NFL 2010: Week 18 - The Round of the Wild Cards (OT)

I have blown off writing up the NFLuminati list for a few weeks, but do not be misguided so as to think I have not kept it up to date. There is no internet fame control over my actions, and really I would rather you all sit around the fire pit in my back yard and we discuss these things in person than me share it through the cybermachines. We speak a football truth at Armchair Linebacker that is not often spoken out loud through machines. Everyone wants to be considered serious journalists or columnists or have twitter affairs with football players or I’m not even sure what motivates people nowadays.
But I know what moves teams up or down in the overall pecking order of the NFL society of billionaires who make poor people millionaires ala Trading Places and laugh and laugh and laugh in their secret quarters at the hilarity of guys getting rich as fuck and wasting it on airbrushed powerboats or stripper paternity suits. Really, that’s the ultimate goal of the NFL. These rich ass dudes don’t get richer owning the team (though they do when they sell it, because the price to join the Fraternity of 32 is steadily climbing), but they get a lot of behind mahogany doors joy out of watching it all unfold. And the stories they tell… oh man, the gossipy bullshit you think you know is just the tip of the iceberg. Any sub-culture has an entire secret sordid history that rarely is made known to the outside world. That is the NFLuminati.
So allow me to get back on track in the new year, and let’s roll through the 8 playoff teams playing this week, and I ask you to note their overall ranking at this stage of the NFL season, according to the NFLuminati Index. I can tell you that it doesn’t always shake out the way they are ranked (I’ve been keeping tabulations on this for around seven years in the current form, and various other methods have been utilized since 1986), but it is telling as to where the franchise stands in the NFL’s hierarchy…

#1: BALTIMORE RAVENS (12-4, 4th overall) – I has a friend who is a Ravens fan and he is coming by the compound to watch the game on Sunday. He is from a wilderness survival Whole Foods family, so they don’t get TV stations on their TV I don’t think. It’s mostly for watching documentaries about tracking foxes or that Planet Earth series from BBC or to distract the children if necessary. I am sure our daughters will be ballet dancing in the kitchen or playing the new Taylor Swift CD for the 9000th time since the middle of December, and we will hunker down in the living room next to the booming woodstove, and try to enjoy some playoff football. As a Redskins fan, this is what I am left with most Januarys… bandwagon riding with real life comrades, trying to find something to emotionally attach myself to for a few weeks. The Ravens are a solid, well-rounded team, but I don’t know, there’s something not quite right with them. I think it’s the young age of their franchise, as they were purged of their Browns historical status, so they have not been around long enough to have pictures of dudes in leather helmets or white RBs or games played in baseball stadiums with a hatred for the kaiser. On top of this lack of history, there is the long history of the Colts in Baltimore, including them disappearing in the middle of the night like a halfwitted child’s single mother, sick of flophouse living, sharing the bathroom with four other rooms, including one older guy who always seems to be waiting to come out to try and shave when she’s getting ready to shower for her second shift gig at the Goodwill distribution center, where she always thinks about taking nice boots without anyone looking to try and sell on Ebay, except she doesn’t know when she’d even get to the library to use the computers to do it. The Ravens are that halfwitted child, who grew up more than physically able enough to be accepted as a normal kid, and is smart enough to repeat tasks that are taught of him. But he’s not quite able to separate himself from the pack, even with his imposing physical presence.

#2: NEW YORK JETS (11-5, 5th overall) – Part of what I don’t understand about this world is it’s fake, emperor has no robes, sheep mentality, even within the sports world. It seems the internet sports fan, which crosses over to sports talk radio, and really the world as it all is the multiple tentacles of the beast reaching into your brain from different angles, is all about catching lols on dudes. But it’s a constant shifting of who is funny, haha, and there’s an underlying dissatisfaction there. When do we become content with something, or commend someone who is not the Super Bowl champion or did something that is NFL Films noteworthy or Pat Tillmanesque? When do we think for ourselves and not follow the doofus memes that pop up and dissipate daily?
I mention this because of the Rex Ryan foot fetish stuff. I for one became a huge Rex Ryan fan after that story broke. I mean, I kinda liked him because he was a braggadocios fat dude who looked like he probably dipped his toothbrush in bacon grease to clean his teeth at night. And he talked mad shit like his old man did, which is another reason to love him, to know his genetic structure is already maxed out on the crazy. But then this overweight, grating, football-obsessed man somehow found himself a relatively attractive woman by conventional standards, who married him. And not only that, she shared, or at least indulged him in a foot fetish, making videos showing off her long, sultry feet. God bless him, man, that’s fucking beautiful. We should all be so lucky in our lives.
At one point, I tried to give myself a foot fetish by staring at my wife’s feet a lot when she was sleeping, and I started to see how a foot could be sexy I guess, but I never got it to the point where it would make my dick hard. In my research for giving myself that fetish, there seems to be two schools of foot fetishists… One just likes feet, and thinks female foots are sexy as fuck. These are the types of guys who may go too far and start collecting dead hooker feet at some point, but they are also the more assimilated amongst us who are blessed with a sexual fetish that makes women wearing flip flops seem like a wet t-shirt contest. That’s fucking cool.
The second type of foot fetishist is not so cool, though they rarely end up being the murderous kind. They have self-esteem issues or something, and like women with big feet, and like women with dirty feet. I mean like muddy nasty feet. Seriously, you would be surprised how many foot fetish videos there are where it’s just a woman stepping her big-toed feet in like a pile of compost and coffee grounds, and then smearing it on some dude’s chest. When I heard Rex Ryan and his ol’ lady were doing foot fetish videos, I was like, “Oh fuck, I hope it’s not like that.” And it wasn’t.
You know who I ended up not liking after that though? Deadspin. Little bitch ass dudes just waiting for someone to send them something to throw up into the interwebs and go LOLOLOLOL at some other guy, those guys are pieces of shit, and will never know the warm touch of a sexy woman’s big toe pushing against your anus as she sits on the bottom half of the bed, and then she leans forward and gives you head, and then pulls back and puts her big toe up at your ass again, then back with her mouth, and finally she just surprises you with her wet thumb right up against your taint while she sucks you extra hard and you are in heaven. Those Deadspin guys are probably lucky to have a woman who even likes to have sex without her $35 underwear on.

#3: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (11-5, 6th overall) – I could wait until I get to the Seahawks, but I am going to go ahead and address the notion that there is some sort of unjust thing going down by the Saints having to go play at a below .500 Seattle team this weekend. This world is not based on the best getting all the slots, and having the advantage. This world is based on a system being set up, and there are always people who fly in under the rules as they are laid out who get something that someone else in a more competitive light does not. And there is nothing wrong with that. Fuck people who think only the best should get everything. Fuck the best. Especially when the alleged best who should get everything in this case are not the best in their own division. You see, there is a division of only four football teams called the NFC South. Only four. And the Saints had a chance to be the best of those four, but did not end up that way. As a concession for them being an otherwise pretty good football team though, they were given one of the wild card slots into the playoffs. They should be thankful, because really with 8 divisions, there’s no fucking reason they shouldn’t just shave a week off the playoffs and only let divisional champions in. Fuck wild cards. That’s how bitches play poker. Real men known nothing is ever wild, and if you absolutely must, you call the one-eyed jacks and suicide king wild. That is all.
So rather than having people complain about how the Saints should get blowjobs from Matt Hasselbeck’s wife (is he the one married to that slut on The View, or is that the other Hasselbeck?) or maybe Charlie Whitehurst in her stead (he looks like he would), people should be going, “Wow, isn’t this awesome that even though they couldn’t win their division, the Saints still have a chance to go on the road and fight for a chance to defend their Super Bowl title? This is wonderful!”

#4: GREEN BAY PACKERS (10-6, 8th overall) – My dislike of Aaron Rodgers for being the physical doppleganger of a dude who nearly took my youngest sister’s life with drugs and recklessness has been laid out on this blog before. It should also be noted there was a dude who I was best friends with for years who when we got to be young adults, he got kinda out there on alcohol and weed problems. Yeah I know, no one has a weed problem. Well, if you can’t function in a regular life and you smoke like $400 worth of weed a week, then I, my friend, say you have a weed problem. Probably a sign of his addictive personality more than any inherent risks in getting high though. Anyways, that dude was a Packers fan, and somehow he thought I had AIDS, and told some people, and we were all at home at a party around Christmas, and another old friend was like, “You doing okay, Raven?” and asked me again and again, to the point I was like, “What are you getting at bro?” And he said, “Pete told me you had AIDS.” So I was like, “lolol no I don’t have AIDS,” and then I went into the party where Pete was in the back room taking bong hits and I helped him make a face print into the standard trailer wood paneling right quick. So basically the Packers make me think of those two dudes.
Odd thing is, me and that kid Pete, we loved The Road Warriors when we were kids, the wrestlers not the Mel Gibson movie but I pluralized it like I played guitar in Dethklok or something. And the star of the Packers defense is Clay Matthews Jr., who I always mistakenly think is the one who is the kid of one of the Road Warriors. Always. So much so that he is, and that is why he has long hair.
In other words, everything equals fuck the Packers, even though I really would want to like them. But they are the Packers, the oldest franchise in the playoffs. Like the Packers existed as a football team in the NFL when there were only 3 teams in the late 1800s and they played with a football that was sheep intestines stuffed with negro testicles. So you have to expect them to at least get an NFC title game, so as to give Aaron Rodgers the proper rub towards taking over either Brady or Manning’s spot as NFL Uberlord in a few years.

#5: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (10-6, 9th overall) – Peyton Manning helped me win a fantasy football championship this year, which is the first time I’ve ever thought non-malicious thoughts about him. My league ended last week because I think fantasy football should go all 17 regular season weeks. I know some fantasy carelords are like, “You can’t do that, too many games that don’t count and people not playing their best players. No skill is involved in winning so much as luck.” This makes me laugh because come the fuck on, it’s fantasy football. There’s no fucking skill involved in that all. That’s like saying you have mad skills at rolling Yahtzees or blocking people on a Parcheesi board. So now that my fantasy football allegiances are gone, fuck Peyton Manning. I hope John Abraham cripples him and he throws 12 interceptions and then he gets stabbed in the shoulder by a nail-wielding hick from southern Indiana and he gets tetanus but doesn’t get a shot so gets permanent lockjaw and talks with that stupid hick voice but his jaw is clenched shut and it’s too fucking perfect and the only worthwhile thing he does with the rest of his life is a digital short on Saturday Night Live where they do a reworking of Kanye West’s “Through the Wire” song with his slackjawed ass.

#6: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (10-6, 10th overall) – I am the white Mike Vick. I fight chickens and went to college in Virginia and got herpes in an Atlanta VIP room and my cousin’s kind of a dick too. Everybody had written me off and nobody wanted to hang with me, but then I hit a scratch-off lottery ticket for $150 and everybody wanted to come play horseshoes again. But I don’t play horseshoes no more you fucking assholes. You can’t play horseshoes by yourself… well you can, but you have to walk back and forth and throw all four on your own and it’s kinda stupid to be playing yourself and keep track in your head like, “Raven red shoes has 12 and Raven blue shoes has 9. COME ON BLUE SHOES!” and then do a best of 3 when you lose the first one. So I raise chickens now. And yes I have some phoenix roosters too, because they are god’s most majestic creature, and when the law comes around and thinks I’m raising gamecocks, they see those ridiculously beautiful roosters and realize I’m just a chicken aficionado, not a cockfighter. Except I am. Fuck you law. So keep your head up Mike Vick. These motherfuckers coming around saying you redempted yourself, they don’t know shit about how we do in VA, from the 757 to the 434 to the 804 and even a good portion of the 540 but fuck northern Virginia.

#7: KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (10-6, 15th overall) – I actually think the Chiefs are just as shitty a team as the Seahawks, but will get stomped in the playoffs like a dog tick on the kitchen floor. It’s like Patriots Lite in KC, so fuck them and their wannabe Belichick asses. Of course, the Belichick contingent is the most powerful in the NFLuminati right now, having slain most of the ghosts of Bill Walsh in the past five years, so mayhaps the Chiefs will get some run at least into a second week of the playoffs, to perhaps set up a Jets/Patriots game and an old school Chiefs at Steelers game. Or they might just go ahead and hotshot the Chiefs at Pats, Belichick vs. his 19 disciples, Brady vs. Cassel match-up next week. It’s hard to say what they will do to maximize their advertising profits in the coming weeks. I don’t have access to the same demographic data the NFL does.

#8: SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (7-9, 22nd overall) – My friend Loftin is a Seahawks fan, and the one time they made the Super Bowl, he was like broke down in the snow or some sad ass shit like that. So I sort of always hope the Seahawks make it and do well in the playoffs, so they can go to the Super Bowl again, and hopefully Loftin can have some other form of misfortune, so he can miss that too. Me and him, we have that type of friendship where you wish painfully frustrating shit happens to each other so you can laugh at the other dude.

PREDICTIONS FOR THE WEEKEND: Look, I am not one to pretend I know shit and make predictions like that, because then I look like every other dumbass who thinks he knows something about pro football because he sits on his fat goddamned ass half his life watching other people do things. But I've got five minutes to kill before the wild lettuce tincture takes the edge off the caffeine, so I'll give it a shot.
They kick things off with the Saints at the Seahawks on Saturday afternoon. The Seahawks suck, and they will lose, in order for the Saints to look wonderful and great and Super Bowly to start the weekend. This also conjures up in the minds of the TV football fan last year's playoffs, and the wonderful rebirth of the city of New Orleans theatrically executed through football. The Saints will come marching into your consciousness to kick off the playoffs, and you will think, "Hey, this is going to be awesome, just like last year."
Then the Colts play the Jets that night, which brings up the other team from last year's Super Bowl, so you will go with that thought still. But the Jets are set up to conquer the Colts this year. I'm not sure what Peyton Manning's deal is inside the NFLuminati structure, but they basically keep letting him coach himself with a hodgepodge of characters and no real superstars to share the limelight with. I'm not sure if this is because of Manning himself or they're just fucking with him. He got his one Super Bowl and a bazillion endorsement dollars from it, so fuck him. But the Jets will INT him and end this season early for the Colts, and there will be shots of Peyton on the sideline, looking sideways like a frustrated hound dog, while the Jets run out the clock, and L.T. is glad handing motherfuckers and smiling and Rex Ryan will look like he just found a new Chinese buffet with an extensive seafood bar.
Sunday morning kicks off your hangover game with the Ravens at the Chiefs, which will be methodical, plodding, and unexciting. The Ravens will systematically pick apart the Chiefs, because the Ravens are supposed to move on to the next game, which would be at their hated rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers. This would also set up a Jets at Patriots game as well, so the four AFC heavyweights would duke it out next weekend in a pair of bitter divisional rivalries. CBS ratings will go through the goddamned roof.
In the closing act of the wild card weekend, the Eagles will host the Packers, and the Vikings kinda showed that if you smack Mike Vick around a little, he ain't gonna respond too well. And hell, the Eagles didn't even really play full-speed against the Cowboys last week, so even though they were rolling on all six-cylinders (or eight, or whatever) and had that miraculous crushing of the Giants souls, they took their foot off the gas and coasted into the playoffs. In real life, if you are speeding like a motherfucker, and you let off the gas because you know that a state troop might be hiding in that pull-off ahead, but he's not, and you push the gas again, it's not a smooth fluid use of your built-in horsepower. Same thing with the Eagles. They were peaking but then pulled back and probably fucked themselves. Throw in the fact that the Packers are probably better-equipped defensively to create the same face-smacking problems for Mike Vick that the Vikings did than any other team in the NFC, and what you are probably looking at is an early Eagles exit from the playoffs. The curse of the black QB in Philly. That'll set up the Packers at the Falcons next week, and the Saints at the Bears, which would kinda be the same inter-division rivalries the AFC will have if it got switched up, except without all the same star power.
So there you have it you motherfuckers. You are prepared to watch football now.