2011 All ACLB Team Wide Receivers

RAVEN: ANDRE JOHNSON, CALVIN JOHNSON, & WES WELKER
This is a back-and-forth effort, and I have been slacking off because I've been dull-brained from massive oxycodone intake lately. Mostly I'm watching either The Wire of old Iron Chefs, sleeping all morning, dicking around all afternoon as I heal from some post-surgical infection bullshit that has me laid up like a baseball player, and then in the evening I'm not quite sure what I do. It was a full moon tonight so I sort of wandered around the yard for a little while in the moonlight, then realized I wasn't wearing clothes except for some boxers with pigs on them saying "OINK" so I came back inside. I think I ate a sandwich, but I'm not sure.
Anyways, in the games I watched this past football season, the one WR who fucking would do that thing where he goes, "You know what? I think we're just gonna win this game, so throw the ball somewhere near me and I'll mindfuck it into my hands and make shit happen," was Andre Johnson of the Houston Texans. Unfortunately he plays for the Houston Texans, so he wears the ugliest fucking uniforms on earth, and is also in a sort of NFL purgatory where hardly anybody realizes he exists. But he is better than anybody else there is at WR.
Speaking of uniforms, the other afternoon I wasted about an hour looking at Chinese bootleg jersey sites doing imaginary orders of football jerseys to pretend I'd have different color pimp shit to rock every day of a two-week period. You know the first jersey I go for after an all-black Chris Cooley or Sean Taylor, and a throwback John Riggins in burgundy? Blue numbers on black jersey Calvin Johnson. That dude is the shit, and that color combo is tight as fuck as well. I feel bad for my man Neil and the Detroit Lions in general. How the fuck do you have Barry Sanders, and then have Calvin Johnson, and never get shit of note out of the whole thing? I guess there's still time with St. Calvin, but I feel bad for the dude. Living near the University of Virginia, and following ACC football, I remember St. Calvin at Georgia Tech, and he was like the greatest college football receiver there ever was. I actually think that thus far in his NFL career he has underperformed, if you can believe that. He hasn't really hit his stride yet, and he's still the motherfucker to go to. That's St. Calvin. Not to get all fantasy foozball dorkfuck on you, but that's the guy you want to grab next year. He's bound to just blow the fuck up here at some point, like next level shit.
For my third WR, I just went with Wes Welker, even though I'd prefer to not sully my All-Pro team with any Patriots. The Patriots are everything that is not cool about pro football. But Double Double-U being a scrawny ass white dude, talking shit on Rex Ryan, and scrap-dogging for every yard, it's hard not to like him at least a little. I will like him a whole lot more when Belichick dumps him to like the Browns or Panthers for three draft picks or some shit, but still. Oh man, Wes Welker would be awesome in Carolina. I could get behind that like a 40-inch ass on a 20-year woman.



NEIL: RODDY WHITE, BRAYLON EDWARDS, & CHRIS HENRY
I was planning on talking about my boy St. Calvin here but then Raven went and stole my thunder, which, hey, fuck it, that shit is going to happen in this here meandering back and forth gibber fest between the two of us. It’s February 20 as I write this but by the time you read this is it will probably be August 20 and Raven and I will be accepting our $25 dollar giftcard to Chili’s and a plaque with our names on it from the people at the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest blog post in history so, hey, fuck it, who really cares who talks about which awesome dude? The only thing that is important is that they are recognized by our prestigious organization and that Raven and I haven’t died in a freak accident after crashing a stolen power boat into a floating distillery somewhere in international waters. If we have gone to our watery graves, well, shit, at least you have these powerful words to remember us by. And if not, well . . . fuck, I’m pretty sure I had a point here but it disappeared somewhere in all that hazy mess of gibberish.
Wait, here it is: I’m actually glad that Raven picked St. Calvin because, honestly, how many times can I say the dude is awesome/amazing/the light of my life? I have written whole rapturous posts about the dude before. You know how I feel. It’s good to get some outside perspective once in a while, and with that said, I think Raven is right. St. Calvin hasn’t even reached his full potential yet and when he does – and you know it’s coming – the choirs of heaven will sing out and we will reach a new age of enlightenment, with dudes playing air guitar like Bill & Ted and . . . fuck it, I’m rambling.
Anyway, yeah, so how about the dudes I picked? Yeah, let’s talk about them while my erection subsides. We’ll start with Roddy White. That dude is pretty awesome. I suppose I could elaborate on that point, but no one wants to see this devolve into some nerdy stat worshiping ugliness which is what would happen if I let it. But I won’t. Instead, I’ll just point out that Roddy White was the biggest weapon on a team that won a whole bunch of games and were considered Super Bowl favorites coming out of the NFC for a lot of the season. He kicked everyone’s ass and also made me look like a genius for picking him in my fantasy draft, which I did as the first receiver picked, which caused some dudes to make fun of me and call me an idiot, but hey, who’s laughing now? Well, besides everybody reading this laughing at me for bragging about something so incredibly lame as fantasy football success? That’s right, me. I followed Roddy White and his path of destruction all year long and even though I don’t give a shit about the Falcons, I give a shit about dudes who help me in any way, no matter how petty or sad it may be. Besides, the dude is named Roddy which means that he probably had to fight a lot growing up as a kid and that his friends probably call him Rowdy, and you have to be able to bring it in order to live up to a name like that and I can respect that.
Braylon Edwards, meanwhile, is a stinking, filthy New York Jet, which means that this is already the second time I have gone back on my promise to myself not to acknowledge any Jets on this team. But to hell with all that. Braylon Edwards has always been near and dear to my heart ever since his days at Michigan. He’s kind of an asshole, but so what, so am I, you know? His game against Michigan State in 2004 is the greatest game I have ever seen a wide receiver play. It’s not like he put up record breaking statistics or anything like that. It’s just the way he completely took over the game in the 4th quarter with Michigan down 17 and made circus catches and demolished the ankles of the poor miserable cornerback trying to cover him and the way that the scoreboard read Michigan 45, Michigan St. 37 when the game was over and Braylon was like some sort of warrior king and . . . and . . . look, the dude was fucking great and he will always be near and dear to my heart because of it.
But aside from all that, I love Braylon Edwards because it kinda seems like no one else really does. He gets shit on a lot because he’s always dropping passes but everyone forgets that when it comes down to it, Braylon is also the guy who comes up with the spectacular play when the team needs it. Sure, sure, Santonio Holmes kind of overshadowed him a bit by the end of the season, but Edwards stepped up throughout the season as the big play guy for the Jets. He only had 53 catches, but those catches went for 17.1 yards on average, the best of his career. It seems like people have written Braylon off as kind of a flake and maybe they’re right, but that just kinda makes me love him even more. He’s a loose cannon and you can’t really depend on him. So what? Dependable people are boring and they’re probably just compensating for some deep-seated insecurity that makes them constantly crave the approval of others. They’ll fetch you your coffee and kiss your ass and then go home and cry and masturbate before falling asleep in their recliner while a Happy Days marathon plays on Nick at Nite. Shameful, just shameful. But not our Braylon. No sir. He doesn’t need your approval or your affection because he’s Braylon Edwards and he is capable of the sort of greatness that your feeble ass could never comprehend. So what if he drops a lot of passes? I’m not a Jets fan so what the fuck do I care? He makes big plays. He makes Braylon plays. And those are some of the finest damn plays that I have ever seen. Plus he had that awesome beard for a while that made him look like Kimbo Slice or an angry hobo, although I guess those are kind of the same thing. So THERE.
Finally, Chris Henry. I am breaking the rules a bit here since he is currently inactive on account of being, you know, dead, but fuck that, there are no rules here, only the thunderous beating heart that lies at the core of Armchair Linebacker. That is the only rhythm that I dance to here and it has demanded that I honor Chris Henry in this fashion.
After all, we never really talked about Chris Henry when he died because we don’t have a Bengals writer (Hint, hint in case you are a Bengals dude and are reading this madness.) And that is a damn shame, because honestly, Chris Henry died the way that I imagine half of us here at Armchair Linebacker will eventually die: falling shirtless out of the back of a moving truck with a cast on our arm while arguing with our bastard’s mama. That is an Armchair Linebacker death right there. Like I said, that’s how I expect half of us will eventually go. The other half will probably die in the following ways: a freak homemade space shuttle accident involving huffing paint and trying to blow up the sun; trying to jump the Grand Canyon on a homemade dirtbike after gnawing on the adrenal gland of a mountain lion; crashing a schoolbus into the polar bear exhibit at the zoo and then challenging the alpha polar bear to a duel; doing mescaline and then barricading ourselves in our home because we have to fight the siege of thousands of Indian spirit warriors before finally blowing ourselves up in a heroic attempt to save the universe from their heathen rampage; or dying on the toilet. One of those. I’ll leave you to guess who goes in which way.
Anyway, Chris Henry died as he lived: absolutely retardedly. And that deserves some sort of recognition, does it not? No? Well fuck you, make your own goddamn All-Pro team then. As for me, I’m proud to have Chris Henry represent me and this website as we form an All-Pro team to take on intergalactic cannibal werewolves for control of the universe. That is what we’re doing here, right? RIGHT?

TOMORROW: Tight ends (rowwwwr!)