RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.

Monday, August 20

NFL: Southern Division Teams (preseason)


#1: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (16-4 last year)
Of course, being contrarian internet asshole, I can’t stand the Indianapolis Colts. But I’ve kinda always hated them ever since they went to Indianapolis. I mean, why the fuck would you willingly move to Indiana? Them getting Peyton Manning years ago just sealed the deal for me. I could do without ever seeing Peyton’s dumbshit face again, but instead I’ll see it forever on everything. I’m sure some company will develop satellite rays that will beam him into my dreams so I buy some new flavor of Vitamin Water eventually. Fucking robot technology ruining everything. Although I guess them winning the Super Bowl was awesome because now everybody picked apart their fairly shoddy yet streaky defense in free agency, like all Super Bowl teams deal with. I imagine it will be a long tough year for the Colts, where they are more like the Bengals again, scoring a zillion points and losing because the other teams scored a zillion and three points.
ALL-TIME GREAT: Bert Jones, when they were in Baltimore, simply because when I was a kid I always wanted football jerseys and never could have one because my stupid parents were poor and uneducated. But I had a rich second cousin who would give us garbage bags full of hand-me-downs, and one time there was a Colts Bert Jones jersey. That makes him the best, automatically, even though I couldn’t even tell you what dude looked like or how good he was or anything.
TEAM HOSS: Bob Sanders has the most non-descript name ever for a tough little punishing roaming safety with hyphy dreads and bad tattoos.
ALL-TIME SUCK-ASS: I will say Eric Dickerson, because to be quite honest, until he was making stammeringly amusing analysis on the sidelines on TV, I always did not like that Eric Dickerson. And when he was with the Colts, it was like some chumpy team that sucked paying a ton of money for some dude who was supposed to be awesome but would never win a title to come play for them instead of the team he made his name with.
TEAM ASS: Have to be a player hater and go with Peyton Manning here. Sorry if you are the type of fag who loves the best player on the best team all the time and believe in Jesus and Joe Montana and the inherit perfection of a two-party political system.
SENIOR PLAYER: Wide receiver Marvin Harrison, a first round draft pick in ’96.
VA BOY: Nary a one in camp. Probably because people from here know Indiana is a shithole.
FORMER HURRICANE: Wide receiver Reggie Wayne, whose inherit U.ness seems to be quelled by playing with and behind Harrison. It will be hilariously great when Wayne retires and Peyton spends his last couple years having Wayne bitch at him for not hitting him often enough so that they could lose by 4 instead of 11.
WILD SAMOAN: Freddy Keiaho, who is Cato Junes’ replacement at outside linebacker. Played at San Diego State and sounds Samoan enough.
THE ICKY: Longshot wide receiver Craphonso Thorpe.
THE RUDY: Starting middle linebacker Gary Brackett, undrafted out of Rutgers back when everybody figured Rutgers was basically like Temple East.
JOCK GENIUS: I had meant to pick overhyped coaches or GMs (and Bill Polian would be a good choice), but again, it has to go to Peyton, calling seven thousand audibles a game. I hope he gets concussed enough he never tries to be a coach.
FANTASY JERSEY: I’ll stop bashing Manning long enough to say I’d most likely rock a blue #63 SATURDAY jersey.
ODDS TO WIN IT ALL (according to Mafia/Jew money laundering sites): 7 to 1 – although it looks like the defense is crumbling from injury and free agency thinning, and they already kinda had a lucky streak last year, so unless the Colts move to Arena League, it might be fairly impossible to repeat.

#2: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (11-7 last year)
ALL-TIME GREAT: Rickey Jackson was one of those linebackers who always had that pit bull/crackhead stare to him. I always loved that dude so long as he wasn’t like twisting John Riggins’ ankle off or some shit.
TEAM HOSS: In all the hullabaloo over Reggie Bush, Deuce McAllister quietly asserted himself, saying “sit down till third down son.” Plus, southern rappers refer to 26-inch rims as Deuce McAllisters.
ALL-TIME SUCK-ASS: Archie Manning. Not only was he kinda stupid and unsuccessful, but he procreated them two boys of his, plus more I think who are probably just as annoying in insurance sales or landscape architecture or whatever the fuck they do.
TEAM ASS: With wide receiver Joe Horn gone, I can’t really think of one Saint that stands out as being a shithead.
SENIOR PLAYER: Defensive tackle Willie Whitehead, signed in ’99 as a free agent. No longer a starter, but still a giant funny black guy to “stuff” the middle, as the football dorks like to say.
VA BOY: Nobody, which is fucked-up, because we took in motherfuckers after Katrina.
FORMER HURRICANE: Out of respect for Katrina victims, they don’t keep any on their roster.
WILD SAMOAN: Starting linebacker Scott Fujita, who sounds like he could be an Americanized Oriental more than Samoan.
THE ICKY: Rookie offensive lineman Jermon Bushrod.
THE RUDY: Has to be that Michael Lewis dude who returns kicks, never went to college, and tried out for the team while working at UPS. He is a feel-good NFL story during these trying Michael Vick is Dog-Hitler times.
JOCK GENIUS: Of course, Sean Payton. Finally got his chance and his new age light-mood awesomeness has made Saints fans take the bag off their head. Doesn’t hurt Drew Brees and Reggie Bush showed up same time he did.
FANTASY JERSEY: Black #12 COLSTON, unless they have some sort of alternate gold jersey, and actually I’d be more likely to wear a #26 one that said MCALLISTER.
ODDS TO WIN IT ALL (according to Mafia/Jew money laundering sites): 13 to 1 – and the Saints are a darling pick because they just feel so good offensively with Drew Brees and the UNLIMITED PROMISE of Reggie Bush, as well as Deuce McAllister being the solid vet to teach him the ways of NFL groupies and properly administering HGH supplements to avoid detection, and then the feel-good blue collarness of a guy like Marques Colston drafter in the seventh round last year, not to mention them being the ridiculously media-created symbolic key to the rebirth of New Orleans and all we need is a Hot Boys reunion Saints to the Super Bowl theme song featuring Master P on the hook going “UNNNHHH!” and a marching jazz band and they seem impossible to stop; which of course, to my paranoid mind that thinks the NFL is completely fixed like wrestling, means they will lose in the Super Bowl this year.

#3: CAROLINA PANTHERS (8-8 last year)
ALL-TIME GREAT: Who could be greater than the thinning longhaired goofy white freak out machine known as Kevin Greene? If He Hate Me had ran back a few punts for touchdowns, he might be here, but still, Kevin Greene.
TEAM HOSS: From the weekly customized airbrush designs on his cleats to his undersized but hard-spirited (yet seemingly good-natured) prowess, he is the motherfuckin’ man. Plus, if he scores he will do a retarded dance. Basically, he’s everything Chad Johnson pretends to be, and with a far less braggadocios demeanor.
ALL-TIME SUCK-ASS: I can think of no Carolina Panther worth completely hating in such a ruthless mean-spirited manner. Oh wait… Kerry Collins. (Oh yeah, there’s also Rae Carruth; but still, let’s be honest, he’d finish second to Collins.)
TEAM ASS: Being the team is pretty much composed of a loveable drug-free (haha) North Dallas Forty-style cast of characters and oddballs, it is hard to choose this one. But I will say David Carr just for being such a wash-out, although I’m sure Delhomme will screw up eventually and give him a shit to fix it.
SENIOR PLAYER: Kicker John Kasay, acquired as free agent from the Seahawks in ’95.
VA BOY: They have a ton of former Virginia Tech players on the Panthers roster, but I have to go with Garnell Wilds, special teamers/back-up defensive back because he was one of those minor role players I used to love on the Redskins before they cut him to get a better opportunity elsewhere.
FORMER HURRICANE: Linebacker Dan Morgan, who is one of those Romanowski-esque wild-eyed whiteboy linebackers who you can only imagine love hunting, drinking lots of Busch beer, and have probably hung out with Dale Earnhardt Jr. at top secret all-white strip clubs.
WILD SAMOAN: Starting defensive tackle Maake Kemoeatu, who is one of those new breed of giant lumbering dudes in the middle of the defensive line who never get to the quarterback and just kinda occupy a ton of physical space to clog up any running plays up the middle long enough for roaming linebackers to come make a tackle.
THE ICKY: Linebacker Na’il Diggs.
THE RUDY: Starting fullback Brad Hoover; seems like half the fullbacks in the league were undrafted.
JOCK GENIUS: John Fox, who fired a few top-tier assistants last year as sacrificial lambs for his long-tenure not producing anything more than one Super Bowl appearance loss to the Patriots; this of course means Fox is probably in his make-or-break year because after you dump your assistants, there’s no one else left to blame, unless Matt Millen is your boss.
FANTASY JERSEY: Without a doubt, a black #91 GREENE jersey.
ODDS TO WIN IT ALL (according to Mafia/Jew money laundering sites): 25 to 1 – although there is already “Jake Delhomme sucks” talk firing up, which was inevitable with David Carr showing up. You can’t have two high profile mediocre quarterbacks in the same NFL town that’s not automatically Super Bowl-bound without there being such talk.

#4: JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS (8-8 last year)
ALL-TIME GREAT: Wide receiver Jimmy Smith, who did cocaine, caught a billion passes, and shared a name with the greatest Hammond B3 Organ player that ever did exist.
TEAM HOSS: I will go with Fred Taylor just because most of the Jaguars seem rather non-descript to me and I always think Taylor is the guy that got shot and killed by his beaten wife a few years back, so if you can come back from violent gun murder deaths, then he’s pretty fucking tough.
ALL-TIME SUCK-ASS: Mark Brunell, who hopefully will be forced into retirement by the time you read this, so that he can concentrate on being a right-wing dickhead Senatorial candidate for the rest of his life, forcing his Christianity and blank stares on the rest of us.
TEAM ASS: Again, most players are so non-descript (perhaps due to shitty team colors), so I will just say Fred Taylor again, since he used to beat his wife; even if he’s not that dude, I’m sure he beat his wife, I mean, he’s an NFL player.
SENIOR PLAYER: Both Fred Taylor and Donovin Darius were first round draft picks in 1998, though I think I read somewhere that Darius is out for the year with an injury, but that might’ve been Madden football.
VA BOY: Back-up running back/kick returner Alvin Pearman, who always played behind Wali Lundy in college at UVA, even though Lundy fumbled like one of every five times he touched the ball; and then again in the pros, Lundy had a chance to start most of last year for the Texans, while Pearman has quietly been a role player and kept a solid hold on one of those ridiculous fat NFL paychecks.
FORMER HURRICANE: Oddly enough, no former Hurricanes on the roster, though there’s a ton of former Gators plus like three or four Florida A&M Thuggateers on the preseason roster. Perhaps it’s a northern Florida vs. southern Florida thing that I wouldn’t understand.
WILD SAMOAN: Starting bruiser of a guard Vincent Manuwai.
THE ICKY: Longshot wide receiver Roosevelt Kiser, how has one of the most ominous names in the pro football game since Monsanto Pope.
THE RUDY: All-around dude Derrick Wimbush, most likely undrafted since he played at Fort Valley State in college, but backs up at fullback and returns kicks as well.
JOCK GENIUS: The new assistant head coach (glorified title for offensive coordinator) Mike Tice, who, when you think about Jack Del Rio’s infamous chopping block in the locker room, I bet Tice and Del Rio make for an interesting coaching pair.
FANTASY JERSEY: There is no reason for me to ever wear a Jaguars jersey.
ODDS TO WIN IT ALL (according to Mafia/Jew money laundering sites): 30 to 1 – There is no clear direction for this team, but they should be commended for being the first NFL football team to have a quarterback controversy involving two black quarterbacks (and with a third-stringer to boot).

#5: TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS (4-12 last year)
ALL-TIME GREAT: Haha, Buccaneers all-time great. Let’s say Hugh Green because he was perhaps the only man to ever seem menacing in those awesome ass old orange uniforms.
TEAM HOSS: Ronde Barber may be the only leftover member of that aging punishing defense that Tony Dungy built that’s still a legitimate defensive threat.
ALL-TIME SUCK-ASS: Oh overrated Steve Young, if your years in Tampa Bay don’t prove that the system and surrounding cast sometimes make the quarterback, then nothing ever will. Perhaps you will continue to chump-ass your way through pre-game panels for years to come.
TEAM ASS: Chris Simms, second generation piece of shit. Also, props to him for getting his spleen ruptured and finishing that game last year; at least for one half of major level football, he had a legitimate excuse for sucking.
SENIOR PLAYER: Linebacker Derrick Brooks, a second round draft choice in ’95. Wasn’t he Super Bowl MVP that one time? If so, I would imagine the Bucs will keep him around until he’s crippled, so he can relay to the younger players how Tampa Bay actually was great one year (although they were great in the years building up to that as well; in fact, it’s always sucked for Tony Dungy that Jon Gruden rolled in, did clean-up duties to get a Super Bowl ring, and proceeded to undermine and destroy the team again ever since).
VA BOY: Again, UVA alum Ronde Barber. He and Tiki still do charity bullshit around here, and I used to work at a place that did trade show graphics and all that crap and right after Al Groh got hired to take over the gig at UVA, he (through the athletic department) ordered like $75,000 worth of like 12x18 prints of UVA football greats, framed in nice cherry oak frames (which I constructed for like $8 an hour), with beautiful double cut mats (which I cut for like $8 an hour), put together with glare resistant glass (which I sliced, and put together in the frames for like $8 an hour), and then hung with tamper resistant locking mounts through the main halls of their workout facility (which I helped install for $8 an hour). All told, I probably earned as much in the course of that individual job as Ronde tips the valet at a restaurant on a Friday night meal during the offseason.
FORMER HURRICANE: Nickelback Phillip Buchanon, whose overhyped segment of his career (in Oakland) seems to be over, but perhaps age will temper his Miami egotism into being a solid role player on defense.
WILD SAMOAN: No Samoan sounding fuckers on the team, so I will pick longsnapper Andrew Economos and pretend he’s some Greek Mafia dude who runs a sugar refinery with a heavy hand.
THE ICKY: It is always hard to ever pick against B.J. Askew when it comes to this category, but I will put aside my juvenile humor long enough to instead focus on my stereotypical brandings of greasy Italians and say that reserve safety Sabby Piscitelli has the funniest name.
THE RUDY: Being the Bucs don’t have any homegrown undrafted free agents on their roster, I will say Jeff Garcia, who went undrafted coming out of San Jose State, which is also why he was so off the radar it took him like seven years to even sniff a starting line-up in San Francisco, which has led to a nice career of being good-to-mediocre enough to get signed by every team who has a shitty starter they’re trying to scare with training camp position battles.
JOCK GENIUS: Oh Jon Gruden, watching your downfall has been good entertainment these past few years. And you’re still so young. It gives me hope that you might end up being able to work your way back into head coaching ranks in future years to suck up another team, hopefully either the Cowboys or the 49ers should they have turned it around completely by then.
FANTASY JERSEY: Easily, retro orange #24 that reads CADILLAC, although the current red ones with that wouldn’t be too shabby either.
ODDS TO WIN IT ALL (according to Mafia/Jew money laundering sites): 50 to 1 – they may never win another Super Bowl again, and I would assume that one win, even if Jon Gruden’s OFFENSIVE MASTERMIND! showed up the year they won (with that punishing defense which is aged and abandoned by now) gets another twenty years to make it happen again.

#6: TENNESSEE TITANS (8-8 last year)
ALL-TIME GREAT: Earl Campbell; he was the first dude I watched in football I pretended to be when I was running around the back yard like a little dumbass.
TEAM HOSS: For lack of a better choice, and since the franchise seems to be pinning their future on him, I will say Vince Young; but the Madden Curse combined with the sad truth that he’s not much more than Michael Vick 2.0 is gonna eventually leave Tennessee football fans concentrating their attention on Saturday afternoons like always.
ALL-TIME SUCK-ASS: Eddie George; that dude was kind of a chump.
TEAM ASS: LenDale White, who was second fiddle in college, now is starter at running back for Titans. Also, reading through their starting line-ups, holy shit, they have nobody. (Second also, I know Pacman Jones is there, albeit suspended, but I like Pacman Jones. He’s misunderstood, that’s all.)
SENIOR PLAYER: Both punter Craig Hentrich (free agent acquisition from Green Bay) and guard Benji Olson (fifth round draft pick) joined the team in ’98. I would assume the offensive lineman’s voice carries more weight than the punter’s in the locker room though.
VA BOY: Reserve safety Vincent Fuller out of Virginia Tech, who broke his ankle his rookie season and never has really lived up to his pre-drafted hype.
FORMER HURRICANE: In lieu of any active Hurricanes, let’s say starting guard Jacob Bell who played at Miami of Ohio, who I think are called something stupid meant to not be insulting to drunk Indians.
WILD SAMOAN: Defensive lineman Jesse Mahelona played at Univ. of Tennessee, and now with the Titans, making him easily the Polynesian King of the Volunteer State, unless Three Six Mafia has a Samoan rapper I don’t know about.
THE ICKY: Defensive lineman Travis LaBoy.
THE RUDY: Starting fullback Ahmard Hall, although a Texas Longhorn product, was an undrafted entrant onto the team, the only homegrown undrafted starter in Nashville.
JOCK GENIUS: I guess offensive coordinator Norm Chow would have to qualify as the overblown genius on this roster of coaches. Jeff Fisher is a for-real genius though, because other than that one Super Bowl loss to the Rams a long time ago back when Kurt Warner was a rising NFL star, the Titans have not threatened to bring home too many Lombardi trophies, yet with Bill Cowher retiring, Jeff Fisher has the longest tenure of any head coach in the NFL.
FANTASY JERSEY: Blue on blue #89 WYCHECK because Frank Wycheck is like my all-time favorite dude to be like, “Man, I knew it was gonna suck when the Redskins cut him. Anyone could see from his third string fourth quarters performances in preseason the year they had him, he was gonna be awesome.”
ODDS TO WIN IT ALL (according to Mafia/Jew money laundering sites): 60 to 1 – honestly, not to be a dick, but dogfighting aside, if Michael Vick can’t do that shit I don’t think Vince Young is gonna do it; although I guess Young did win one of those college spiked crystal ball title things, unlike Vick.

#7: ATLANTA FALCONS (7-9 last year)
ALL-TIME GREAT: Wide receiver/amazing kick returner Billy “White Shoes” Johnson. He is a legend amongst people like me who worship retarded characters from football’s lost glory days. You see, with people like me, the old shit is always the bestest shit, unless it’s old shit that’s before I was around to see it, then it’s just some wack ass old shit.
TEAM HOSS: Atlanta is the new Chocolate City by most accounts, home to a slew of affluent Afro-Americans, so I find it intriguing that the defensive workhorse on the Falcons is an unassuming white linebacker Keith Brooking. Dude even played college ball in town Georgia Tech. He is one of those guys so deeply entrenched in one team that you know, even though he’ll have a crappy free agency or salary cap cut year or two somewhere else like Minnesota or Jacksonville, but he’ll be miserable and come back and sign the old one-day contract to retire a Falcon and go on to be linebackers coach or color man on the radio team or some shit.
ALL-TIME SUCK-ASS: Deion Sanders made his name in football on the Falcons, and Deion Sanders is the All-Time Suck-Ass for pro football. High-stepping Jesus-pointing faggot.
TEAM ASS: Joe Horn is perhaps one of the more assholish players in the NFL, and not just for the cell phone bullshit, but also because back on the Saints, you have Willie Roaf as their solid anchor on the offensive line, but then Joe Horn goes and ruins it by having an affair with Roaf’s slut wife. You can only imagine Joe Horn is probably one of the guys that would’ve been busted for dogfighting involvement had Michael Vick been forced to turn in names to get his cushy plea deal. (Although, looking at the roster info, Horn might be one of the only starters I can think of in the NFL who played in college only at the junior college level.)
SENIOR PLAYER: Keith Brooking.
VA BOY: Well, with Michael Vick getting hung out to dry by the NFL probably for next year after this season’s prison sentence is served, I will choose defensive back DeAngelo Hall, whose gamebreaking ability edges out fellow Virginia Tech superstar defensive back Jimmy Williams in the Falcons secondary. Plus, with a name like Jimmy Williams, dude could get like 39 interceptions a year and nobody would remember who he was.
FORMER HURRICANE: Not applicable.
WILD SAMOAN: Reserve offense lineman Toniu Fonoti.
THE ICKY: Alge Crumpler, which sounds like some sort of devastating MMA submission hold that Russian fighters use to break collarbones for the Russian Mafia during collections procedures. Although long snapper Boone Stutz sounds like an Appalachian parallel to this maneuver.
THE RUDY: Tommy Jackson, undrafted out of Auburn, might actually be in their starting lineup at defensive tackle by the end of preseason.
JOCK GENIUS: Poor Bobby Petrino left a high-powered Louisville offense that is hyped to do crazy good this year and contend for a national championship, to take an NFL job coaching one of the sport’s most hyped super-athletes. A couple of snitches later, and now he’s looking at the inevitability of being a poor man’s Butch Davis, bound to head back to the NCAA level in about five years (three years sucking in Atlanta, one year off to spend more time with his family, then back at whatever the biggest BCS top-tier conference school is looking for a new coach).
FANTASY JERSEY: Still, old school red jersey with #7 MEXICO. I don’t think anyone has created more things NFLshop won’t let you get on a customized jersey than Michael Vick.
ODDS TO WIN IT ALL (according to Mafia/Jew money laundering sites): 80 to 1 – it is pretty obvious the Falcons are doomed, and releasing Matt Schaub seems extra-brilliant now. I bet that Arthur Blanks dude has been tempted to think really racist thoughts about Vick on a number of occasions. Haha, Blanks actually pushed Vick onto the field in a wheelchair when Vick hurt his leg that one time. What a chump.

#8: HOUSTON TEXANS (6-10 last year)
ALL-TIME GREAT: Not applicable.
TEAM HOSS: LOL, number one pick Mario Williams. Seriously.
ALL-TIME SUCK-ASS: David Carr. Get your hair cut for charity now, motherfucker.
TEAM ASS: Even though I liked him personally when he played for the Packers, center Mike Flanagan is one of those old school mentality linemen (read: dirty) who is apt to seem less sexy now that he plays in a Texans uniform. Seriously, when they announced those unis when this team started, full of post-911 fervor, didn’t we all know they were gonna suck forever? They should just scrap the team colors, change the name, and start fresh.
SENIOR PLAYER: Starting guard Chester Pitts, who was picked in the second round after David Carr in ’02. And people say they never tried to build a line for that guy.
VA BOY: Well, former UVA kid Matt Schaub is their new starting quarterback, and he should end up being competent-to-almost-great, but still, pulling for small school underdogs, I’d pick back-up linebacker Shawn Barber, who played at the University of Richmond. Although in real life, as a piece of shit workingman, I’d rather fertilize bomb both UVA and U of R.
FORMER HURRICANE: Wide receiver threat Andre Johnson, who nobody remembers because he ended up going to play in Houston.
WILD SAMOAN: In lieu of insane island types, let’s pretend running back Samkon Gado is some sort of tribal voodoo priest from Ghana. Shit, we could even pretend that first round draft choice Amobi Okoye is his nemesis, a Nigerian professor attempting to civilize the outlaw regions of western Africa through his controversial techniques of electromagnetic suggestion.
THE ICKY: Back-up quarterbacks Sage Rosenfels and Bradlee Van Pelt sound like a pair of industrial overlords sharing a couple of vodka-and-chinaman’s-bloods with Nelson Rockefeller while waiting for their fat black pseudo-slave chef lady to finish preparing roast baby with all the trimmings.
THE RUDY: Back-up defensive lineman Alfred Malone, out of Troy.
JOCK GENIUS: Gary Kubiak, former shitty quarterback, now current bound-to-be-shitty coach, although who knows? Perhaps the NFL booking committee wants to book a quality franchise in Houston to create more Texas hysteria and sort of force Jerry Jones to stop being such a rogue owner.
FANTASY JERSEY: Haha, yeah right.
ODDS TO WIN IT ALL (according to Mafia/Jew money laundering sites): 100 to 1 – haha, yeah right, although, in an ironic turn of events, they’ll probably be noticeably better than the Falcons.

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