2013 All-Armchair Linebacker Team (numbers 23 through 33)

Look, I don’t feel like writing this shit today. So here’s what we’ll do. Go buy yourself a twenty bag and roll up two big blunts. Then start smoking the first one. I’m going to tell you some music stuff to look up on youtube for these players on the All-ACLB team, one rap-type shit and one rock-type shit for each…

#23: Arian Foster (RB, Houston Texans) – Maybe the most metaphysical fucker in the NFL. Look up Wise Intelligent’s “Illuminati” video. Yeah I could probably put links but fuck it, I want you to wormhole yourself here. As for rock, I guess it would have to be kinda wacky, and might as well represent Texas, so look you up some Roky Erickson. Old Roky with 13th Floor Elevators is cool, but maybe you’ll get the Roky documentary there too, which would be nice.

#24: Marshawn Lynch (RB, Seattle Seahawks) – Beast Mode, from the Bay Area. Fuck rock on this one, just put “classic E-40” in the googlebox, but somewhere in there mix in “Life is Too Short” by Too Short, for clarity.

#25: Richard Sherman (CB, Seattle Seahawks) – Intelligent shit-talking, aka the NFL embodiment of back-packer rap and nerd metal, and abusing Adderall. Might seem like a Danny Brown choice, but I think Danny Brown wallows in the darkness too easily. Go for the official video for “Pineal Gland” by Ab-Soul, and see if “Book of Soul” is there while you’re at it. As for rock, early Mastodon, definitely.

#26: Atari Bigby (S, San Diego Chargers) – Simply here because of his name, as I hate all Chargers, forever. But San Diego is at the border with Mexico and we probably could use a break. Scope you out some cumbia rebajada as done by Sonidero Duenez, which is like the screwed and chopped music done in Monterrey in the late ‘60s. You’ll be glad you did. Or maybe you won’t because you’re an uptight bitch who didn’t actually get high at the beginning of this article like I told you. In that case, your lack of enjoyment is due to your own not following the goddamn formula laid out for you. So fuck you.

#27: Rashean Mathis (CB, Jacksonville Jaguars) – Florida mini-dreads means Gunplay. Look up that “The Hard Way” song, as that’ll get you hyped the fuck up again. A good rock match for this is Pentagram’s “Forever My Queen”. I mean, they don’t really match but when it’s cold outside and you are high and it’s nearly a full moon and you want to get your crazed mind of a Charles Simic lunatic snowflake on, Gunplay and Pentagram are a good combo, both in terms of music as well as actual things you are utilizing for leisure.

#28: Tom Zbikowski (S, Indianapolis Colts) – Haha, I don’t even know why I included him. Probably to be contrarian towards Adrian Peterson, whose bug eyes freak me out. Whiteboy safety returning punts in white people Colts uniforms pure Indiana style is funny. Do you have Audacity for mixing tracks? You should get Audacity, and put some Scott Biram on there first, maybe “Reefer Load” or 18-Wheeler Fever” but then mix the sound on that one down to about 33%. Then put “Kush Clouds” by Freddie Gibbs over top, or fuck that, put “G.I. Pride” by Gibbs, going more old school (as old school as Gangsta Gibbs can get) and put that over top the Biram, so that then you can play it and it is Freddie Gibbs but with Scott Biram blurring up the background. There, you have Indiana drug music. You’re welcome.

#29: Earl Thomas (S, Seattle Seahawks) – Why are there so many fucking Seahawks on this thing? What the fuck man? I hate the Seahawks. Oh well, go listen to “Drop” by Earl Sweatshirt, and then Steve Earle’s version of “Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold”. Actually that Steve Earle song is dope as fuck; it’s why I have a Jack of Diamonds tattooed on my dick. Jack of Diamonds is a hard card to play.

#30: LaRon Landry (S, New York Jets) – Haha, LaRon. No rap, no rock, just R&B music late at night doing push-ups by yourself. But you are already high, right? Okay, go get OG Ron C’s chopped not slopped version of Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange called Channel Purple. By the time you get through “Pyramids” and “Pink Matter” you ought to be halfway done on that second joint, and wishing you had dipped it in embalming fluid first.

#31: Cortland Finnegan (CB, St. Louis Rams) – Pure shit-talker. Pure Shit Talker. Listen to three Action Bronson songs (make one of them “Barry Horowitz” though), and then “The Black Mass” by Pagan Altar just to cleanse your aural palette and you’re almost done here.

#32: Jacquizz Rogers (RB, Atlanta Falcons) – Haha, what a funny name. Makes me think of Jacuzzi rooms in the hotel, getting ass back in the day. Oh man, to rent the Jacuzzi room at the Comfort Inn for the weekend, getting fucked up as shit, those were good times. Oddly enough I find my sexual stamina is more long-lasting now that I don’t drink alcohol. I get in this weird mode where I’m dialed in and start having this weird brain sweat thing going on and I literally can just do it forever, focused on my 3rd eye. I’m interested in the changes in the brain chemistry during sex, and what drives men to want to ejaculate in order to release those dopamines, because with the philosophy of Chinaman old crazy dudes who just have sex with no orgasm gaining Qi force, there’s something to it. I can feel it in my own life; I have found this to be true. I’d like to know the chemical causes of this. How do we increase those pre-orgasm chemistries naturally without getting the release of orgasmic dopamine, and how does that stimulate Qi? No songs this time, sorry, we were thinking instead. Maybe watch five minutes of a Sun-Ra documentary while you think about it.

#33: Jewel Hampton (RB, San Francisco 49ers) – Don’t even know who this dude is but his name is Jewel Hampton. You can just keep watching the Sun-Ra documentary. It’ll be good for you.

NFL 2012 Week 12 Full NFLuminati Index

It is Thanksgiving morning here at the Bird Tribe Compound – here is a video of how we do on the Compound – and I’ve already crumbled up the buttermilk cornbread I made yesterday, and added some homegrown sausage from the pigs we raised this past spring, stuffed the giant bird of American exceptionalism to slow roast through the day then carve open and gorge ourselves on. This is our future people, so be aware. It is no ironic coincidence the “Redskins” are playing on Thanksgiving Day this year – we are coming around towards psychic shifts on the Earth ball. But do not be afraid – be thankful for what you have, as my man William DeVaughn used to sang on a Sunday afternoon.

The NFL, as you will see from my write-ups this week, is sort of on the decline, much like America. I’m not sure why that is either. Is it because things aren’t allowed to go the way they want, allegedly protecting players from injury, when in actuality concerning one’s self with future liability? We are not a culture ruled by philosopher-scientists; we are ruled by lawyers. Is it because the game has gotten too glossy? I don’t fuckin’ know man, but I know this is one of the least impressive years of NFL football that I can remember. Still though, there is much to be thankful for, because perhaps I get to pretend the Redskins are good for three hours today. Perhaps…

#1: ATLANTA FALCONS (9-1; up one from last week) – The Falcons barely beat the Cardinals and yet move up past the Texans, who almost tied the Jaguars. Look, this might be the worst most boring year of NFL in recent memory. I would basically say anybody could win the Super Bowl this year. The NFL has successfully made itself like the NBA was ten years ago. Next step towards irrelevancy for the public-at-large is having superstars coordinate their plans free from GMs involvement in the future.

#2: HOUSTON TEXANS (9-1; down one from last week) – The Texans almost lost to the Jaguars in Houston, and the Jaguars were the next-to-worst team in the league going into this past weekend. Let me assure you that is not because you have to throw records out the window during storied, heated AFC South rivalry games like Houston Texans/Jacksonville Jaguars. That is because the NFL is lackluster as fuck

#3: SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS (7-2-1; same as last week) – I would say the 49ers, as well as Packers just below, are the two teams that look most Super Bowl-worthy by the eyeball test, similar to how dudes look Presidential, with no bearing on whatever the fuck they are actually doing. It’s why Ron Paul is a kook, and Romney never stood a chance, because that dude look fucked up, from the start. Even Obama didn’t really look Presidential, per se, but he was more so than that little racist goblin John McCain, so he won, and then become Presidential-looking, because it’s a self-perpetuating thing. Same thing happened to George W. Bush, who really was kinda stupid-looking to be President, but Al Gore was so obviously some sort of lizard cyborg thing, he didn’t look Presidential at all. Most of us weren’t certain he was even human. So W. Bush gets elected, become Presidential-looking, and unfortunately Republican party mistakes this to mean stupid-looking fuckers are considered Presidential by the masses. Not so. If I was in charge of the GOP (and I should be, honestly, as I’m a grand ol’ motherfuck), first thing I’d be doing is trying to find some non-retarded looking dudes to put on a short list of Guys We Try Not To Let Do Stupid Shit For Four Years.

Oddly enough, the 49ers have a QB controversy generated by the lamestream media at ESPN. Smith is in, bro, and Harbaugh is Presidential so he ain’t gonna drop Smith like that. Sure, he might find a concussive reason to let Kapernick play another week, but Smith is the man, even if he ain’t.

#4: GREEN BAY PACKERS (7-3; up one from last week) – Is Triple H still injured for the Packers? Will he be back in time for Superbowlmania, or are they gonna push that back until next year’s TV programs?

#5: BALTIMORE RAVENS (8-2; up seven from last week) – The Ravens got a huge(ly boring) win in Pittsburgh, and honestly in a year where the league says, “Who wants to be champion?” and most other teams take a step backwards to de-volunteer themselves ala Three Stooges, the Ravens might end up winning it all by just sort of puttering along at normal pace.

#6: CHICAGO BEARS (7-3; down two from last week) – Remember two weeks ago when everybody was like “ARE THE BEARS THE BEST TEAM IN FOOTBALL?” and I came to you with NFLuminati sciences and was like, “Lol, fuck no, not even close.” Now look at your dumb asses. Still though, I am here again to say, with these sciences, there is no need to freak out. The Bears are still a solid team by the NFL’s shaky 2012 standards. So chill out. We’ll get to see Cutler pout in the January cold of Chicago, puffing on a cigarillo, sneaking off into the locker room for “concussion tests” which are really just blowjobs that his famous model ol’ lady don’t know about.

#7: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (7-3; same as last week) – I hate Bill Belichick because he fucking caused me to put piece of shit Danny Woodhead on my fantasy team, and then he didn’t even use him this past week in a huge stomping of the Colts. So fucking annoying. Danny Woodhead looks like the asshole dude from a restaurant kitchen or construction site who loves white people acceptable rap music, and drives some shitty motorcycle, and talks about some weird extreme sport he does which will eventually be replaced by jiu-jitsu with an extreme MMA bent. Goddammit.

#8: DENVER BRONCOS (7-3; up on from last week) – Here, let me say a thing: even more important to success in Denver this year than Peyton Manning is John Fox. Fox has secretly been one of the greater coaches below the radar in the NFL. He led the Panthers to wild successes beyond their current imagination, and he took fucking Tim Tebow to the playoffs last year. Honestly, I was dwelling on this, and as much as I hate Peyton Manning, he never – not even with Tony Dungy – had a great head coach in Indy. Dungy was always good at doing okay with great, but he never got great out of okay. John Fox gets great out of okay (see Tebow 2011), and fuck man, with Peyton Manning having an actual coach instead of just coaching his own games, the fuckin’ Broncos might actually go to the Super Bowl. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but I think it’s true.

#9: PITTSBURGH STEELERS (6-4; down three from last week) – Fuck everybody who mocked those Steelers uniforms. Every fuckin’ NFL team should have uniforms like that. If I had enough photoshop skills, I’d even make some for you to see. You guys are all fashionable Kardashian pussies for thinking those uniforms are not great (unless you thought they were great, then cool – we should hang).

#10: NEW YORK GIANTS (6-4; down two from last week) – One thing going for the Giants is the NFC East is a wretched piece of shit this year. The other thing going for them is all you have to do is make it to the playoffs, catch fire, and win another trophy. Thus, everything is set up very nicely for them.

#11: SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (6-4; same as last week) – As much as I would always like to make fun of the Seahawks, Marshawn Lynch is the most spirit warrior of all spirit warriors left in football, and he is a Seahawk, so I can’t disparage them. Sometimes I go into beast mode too, but usually only when smoking joints dipped in angel dust. Bath salts ain’t got shit on some old school 1979 PCP. I done some gnarly, bloody shit on dust. Woke up in the woods surrounded by four deer carcasses one time, with no recollection of what happened or how I got there. And that was BEFORE I smoked the angel dust.

#12: TENNESSEE TITANS (4-6; up one from last week) – Sorry bros, but I’m just checking out on this blurb and listening to a “Tennessee Jed” from my first Grateful Dead show I ever went to – RFK Stadium in June of 1990. Split a quarter bag of shrooms three ways, and also took three hits of this very visual yin-yang acid. Some things happened. Also from the tone of these blurbs I guess I should be thankful I’m still alive from all the shit I’ve done. WELL FUCK YOU LIFE, I’M NOT THANKFUL FOR SHIT. And quit telling me what to do.

#13: DALLAS COWBOYS (5-5; up three from last week) – Not sure if you know this but the Cowboys are the worst thing on Earth. Worse than the Israeli government. Worse than airborne ebola. If God was real and he showed up at my house and was like, “Yo Raven, I’ll change any one aspect of life in this Universe you live in, just ask,” without hesitating I’d say, “Can you make the Cowboys lose today, like by some terrible ass fumble or something?” And then I’d be like, “Damn, I should’ve wished for a bigger dick.” And then God would go, “Don’t worry Raven, you’re a big enough dick already,” and we’d do a funny look at each other and then the credits would roll.

#14: ARIZONA CARDINALS (4-6; down two from last week) – Still hoping, as has been written about multiple times at ACLB and in my Football Metaphysics book, that the Cardinals are bought by a Mexican drug lord and relocated to Mexico. American football won’t truly be great until the billionaire criminal element involved is fully acknowledged.

#15: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (6-4; same as last week) – Haha, everybody was like, “Andrew Luck is ushering in a new Colts that’s perhaps just as good as Peyton’s Colts” and then the Patriots were like, “lol, fuck yall.” And now we can accept the fact the Colts are really competitive by AFC South standards, which is similar to be the smartest kid in special ed.

#16: DETROIT LIONS (4-6; down two from last week) – I read that Detroit was going to start stop paying workers or some shit. What a fucking shithole. The Lions would do better to embrace that shithole mentality and become the ‘70s Raiders of 2012, instead of trying to be the new Packers or whatever the fuck they are trying to be that is not working. They are dirtbag players on a dirtbag team with a dirtbag coach in a dirtbag city – until they embrace that, they will never get beyond high mediocrity.

#17: NEW YORK JETS (4-6; up four from last week) – Why do you think Rex Ryan is so yoked up to Mark Sanchez still? You think he has his wife use her feet to masturbate Sanchez while he takes pics? I mean Sanchez is an attractive enough guy, I could see a fat-fuck bi-curious dude like Rex Ryan being into that, at least on an experimental level. Poor Tim Tebow, dragged into the den of the devil, and asked to use the third controller on the Wii.

#18: MINNESOTA VIKINGS (6-4; same as last week) – Purple Jesus is the stupidest fucking nickname ever. Everybody knows that DJ Screw is the real Purple Jesus, and to think some beetle-eyed little bitch named Adrian is Purple Jesus is blasphemy. I bet that motherfucker ain’t even done no codeine while listening to Steel Pulse records slowed down before.

#19: BUFFALO BILLS (4-6; up one from last week) – You know what, Buffalo? Chicken wings are fucking stupid. It’s like two bites of meat on about nine bones you have to gnaw at. Adding some gunky hot sauce just makes an already stupid endeavor even messier.

#20: MIAMI DOLPHINS (4-6; down three from last week) – Dolphins are smart as fuck animals, very likely superior to humans which is why they live in the water as mammals and are like, “fuck land, with them bitch asses.” In fact, I’d say most oceanic mammals are probably the highest form of species on Earth. But I bet when they see that logo with one of them in a helmet, they get pissed, and then do those Mariah Carey singing sounds at each other which is them cussing about how we suck, “we” meaning humans. (If any dolphins are reading this, I am sorry for what my people aka people have done to the Earth. Also, can I ride you? Maybe even two of you with one foot on each and shit?)

#21: TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS (6-4; up one from last week) – The Buccaneers are a trick so don’t get caught up in thinking they are not a trick. However, as I said last week, they are a fantasy blessing, and will probably by wild card contention be forced to play through week 17 at a for-real rate, so my dork lawyer advice to you is pick up some of them Buccaneer bamas for your fantastical foozballs if you are thinking about playoffs and worried your main dude is going to be going half-speed.

#22: CINCINNATI BENGALS (5-5; up one from last week) – You should just go read my blurb for the Bengals from last week, because I was really proud of it.

#23: WASHINGTON REDSKINS (4-6; up one from last week) – The Redskins are my team, still, though I’ve pulled back, and they play on Thanksgiving Day, which seems massively fucked up from a historical perspective. Yesterday my kids were squealing like excited girls about something, so I did it too as a joke, and said, “REDSKINS! SQUEEEEEEEELLL!” and my wife was laughing so hard she had to leave the house, crying and laughing and holding her ruptured intestines. So I have decided I am going to squeal like a schoolgirl at a Beatles concert when good things happen in football games I watch of the Redskins from now on. This ridiculous action will keep me from getting too seriously tied up emotionally in stupid fucking football games I have no control over whatsoever.

#24: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (5-5; up one from last week) – Haha, the Saints are on a run, yes, but they are not good. They still essentially have a non-existent defense that will get manhandled by actual football teams. The fact the NFL is so chock full of lackluster teams should not mistakenly make you think the Saints clawing back up to .500 somehow means they are a potential playoff threat. They are not. Trust me; my science backs this ranking and that deduction.

#25: ST. LOUIS RAMS (3-6-1; down six from last week) – I feel bad for Sam Bradford, always kinda sucking but not quite obviously enough to be freed from the burden of being a potential franchise QB. He just screams “New York Giants back-up QB” to me, and yet he is still tied by the hopes of St. Louis to that number one overall draft spot. One day, my little Cherokee-eyed simpleton, you’ll be able to stand around on the sidelines working on your Sudoku puzzle like you’d want.

#26: SAN DIEGO CHARGERS (4-6; same as last week) – I am not sure how Norv Turner always manages to last well beyond his obvious usefulness as a head coach and it has to get to these horrible, depressing moments where there is no choice but to realize all hope is lost and the team in question has basically wasted perhaps the best four years of its past fifty with this fucker. Still though, as an avid Norvell hater, it is funny to watch. Also I know a girl who slept with Philip Rivers when he was at N.C. State. He apparently has a really little dick and likes to piss on people sexually.

#27: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (3-7; same as last week) – Sadly though, Andy Reid will probably be fired before Norv Turner. That will make no fucking sense, but with the Eagles hitting their lowest point in 20 years probably, and Philly fans being mutant drunkards who need to feast on the psychic blood of their fallen brothers fairly regularly in order to sustain their cynical hearts, Andy Reid’s fat ass is probably going to get run out of town, probably with insensitive comments made about his dead and drug-addled sons in the process. So be it. That is the world we have built for ourselves.

#28: CLEVELAND BROWNS (2-8; up one from last week) – The Browns would be kind of a cool team to pull for, except for the fact Brandon Weeden is about the most white ass looking motherfucker the NFL has had as a QB since the days of Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms being mistaken for each other by most minorities. What is it with the Browns and white ass QBs like Weeden and Chris Simms and Brady Quinn? Like seriously, what the fuck?

#29: OAKLAND RAIDERS (3-7; down one from last week) – Looks like Al Davis died for nothing.

#30: JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS (1-9; up one from last week) – I have been trying left and right to think of something clever to say about the Jaguars but I can’t think of one. I even drank a little glass of buttermilk to try and conjure up something. Most buttermilk you get at the store is lowfat, which is fucking stupid because the whole point of buttermilk is for it to be full of healthy fats. Also all the buttermilk is sour because it is not like old school buttermilk that you could drink, and is mostly available nowadays for cooking not drinking. Thus my cup of buttermilk was not that great. This makes me think I need to have some dairy cows, although I guess I already have dairy goats that we’ve yet to breed. I mean, I’ve fucked one of them, but she didn’t get pregnant, which is probably for the best because she’s kind of a cracked out goat, always jumping over the fence, and that personality combined with mine, in a goat-human centaur of some sort, would probably be tough for the world to handle.

#31: CAROLINA PANTHERS (2-8; down one from last week) – Somebody tried to tell me the 2-8 Panthers were not as bad as their record suggests. I was like, “Fool, whoever they was playing ain’t as good as you tried to think.” And then I went rim shopping through back issues of Low Rider magazine from 1992. America made much better rims back then. We’ve lost our fuckin’ way, people!

#32: KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (1-9; same as last week) – The Chiefs are horrible. Beyond horrible. So horrible it is hard to even look at them and say, “Hey, let’s keep this but start over with this instead.” Constant rebuilding they’ve been in for a while now. Fuck it though, that’s the end of this week’s rankings.

NFL ACLB PREVIEWS - #12: HOUSTON TEXANS

PERTINENT DATA: 6-10 last year; 25 to 1 odds to win Super Bowl XLVI.
BEST CASE SCENARIO (Raven): Man, this sucks. I signed on to be positive about this team before medical data was revealed to me showing the team is still afflicted with the same anti-awesomeness it has had since its creation. Part of the problem is the Houston Texans were not really created out of passion or some rich dude being like, "HOLY FUCK MAN, WHEN I WAS 9 YEARS OLD EARL CAMPBELL WAS THE GREATEST THING I EVER SAW IN MY WHOLE FUCKING LIFE! AND HE INSPIRED ME TO START A CHAIN OF MEXICAN THEMED FOOD STORES THAT WERE MORE CLEAN AND NICE AND NOT MEXICAN-Y AT ALL, WHICH SPREAD LIKE WILDFIRE THROUGH COLLEGE TOWNS IN THE SOUTHWEST BECAUSE WE GAVE AWAY JAZZ CDS BACK IN THE DAY AND OFFERED LOCAL FOODS EVEN THOUGH WE CONSIDERED THE ENTIRE EARTH AS OUR LOCALE, BECAUSE WE WANTED TO EXPAND JUST LIKE EARL CAMPBELL WANTED TO RUN LIKE A BUFFALO THROUGH ANY DEFENDERS FOR LIKE TEN YEARS PAST HIS PRIME BUT STILL I LOVE EARL CAMPBELL MAN! BUT MY CHAIN WENT CRAZY AND PEOPLE LOVE IT AND CHIPOTLES HAS NOW MADE ME ENOUGH MONEY THAT I WANT TO LIVE MY DREAM OF OWNING THE HOUSTON OILERS BUT YOU FUCKERS KILLED THAT TEAM SO NOW GIVE ME A NEW ONE AND I PROMISE TO BE AS CRAZY AND EXUBERANT AS JERRY JONES AND WE WILL MAKE TEXAS WITH IT'S FOOTBALL-CRAZED DEGENERATES THROUGH AND THROUGH PROUD OF THIS TEAM IN HOUSTON WHICH I AIM TO CALL THE HOUSTON HOT PEPPERS OR ZAPATAS OR SOMETHING MEXICAN SOUNDING BUT NOT TOO MEXICAN-Y LIKE MY RESTAURANT BUT WE'LL DO SOME MARKET RESEARCH ON THIS! BUT WE NEED A TEAM, AND I WANT THE COLORS TO BE PURPLE BECAUSE ALL THE NEGRO BOYS IN HOUSTON LOVE TO DRINK COUGH SYRUP AND PAINT ALL THEIR LATE MODEL CARS IN PURPLE SHINY PAINT! HAHAHA RACCOONS, ALWAYS DAZZLED BY SHINY THINGS! YOU KNOW IF YOU PUT A POLISHED ALUMINUM CAN IN A HOLE A RACCOON WILL REACH IN AND GRAB IT BUT NOT LET GO TO GET HIS HAND BACK OUT, HE'LL JUST SIT THERE AND BE STUCK BECAUSE HE REFUSES TO LET GO OF THE SHINY ALUMINUM CAN! I'VE SEEN IT BEFORE, MY COUSIN AARD SHOWED ME ONE TIME, IT'S HILARIOUS, WE SHOT THAT FUCKER WITH A .22. BUT ALL THE LITTLE THUGGED OUT BLACK BOYS LOVE PURPLE SO WE MAKE OUR UNIFORMS PURPLE SO THEY WEAR IT BECAUSE WHITE PEOPLE ONLY THINK WHAT BLACK PEOPLE DO FIRST IS AWESOME SO NOT ONLY WILL WE HAVE FOOTBALL AGAIN BUT WE'LL HAVE COOL UNIFORMS THAT RAPPERS WILL WEAR PROBABLY AND THAT WILL BE EVEN BETTER, AND I'M NOT SURE WHAT COLOR TO DO WITH PURPLE BUT NOT BLACK BECAUSE THE RAVENS ARE STUPID AND DO THAT ALREADY, SO MAYBE GOLD LIKE THE LAKERS BUT FOR FOOTBALL! YEAH, THAT'S WHAT WE SHOULD DO, MAN I AM SO INTO THIS, I WILL DROP EVERY DOLALR I HAVE FLEECED FROM THE CONSUMER PUBLIC WITH MY FAKE MEXICAN RESTAURANTS WITH SLOW FOOD THAT'S NOT REALLY SLOW, AND I WILL SIT IN THE OWNER'S BOX AND BE STOKED AND WE WILL BRING BACK WARREN MOON AND EARL CAMPBELL TO HOUSTON AND ON THE FIRST GAME WE'LL HAVE THEM ART PEOPLE BUILD A GIANT OILER SCULPTURE LIKE THE OLD OILERS HELMET LOGOS AND THEN IT'LL BLAST OUT THE TOP PURPLE CONFETTI AND GLITTER, JUST LIKE THE CARS THEM BLACK BOYS GET PAINTED, AND IT WILL BE A SYMBOLIC USHERING IN OF A NEW ERA! YOU GET IT! YOU GET IT! FOOTBALL WILL RETURN TO HOUSTON TRIUMPHANTLY!" That didn't happen. Instead it was corporate placement bullshit, so they chose Houston as the largest non-L.A. market able to house a team, and they named them Texans because it was in Texas and appealed to the most people they called on the phone with robots, and then they used red and white and blue colors for the uniform because 9/11 changed everything, and it was more like franchising a new Burger King in a suburb than franchising an NFL football team. Which is why the Texans will always be sort of lackluster, even when they are good. And what I'm getting at is, with your whole psyche being built off market testing and corporate scams, you'll never have the heart and fighting spirit to be a truly great NFL team. But the Texans, even if Arian Foster is feeling a little anti-awesome, are about as great as they'll ever get on defense. Most of the time, I'd be worried about a team switching from 4-3 to 3-4, but they seemed to be better equipped for the 3-4 anyways, and I'm afraid Mario Williams will destroy some motherfuckers now that he's standing up all the time. Offensively, they have Andre Johnson, who may be even more of a Calvin Johnson (unequalled player mired in the obscurity of mediocrity) than Calvin Johnson now that the Lions are being noticed by the world, and with Andre Johnson, they'll put up points, because that dude just straight up wills his way into success. But they'll never be better than a possible wild card team, no matter how good they think they can get, because they are built from demographic data and consumer habits, not from actual football spirit.
WORST CASE SCENARIO (Neil): It’s Texas day here at Armchair Linebacker since the winds of coincidence have blown both the Texans and the Cowboys onto our laps which means that it will be a day of great hatred because, honestly, fuck Texas. I could go on and on here for a billion words on why Texas is so horrible but just read everything I wrote about Arizona and apply that shit here tenfold. Texas is Arizona’s meaner, more successful, and yet even more soulless older brother. Its people are twisted caricatures of the American Dream, a funhouse people, their very presence mocking everything that we’re supposed to believe in as Americans. But fuck all that noise, we’re here to talk about the Texans, who are doomed to forever be the bastard younger brother of the Cowboys, who will forever be the team truly beloved by those monsters we know as Texans, but the Cowboys reckoning is up next and we won’t dwell on them here. The Texans are pathetic. Every year they come out and every year people shout “Hey, ya’ll! This is the year!” And then they go 8-8 again even though they have arguably the best wide receiver in football (You’re goddamn right I said arguably for a reason, for as long as St. Calvin is around, I’m not hearing that shit.) and the dude who was the best running back in football last season in Arian Foster. Their offense is explosive and capable of hanging a shitload of points on anyone. Meanwhile, their defense has a few playmakers, dudes like Mario Williams and that roid freak Brian Cushing, and so it seems like they should always take that next step. But they never do, and that is because they are a team that sprang up from the tainted mud of Texas, a team culled from the dreams of the spiritually corrupt and the terminally wicked. Such a team can’t thrive because it is a team born of the New Americanism, a team whose very potential exists only to serve as a cruel mockery of reality, which exists only to remind us all of the wicked and brutal truth, which is that these days are ugly and mean and that whatever greatness is left in our hearts is overwhelmed and decimated by the rank stupidity and sheer ugliness which now jangles through the streets in a giant cowboy hat made of tattered dreams and vile hatred. The Texans are the real America’s team, a perpetual disappointment, and in these desperate hours they reach for one last gasp of glory, and then Matt Schaub throws another interception and they finish 7-9 and what else is there to say?
PLAYER TO PULL FOR (Raven): Antonio Smith is the guy who ripped off his own teammate's helmet last year in that Titans game, allowing the Texans to get a 15 yard personal foul penalty for fighting amongst themselves. In Smith's defense, Brian Cushing seems like a huge douchebag anyways, and I would've ripped his helmet off too, especially if I was trying to fight the other team and he shows up to be like, "Nah brah, chill out, let's not get unnecessarily physical out here and hurt ourselves."
PLAYER TO HATE MOST (Neil): Matt Leinart is a degenerate and while we like degenerates here at Armchair Linebacker, we like degenerates like Kenny Stabler, not degenerates like Matt Leinart, who is the sort of degenerate whose life’s ambition is probably to have a reality show on MTV. Matt Leinart is the sort of dude who gets shitfaced after a couple of shots of Jaeger and then tries to pretend like he’s a badass, telling everyone how fucked up he is, and about how he’s going to fuck every chick there, before he passes out and his “friends” sketch dicks all over his face and teabag him and then take pictures of that shit. Matt Leinart could be a character on Jersey Shore, and while Kenny Stabler is racing powerboats and drinking beers in the Gulf into his ancient years, Leinart will be shot by the time he’s 40 and he’ll spend his days hating his former cheerleader wife who will look like she’s 70 because of over-tanning and his nights trolling the clubs while chicks laugh behind his back and then as he drifts off to sleep, he’ll be confronted by the vacuity of his own broken soul and it will horrify him and drive him to madness and despair and then no one will be particularly surprised when he is found jerking off a hobo who sorta looks like Reggie Bush because it is his last desperate link to his forgotten glory days.
BEST NAME ON TEAM: Cheta Ozougwu.
IN A PERFECT WORLD (Neil): In a perfect world, the Texans would escape the brutal hell of their own existence and defy their own destiny, which as I said before, is to serve as a symbol for the soulless degeneracy of the New Americanism. But fuck all that. They deserve to be bad because that sort of shit simply cannot be tolerated. If we have any hope as a species, it is to reject that empty flash and the mocking taunt of perpetually unfulfilled potential and to embrace something real. I didn’t make the Texans a martyr. Their existence demands it. Don’t blame me, blame the soulless monsters they were born to represent. The Houston Texans have to die for America’s sins, and when they do, when they have had all that potential, all that flash that the greedheads are holding onto so desperately, stripped bare, maybe we can all move on.
PROGNOSIS (Raven): The Texans gradual climb to respectability will get back on track this year, with a 9-7 season giving them their first ever above-.500 year in the team's existence. They still ain't going to the fucking playoffs though, because they're still the Texans. (As a bonus though, here is a picture of Ricky Williams and Earl Campbell worshipping Satan together.)

NFL 2010: Week 15 - The Playoff Bound (4th Quarter)

As we proceed through the painful last quarter of what watered down variety of professional football the NFL is calling itself king about this final month of the 2010 year of our fake lord, this week I have decided to go ahead and project 8 teams into the playoffs, and blurb about them something half proper, and then in a few weeks if one of them crumbles and chokes it away, hopefully someone will have read this enough to at least make a comment and be like, “Hey, Raven Mack, you fucking dumb piece of shit. You totally got this one thing wrong of about 23 words you wrote out of the like 20,000 you wrote this year. What the fuck is your problem? You are a disgrace to the internet.”
But no one will…
Look, I am in a funk. I am almost 50 days into quitting drinking, broke, hate my job, have trouble navigating my insane family when not drunk, and yesterday was standing in the cold walking from one place to another when the railroad crossing started ding ding dinging at me, so I stopped and watched a coal train go by, and those empty spots on one end or the other looked awfully inviting. I mean really, fuck it, you know. I am in a dark place, irregardless of the Christmas lights all around, and dark answers seem to pop in front of my stream of thought every second. (I know that “irregardless” is technically considered not a word, but pretentious fuckers who are all like, “using that word is a sign of one’s ignorance because it’s just stupid,” really piss me off, and if you know what the word is trying to say, then it’s a word, even if not recognized by the proper authorities. Mostly, I like to use it to try and kick some pretentious fucker’s ass, but not really, just make them feel uncomfortable as they want to grammatically correct a giant hillbilly bearded man with tons of bottled anger that’s been fermenting for years but I had been masking with daily alcohol abuse, SO FUCKING STEP UP MOTHERFUCKER!
So probably the best thing for me to do would be to pop half a hydrocodone, drink me a nice warm cup of homemade chai tea from the pot of it on the stove (fake god bless my loving family), and go for a walk in the intense cold for about twenty minutes, soak in the moonlit sky with the cloud cover rolling that will mean snow tomorrow, wake up my pigs (who I need to buy a bale of straw for in the morning, badly) and jostle around in the darkness with them until the milligrams start to weight down my brain. Then I’ll walk back to the house, smoke billowing up from the chimney – for real old farmhouse is how I live, front part built in 1905, additional parts built in additional times – and on that 125 yard walk back, I will conjure up the proper metasciences calculations to word out in regards to the eight teams bound for the playoffs, and most of them highly prominent on the current NFLuminati Index. So after the ellipsis, that’s what you’ll get…

#1: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (11-2, 1st overall) – Really, nothing suggests a behind-the-scenes engineering of successes in the NFL as in my NFLuminati Index more than the Patriots. Every year, they are at least semi-great, and every draft they have like 13 picks. Every year. There are only so many Al Davises, Dan Snyders, and Jerry Joneses available to fleece. They are somehow the one team that can convince other teams to trade a higher draft pick than anybody else would for a waning veteran player. They are the only team that does things that are not noticed until someone else does it, as in lining up coaches on punt returns or filming practices or really probably like 1200 other things. The Bill Belichick sway over the NFL is so much like Bill Walsh’s sway in the ‘90s, it is ridiculous. Tom Brady is this generation’s Joe Montana, just prettier. It is disgusting to me as a fan of what I thought was actual competitive football. Why did my favorite team get booked to have a heel owner who runs the thing into the ground for a mad fist clutch of profits?
Anyways, as the season winds down, luckily most all the divisions and conference leaders are within a game of each other, so we might actually have star players playing into the final week for once. But they probably engineered that as well to help force an 18-game schedule on the players, so no one could obviously be like, “Hey, more games would suck because we already are having a couple of weeks of meaningless games for the most part. This will only add to the problem.” This year, they wanted to make it seem like EVERY GAME COUNTS ALL THE WAY UNTIL THE END! The fucking NFL man, it’s still the best team sport in America, but really, I do not know why it is mimicking the NBA’s engineering of its styles. I would say if ever there was a chance for an outlaw pro league to siphon off a niche of NFL fans, the coming year would be it. Not some bullshit, low rent NFL B-league like whatever the UFL is, but something that was like, “Haha, fuck the NFL’s dumb shit. We are football, and not fucking gay.” In fact, that should be their slogan.

#2: ATLANTA FALCONS (11-2, 2nd overall) – The Falcons are awfully anonymous to be the best team in the NFC, which usually is how teams do to get home field advantage and then lose in the conference championship game. These are occurrences that repeat themselves over and over – the Packers in 2008, the Eagles in 2004 and 2003, the Vikings in 1999, the 49ers in 1998. Some teams are just not designed to go to the Super Bowl, although the NFC in recent years has been able to produce one-hit wonders to go to the big game and be fodder for the other league – the Cardinals two years ago, the Bears two before that, and the Seahawks before the Bears. And even as you look at this NFLuminati Index, the Falcons are the only NFC team in the top 5. I am not one to buy into that “the NFC is so much weaker than the AFC” because if you look at records and inter-conference records, that’s just not the case. But the NFC lacks a certain booking power in the minds of the masses that certain AFC teams have right now. And the Falcons are not a team to break that psychic opinion, especially since those mass opinions are usually strategically engineered by the football media and the games themselves to create purchasing patterns around Christmas time. Arthur Blank knows this machine well, and is in the inner-circles of a few corporate cabals. Do not think for one second the redemption of Michael Vick this year and the ownership of the Atlanta Falcons by Arthur Blank is a coincidence, nor is Vick being out for their game earlier this year. If you do not think a prominent January barrage of stories about Vick returning to Atlanta, and pictures post-game of Mr. Blank and Mr. Vick greeting each other on the field of battle afterwards will play big going into whichever team is chosen to do the job on the big stage, then you are a fucking mark.

#3: PITTSBURGH STEELERS (10-3, 3rd overall) – Oddly enough, you still hear murmurs of haterisms towards Ben Roethlisberger for his offseason peniscapades, which I find stupid. I mean, this Roger Goodie Goodie Goodell NFL goes against the basic nature of football players. It’s like trying to make feral children sleep in orphanage beds – they will just bounce on the sheets and cuddle underneath the bed until you turn off the lights when they will smash out a window and once again run free with the wolves. Oh to be a feral child again… I do not like how I’ve been shaped sometimes. I mean I really enjoy writing the words like I do for this blog and at other places and in my own journals that I keep obsessively. But sometimes at night, I roll close to the window to where I can feel the draft coming in underneath the bottom of the old frame, or through the edges of the ragged panes badly in need of reglazing, and I will feel the outdoors inside of me again, and hear a dog barking far off in the distance, and it makes me sad for what I’ve become. I am sure Ben Roethlisberger feels that way. If you are a filthy rich superstar quarterback and you are not trying to get away with fucking drunk sluts in the back rooms or dark corridors of small clubs, then you are not doing it right, at least not according to the traditional ways. This modern clean NFL, it is a sad thing. But hey, I guess they sell more pink jerseys now than ever, especially during their strategic yearly breast cancer awareness gimmick.
Ben Roethlisberger, I am with you bro. Fuck these drunk bitches, and fuck Roger Goodell. I know you can’t say that and all you can do is do you, so do it to it big bro. I wish you well on your future endeavors as this game becomes less dependent upon a real man like you and more dependent upon referees and weasel pseudo-genius coaches and shit like that.

#4: BALTIMORE RAVENS (9-4, 4th overall) – I watched the Ravens game the other night with my holmes who is a Ravens fan, and it was a thing to behold. I was secretly getting caught up in rooting for the Texans, although we both agreed that Matt Schaub certainly looks like a first class asshole type. He was sure they would blow it, and by the end of the fourth quarter, I was sure as well. Still though, they held on, and won in dramatic fashion, almost as if it had been scripted.
The one thing I always think when I watch a Baltimore Ravens game is how Joe Flacco must be the King of Delmarva, having played college ball at Delaware, then going straight to the Ravens where he has done well enough. I bet he can Roethlisberger chicks from Hagerstown to Dover, and is two or three bad seasons away from anybody caring.

#5: NEW YORK JETS (9-4, 5th overall) – The thing about being a veteran team built for success is once it goes bad, it has gone bad. Sour milk don’t go fresh. That Monday night showdown against the Patriots was when the spirit was crushed, and no amount of goofy Rex Ryanisms is going to refresh that spirit. I do appreciate Darrelle Revis’s black hobo look though, although I’m always a fan of that look. No one can top Ed Reed’s twinkly yet bug-eyed hobo style though. He looks like he would be running a prison outreach program where dudes learn to write poetry. Revis just looks like he’d be carrying an empty container of antifreeze asking for $3 to get some gas outside the Wawa.

#6: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (9-4, 6th overall) – The NFC is a little tougher to project, because the Eagles and Giants are tied and really, if the Giants win this weekend, the Eagles are in the passenger seat on that ride. But it just feels like so much press has been given to the Eagles and Michael Vick that it would be impossible for them to not get a wild card berth into the playoffs at the very least. And they’re not QBed by Donovan McNabb this year, so they don’t have to worry about blowing the big game to get in anymore. The NFL schedule makers were cracked out this year, because the Giants/Redskins and Eagles/Cowboys both play twice in the last month or so of the season. It seems odd to stack that shit up like that, especially considering one of the great parts of a division rivalry is it being split into two parts of the season to have a completely different outlook on things. After going to the New Meadowlands in New Jeru this weekend, the Eagles close out at home in front of their drunken degenerate fanbase with games against the Vikings and Cowboys, neither of whom will really give a fuck by that point. So I project the Eagles to win the NFC East, with 82% of precincts reporting.

#7: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (10-3, 7th overall) – The Saints have also been rather quietly doing consistently well this year, considering they are defending Super Bowl champs, and have already hit double digits in wins. The thing about them in the playoffs is, if they can make it to Atlanta, it’s a dome game, which benefits the Saints more than the Falcons. You gotta figure the Saints will be a wild card team at the least, and that means a road trip the first weekend of the playoffs, to whatever scrub ass team ends up winning the NFC West by default. That will most likely be your late Saturday afternoon game, unless the NFL is like, “Haha, fuck you NBC, you get the Saints and the shitty NFC West champs on Saturday night for your last game of the year.”

#8: CHICAGO BEARS (9-4, 11th overall) – If you notice the overall rankings, the Bears are the only one on this list not at the top of the NFLuminati Index. They are also the team I am most uncomfortable putting on this list, but I had to put a 4th NFC team on it, and with Aaron Rodgers looking shaky at best, I couldn’t go with the Packers like I would’ve was he unconcussed. The Bears look like they forgot to plug in their Madden controller against the Patriots, and the big problem with Jay Cutler is there’s a Cinderella factor to him doing so well lately and the clock might strike midnight and he’ll throw like 4 interceptions including two pick-6s all of a sudden. Still though, there has to be an 8th team on this week’s list, so they are the ones. It means nothing though, because I’m just some dude far on the outside of the NFL’s secret planning committees. So don’t get yourself geeked or nothing.