2013 All-Armchair Linebacker Team (numbers 1 through 11)

Let me make this clear – this is the 2013 All-Armchair Linebacker team of people. I am not sure where Neil is, as he has not been at the ACLB Clubhouse the past couple weeks, after I gave him some cursed turtlehead knife from a Portuguese bruxa. We usually try to meet every other week in Louisville, Kentucky, at a studio space our immense profits from Armchair Linebacker allows us to rent in the downtown arts district, where we chat about our editorial direction. Neil hasn’t showed up the past three times though. Whatever. Thus, he’s not helping with this.

Also I think picking teams based on position alone is for assholes. If you want to read some bullshit like that, go google Peter King and get your asshole reading done elsewhere. This list is done by numbers, one player per number, so our team has 99 players and like 10 kickers. Fuck you if that’s a problem.

Our first listing goes from 1 through 11 – the primadonnas of the NFL – kicking specialists and sheltered QBs and the occasional weirdo WR with a super low number (though none made our All-ACLB team in these numbers). These are the little twerps of our football team, thus they have little twerp numbers, and are the guys most likely to be good at really complicated five-part sudoku puzzles. Or backgammon. Man, is there any game more asshole-y than backgammon? Anyways, here’s the 2013 All-ACLB team, Part 1 of 9…

#1: Pat McAfee (P, Indianapolis Colts) – Don’t know shit about this guy, like at all, and I hate the Colts, but I can’t help but imagine weird ass drunken rich guy Jim Irsay is somehow friends with that weird ass drug-addled rich dude who started the actual McAfee virus software that was in Central America doing brain drugs and killing some other dude and being a nutball, so I sort of imagine Pat McAfee is probably about as good as 142 other punters on this earth (as they are all about the same after the best five), but because his uncle is the crazy software guy, and that guy used to go on hash/16-year-old boy indulgence vacations with Irsay a few years back, Irsay got him to be his punter.

#2: Kai Forbath (K, Washington Redskins) – California kid called Kai who kicks with a shoe three-sizes too small… not normally what I’d be proud of, but he’s the first good kicker the Redskins have had in 20 years, even though half the guys who used to kick for the Redskins all kick elsewhere now. Naturally easy nickname of “Cobra” Kai as well.

#3: Russell Wilson (QB, Seattle Seahawks) – Look, I don’t like Russell Wilson, mostly because he sounds and looks like Tiger Woods, and who the fuck likes Tiger Woods? That’s like liking feudalism. But there’s not a lot of great shit going on with the #3 in the NFL right now, and the kid had a good rookie season, so I’ll give him some shine.

#4: Jason Hanson (K, Detroit Lions) – Has been playing since before anybody outside of defense contractors knew what the internet was. Oldest man in football probably, and one day will be forced to retire, thus causing the Lions to lose the one piece that tied together the three times they were almost good as a franchise.

#5: Chris Kluwe (P, Minnesota Vikings) – Very popular amongst the internet for being an internet douche type that likes comic book shit and is okay with gays. Sometimes it is lost on us nowadays that just because you like comic books and are okay with gays, it does not mean you are a cool person. There are plenty of dumbasses who like comic books and are okay with gays. You should stop using the logical fallacy of thinking because somebody is the opposite of something stupid, they are not stupid. Everybody is stupid.

#6: Mark Sanchez (QB, New York Jets) – Oh man, there is so much to say here about Mark Sanchez. First, the butt fumble thing is an amazing work of chaos that we are all so blessed to have happen in the internet age when wacky gifs can live forever (relatively speaking). If that had happened in 1971, which it might have, we wouldn’t know, much less catch many lulz over. But beyond this, the entire Mark Sanchez story is interesting to me, as you have this magazine advertisement handsome kid from SoCal, going into the largest metro market in America, wooing everybody with his good looks – a natural pussymonger if there ever was one, in the Joe Namath tradition. Now usually the professional athlete of this stature takes years to slowly deteriorate and be forced, against his will, to take on a normal man’s life. Except with Sanchez, his lack of successes has caused this to be foisted upon him even earlier. He is essentially the most handsome failure of America, even more handsome but more of a failure than even Matt Leinart before him. And yet there is coach Rex Ryan on Caribbean vacation sporting a shitty tattoo of his wife in a Sanchez jersey. That would be weird under normal circumstances (if such a thing can occur in normal circumstances) but given the fact Ryan’s wife has been outed before as star of homemade foot fetish videos, and Ryan himself an alleged prevert, it all the more remarkable. “Why?” you may ask. Well because through rampant surfing through tumblrs, I can tell you foot fetishists tend to skew towards liking to be humiliated, and there is a strong cross-section of this demographic that also enjoys playing the cuckold, which is a medieval term for “haha, somebody else is fucking your ol’ lady while you watch.” So for Coach Ryan to have his star handsome QB’s jersey on his poorly tattooed wife in a sultry pose, it suggests things very Craigslist No-Strings-Attached folder-like. And of course, that makes perfect sense for the New York Jets, and their degenerate fanbase. Of course now the Sanchez era may be over, and he will just be a high profile back-up somewhere like San Francisco or Carolina or something, but man, it was really the most perfect thing ever while it was rolling along.

#7: Ben Roethlisberger (QB, Pittsburgh Steelers) – Fuck the haters, Big Ben is the best. Giant, halfwit QBs who probably hang out on the Sons of Anarchy set in the off-season will always be the best. Kenny Stabler taught me that.

#8: Adam Podlesh (P, Chicago Bears) – Nothing remarkable about Adam Podlesh, other than he is the Bears player in the #8 jersey, formerly made infamous by Rex Grossman, who is perhaps the worst QB who ever made it to a Super Bowl. Have you ever thought about the fact the only Super Bowl Peyton Manning ever won was against Rex Grossman? Doesn’t seem quite so Hall of Fame-worthy, does it?

#9: Tony Romo (QB, Dallas Cowboys) – There is nothing more perfect than watching Tony Romo fuck up the end of a game and/or season in the haphazard, confused twinkle-eyed ways that only Tony Romo can. For that reason alone, there is no way he would not be on our All-ACLB team, because we are about the beauty of suffering more than probably anything else.

#10: Robert Griffin III (QB, Washington Redskins) – Briefly made the Redskins seem like they might right their immense wrongs, until their immensely wrong ways swallowed RG3 whole and snapped his knee sideways. Every Redskins fan blog should just have an animated gif of RG3’s knee bending sideways in the hardscrabble surface of FedEx Field as its banner, because nothing more perfectly sums up the Dan Snyder era of Redskinsdom than that moment.

#11: Sebastian Janikowski (K, Oakland Raiders) – Throwback kicker in that he is a rudeboy Polock with a beer belly, and yet still awesome as fuck. If you wanted somebody to speak to your corporate sponsors, he’d be the last choice amongst all NFL kickers, but if you wanted somebody to attempt a 65-yard field goal at the end of a meaningless first half of a meaningless week 13 game against the Chiefs, there’s nobody better.

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.

NFL ACLB PREVIEWS - #5: NEW YORK JETS

PERTINENT DATA: 11-5, earning an AFC wild card berth, beat Colts in Indy in wild card round, then beat the Patriots in New England in the divisional round in a steel cage grudge match with special referee Bronco Nagurski, finally losing at the Steelers in the AFC Championship game; 12 to 1 odds to win Super Bowl XLVI.
BEST CASE SCENARIO (Raven): Basically, the only reason I took on doing the best case for the Jets was because when we have our weekly Armchair Linebacker editorial meetings, Neil cracks me up with his anti-Rex Ryan banter. Both Neil and I have been partially trained in remote viewing, which is a CIA used time travel telekinesis where you move yourself into other places throughout the world and time. It's as close as man has come to being able to successfully time travel, because you don't have to take your physical body, just your mind and soul through remote viewing. Most high-level spying by the U.S. and Russia in the past 20 years has been done in this manner, which is why terrorists sending Somalians to physically try to blow up things seems so uncivilized to us. It is, because we're already on some next level shit, and know what's going to happen before it happens.
Me and Neil have not gone through much of this training though, because of external factors that didn't allow us to move through the clearance levels - financial status, family pedigree, legal issues, online writings, etc. - but the main trainer dude at Quantico - a guy named Walt - he walked us through a lot of the stuff outside of the rigid framework of the military, so we know enough to meet once a week, where we know we can both travel without getting lost. Lately that's been 1950s Morocco when Williams S. Burroughs was wandering around, having sex with Arab boys. It's actually been really interesting to just watch the people coming and going in this little hash house Neil loves to observe, and connect those older far more liberal times to this alleged Arab Spring the news people have been hyping up.
Anyways, back to the Jets... I don't necessarily like them, but don't hate them either. I do not respect Jets fans though, because that self-loathing second-tier New York sports fan that for whatever reason decides to be a fan of the Jets, Mets, Nets, and either Islanders or Devils just seems weird to me. And on top of that, I cannot stand the mentality of signing 37 veteran players and thinking that'll make you great. But I guess I'm supposed to do the best case scenario, so I will...
Okay, best case scenario for the Jets is Mark Sanchez is not as shitty as it looks like he might actually be, and everything else holds together, and nobody gets arrested for shooting themselves in the thigh or kicked out the NFL for off-field crimes, and Rex Ryan doesn't talk so much shit another team just outright decides to whoop Jets ass, and they are allowed by everyone else in the league to be as successful as they want to tell you they can be, in spite of their actual ability to cohesively achieve team goals, when led by an overweight half-witted Fox sitcom of a coach.
WORST CASE SCENARIO (Neil): I hate the New York Jets. You should know this by now. But I haven’t always hated the Jets. If anything, I have always just been sort of ambivalent about both them and their fans. Yeah, their fans were fun to mock and abuse as Mookish stereotypes but at heart they were fans of a perpetual loser and so it was easy just to laugh off their bullshit. Then Rex Ryan showed up, and all of a sudden that false sense of bravado that Jets fans have carried around since the beginning of time stopped being mildly annoying and a little funny and became something they all actually believed in. Rex Ryan is what would happen if you bottled up all of that false bravado, mixed it in a lab with boorish incompetence and sprinkled in a dash of corn fed hick. Okay, that’s not entirely fair. Rex Ryan isn’t incompetent. He’s just nowhere as good as he thinks – and most people in the media – seem to think. I’ve written about this several times already, and, well . . . fuck it . . . here is the Best of Neil Hates Rex Ryan, for your enjoyment:
(From the Best Coaches section of the ALL-ACLB Team, and if you haven’t read those . . . well, goddamn, you missed a rocket ride that was born in hell and touched all corners of the universe of crazy.):

“Oh sure, sure, there are others, like that fat blowhard Rex Ryan but there is something fraudulent about him. He just seems like a dude with a big mouth who talks a steady stream of shit and carries himself like “Hey, look, ya’ll! I’m a pirate! Yee-haw!!!” And then his ass cheeks clench on 4th and 2 from the opponent’s 35 yard line and he punts but nobody notices because he spends the time after the game telling dumb jokes to the media, who roll over on their stupid backs and purr and laugh while he strokes their hideous bellies. He’s a vengeful fucker too, which is cool because that is a dark, primal instinct that we understand at Armchair Linebacker. We know all about dark, primal instincts. But because we are gentlemen and warriors of light, we understand how to control our base instincts and make them work for us instead of becoming dumb slaves to their salacious and idiotic whims. But not Rex Ryan. He is consumed, like some fat degenerate Ahab, with righting all perceived slights, with slaying windmill dragons and in doing so he reveals a shameful inferiority complex, the fat little kid underneath who learned to talk shit so people wouldn’t kick him in the ass all the time. His daddy was Buddy Ryan, and he tries so hard to be his father that it is kind of embarrassing. Honestly, the only time I actually kind of liked the dude was when it came out that he worships his wife’s feet. Hey, man, good for him. At least there is something perversely honest about that shit. But everything else is just a sad clown show, false bravado meant to cover up some hidden insecurity that makes him waver when shit gets a little too hot. But back to him being vengeful. He is. He decided that the Patriots were the bad guys and he made it his life’s mission to overthrow the big bad vampire priest, Bill Belichick. And he did. Good for him. And then he and his team went out the next week and lost to the Steelers. Just like everybody knew they would. Because deep down we all understand who Rex Ryan is. We know. He can’t make it to the end of the line because he’s a damn fool. He lacks the wisdom which every great coach has, the knowledge that the only victory that truly matters is that last one, the one which involves confetti raining down and Sheriff Goodell handing you a giant trophy in some antiseptic plastic stadium. He’s too consumed with petty battles and ultimately pointless wars and vendettas. He and his team embarrassed themselves after they beat the Patriots. They carried on like they just blew up the Death Star, won the Super Bowl and killed Hitler all at the same time. But all they won was a playoff game, one damn playoff game, and then they lost the next week and nobody cared about them anymore. Rex Ryan is just a clown, the front man for a stupid travelling hillbilly circus that will eventually spin out of control and end in laughter and tears, and deep down we all know it.”

(And in this next excerpt, I start out talking about why David Harris should be on the All-ACLB team and degenerate into bashing Rex Ryan and those heathen Jets.):

“David Harris is yet another Michigan Man and before you pelt me with garbage, consider the fact that he is the heart of everything good about the New York Jets. I know, I know, I have bitched long and hard about the Jets and I have already shamefully broken my vow twice over not to include any of those shitheads on my team, but fuck that, I see this as rescuing my boys, not rewarding the vile filth of Rex Ryan and company. Look at it this way: I am taking them away from the Jets, thus weakening the few things that prop up their bullshit kingdom. Rex Ryan is a fat fraud. He is a loudmouth who pretends to be a pirate, but when the time comes to swarm the enemy, his anus seizes up and he punts on 4th and 1 from the enemy’s 33. The only redeeming thing about this asshole is his foot fetish. The one thing everyone gives him shit for is the only thing I admire about him. So, the dude wants to fuck his wife and maybe suck on her toes? Big deal. I commend him for finding his old worn out wife beautiful. That’s true love. He’s not running whores or filming himself pissing on Jets cheerleaders or sexting dong pictures to everyone with long, blond hair and a nice chest (You don’t even wanna know about the pics Brett Favre probably sent to Clay Matthews, Jr.) No, all he’s doing is worshipping his wife and good for him.
But still, that is the only thing I find commendable about him. Everything else is bullshit. He talks and talks and talks but his team is never gonna win shit. That’s because deep down, Rex Ryan is a pussy who won’t let it all ride when he needs to. He’ll punt and then he’ll act like he won the Super Bowl because he beat Bill Belichick, and really that’s the whole problem with Rex Ryan. He creates these stupid melodramatic feuds that in the end are utterly meaningless. His team achieved an emotional high after beating the Patriots, and hey that’s cool. The only problem is that they still had a few games left to play. Oops. Rex Ryan’s job – his whole fucking point – is to make sure his team is ready to win when it matters the most. Did it matter against the Patriots? Absolutely. But it mattered even more the week after that and they couldn’t get it done. Why? Because they had already played their Super Bowl, only it wasn’t theirs, it was Rex Ryan’s. He beat Belichick and everyone supped on his balls that night, but what good did that do the team? Did it mean that they made it any farther than the year before? Nope. And that’s why Rex Ryan will never win shit. Because all he wants to do is prove infantile little points. He isn’t focused on the big goal. He’s just focused on measuring his dick.
And don’t even get me started on Mark Sanchez. That dipshit would be the quarterback for a 4-12 team if he didn’t have David Harris propping him up. Mark Sanchez had the shittiest completion percentage of any starting quarterback in the league. But . . . but . . . he wins big games! Fuck that. He’s there in big games. He’s present, just like the hot dog vendor. Good for him. David Harris wins big games. David Harris is the dude who lets jackoffs like Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez lap up the spotlight. He is the one toiling, propping up their false empire. The Jets know this. That is why they slapped the franchise tag on him. They need to keep him in indentured servitude because without him, they are just a dumb fucking zoo, full of stupid noise and disgusting monkey shit. Take him away and you just have Rex Ryan talking empty shit and Handsome Mark shaming the good name of Joe Namath. David Harris is on this team because he deserves it, because he goes to war every day even though he is surrounded by shitheads and loudmouth idiots. He props them up because he can’t not. He lets them have their glory because it’s not about them. It’s about him throwing every inch of his being into war. It’s about him fighting for a cause that’s bigger than Rex Ryan or Mark Sanchez. It’s about winning and it’s about being the goddamn best. That’s all David Harris cares about. You don’t see him playing the clown and acting the fool for all the New York media to jack off over. You just see him making plays and winning games. He is like the sun. It rises and it sets and you always know it’s there, even when you can’t see it. He will be with you until the end.”

SO THERE.
Okay, okay . . . the truth is, is that both of those were written for the All-ACLB team and I am just sloppily shoehorning them into this preview because I don’t want to think about Rex Ryan or the Jets right now. Also, it is a mark of how insane/ridiculous I am that I forgot I had already lambasted Ryan once before for the All-ACLB Team and ended up doing it all over again later. I’m pretty sure there are several other isolated incidents preserved for posterity on this blog which saw me lose my shit and viciously abuse Rex Ryan, including one particularly lurid Tale of the Great Willie Young which saw cameos from both Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez as evil Nazis, but I can’t find them right now and . . . well, shit, anything more would kind of be overkill, right? In any event, I haven’t even gotten to the worst case scenario yet. I just wanted my utter disdain for Rex Ryan and the Jets to be properly understood even though I know it cannot ever be properly understood because asking anyone to understand the inner workings of my beautiful brain would be akin to asking all of you to understand what goes on in a black hole or to understand what happens when all those clowns jam themselves together in that little car. Horrible, horrible . . .
But anyway, yeah, here is the worst case scenario for the Jets: Rex Ryan gets exposed as the fraudulent blowhard that he is when Darrell Revis gets hurt and David Harris refuses to play for such a monster. The Jets are forced to rely upon the not so golden arm of Mark Sanchez, they go 6-10 after he throws 25 interceptions and Joe Namath publicly slaps him with his dick and banishes him from his city forever. This is also the best case scenario – at least to me.
PLAYER TO PULL FOR (Raven): I have mentioned before I live near the University of Virginia, and in my ten-plus years here, I can tell you the most pro-ready player to come through was D'Brickashaw Ferguson. On top of that, having encountered that dude twice, there is not a more chill and down to earth guy I've met from that elevated athletic pedestal. On top of that, he came across as a for-real well-thought guy - not intelligent like book-smart or just some giant black dude who was taught to talk like white insurance salesmen, but he just oozed this "I've thought all this out in five different ways" master of chessboxing aura. It's a shame his professional rights were obtained by that vile Babylonian cesspool of Jets.
PLAYER TO HATE MOST (Neil): Hate them all, those self-righteous fake cowboys. Well, except for David Harris. He is merely a hostage to their villainy. It may seem unfair to lump them all in with Rex Ryan and his crony, Handsome Mark, but reality is cold and cruel and this is what they get for putting their faith in their false toe-sucking god.
BEST NAME ON TEAM: Vladimir Ducasse.
IN A PERFECT WORLD (Neil): Look, I’ve obviously lost my mind. I could continue to try to explain my almost inexplicable disdain for both Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez, which maybe – just maybe – is rooted in the fact that they are natural comparison points for both Jim Schwartz and Matthew Stafford and it has driven me insane to watch both of them held up as paragons of greatness when both my dudes are laughed at by jackoffs who think that it is simply impossible for anything good to ever exist in Honolulu Blue and Silver, especially when I think that both Jim Schwartz and Matthew Stafford are obviously better, but . . . well, shit, I guess I am going to continue trying to explain my eternal disgust for those buffoons after all. Switch teams/situations for Schwartz and Mayhew and Stafford and Sanchez and I think this becomes even more obvious. If Jim Schwartz and Matthew Stafford started their careers with the New York Jets a few years ago, stepping into the same situation that Ryan and Sanchez stepped into, there would be ticker tape parades for those dudes down Broadway. Meanwhile, if Rexy and Handsome Mark showed up in Detroit following 0-16, Rex Ryan would be laughed at as a fat goof incapable of getting the Lions off the ground and Mark Sanchez would be drawing sneering comparisons to Joey Harrington. You know I’m right, damn it. I guess in a perfect world, everyone would understand this and I wouldn’t be reduced to . . . this, which I’m pretty sure is the Internet equivalent of a drunk wandering around pantsless and screaming gibberish at random people on the street. My whole part of this preview has been an absolute mess and I’ll be the first to admit that I could have focused this better – much better – but Raven and I believe in the power and truth of true Gonzo writing which means that sometimes you’re going to get slow motion car wrecks like this, filled with blood and the howling of the damned and dying. Let the inanity and the broken mess that I’ve written tell its own story. Let it stand as a testament to the vociferous nature of my hatred for what the New York Jets have become. I cannot focus it because my mind is too clouded by dark thoughts and evil words. The Jets and Rex Ryan have made me incoherent, even to myself – and I always at least make sense to myself – and perhaps that is their greatest crime of all.
PROGNOSIS (Raven): The driftwood sticks foretold of a 12-4 season, which would win the AFC East (just barely), and that this Jets team would make it all the way to the Super Bowl as AFC Champions, but that they would come up short in that glitzy February Indianapolis showdown.

2011 All ACLB Team Head Coach

RAVEN: BILL BELICHICK
I do not respect Belichick as a head coach like most football people respect him. I am not in awe of his brilliance or ability to motivate players because I think that's mostly bullshit used by successful coaches during their peak to ratchet up their speaking engagement fees for corporate retreats. Why I like Belichick is because other than Tom Brady, he will pretty much put his penis in a player's mouth and be like, "I know my penis tastes nasty but that's because I was fucking your eventual replacement during film session earlier today. Where were you, and how much do you want to keep your spot?" The most exciting aspect to Belichick's evil demented bossman status is at some point he will no longer be coaching the Patriots and Tom Brady will be dead and gone, purchased by Mexican drug cartel overlords to perform in their own personal donkey shows, and Belichick will want to take a shot at proving how he is the ultimate greatest genius the game has ever known, and could do it somewhere else with someone else. I really hope that place is Oakland, and Al Davis is like barely alive in Stephen Hawking mode, tooling around the sidelines in a wheelchair with the driving stick in his mouth, robot voicing, "Bill, go long to that new wide receiver, they'll never expect that," while Belichick ignores him.



NEIL: JIM SCHWARTZ
Good Lord, we are almost done with this infernal thing. Sure, it’s probably July by the time you’re reading this, but hey, fuck it, I told you this shit would happen way back when we started it. Anyway . . . Jim Schwartz. Yeah. Who the fuck else was I going to pick here? Most NFL coaches – hell, most coaches anywhere – are horrible assholes. The majority of them are just ineffectual toadies just wasting space until they get their shit packed in a box by management and some other worthless asshole shows up to take their place. And then the few successful coaches are basically sociopaths. Jimmy Johnson told his whole family to basically go fuck themselves because he had to spend all his time obsessing over a dumb game. Bill Belichick is like some hideous old vampire priest who walks around in rags with dead soulless eyes and then sups on the flesh of his unsuspecting flock before retreating to his cave where he watches game tapes until his clothes rot off his back. And then when morning comes, he changes into a snake and slithers out into the wild where he lays in wait for mice and voles and then he swallows them whole, transforms into a baby and suckles at the teat of Gisele Bundchen and leers at Tom Brady before he transforms into that ragged old vampire priest again and then he dazzles poor Tom and leads him back to his cave where God only knows what kind of carnal nonsense and unholy terrors take place.
And those are the good ones! Oh sure, sure, there are others, like that fat blowhard Rex Ryan but there is something fraudulent about him. He just seems like a dude with a big mouth who talks a steady stream of shit and carries himself like “Hey, look, ya’ll! I’m a pirate! Yee-haw!!!” And then his ass cheeks clench on 4th and 2 from the opponent’s 35 yard line and he punts but nobody notices because he spends the time after the game telling dumb jokes to the media, who roll over on their stupid backs and purr and laugh while he strokes their hideous bellies. He’s a vengeful fucker too, which is cool because that is a dark, primal instinct that we understand at Armchair Linebacker. We know all about dark, primal instincts. But because we are gentlemen and warriors of light, we understand how to control our base instincts and make them work for us instead of becoming dumb slaves to their salacious and idiotic whims. But not Rex Ryan. He is consumed, like some fat degenerate Ahab, with righting all perceived slights, with slaying windmill dragons and in doing so he reveals a shameful inferiority complex, the fat little kid underneath who learned to talk shit so people wouldn’t kick him in the ass all the time. His daddy was Buddy Ryan, and he tries so hard to be his father that it is kind of embarrassing. Honestly, the only time I actually kind of liked the dude was when it came out that he worships his wife’s feet. Hey, man, good for him. At least there is something perversely honest about that shit. But everything else is just a sad clown show, false bravado meant to cover up some hidden insecurity that makes him waver when shit gets a little too hot. But back to him being vengeful. He is. He decided that the Patriots were the bad guys and he made it his life’s mission to overthrow the big bad vampire priest, Bill Belichick. And he did. Good for him. And then he and his team went out the next week and lost to the Steelers. Just like everybody knew they would. Because deep down we all understand who Rex Ryan is. We know. He can’t make it to the end of the line because he’s a damn fool. He lacks the wisdom which every great coach has, the knowledge that the only victory that truly matters is that last one, the one which involves confetti raining down and Sheriff Goodell handing you a giant trophy in some antiseptic plastic stadium. He’s too consumed with petty battles and ultimately pointless wars and vendettas. He and his team embarrassed themselves after they beat the Patriots. They carried on like they just blew up the Death Star, won the Super Bowl and killed Hitler all at the same time. But all they won was a playoff game, one damn playoff game, and then they lost the next week and nobody cared about them anymore. Rex Ryan is just a clown, the front man for a stupid travelling hillbilly circus that will eventually spin out of control and end in laughter and tears, and deep down we all know it.
So fuck all of those dudes. They’re all awful in their own way and I don’t want anything to do with them. (Quick sidenote: If Bill Belichick were my team’s head coach, I would love him forever, and if I was going to pick anyone else, it would probably be him, but he’s not my team’s head coach and so fuck him.) And so that leaves me with no alternative but to pick my guy, Jim Schwartz, head coach of the Detroit Lions. Yeah, yeah, that sounds like rank homerism, and well, to be honest, it kind of is. And. frankly, I don’t give a shit. I am not some pod person alien blogger who is trying to play boy reporter, pretending that I’m some overly responsible Keeper of the Truth who believes sports are Serious Business and that I have a responsibility to some sanitized version of the truth which is really just some bastard mutation of the hint of something true, a polite whisper in the dark that nobody will ever pay any attention to because it sounds like all the other polite whispers in the dark. I’m a fan, goddammit, and that is the only truth I care about when I’m writing this shit. What moves me as a fan? What pisses me off? And Jim Schwartz moves me. He makes me believe. And maybe more importantly, he makes me want to believe. If you’re a Lions fan, then you know how difficult a trick that really is. We are so beaten up, so jaded, after a half century plus of utter failure and horrible pain that to get us to believe, to make us willingly throw our too damaged heads and hearts on the chopping block again is damn near a miracle. And he’s done this even though the team really hasn’t won anything yet. That’s his greatest trick of all. Yeah, maybe that just makes us a bunch of damn fools for believing, but it’s easy to believe in something when everything is going good, when the world bends before you like willows in a nuclear blast. It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon then and shout and gibber about how you believe. But it’s something else to see the foundations for some grand dream laid and to believe in them even though the world keeps kicking your ass week after week. That’s true devotion. That’s true belief. And that’s what Jim Schwartz has inspired as head coach of the Detroit Lions.
Think about it. Has there ever been a Lions coach in your lifetime who made you feel like that? Not mine. Wayne Fontes was always in over his head and we knew the whole thing was a mirage, held together by the will of Barry Sanders and as soon as that will flickered and broke, we knew the whole mirage would just disappear and all that would be left with would be the desert of the damned we had been left to eternally trudge through as penance for hiding Bobby Layne’s bottle of Wild Turkey back in the 1480’s. Bobby Ross was old and tired and we knew he wasn’t going to lead us anywhere. All he could do was use what energy he had left to try to hold together even a fraction of that mirage, a fading palm tree buried in the sand. Rod Marinelli . . . I’m sorry, I just vomited into a bucket. Mariucci? A glitzy name, a false prophet who just led us in circles and left us buried even deeper in the desert than we were before.
But Jim Schwartz showed up and started talking about winning and for some reason I believed him where I had never believed any of the others. He talked to the fans, he listened to metal and, well . . . he just seemed to get it, you know? I hate when people talk about “getting it” because it’s usually just an excuse to fellate some meathead who talks in clichés and appeals to some childish willful ignorance that lies deep in the heart of every man. But Jim Schwartz is not a meathead. He’s a smart, smart dude, a dude who understands numbers and theories, who graduated from Georgetown and then cut his teeth under the vampire priest Belichick and lived to tell about it. He manages to marry the rah, rah Hey He Gets It shit with the cerebral and with the sociopathic drive for greatness which is a necessary part of every great coach, like it or not. He is the real deal. He knows that the only thing that matters is winning that game at the end of the year. That’s what Belichick understands. It’s what Jimmy Johnson understood. But unlike them, he also sees our hearts, our minds and it makes him want to win that final game all the more. He gets it and . . . he gets it. All of it. And that’s why he’s both my head coach and real life and the coach of this team. I believe in him, and in the end my belief may be rewarded with nothing but more pain and more senseless wandering through this foul desert of the damned, but to hell with all that. I have no choice because Jim Schwartz made me believe, not in a mirage, but in the finality of ultimate victory, in the salvation that lies at the end of a long, hard road. And that’s a damn miracle. And that’s who I’d want leading this team.


TOMORRROW: our team Wild Cards!

Of heads and feet

This is one of like fifteen or more similar pictures I saved to my hard drive, going "heeee-hehehehe" the whole time.

Just one week following one of the most embarrassing displays I've ever seen in all my twenty-something years of watching Chicago Bears football, that happened. For the second year in a row, the last game versus the Vikings was one of the most perfect and deliciously satisfying games I've ever seen the Bears play. They scored at least twenty more points than I'm accustomed to them scoring, Devin Hester stomped a larger hole in the NFL record books, and oh yeah, Brett Favre was crushed into oblivion, possibly even for the final time ever. I could probably write a million-billion words or more about the wondrous feeling of seeing Corey Wootton smite his ruin upon the frozen earth, but I'll just let the moment speak for itself, one perfect, beautiful moment that will live in all our hearts and souls for all time. And thank you. Thank you, Corey Wootton, for finally putting the final stake into the blackened heart of the demon and telling us once and for all that he can't hurt us anymore. I heart you, Corey Wootton.



There's really not much else to say about the game that I haven't either already said in the semi-liveblog or have deemed to beautiful for words. That was a vicious ass-stomping of the one team I always want to see get their asses stomped, and it went a long way toward renewing my faith in Retarded Destiny. Some may call it luck, but I simply call it the Football Gods smiling down upon God's Own Team and providing them opposing third-string quarterbacks and questionable calls to guide them forward to immortality. As for the Patriots game, just chalk that up to Bill Belichik being the Devil's Own, and just remember from all those video games you've played that evil is always stronger than good.

PICTURED: Rex and Michelle Ryan

THIS WEEK: The Bears close out at home (at least for the regular season) against the New York Jets. And on one hand, they're a damn good team with a damn good record, but on the other hand, oh man, ha ha ha Jesus, Rex Ryan, what the fuck. After a whole year of nonstop whacky antics from the Jets, ranging from Braylon Edwards getting busted for DUI, to the whole HBO Hard Knocks thing leading to some bizarre slapfight between Coach Ryan and Tony Dungy over his potty-mouth, then to the thing with the assistant coach tripping a Dolphins player, and now THIS. Thanks to the internet, we now have the unfortunate privilege of finding out that Rex and his old lady are swingers specializing in foot fetishes, and that Rex wants to see his old lady "take a big one in all three holes." Man, good lord, just think of that. At some point, this dude has almost certainly had his wife's foot in his gaping maw while he watched some other dude push it in her pooper.

On one hand, that's a truly mind-bending and horrifying mental image; the sort of thing that causes brains to malfunction to the point where one can no longer perceive the outside world as anything but fire-spitting cobras, but on the other hand, ha ha ha, good lord, that is amazing.
Anyway, the Jets are another one of those teams that people are going to call better on paper than the Bears, but the coach is distracted, the Bears' defense is eating lightning and shitting bigger lightning after last week's game, and Mark Sanchez fucks up a whole lot, he might be hurt, and Mark Brunell is like seventy years old. This won't be a blowout or anything, but I think the Bears should be able to pull it off. And hell, even if they don't we're still in the goddamn playoffs.

Bears 24, Jets 13.

Rex Ryan Is Confident, Fat

The Jets are born in the single act of Joe Namath promising victory and delivering. There are other franchises who have suffered longer and in more biblical terms, but the Jets have their miserable bona fides. 40 years of that single moment failing to find even an echo, fans spending decades carrying a mantra of "Same old Jets" to ward off the twin demons of hope & faith.

That was then, anyway. Things are a bit different now. Rex Ryan came to down, ran his big fat mouth, and for better or worse the Jets have again pledged big things. Ryan is bold, and "Handsome" Mark Sanchez is, well, handsome. Together they form some bastard version of Namath's looks and attitude, carrying a spiritual legacy while the actual, real Namath heckles them over Twitter. So yes, things are different. The Jets are television stars, everyone is sick of hearing about them, and complaining about them won't make you any friends. After week one everyone got their schadenfreude in, and then Braylon Edwards came around with seconds for anyone asking. But so What? Tomorrow is Sunday. They'll play the game, and lord willing they'll live or die by those three hours. Or maybe following the game Santonio Holmes will call a press conference and rip out his teeth, one by one, saying nothing and staring directly into Andrea Kramer's eyes. It's a strange year.

But tomorrow is still Sunday, and the Jets will go to Miami and attempt to teach those sun-drenched creeps something about football. I know that Miami are rivals and I will respect that, but I have always had a soft spot for them. I took no small pleasure in watching them rattle Brad Faver's old bones last week. They didn't just knock him down, they held him there and dug their thumb into his eye socket. Four turnovers, one more than they took from him the last time they saw him, back when he was running Gang Green. The Jets deserved that one, though, watching Favre throw the game away while the man the Jets had tossed aside managed his way to the AFC East title. This year is different. Braylon may have his sins to atone for but the team as a whole is fairly clean, spiritually speaking. This should be a game less of cosmic justice and more of stacking the box against the wildcat, Sione Pouha doing his best in place of Kris Jenkins. Revis is out as well, but Miami is usually more of a trenches sort of party so hopefully he won't be missed.

Once upon a time Joe Namath made something of the Jets, and now Rex Ryan is giving it a shot. Godspeed, you wonderful, fat man.