2013 All-Armchair Linebacker Team (numbers 2 through 22)

In case you missed yesterday’s first part to this 2013 All-Armchair Linebacker team, well then you’re fucked. You’ll never catch up at this point. Anyways, today we go through numbers 12 to 22. These are the higher-profile QBs where one number was not enough, or misfit kickers or punters, or WRs who at first barely make a football team as a special teams guy with a second-hand number in training camp, but then it sticks. These are also the early 20s numbers, star numbers for players better than an under-20 number would warrant, but need to be first in line on the regular, non-pussy specialist dude roster. So let’s get to it…

#12: Tom Brady (QB, New England Patriots) – You know what? A really strange thing happened to me after that Patriots/Ravens game the other day, as I had been rooting against Belichick/Brady like anybody else with any human decency. But then there was Ray Lewis trying to take off his shoulder pads with 2 minutes left in the game so he could show off his stupid fucking Jesus shirt, and somebody is like, “No no no no” to him because you know, the game’s not over. So he lurks around, then gets himself unstrapped really quickly after the game so he can very melodramatically crouch down in the center of the field and gibber-pray some bullshit, with no teammates around at all, surrounded by media cameras, with his stupid tank top message on. And I realized, here I was rooting against Tom Brady this whole time, thinking he was a total douchebag, when in actuality the real total douche of the NFL was on the other side, in the form of Ray Lewis. All too often the Ray Lewis opinion is either, “He’s great” or “He stabbed people so I am uncomfortable with him.” Neither of these really address the issue of what a melodramatic queen type he truly is, and how he’s easily – EASILY – the biggest douchebag in the NFL. Why do I say all this as I talk about Tom Brady on the All-ACLB team? Because it’s my way of explaining that yes Tom Brady is handsome by magazine advertisement standards, and yes he is rich, and yes he has won three Super Bowls already. And yes, he was George Bush’s guest a bunch of times. But how is he really that bad? Like what are the genuine displays of outright douchery he has committed lately. Now I understand this might just mean he has excellent handlers and PR people, but still, being handled properly and relating to the public well is not necessarily a horrible thing, now is it?

#13: T.Y. Hilton (WR, Indianapolis Colts) – Mostly I like him because his name sounds like an actor on one of those WB network urban sitcoms. Sometimes I can’t sleep and I am sitting around late doing nothing naked on the couch high on hydrocodone, and I end up watching those shows – like Sisters or Meet the Pains (or whatever) where that one dude wears the most garish clothes possible. I’m not even sure most white people know these things exist. But also, racial composition is not scientific at all, and actually a political tool, so ultimately it doesn’t matter if white people know it exists, because “white people” themselves don’t truly exist, at least not scientifically.

#14: Zoltan Mesko (P, New England Patriots) – If you are named Zoltan, you will be on the All ACLB team. That’s been the new rule ever since Mack Strong retired.

#15: Tim Tebow (QB, New York Jets) – The whole Sanchez/Rex Ryan thing I wrote about yesterday is even more bizarre when you add in Tim Tebow to the whole thing. I know locker room codes are not broken, and the NFL is very strict in enforcing its kayfabe policies of not revealing bullshit to the rubes/marks at large (meaning you and me), but man, I bet the story beneath the  underbelly of the 2012 New York Jets is quite an amazing story.

#16: Josh Cribbs (WR, Cleveland Browns) – Gangsta Cribbs, who did not have the same explosion as return specialist this year, nor was he utilized as much in the wildcat formation being the Browns have Brandon Weeden now. But Gangsta Cribbs is Gangsta Cribbs, and he always came with the fury. For me, Cribbs is the perfect example of how the NFL exploits people, as he was the only thing worth seeing in a Browns uniform for a number of years, and they never gave him the money he wanted, even when he held out, and now his value has gone down so he couldn’t get it if they wanted to give it to him, and he’ll be out of the league in a couple of years, having generated millions, and made thousands. I know you heartless fuckers raised on the machine emotions of the Lords of Capital always go, “Whoa man, these guys get paid a lot of money to play this game… If they are broken, crippled, and impoverished in five  years, it’s not my problem.” One should not revel in the ignorance of others, and one should definitely not pretend to themselves that by continuously supporting an exploitative business that preys on the environmentally conditioned ignorance of others, that they are not part of the problem.

#17: Austin Collie (WR, Indianapolis Colts) – I like to call him Mr. Concussion. This dude sneezes and he’s got neurocognitive specialists giving him tests on the sideline. I have to admit I’m a little bummed there’s already been three Colts on this team. I kinda hate the Colts. Still though, it’s pretty hard to resist the chance to make an Austin Collie concussion joke.

#18: Randall Cobb (WR, Green Bay Packers) – I run a fantastical league where return yards on special teams scores points, so that period this year when the Packers had no RB, and Cobb was the only receiver who could catch passes, and he was also their return man, it was a glorious period. Thus, he is now here. Because of fake football games with nerds using math.

#19: John Skelton (QB, Arizona Cardinals) – Is there anything more perfectly misfitted than a cast-off Cardinals QB named Skelton wearing the #19? I mean, Harry Crews or Cormac McCarthy couldn’t have dreamed up something like that. So sad and so real.

#20: Ed Reed (S, Baltimore Ravens) – Ed Reed is the greatest. You can tell by looking into his sad ancient hobo hermit poet eyes. It really just drives home what a douche Ray Lewis is when you look over and Ed Reed is just being totally chill about everything, always.

#21: Charles Woodson (S, Green Bay Packers) – Similar things – though not quite as strongly – can be said for Charles Woodson. He is a rock, and keeps fighting around injuries galore, although he’s already made the downgrade from CB to safety, so there’s not much further into the grey areas of active NFL rosters he can really go. But we love Charles Woodson at Armchair Linebacker, as he was always the superior Woodson (fuck you Rod, and I guess Darren as well, though I don’t think other than that one Super Bowl game where Neil O’Donnell was paid to lose it by the Mafia anybody really thought Darren Woodson was good).

#22: Jerron McMillian (CB, Green Bay Packers) – Makes the team simply because he is the only NFL player active with my last name, spelled as I spell it, which is a rare spelling only utilized by true Super Destructors. I am of course of the metaphysical variety of Super Destructor, and the last name is pronounced “MACK-mill-in” because the extra a in the last syllable shoots into the first syllable because I am motherfucking magical like that, and more powerful than the painful conventions of the English language. I am New Writing, in human form.

2011 All ACLB Team Kick Returners

NEIL: STEFAN LOGAN
I am picking Stefan Logan for both spots here because fuck you, that’s why. No, but seriously, folks, fuck you. Okay, okay, I apologize. I am getting a little testy after 600,000 words (just a rough estimate), involuntary imprisonment in a mental hospital, an intergalactic war with squidmen and you don’t even wanna know what else. I’m tired. But thankfully, I have my memories of watching that little midget Stefan Logan smurfing his way down the field for big return after big return, reviving a proud legacy of dynamite return men in Detroit which stretched from Mel Hall to Desmond Howard to Eddie Drummond, but which had been vanquished and was sucked away in a maelstrom of vicious tears and a mournful howl, aka the Matt Millen Era.
Yes, during those dark and terrible days, even those small beautiful glories which we held to our hearts were ripped away and shat upon. They were torn apart and we were left with only our memories, proud yet despairing, and as we watched Aveion Cason and Derrick Williams and Aveion Cason and Aaron Brown and Aveion fucking Cason fall down and shit themselves shy of the 20 yard line again and again, it seemed as if those memories belonged to another lifetime, another age of this world, which existed in black and white, fading, dying, from both our hearts and our minds.
But then Stefan Logan showed up, plucked off the waiver wire from Pittsburgh and the moment he broke his first big return, those memories exploded back into our hearts and minds in Technicolor, and the promise of the past seemed to be faintly alive again, pulsing from forgotten places in our souls, flowing back into our living memories and the world seemed, if for only an instant, to be one which we could still conquer. We could outrun death, we could turn and laugh at the Failure Demons as they futilely pursued us from hell, and we could capture the very light of heaven again because now we were back in the game, now we had a dude who could tilt the field in our direction, who could tilt the very world itself in our direction. That cold, gray uphill trudge was replaced with a brilliant green downhill jaunt. We could laugh and tumble and roll carefree, like we . . . you know what, this is getting completely ridiculous. I apologize. I have passed hyperbole and entered into some ridiculous unknown realm which is utterly shameless. But fuck it, that’s kind of the point here. For the first time in a long time, we have a return man in Stefan Logan who allows me to get stupid, to babble on like a giddy fool in love with all the world, drunk on promise and the light of tomorrow. Stefan Logan took that kickoff and he ran from the past towards that light and when he did we all went along with him, and maybe that’s just a small thing, maybe his contributions to that run to glory are minimal, and that I am overstating things just because that’s what I do, but then again, maybe not. Maybe he sets a tone for the rest of the team, maybe he fires all of our hearts in ways that we don’t understand, in ways that we’d forgotten. Maybe he is the hidden secret to this whole damn thing. Okay, fine, probably not, but still, I will slam my fist on the table and I will fight any man who says that they have a better return man than me, and that’s what this is all about. Pride, motherfuckers. Pride. And that’s why he’s on this team.



RAVEN: DESEAN JACKSON & JOSHUA CRIBBS
Look, at this point I am just forcing myself to finish writing this thing as it has become a long convoluted process and we are almost half a year removed from the end of the season, but luckily the lockout has saved us from having like 39 of our chosen players end up on different teams by now. As for the dudes who catch the kicks and return them, seems like it might be a dying art, as the NFL is afraid of concussions and the long-term demented effects of such things. As a scientifically minded individual, I can understand this. But as an alpha male omega man, this is bullshit. Football is supposed to be separate from civilization's faggotries, and not concerned with long-term nothing. Fuck the future.
And this is the best mentality for a kick or punt returner, as well as fuck the past. There is nothing but the moment, and that's why every kick has to be returned with passion and zealotry. There is nothing more frustrating as a fan than seeing your return man commit fair catch after fair catch, which is like dating a good-enough-looking woman who wears daisy dukes all the time but doesn't like to have sex, or slips into pajama pants at like 7:30 every night. It sucks. A return man is like, "Fuck it, I'm gonna do this," and does it. Sometimes he gets concussed, sometimes he gets 6 points. But either way - concussion or touchdown - he instills in his regular, non-special teammates a do or die mentality, that you just do not give a fuck and this thing must be done because we have chosen to play this game which is sort of like a war but also just a game and we make lots of money but ultimately we will all be broke and broken and half-crippled and mentally disabled so we are obviously all in now and let's MOTHERFUCKING DO THIS!
With that in mind, as my main return man of the punted varieties, there is no one other than DeSean Jackson. He has what the kids in flat-brimmed hats and athletic socks pulled up really high nowadays like to call Swag, in abundance, and he makes things happen, constantly. As a Redskins fan, it bothers me that the year he was drafted, we picked like 3 other pieces of shit receivers who have amounted to just barely more than nothing in front of Jackson. And there he is, twice a year, motherfucking doing it, rubbing my nose in the fact I am emotionally attached to an organizationally retarded franchise. And yet he is so good at doing just that, I can't even hate on him. It's not his fault we suck. This culture existed long before him. Whereas a Dallas Cowboy was my born snipe victim from the moment my father and mother's DNA commingled inside her womb, the Eagles were just another rivalry, to be gotten up for, but I'm not going to organize pipe bomb campaigns against them or anything. I mean I can hate them as easily as anybody, don't get me wrong. But DeSean Jackson is just so motherfucking doing it, I can't hate him like that. I just can't.
As for a kick returner, I'd go with Joshua Cribbs, mostly because I play in a dorkery football league with heavyweight special teams scoring, and Cribbs has been my man for like three years now. Also he looks fairly L.A. gangster in 1993 thuggish, yet has a warm smile, and did better as a wildcat QB for the Browns than most any other actual QB they've had the past three years. Unfortunately, as a return man, he's hit that peak and is probably winding down, just as he was hoping to get a big contract done. That's the nature of the Great Return Man - a day late, a dollar short, but still getting 2.3 yards more than a fair catch would have gotten him.


TOMORROW: Head Coaches