants along the edges of the NFL’s rosters who abuse these unconfident refs to create anarchy on the field. But as I am an anarchist, I support this. Ideally, we need less refs on the field, with more above, and when there were personal fouls, the player had to leave the field for one play, like in hockey. Fuck referees, and fuck the law.
But this is not a world of the lawless, not yet at least, and this is certainly not a league of the unlawful, especially under the iron reign of Herr Goodell. And though our western civilization is in rapid decline, our arctic ice caps in rapid melt, and our human culture in rapid regression, the NFL is successful in this civilization-model, and will hold its course until the bloody end. This means cleaner uniforms and more affordable referees. Player safety has less to do with it than player investment. Being forced by legalities to financially support post-career medical expenses would be a bad hit on the per-player investment by the league, so they will do what they have to do to clear themselves of as much future health care coverage and personal injury liability as they can. And they will continue to expand their schedule until every game is at its own time on a different channel, so that you could conceivably watch every minute of every game, because I am sure there are people who would try to do that, and live blog about it, and think anybody cared. What a ridiculous fucking world we live in. And what an unsettled season thus far, as the real stories have yet to establish themselves, outside of the apparent greatness of the 49ers. But it is far too early to be peaking at an apex, and with free agency and injuries and all the weird bullshit the NFL adds to their team-building algorithms now, no real story may emerge, as the NFL continues its descent to NBA status, where teams can pop up or down with suddenness, and become contenders with the addition of a single star. What a fucking joke.
Of note though is how the AFC has been traditionally been considered the stronger conference over the past decade or so. My first cycle through the divisions, I split it into two geographically connected divisions of the same conference, picking first the ones with the lowest combined records. Last week, that was the AFC. Every year I’ve done this, it would bounce between AFC and NFC in this part of the cycle, but actually, even after shaving off the lower half of the AFC, the other two divisions have a lower combined record than any pairing of geographically connected NFC teams. What this means is, to this point at least, the NFC is kicking the AFC’s ass in inter-conference games. We are in a time of transition it appears, and whereas we talked of Patriots and Steelers and Ravens before, perhaps we shift to Packers and 49ers and Giants now. But even that seems weird. Are there really any good strong teams left? Have we all been castrated into sporting eunuchs, who buy a new shiny dildo to strap onto ourselves and proclaim “I AM THE MOST VIRILE OF MEN!” until it breaks apart, only to hope to have the money to luck out on another phallus afterwards? That’s essentially what the NFL has become. Nonetheless, here is our first quarter of the season stroll through the AFC East and North, the home of the highly-regarded Patriots and Steelers and Ravens, as well as others…

#1: PITTSBURGH STEELERS (1-1, 11th overall) – Last week: beat Jets, 27-10. This week: at Raiders (0-2). Even though the Steelers were forced to help pretend Peyton Manning in a Broncos uniform is worth white people shelling out $180 for an “authentic” jersey that first week in the Sunday night primetime engineered showdown, when allowed to actually play free-form football, they will still dominate. This is exactly what they did against the Jets. The thing I find troublesome for Steelers fans and Steelers futures – and most of this week’s perspective is going to be coming from the straight psychic perspective, which is oft-times engineered by the NFL powers that be – is that there is consensus talking head dislike of Roethlisberger. They tried to assassinate his character after the bathroom drunk sex thing (rightfully so), but this was also a guy who wrecked a motorcycle without a helmet on, and is just plain old throwback mentality where lack of helmets on motorcycles and drunk sex with weakly resisting women is a normal Tuesday night. He regained the league’s graces briefly, but seems to be in the psychic doghouse again. I can only assume this is part of a move further away from that throwback style, where a QB will hold a ball and get hit and make ugly plays. The NFL wants pretty plays, it wants football-style slam dunks, not ugly displays of brutal football.
And yet, the Steelers remain relevant, and a model for others to emulate. I feel at some point will see, perhaps in the Super Bowl but perhaps just in regular season games, Ben Roethlisberger and this Steelers team fighting for the soul of football, in honor of the old Gods, as the shiny, clean new Gods try to take over, through lawyer ball tactics. It is because of that I still like Big Ben. He may be a degenerate piece of shit, but I would rather be surrounded by degenerate pieces of shit than corporate-minded lawyer ballers.

#2: BALTIMORE RAVENS (1-1, 12th overall) – Last week: lost to Eagles, 23-24. This week: hosting Patriots (1-1). I cannot really even think of the Ravens without thinking about how much I despise Ray Lewis. I hate that stupid dance, and I hate his stupid mongoloid jawline. But then I think of how much I love Ed Reed, and his sweet gentle doe eyes, yet hard face. Perhaps Ray Lewis’s change from fur coat wearing stabbing eyewitness to elder voice of the NFL was not simply a matter of self-realization, but actually the positive effects of having a solid bro like Ed Reed around.
The fact I am named Raven and cannot do a google search for anything that might be of interest in relation to my birth name without some crappy Ravens merchandise showing up only adds to my hatred of this team. And yet there is Ed Reed, playing ballhawk like no one else. He is a magical player, a spirit warrior of the first order. Perhaps he could teach me to love these awkward Ravens, and overcome my hatred of them, their uniforms, their retard fratboy QB, and to be honest, my dislike of the entire state of Maryland (except for the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore). Perhaps Ed Reed could teach me to tolerate. Perhaps…

#3: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (1-1, 15th overall) – Last week: lost to Cardinals, 18-20. This week: at Ravens (1-1). It was simply a missed field goal causing them to lose a game, on the surface, but on a psychic level, that was devastating. You are talking the ultimate franchise of the past 15 years, with our generation’s Joe Montana, losing to an NFC West team. The NFC West is psychically regarded as the league’s bottom rung. And there is also the cross-country road game travel factor long-known to be hard to overcome. And yet the Cardinals won. What does it mean? Well, two things. It means the Patriots are being set up to be challenged for supremacy. Secondly, it was a way to make the NFC West gain psychic power. Who is currently the top team in that division? The 49ers, who have also been psychically rubbed golden simultaneous to this Patriots loss. And it could be said that was the ultimate franchise before the Patriots, unless you recognize the ‘90s Cowboys to be one in between those two dynasties. But what this loss meant was we are seeing the slow build to a 49ers beheading of the New England Patriots. Mark my words. It will be interested to see where the league points this Ravens/Patriots game this weekend too, as the loser will be at 1-2, and pushed into the public doghouse.

#4: CINCINNATI BENGALS (1-1, 17th overall) – Last week: beat Brown, 34-27. This week: at Redskins (1-1). The Bengals have relegated themselves to an afterthought again. This week’s game at the Redskins will be a showcase for the NFL’s most poorly-owned franchises. No one will care except for two delusional fan bases who would love nothing more than to pretend they are not what they always obviously are. And I say that to you as a Redskins fan.

#5: MIAMI DOLPHINS (1-1, 19th overall) – Last week: beat Raiders, 35-13. This week: hosting Jets (1-1). Hard to believe the Dolphins were once an NFL glory team under Don Shula, as they have struggled in mediocrity for a long time now. Ryan Tannehill seems to me to be the latest false Marino prophet paraded in those lustrous white uniforms, but yet the NFL is a haggard beast at this point, where mediocrity is sometimes rewarded with default success. The thing I don’t understand is Reggie Bush exploding for a bunch of rushing yards. That doesn’t make logic. Perhaps swearing off Armenian vagina perfumed with celebrity and embracing this Christian God he seems to speak so fervently of lately has benefitted him on the gridiron. Miami seems a strange place to find salvation, but I guess it is when we are surrounded by darkness, we most easily can identify the light.

#6: NEW YORK JETS (1-1, 20th overall) – Last week: lost to Steelers, 10-27. This week: at Dolphins (1-1). Seeing the Jets fail is such a fun thing to watch happen. There is a decent likelihood they get beaten in Miami this weekend, and then the “Tebow! Tebow!” cult will start to grow even in Godless New York metropolitan area. Ultimately, I feel like the whole New York Jets thing is all part of a larger conspiracy to have Tebow cast out of New York City so that the United Nations can be burned by zealots around the same time Zionist-funded farms in Alabama are successful at finally breeding a flawless red heifer, to usher in the rebuilding of the Temple of the Mount. But with that in mind, south Florida is nearly as Godless as NYC area, and a common retirement zone for again NYC area old bastards and bitties, so it would not be surprising to see Sanchez light up the field one more time, like he did the first week, and allow Tebow to stay on ice. Doesn’t really make sense to have a huge prominent Christian athlete discussion this close to Election Day and this far away from Christmas shopping economic tithe season either. They’ll milk Sanchez until late October/early November, for sure. Then just in time for the economic frenzy that is shopping for a bunch of useless shit in honor of the mythical Christ baby, BAM! TEBOW TIME!

#7: BUFFALO BILLS (1-1, 24th overall) – Last week: beat Chiefs, 35-17. This week: at Browns (0-2). You know what, I don’t even want to think about the fucking Bills. Fred Jackson was going to be my big RB in a 20-team fantasy league, and now he’s fucking gimped out and probably lost his starting job to C.J. Spiller. I’ve always loved C.J. Spiller, but I can’t even enjoy it I’m so mad at the stupid Bills, who always fuck things up, even in good ways. Quick – somebody share pictures of Ryan Fitzpatrick looking like an educated viking. Or pics of thuggish dudes in O.J. Simpson throwbacks. I always love seeing that.

#8: CLEVELAND BROWNS (0-2, 28th overall) – Last week: lost to Bengals, 27-34. This week: hosting Bills (1-1). I think most folks expected the Browns to be 0-2, but they’ve played shockingly well both weeks, at least up to just not quite at the level of their competition. They have their most mediocre foe yet this week, so perhaps the Holmgren experiment starts to pay tiny, crappy dividends, which is what enables him to grow mustache hairs. He is some sort of magical being descended from walrus centaurs from my understanding.

The World Is Filled With Morons But Who Cares? And Other Observations From Super Bowl XLVI

I have a startling confession to make: I hate the Super Bowl. Okay, that’s not completely true. I have a sort of love/hate relationship with the Super Bowl. I love the game and what it represents but I hate the event that is the Super Bowl, the giant annual episode of Hee-Haw that would make even Robin Williams nauseous with its parade of LOUD NOISES and dull-eyed stupidity.

I didn’t plan on writing this. After all, I am in the midst of a long and hopefully fruitful spirit quest and my Indian guide said that breaking my hiatus to comment on the mortal world was both dangerous and short-sighted, but I told him to kick rocks because I don’t need him, I have The Great Willie Young to lead me down the path of wisdom and, so, well, here we are. The banal truth is that while watching the damn game and the circus which surrounds it, I realized I had to write about it and even though no one will probably read this since it isn’t about the Lions or about Lindsay Lohan deep-throating a Kardashian or some such bullshit, I don’t really care because sometimes – increasingly rarely for me if I’m being completely honest – the spirit just courses through me and I am but a slave, dancing at its behest, and I have no choice but to hit you with the Good Word.

Okay, like I said, I both love and hate the Super Bowl. It’s easy to get lost in the endless hype and idiot noise that bleats through our TV screens and hollers at us from our computers in the weeks leading up to the event and it’s easy to then determine that the best course of action is to build a shack deep in the woods and spend the rest of your days growing your own, uh, let’s say fruit and vegetables and hunting Sasquatch and fucking sheep because at least the goddamn sheep don’t know or care who Betty goddamn White is, but in the middle of all that is an event that is profoundly important. Okay, fine, in the grand scheme of things, compared to world hunger and war and that goddamn neighbor who won’t stop making all that goddamn noise, it’s not all that important, but within the confines of the football world – which is the world we technically write about here at Armchair Linebacker, although I’ll admit that can be a little hard to discern at times – it is the fucking moon landing. For football players, for dudes who have spent their entire lives getting up and running at 6 AM on the beach every day just to get a tiny little edge over the other dude and who have made the devil’s bargain, sacrificing their brain power past the age of fifty for a shot at meaningless glory, it is everything, and that is a revelation that is taut with both high drama and almost obscene and maudlin tension. Once you realize and understand that, it’s impossible not to get caught up in the actual game, no matter who’s playing.

But it’s also impossible to ignore the dumb hype and bleating chaos which surrounds the whole goddamn event, a circus of the dumb, a circus of the absurd, a circus which makes me wish a tiger or a lion would leap through my TV screen and devour my eyeballs and my ears before my spirit horse could whisk me away to a better place. A person could spend an entire year in a coma and as long as he wakes up on Super Bowl Sunday and watches the whole obscene event from start to finish, he will be completely caught up with the rest of the world. Every catchphrase, every hit song, every meme, every star, every movie, everything that has been relevant over the past twelve months will get beaten into the dirt, resurrected and then cannibalized before being beaten into the ground yet again. Hey, look! There’s Betty White! Why not drag out the Where’s the Beef lady while you’re at it? It’s just a parade of wild and dumb noise, of hee-hawing bullshit that appeals to the idiot center of the lowest of the lowest common denominator. It is a world of the dumb and the insane in which tiny dogs moonwalk for no reason, horses fart flames and jackasses sitting at home guffaw and stuff their face full of death and corn flavored hate. And then a midget rides onto the field on a tricycle and Madonna shows up, cackling like the vampire spawn of Satan himself and then our eyes are peeled back like in Clockwork Orange and we all slowly go insane while a dystopian horror show plays out before our bleeding brains. A man in a dress bounces around on a wire and some clowns show up and start singing that goddamn Party Rock song and then there’s a choir because there’s always a choir and then we cut to a commercial of Christina Aguilera fighting with some hick and hey, there’s Betty White again! And she’s intimating that we all want to fuck her! USA! USA! USA!

And . . . breathe. I’m sorry. I kinda got carried away there. But every year it’s the same and about halfway through the game, after hearing for the billionth time some lummox prattle about how “I only watch the game for the commercials!” like it’s a startlingly new thought never experienced by man before, I begin to sharpen my knives and longingly eye the drain cleaner, wondering just what the barrel of a gun tastes like, and I wonder why I even watch this madhouse of the human spirit at all. But then, just like every other year, the game started again, and there was Tom Brady and there was Eli Manning, fighting to be the man who landed on the moon one more time, and in the wake of that simple truth, nothing else mattered.

It’s easy to shit on Tom Brady. He is not a well-liked guy. I get it. He’s rich, he has a hot model wife, he wears Uggs and he generally carries himself like a GQ model. You won’t find him sitting in his Wranglers, drinking beers with the boys. People hate that about him. But none of that matters. Not really, anyway. For all his money, for all his success, for all the times he gets to go home and hump Giselle Bundchen until the rest of the world fades away and he passes out in a hazy cloud of semen and drool until his butler shows up to wipe him off with a diamond studded jizz rag (actually, that would hurt, so, uh, never mind . . .) he is still just a dude trying to land on the moon one more time, and when he’s on that field, none of that other shit matters and that meaningless pursuit of glory becomes his green light across the water, his Daisy Buchanan, and then he’s just Gatsby, like the rest of us, chasing that one thing that actually can give the man a moment of peace in his soul.

And then you have Eli Manning. He’s the anti-Brady. At least that’s the role in which he’s been cast by most fans. They want to project onto him the image of the hard working blue collar good ol’ boy, the down to earth hero they can have a beer with and shoot the shit. He probably votes Republican and believes in the flag and Budweiser and hot dogs too. He probably has a firm handshake and he’s the sort of man you want your son to grow up to be. Yessir.

But not really. He’s almost as rich as Tom Brady. He probably lives in a New York penthouse and he would have his butler wash his hands with soap made from crushed babies if he was forced to shake your filthy hands. But again, none of that matters. Because once that clock starts winding down, he’s just another man in pursuit of a dream, a man in pursuit of his own moon landing.

Every year, by the time the 4^th quarter of the Super Bowl arrives, the dumb commercials and the endless noise all seem to sort of fade away, as reality and the forces of nature reassert themselves and cause all that nonsense to blow away like so much cotton candy caught in the wind. The Super Bowl is an event, a celebration of everything banal and stupid about our Idiocratic society. They should get President Camacho to flip the coin before the game every year. And it’s easy to get caught up in all that bullshit. We all do, whether it’s in laughing like dumb animals at horrible 3^rd grade level jokes designed to sell you some shit you don’t even want or whether it’s in cringing and considering taking up shack building or suicide as a hobby, we all get caught up in it and we let it define the Super Bowl, both the event and the game year after year.

But then Mario Manningham makes the catch of his life along the sideline and then it’s impossible to ignore that there is something real at stake here, something pure. And it’s pure because it’s trivial, because it’s meaningless, because it’s unquantifiable. This isn’t about money or fancy homes or supermodel wives or any of the things we hold up to the rest of the world in order to proclaim our value. It is the pursuit of meaningless glory, of victory, of something that means nothing and in meaning nothing means everything. Because it is not for anyone else. It is pure and it is honest and it is landing on the fucking moon not because you can ever hope to own the moon but because it’s landing on the fucking moon. It’s winning the fucking Super Bowl. It’s the mountain top, the goal, the thing that kept you sweating under the sun while a fat old man screamed at you and told you that you were a fucking shitty football player and that he would throw you off the team if you didn’t run just a little bit faster, hit just a little bit harder, want it just a little bit more. It is the reason why you pick up a football for the very first time, and in the truth of that, the importance of the Super Bowl, its pulsating heart, is revealed.

You can laugh at Tom Brady and you can shit on him all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that he wanted to win this fucking game more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your life. He’s going to see Wes Welker dropping that pass for the rest of his life and it’s going to weaken his knees and hit him deep in his gut, in that place that churns up life’s memories and makes everything else seem a little bit dimmer. That’s his now. For the rest of his life, that’s his.

And then you have Eli Manning, who will remember Mario Manningham making that catch for the rest of his life and when he does, he’ll smile that goofy, hick smile of his and everything will seem brighter and better because of it. It won’t matter if he’s in the lead car of a parade or floating on a fucking iceberg off the coast of Antarctica while the rest of the world burns, he’ll always have that memory and he’ll always have the pure satisfaction that it brought and it will make him smile.

That is all completely insane when you consider that this is just a dumb game, and that win or lose everyone goes home and fucks their trophy wives and counts their money and beats the help. And yet, it’s completely true. You think it matters to the fans? Well, this is the summation of these dudes’ whole lives. Man is a stupid beast and he is never happy, no matter what he achieves or what he gets in life and that is because the deep dark secret that everyone is afraid of is that most things in life are utterly meaningless. The only things that do matter, that do provide long-lasting satisfaction are those perfectly pure triumphs, those conquerings of the soul, those moon landings that validate the emptiness of everything else, that make the tortured two-a-day past and the concussed and addled future worth it. Man is an explorer of the spirit, a mountain climber of the soul, and he is never satisfied by anything other than climbing his own personal Everests, no matter how trivial they seem to be.

And tonight, Eli Manning and the Giants are celebrating because they climbed Everest. They landed on the moon. And they’re celebrating because of inches, because of fractions of inches, because Mario Manningham somehow made that catch while Wes Welker dropped a ball he never drops. They’re celebrating because the world is weird and strange and today it smiled on them and they believe, deep in their hearts, that it smiled on them because they willed it, because they pushed and pushed and pushed and as a result affected the events of the world. It is the ultimate manifestation of the arrogance of man, that secret desire which rests so deeply within all of our dumb hearts – if they fought hard enough, if they believed and struggled and bled and just pushed and pushed and pushed, they could control destiny, they could control the world. That, my friends, is power and power is the one thing we all desperately want because the truth is, is that we’re all powerless. And that’s why it’s so satisfying when you can clutch it in your fingers for just a fraction of a moment, long enough to achieve your stupid and absurd dreams. And that’s why winning – and losing – a Super Bowl means more to these dudes than anyone wants to admit. But deep down, I think we understand it, and that’s why we watch. Fuck the event. We watch for the game, for that crowning moment, for the fucking moon landing.

And just like Eli and the boys are celebrating, Tom Brady and his dudes have an empty feeling inside that they’ll never fill. They’ll blame themselves and each other. Wes Welker will never be the same again. He just got engaged to a hot new fiance but if you think that’s enough to make him shrug his shoulders and say fuck it and count his money and forget this ever happened then you don’t understand human nature. At all. We’re all Gatsby. That’s the great truth of that book and that’s the great truth which drives everything we do as a species. This one loss will diminish Tom Brady’s whole life. And by that, I don’t mean people’s perceptions of him. I mean his perceptions of himself. When he’s lying on his deathbed, he’ll weigh his life out and this game will flash before his eyes. That is enormously tragic and enormously compelling and that’s why the Super Bowl is the fucking Super Bowl. The rest is just noise.

The Bills Make Me Sad

That is all.

NFL 2011: Week 12 - AFC North & East (3rd Quarter)

You thought I wasn't gonna do the NFLuminati Index this week, at least not before today's kickoffs, ain't you? Fuck that bro. Raven Mack is an old-fashioned man on the new-fangled internet. I done been up since 6 am, hit a dumpster, slopped some pigs, boiled up about 20 lbs. of hog livers and neck bones to feed my chicken flock for Thanksgiving breakfast, homemade a pecan pie, whipped up stuffing (had the kids tear up two loaves of bread though) with fresh sausage that just got ground from my own hogs two days ago (rest in peace Mr. Wu and Mr. Swinjun, you will be missed, and tasty as fuck, although I had to buy a new freezer on credit for your fat asses... by the way, 700 lbs. of processed hogs is more than a 12.9 cubic feet freezer can hold, trust me, I've done research on it), and put the 22 lb. turkey in the oven to slow mow the day down to a father's favorite holiday - standing around cooking, watching football, getting drunk (where applicable), and making the kids play outside in the empty freezer box since it's 65 degrees today.
So now it's time to stroll through the NFL power index for this week, tackling the AFC East and North divisions (and this time I'm even adding their scientific rating score so you can have a taste of my mad science and make this shit seem even more scientific than it already is, although the use of wild lettuce tinctures under the new moon also factors heavily, because science and spirit are the twin goddesses of humanity that impregnate our collective lives with abundance)...
#1: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (7-3, 2nd overall, 9.0 rating on a 10-point scale) - The Patriots, despite their flawed defense, are still the best team in the AFC. Just because no single team seems impervious to sudden loss does not mean any team is suddenly better, and one of my largest problems I have with other power indexes is they are knee-jerk reactionary and will have like the Bengals at the top because of a good record or the Jets really low because of a bad record, but my science shows itself to be true. The Cowboys were never ranked that low in my system and will prove that to be true, just as the Jets are still higher than a lot of teams with better records. This does not mean they will make the playoffs but I'll save that banter for the Jets blurb. I am speaking on the Patriots now, who are still a prominent AFC team, and one that any other team will find hard to beat, either at home or on the road come January and the playoffs. Sure there are weaknesses in that defense, and the running game is cobbled together with baling twine and duct tape (hence Ben-Jarvis Green-Ellis having so many names, as he is actually two guys put together). But the knucklehead gangsta doofus TE combo of Gronkowski and Hernandez is actually creating a new passing game for Wonderboy Tom Brady that when working with his Whiteboy All-Stars of Wes Welker and Danny Woodhead, may create havoc for other defenses, a slow meandering and hard to stop havoc, much like the traditional running game but without running.
#2: BALTIMORE RAVENS (7-3, 9th overall, 6.7 rating) - The Ravens, man, what the fuck? They are the most enigmatic team, up and down, a bipolar franchise that may make the playoffs and perform well then the whole team will psychologically disappear to Tijuana like Barrett Robins and lay an egg at some point, hopefully in the conference championship at the latest, so as to not ruin the Super Bowl.
#3: NEW YORK JETS (5-5, 10th overall, 6.5 rating) - Sanchez hate is growing, but I tell you exuberant and overly-excited Jets fans, to please look at the San Francisco 49ers. Can you tell me without question that Mark Sanchez is worse than Alex Smith? No, you can not. Sure, he's not Tom Brady, but neither are you and neither am I, so let's not compare ourselves to that CIA pop cultural operative. But with the proper coaching that limits his flaws and increases his strengths, Mark Sanchez, much like Alex Smith in San Francisco, can be utilized very effectively. But for whatever reason, the Jets have thought compiling an all-star team of the greatest players from two years ago on offense was somehow going to click like Tecmo Bowl. And now that they've deemed themselves the greatest team ever going into the season, they feel like being 5-5 is some sort of failure. But if they admit who they are, a wild card berth is certainly still attainable. However, if they can't admit who they are when they look in the mirror on a Monday morning, they will ultimately be a failure no matter how well they do. Looking at Rex Ryan's bloated, self-important ass though, I doubt they as a team will take on a realistic reflective temperament any time soon.
#4: PITTSBURGH STEELERS (7-3, 11th overall, 6.4 rating) - The Steelers have actually been more susceptible than their record lets on. But they are the Steelers, perhaps the league's most prominent franchise, and they will always be in the mix, if not now then in a year or two. And it's funny to hear people say, "The Steelers defense is starting to show signs of age," because this is the fucking thing team that somehow plugs in a new Monster LB every five years, seemingly out of nowhere, and continually drafts well. Sure, Troy Polamalu has been a force on this team, but shit man, they always have a plethora of dudes who step in to take care of headhunting business. And the offense actually seems like it's only now hitting a stride that will be even better next year. They'll be a January factor though, no doubt about it.
#5: CINCINNATI BENGALS (6-4, 16hth overall, 4.3 rating) - The Bengals were maybe the worst 6-2 team in recent NFL history before their back-to-back losses. This is a mediocre team that benefitted from an easy early schedule, and they will continue to be mediocre, with a rookie QB, and sketchy skill position players. Sure, Andy Dalton and A.J. Green have looked really good, but can you honestly tell me they are any better than Carson Palmer and Chad Johnson were a few years back. No fucking way. This all means the most this newly blossomed Bengals franchise can hope for in the short-term is a lucky wild card berth and immediate elimination from the playoffs. However, I will give daps to Marvin Lewis for quietly assembling a fairly intimidating defense with an odd assortment of longhaired Samoans and crazy black dudes, none of which are the felons on work release like they had a few years back, but bonafide throwback players an NFL fan can love. And really, with all the draft picks they've accumulated as well by dumping the aforementioned QB and WR from a few years back off on sucker GMs elsewhere, they might even hope for a wild card win in a year or two.
#6: BUFFALO BILLS (5-5, 17th overall, 3.8 rating) - Ah, the poor Buffalo Bills, who thought they had resurrected theyselves from shit like psychedelic mushrooms, only to crash back to earth. But hey, it's like gas prices Buffa-bros - it went up higher than it should have, but it didn't come back down as low as it was. And sure, Fred Jackson broke his leg, but man, C.J. Spiller seemed like he might be an Adrian Peterson type coming out of college. Let's see what dude does as the #1.
#7: MIAMI DOLPHINS (3-7, 23rd overall, 2.1 rating) - Tony Sparano is doing the most beautiful thing a coach who is about to get fired can do - he has got his team fired up and winning, which will make it difficult for management to actually fire him at the end of the year, and will also get the players fired up to back him. Which means he is effectively sabotaging the workplace on his way out, during the short time left of his employment. As a man who has recently struggled through an abusive employment situation, I can respect that.
#8: CLEVELAND BROWNS (4-6, 27th overall, 1.4 rating) - The Browns have played in anonymity this year, and I guess Colt McCoy is still their QB, with his gay porn looking ass. Personally, I just hope Joshau Cribbs gets more reps at WR and in the wildcat and as a returner and scores like 3 TDs a game because it's almost fantasy football playoff time for me. That's pretty much what the Browns are relevant for at this point - fantasy football and laughing at Peyton Hillis for ruining his NFL reputation. Didn't somebody tell this dude that he was a white RB? That's like being a fat mainstream porn star - enjoy your prominence while it is happening, and cash in as quickly as possible, because eventually everybody's going to go, "Oh yeah, this isn't what we normally do."

I've Got That Sinking Feeling

I'm trying not to panic after the Bills received their first full-fledged ass-whooping at the hands of the Jets last Sunday, but that game felt like the beginning of the end for the 2011 Buffalo Bills. The offense couldn't do a damned thing against that Jets defense, and the Buffalo defense could only stop the Jets when Dirty Sanchez fucked up. They've been demolished the last three games against the Jets, and play them again in two weeks. To think I once thought they could earn a split against them this year. *sigh*.

Now it's onto Dallas and the horrific childhood memories of Super Bowls XXVII & XXVIII. Needless to say (but I will still say it), I FUCKING HATE DALLAS, and their years of futility that have largely coincided with the Bills' own has brought me at least some comfort. You bet your sweet ass I was ecstatic when Romo dropped that snap in Seattle, or threw that INT against the Giants a couple years ago. If only the fuckbuckets around here that jumped onto the Cowboys' bandwagon in the mid-90s were still there, I would have been able to enjoy the schaudenfreude even more.

This feels like a game where Buffalo will give a good effort, and possibly force some mistakes from Romo, but then cave and allow a last minute game winning drive by the Cowboys, and then the NFL analysts will be able to talk about the Good Romo for a week. Although I'm not fond of the Nantz/Simms pairing (not only do they suck, but the Bills seem to lose just about every time they get a network's "A" team to cover their game), it's still preferable to the insufferable Aikman/Buck FOX team (Buck wasn't in the booth for Bills/Redskins, so they were saved from choking away that game), and although I'd feel slightly better about this game if it were in Buffalo, I don't know if I'd want to sit through the 30 video packages FOX would be sure to air of Aikman lighting up the Bills in the two Super Bowls, because FOX is run by assholes. I'm slightly amazed that we only got one replay of Noorwood missing the field goal at the end of Super Bowl XXV last week, as Noorwood was being honored by the team at halftime (another sure sign the Bills are going to lose at home: someone is being honored at halftime).

I can see the Bills keeping this game close, but then a fatal error or five will allow Dallas to either win it late if they're behind, or pull away late if they're ahead. Then I'll feel like a child preparing to take a shower knowing Jerry Sandusky is lurking somewhere until next Sunday.

Too soon?

P.S. I am so glad Penn State lost today. Everytime I find myself second-guessing my newfound hatred for them, there's a near-riot with dumbasses chanting for JoePa, or I find out the team was planning to deliver a game ball to the old man if they had won. Fuck Joe Paterno and fuck Penn State.



Bills VS Jets: The Rivalry That Isn't

This is weird. This Bills-Jets game is being built as the biggest game between the two in a long time, but the thing is...it might be the biggest regular reason game between the two teams ever.

Even though they've been in the same division since the inception of the AFL, this has rarely felt like any kind of rivalry. I was really struggling to come up with something to write about for this game, despite it being the BIGGEST BILLS GAME EVER (since week 3), and I couldn't figure out why. Then, I tried doing some research into past big/memorable Bills-Jets game, and inadvertantly found out why this rivalry doesn't really exist. Mainly, it's because the Bills and Jets are rarely any good at the same time. Only four times out of 51 completed seasons have the two teams had a winning record at the same time, and they've only played one playoff game, with the Bills beating the Jets 31-27 in a 1981 Wild Card game. That was the Bills' first playoff win since they won back-to-back AFL titles in the 1960s, and it was almost thirty years ago, before I was even born.

My Bills-Jets memories consist of Kelly's Bills owning the Jets, some shitty Bills teams pulling late-season upsets against playoff-bound Jets teams, Drew Bledsoe's first game as a Bill, which saw them lose to the Jets when they gave up a kick return TD in overtime, Dirty Sanchez and Ryan Fitzpatrick playing to see who could fuck up worse in 2009 (Sanchez "won" that battle), and the Jets killing the Bills twice last season, the first time with me in attendance at the Ralph.

I just can't hate the Jets...yet. I have a good friend who is a Jets fans, and the last couple years, they've been my adopted team come playoff time. I was stoked when they knocked off the Patriots last year, largely because I FUCKING HATE THE PATRIOTS. I love the KissingSuzyKolber posts featuring Rex Ryan and members of the Jets. I can't hate them yet, but if this game goes down to the wire, and the Bills lose then I will be PISSED. If the Bills lose again in New Jersey later this month, I will be fucking raging and ready to kill. I obviously don't want that to happen. I'd much rather the Bills win both games and make a serious run at making the playoffs for the first time since the "Music City Miracle" in 1999.

Would I love it if the Bills won 51-0? Of course. Would I be ecstatic if Marcell Dareus pulled Dirty Sanchez's arm off and beat him over the head with it? ABSOLUTELY. But, until something changes, this isn't a rivalry, unless you want to count commentators on the ESPN AFC East blog constantly noting that the Jets and Giants play in New Jersey, making the Bills the only team that plays in New York State.

I would like for that to change, but for now, I'll settle for a Bills win, and Bills & Jets fans going back to mutually despising the Patriots.

They Better Damn Well Win This One

So the Bills are coming off their bye week, and will do battle against the now-slumping Washington Redskins at home in Toronto. First off, I want to say, I fucking hate the Toronto series. The home-field advantage is gone, the crowds have been largely disinterested, and worst of all, Buffalo has yet to win one of these things in the regular season. This was born out of the Bills' front office apparent belief that it's easier to sell a crappy team to other markets to make the team a more "regional" team, than it is to build a contending team that people will want to pay good money to travel to Orchard Park to see. Unfortunately, with the agreement ending soon, it looks like it will be extended. Hooray! They won't even make the game at the right time (in the middle of winter, when no one in their right mind wants to sit in a wind chill of 0 degrees and watch a shitty team), and against the right opponent (I actually don't mind one of the NFC home games being the chosen game, but they have given up divisional home games twice so far). Fuck this series. The Bills were setting attendance records in the early 90's, and will still sell out if there is a glimmer of hope, or if the other team's fans travel well. Bills fans will sell out the stadium for almost anything, except a 3-11 team in mid-December.

Back to this weeks' game. The Redskins are now down their top running back and top wide receiver. The Bills will be missing Kyle Williams, who has done jack shit this season because of a foot injury that will likely keep him out the rest of the season. Here's a shock, the Bills placed Shawne Merriman on IR yesterday, right after Merriman was saying he expected to play this week. I guess the PEDs don't work as well as they used to.

This game scares me, if for no other reason than the Bills are the Bills, and could lose to anyone in the league at any time. The Bills have no pass rush, except for a little bit from the Legend Killer Arthur Moats and Marcell Dareus, who hasn't quite figured out how to tackle QBs yet. The secondary is terrible. The run defense will stuff three or four runs in a row, then give up a 20+ yarder. I don't know who will be starting at QB for the 'Skins, but I think I would prefer John Beck, as Good Rex would probably carve up the Bills' secondary, even missing his top receiver. On the other side of the ball, the Bills have no real deep threat, and as evidenced by the game against the Giants, Fitzpatrick's deep ball accuracy is... pretty damned shitty. When the ball goes beyond twenty yards in the air, it's a total crap shoot as to what's going to happen. If Buffalo's offensive game plan is anything other than a metric fuckton of The Underrated Fred Jackson, then someone needs to be looking for a new job Monday morning.

I honestly don't know much about the Redskins, and only have history to look back on, such as Super Bowl XXVI, and the game a few years ago right after Sean Taylor died, and Joe Gibbs helped make the game-winning field goal easier by getting called for unsportsmanlike conduct for calling two "icing the kicker" timeouts in a row (although to be fair, Rian Lindell did make the kick that would have counted has Gibbs not called the second timeout). On that note, are coaches still doing the "wait until right before the snap, then call a timeout" move on potential game winning/tying field goals that works maybe 5% of the time? I haven't noticed it this season, and I hope it's one of those trends that has died out.

I expect the Bills to come out fast. They NEED this game to keep some buzz about them, and keep pace in the playoff race. They've lost two-of-three since starting 3-0, with both games being very winnable. The Redskins are looking like they are on a downward slope. I think the Bills need to jump on Washington early, getting a score or two off turnovers. If they let the Redskins hang around, I have some faith in Fitzpatrick to lead a game-winning drive, but I have ZERO faith in the Bills' defense to prevent one.

I expect this game to be boring as shit, with a dead crowd, and crappy FOX commentating. Think of it as the NFL equivalent of a Divas match.

The Wisdom to Know the Difference: Jets/Chargers Preview

The Jets will take the field on Sunday like men six days sober. They will have clarity of purpose, but fresh memories of miserable failure. 6 days isn't even enough for anything other than the starter token. All they can do is stand up and admit they have a strong desire to live.

This is a winnable game for the jets. San Diego's 4-1 record comes against teams that are a combined 4-17. (The Jets are worse in that department, but that's not important right now.) The run defense is middling, Antonio Gates isn't particularly healthy, the Jets have had success against the Chargers in the past. For the most part, the Jets just have to consider what not to do. They can't drop passes on 3rd and long. On 3rd and short, the offensive line has to actually open holes and not just trust that their backs can become apparitions and float through defensive linemen. The defense has to end their bold experiment in playing football without a pass rush. It was fun, a lot of good data was collected, but at the moment, gentlemen, it would be great if you could refocus on getting a single goddamn sack that doesn't come during garbage time.

So how do they do all that? They've been remarkably inconsistent this year, even by their own ugly standards. Rex brought in Frankie Edgar to talk to the team, something he's done before. It's a nice idea, and it has worked well before, but should these men really need someone to urge them to fight? LT and Cromartie both bear the scars of doubt at the hands of Norv Turner. Shottenheimer's father was unceremoniously rejected by the organization. It has become apparent to anyone watching that yes, Plaxico Burress did lose a step in prison. They should all have something to prove, and the only opportunity for them to prove those points is Sunday, on the field, in the glorious, glorious game of football. Let your eyes fill with bloodlust, gentlemen, let your tongue dance with the memory of the sweet taste of revenge. Play football, and try not to fuck it up this time.

Jets/Dolphins Recap: O Creatures Foolish, How Great Is That Ignorance?

"Sullen were we in the sweet air the sun made glad, bearing within us a sluggish smoke." Those souls trapped in Dante's fourth circle are fixed in the slime, choking on this hymn, learning a hard lesson about the sin of despair. I learned it from a more comfortable position, watching the Jets stomp the Miami Dolphins on a warm Monday night. To despair is to imply that the world the Lord has made is not good, and that is no small charge. I can only admit my error and beg forgiveness.


I wasn't sure I would be able to return to my hastily assembled theology. Had the Jets lost to the Dolphins I'm reasonably certain I would have accepted there was no god, driven myself to New Jersey and tried to drown myself in the swamps of the Meadowlands. Most of the first half was a goddamned travesty, as one three-and-out after another piled up and I began to wonder what went beyond embarrassing. What's past humiliating? There's probably precedent for relieving an offensive coordinator mid-game, but what's the word on murdering one? The only bright spot was the Perseverance of the Saints, with Revis getting an 100 yard pick six on a play that by all rights should have been a penalty. That's what I was driving at last week: Should the good lord call your number, you will find your way to the stage. You will catch your breaks; to believe otherwise is to be sullen in the sweet air. And in that vein, a quarterback who opened 1 for 4 took an offense that managed less than a dozen yards in the first quarter and finished the night 14 for 25 with just under 300 total yards. Jeremy Kerley proved a capable replacement for Derrick Mason, Shonn Greene spent the second half looking like the bruiser he's supposed to be, and David Harris blasted Matt Moore in the teeth with an oil tanker.


A lot went wrong, of course, and though I mean no offense to my co-blogger here at ACLB, a lot of it was that they were playing the hapless Dolphins. But fuck all that, when you were where the Jets were you need a win, and if that means driving down to the schoolyard to pick on somebody much smaller then you, well, that's what it takes. Victories are victories, and if I can wipe the sluggish smoke from my heart I can look forward to next week.

Dolphins Watch: In depth preview of Jets Monday Night Football game

First of all, check out Peter’s take on the upcoming Jets-Dolphins match-up here: http://www.armchairlinebacker.com/2011/10/jetsdolphins-preview-john-calvin-never.html. He’s a Jets fan, and it’s still worth reading. Be sure to come back here afterward. I’ll wait.

Okay, welcome back. We’ll start with Brandon Marshall. He claimed during a press conference today that was planning on getting thrown out during the second quarter of the Jets game. He followed up with:

"I'm not joking. I'm serious," Marshall told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. "They're going to fine me. It's probably going to be like a $50,000 fine. But that quarter and a half that I'm out there, I'm going to play like a monster.

"I might get in a fight with Bart Scott. (Antonio) Cromartie, we pretty much matured our relationship and grew a little bit. We used to fight in Denver and San Diego. If that happens, it happens, so we'll see."

I have a number of thoughts about those comments. That number is five:

1. Brandon Marshall was diagnosed earlier this year with borderline personality disorder, and very publicly spoke out about it before the season. There was an incident where he apparently stabbed his wife because of this personality disorder. He is a nutbar.

2. I hope he does get thrown out of the game because he’s had five drops so far this. If he had caught those passes, the Dolphins would be 2-2 right now.

3. No one would notice if he was thrown out of the game anyway.

4. I want to defecate in Brandon Marshall’s face.

5. The problem with me printing his comments for you like this is that you don’t get hear them. The part for me that was even worse than the garbage spewing forth from Marshall’s mouth was the journalists in the room nervously laughing at what he was saying like he was the funniest human being alive. This is the type of thing that fuels Shaq, by the way. He’s lived his life in this bubble where all his life people have been laughing at his crummy jokes and convincing him he’s really funny. I guess it doesn’t hurt that he’s seven foot tall and like 500 pounds. But I digress.

Now! Let’s get down to the business of analyzing this football game! I hate this game. If we win this game, we get to say we’ve beaten our hated rivals on the big stage of Monday Night Football. The downside is that we can’t really afford to win right now, because there are too many lousy teams in the NFL, and you *know* the Colts are going to keep losing, so we have to keep up with them in the Andrew Luck sweepstakes. But, if we lose, we have to deal with annoying Jets fans telling us how much we suck, even though beating the Dolphins isn’t exactly anything to whistle Dixie about.

As for the Jets, offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer has been the recipient of many a harsh word from New York fans for his play calling. Justifiably so, in my estimation, since I believe the Jets run the same eight plays over and over, making it easy for defenses to key in on them and stop them from scoring. The Jets appear to be a team that plays its best when they run the ball 35-40 times per game and sprinkle in the pass in between. They certainly have some good rushers to do just that. However, lately they seem to be relying too heavily on the pass, and again, that’s the kind of thing a defense can take note on and easily thwart.

Luckily for the Jets, they’re not playing a smart team. They’re playing the Dolphins. Karlos Dansby had a great quote earlier this week where he was talking about how much the team misses Channing Crowder (who was replaced before the season by Kevin Burnett), because Crowder had the ability to read what the offense was doing and help the rest of the defense identify it and stop it. All that tells me is that the rest of the team isn’t very smart and doesn’t do their homework properly. These are abilities Karlos Dansby should have. Apparently he does not, and the reason for that is because he is a poopy diarrhea dump of a football player.

Now, if the Jets offense is predictable, the Dolphins offense is even more predictable. They’re going to try to pound you to death, three yards at a time. They’re going to try to run Reggie Bush between the tackles, even though he’s never been successful at that in the whole of his lifetime. They’re going to chuck up a pass to Brandon Marshall that he will not catch because he is not able to catch football passes. It gets even better when you consider that Chad Henne is injured, and so we’re going with Matt Moore at QB.

So yeah, this is a must lose situation for the Dolphins. The Rams are winless. The Colts are winless. The Broncos are too close. The Seahawks are too close. We need to keep losing and keep closing throughout the rest of the season. Unfortunately, the Jets have lost three in a row, and the Dolphins are really good at beating the Jets in New York. So, like I said before, either way, whatever the result of this game is, there is a 50-50 chance I’m going to hang myself on Monday night and this will be the last post you ever see of me on here.

In the end, I think the Jets have enough talent to pull out the victory, which will bring back the blustery, overly confident Jet fan in full force. “We’re back, playoffs here we come, somebody help us beat the Patriots, blah blah blah.” (Man, there are a lot of Jets fans in Miami. And they all call in to the talk radio shows, too.)

Ultimately, Dan Carpenter will get a couple field goals Tony Sparano can jack off to, and the Jets will outscore them just by sheer will and slightly less incompetence. I will be busy IV’ing alcohol into my veins and shooting heroin into my eyeballs to cope.

Final score: Jets 17, Dolphins 13

Jets/Dolphins Preview: John Calvin Never Won the Big One

"By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death." The Westminster Confession of Faith lays out a very simple vision of the world, inflexible and unforgiving. Should you find favor in this life you are chosen and will one day ascend to heaven. Should you falter on this earth you are condemned, and in your eternal life you will spend more time listening to Joe Buck and Troy Aikman than any person deserves. Earlier I spoke of my inability to understand the Jets in 2011. My mistake was contemplation of an earthly sort, and I shall attempt to remedy that here. Having realized my mistake, I turn to The Decision of the Synod of Dort.

Total Depravity - Since the Fall, every person born carries with them the weight of sin. The Jets won the Super Bowl in 1969, and every year since has ended in disappointment. This is the driving force behind Rex's repeated pronouncements, the ugly warmth of hope driving the lamentations. If the Jets lose this game, their chances of a postseason drop precipitously and it will be difficult for all but the most faithful to refrain from abandoning hope. The rub of Calvinism is that your fate has already been decided, and that decision can only be divined from the path of your life. Should you find fortune, that is the literal proof that you have been Chosen. Should you find failure you must continue through the world knowing that your end will contain no glory, no trumpets, no light.

Unconditional Election - God has chosen not on the merits of your heart or your virtues or even your faith. He has chosen solely from mercy. We are foolish to think that Sanchez should improve from year to year, or that getting him a better receiving corps would change things. Shonn Greene found his legs in New England, the return of Nick Mangold bolstered the entire offense, but none of that matters. They will either be recipients of His grace or they will not. It is not their talent that will decide. Doing better than three-of-eleven on third downs would be really, really nice, but without His favor it is nothing. Reducing dropped passes might seem crucial to successful conversions, but absent His grace your hands are forever doomed to be of the earth, stone.

Limited Atonement - Jesus Christ, son of God, gave his life to atone for the sins of man, but only those already chosen. It is limited not in power but in scope, and not everyone is welcome in the light it granted us. Derrick Mason was cast out, either for the sin of complaining or the sin of failing to get separation. Tough to say for certain. But in his absence others will find a path. As Bryan Thomas weeps in the locker room over his torn Achilles tendon, his surviving compatriots will be stirred. If you are chosen, all losses have purpose. If you are condemned, you have only more hollow failure to look foward to.

Irresistible Grace - If you have been chosen, you cannot resist. In His wisdom He has granted you salvation, and you cannot refuse His gifts. You will be granted consecutive games against some of the worst pass defense in the league. When you are at your lowest point, He will grant you an 0-4 team without their starting quarterback. The injuries to the linchpin of your offense will not be season-ending. Through the unyielding power of the Holy Spirit, you will find your way to grace.

Perseverance of the Saints - Just as you cannot resist the gift of salvation, the world cannot rob you of it. Darrelle Revis will line up where he is told to line up, he will shadow who he is told to shadow, he will take half the field from any quarterback who comes against him. Bart Scott will push with everything he has, desperate to outrun failure even after it has caught him. Plaxico Burress will throw nasty blocks at oncoming blitzers, using his body as sword and sheild. Shonn Greene will smash into that line over, and over, and over again until it opens for him. If you are chosen, if He has selected you for grace, there is not a force in existence that can stop you.

The Jets head to Miami looking for proof that God loves them. They will either find it, or they will enter week 7 with the painful certainty of doomed men.

Dolphins Watch: Bill Parcells And The Art Of Team Building

I hate the taste of leftover Tuna. Here’s why.

This winless debacle of a season is mostly Bill Parcells’ fault. You know, Bill Parcells. The Tuna. Step aside Jim Halpert, he’s the original Big Tuna. He’s also a Big Fraud. You can see him these days on your television screen, talking to you about how to build a franchise. What needs to be done to build a successful football team. As if he would have any clue about that.

See, no one on ESPN really wants to challenge him on his recent track record. I can’t blame them. It’s been deplorable. For all his bluster, with his ever expanding waist line and his ever expanding ego and his urine colored hair, he was nothing short of a complete failure during his three years in Miami. Before I get too far ahead of myself, I’m just going to list the draft picks he was responsible for here. The number ahead of the name represents what round the player was drafted in.

2008
1. T Jake Long, Michigan
2. DE Phillip Merling, Clemson
2. QB Chad Henne, Michigan
3. DE Kendall Langford, Hampton
4. T Shawn Murphy, Utah State
6. RB Jalen Parmele, Toledo
6. G Donald Thomas, Connecticut
6. RB Lex Hilliard, Montana
7. DE Lionel Dotson, Arizona

2009
1. CB Vontae Davis, Illinois
2. QB Pat White, West Virginia
2. CB Sean Smith, Utah
3. WR Patrick Turner, USC
4. WR Brian Hartline, Ohio State
5. TE John Nalbone, Monmouth
5. S Chris Clemons, Clemson
6. T Andrew Gardner, Georgia Tech
7. LB JD Folsom, Weber State

2010
1. DT Jared Odrick, Penn State
2. DE Koa Misi, Utah
3. T John Jerry, Ole Miss
4. LB AJ Edds, Iowa
5. CB Nolan Carroll, Maryland
5. S Reshad Jones, Georgia
7. LB Chris McCoy, Middle Tennessee
7. LB Austin Spitler, Ohio State

So, let’s see here. How many superstar players are there in that bunch? I count just Jake Long in that bunch. And then there are serviceable to good players like Henne, Langford, Vontae and Misi, and roster filler like Hartline, Hilliard and Carroll. Odrick has been a colossal atrocity so far. Pat White is already out of the league. I think a lot of these people are no longer in the league. I’ve never heard of Nalbone, but that’s a great name, and I actually live on Monmouth Street, so that’s a bonus for me.

In any event, Parcells beat it out of town sometime during the 2010 season, making this past draft the first one that Jeff Ireland was primarily responsible for. (As a quick aside, Ireland is in a great political position with this team. He can claim to Stephen Ross that he had nothing to do with the failures during the three aforementioned drafts; those were Tuna’s mistakes, since he had final say on them. And anyone struggling from the 2011 draft, well, those players simply need more time to blossom. And their struggles can be blamed on Tony Sparano’s coaching, anyway. It’s a cushy little spot Ireland has created for himself here. I’m telling you.)

Point is, while the Lions were busy drafting guys like Calvin Johnson, Matthew Stafford, Brandon Pettigrew and Ndamukong Suh, this heap of not much is what the Dolphins have to show for their “efforts” in the draft. Those three years should have been the building of a foundation that would lift the Phins to the playoffs for years to come. Instead, like I said, the only player that every team in the NFL would want to have is probably Jake Long. This was supposed to be the year Chad Henne really breaks out and establishes himself as a top ten NFL quarterback, but he struggled for four games and then got injured for the season. The whole thing is a mess, and Tuna made it. And then he skipped town, leaving it to others to clean things up.

As I mentioned in my first post on here, Parcells left because of a personality conflict with Ireland and Sparano. It was your basic power struggle that Parcells handled like your basic five year old, taking his urine colored ball and heading to ESPN. So he can observe things from afar, telling you what all the teams need to do to be successful. And you’re supposed to forget that he drafted Jake Long over Matt Ryan when Ryan would have represented some kind of actual hope for Miami fans. Granted Long turned out alright, but quarterback is the biggest difference maker position in football, and he totally failed. Henne ended up being only okay, and Pat White was one of the worst draft picks in the history of ever. (My next post is going to be about the Dolphins’ quarterback history, so this is a little preview for you.)

Somewhere along the way he forgot. He forgot that in 1993, his first year with the New England Patriots, he drafted Drew Bledsoe, and Drew Bledsoe was the reason he was able to rejuvenate the team as well as he did. He didn’t draft Willie Roaf or Lincoln Kennedy, even though they were highly considered offensive line prospects. He drafted the bleeping quarterback and built around him. *That* is how you build a successful NFL team.

So Dolphins fans open up their refrigerator, and what do they see? A three week old container of sour cream, some casserole thing their mom made for them that they’re probably not going to touch, and some leftover Tuna. And it all stinks.