NFL WEEK 20: Conference Championships

They will look back historically at this 2009-2010 NFL season as the year in which the NFL lost its swagger, and turned into a much more dangerous yet just as boring NBA, but with far higher commercial rates. All year long, with the abundance of terrible teams and explosion of dominant teams that really aren't that dominant, it's been lackluster as fuck. I don't know what's wrong, but something is. Maybe they need to change the salary cap rules to allow for teams to re-sign players and actually, you know, build teams, not just in the sense of a collection of players that work together long-term to have chemistry, but to have fans be able to relate to a player, and know them well. Seems like the turnover for applicable jerseys for your favorite team is about four years now, meaning out of all the commonly available replica jerseys at the store for your #1 team this year, in four years maybe, just MAYBE, one of those dudes will still be on your #1 team. As for this year's conference championships, I think I may have the least amount of excitement for it I've had my entire adult life. I don't know if it's the Redskins being so terrible, or I'm just a disdainful asshole lately, or what. I actually don't mind three of the four teams, but I don't have enough faith in their consistency to really get behind them. This bullshit of teams being mediocre but then getting on a hot run to make it to or win the Super Bowl... I don't know. It makes the NFL seem as shabby as the NBA, where you could run on autopilot all year long, turn it on, and make a run. What's the fucking point? I think that's more reprehensible than making early playoff-locking teams play their players in the last couple weeks. They can look into all the other bullshit the commissioner's office looks into all the time, but what they need to do is make this shit less boring, and quickly. Not through rules changes that turn it into Arena League scores or put the QB in a bulletproof glass shield, but just let players stay longer with a team. Shit, start a developmental league with one team per division, to create inter-division rivalries, and have young players who will hopefully end up in the same divisions build a camaraderie that will make their on-field battles on the bigger stage more exciting. Do something. Fuck man.
Okay, for this week's rankings bullshit, obviously there aren't even eight teams left, so I broke down each team into offense and defense. Then, getting all nerdtastic, I took the overall team power rating that they have under my sixth grade formula, checked the stats as to where their offense and defenses ranked in the NFL, then prorated the team rating into separate offense and defense ratings. Yeah, I know... a bunch of jibber jabber. I just wanted to make sure that, one, you knew I didn't just make this list arbitrarily, that there was some half-assed science behind it, and two, you understood what a giant fucking nerd I can often be. So here's your listings for this week...

#1: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS OFFENSE (57.60 rating) - New Orleans, as a team, is ranked #1 overall on my team bullshit dork-o-meter, and this is a team that pretty much rides their offense. It's amazing that the Chargers basically just let Drew Brees go away, right as he was entering his prime. He's not an old man, and has plenty of good years left in him, and all I can see Philip Rivers doing in the next four years is trying to get to where he's as good as Drew Brees. Last week, Reggie Bush ran roughshod all over everything, which will probably be his career highlight over the course of however many years he underperforms due to lack of motivation since he has big diamond earrings and an old lady with a huge white ass (although I think the Kardashians might be some sort of weird eastern Euro/Arab/Mediterranean hodgepodge people). You ain't gonna motivate a dude with a hot wife and diamond earrings every week, and he sure as hell ain't gonna motivate himself. Still, the Saints are high-powered as fuck with a wide variety of draft day scrap heap offensive weapons, plus Jeremy Shockey is playing with spirited hatred again. Not to mention, they re-signed Deuce McAllister before the playoffs, if for no other reason than to keep him inactive but have him on the team that he was the star of for years and years in relative obscurity. Deuce McAllister is one of the chillest dudes, and I like chillest dudes to be rewarded in life instead of exploited because they are so chill, so it'd be great to see Deuce get a ring.

#2: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS OFFENSE (44.31) - In the Secret Clubhouse message board area, I was shocked at how I'm the only person there who detests Peyton Manning and his southern private high school fratboy dickhead ass. The Colts, to me, are a thoroughly unenjoyable team, vanilla personalities collected all together to wear some vanilla ass uniforms and play in front of a bunch of vanilla Indiana retards. But we live in a country that actually thought people like George W. Bush or John Kerry or John McCain or Sarah Palin or Al Gore would make, you know, a President. We are a watered down retarded culture, so I guess the dipshit private school fratboy who probably knew his wife was the one for him because he didn't want to roofie her, though he does make her have threesomes with other women regularly, should be our Greatest Player Ever of this time period. Good fucking lord, somebody blow up the planet.

#3: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS DEFENSE (27.69) - The Colts defense scores highly because the Colts team is so highly power rated in my dork-o-meter. But the Colts defense is surprisingly and anonymously good, and as Herr Peyton adjusted this year to being the bonafide head coach, trying to find new regular go-to dudes now that Marvin Harrison has left Indy to prove all the haters that he really is black in an ignorant street sense of the word, the defense has been strong. It's that Pittsburgh steel curtain style of a vast collection of highly competent but not quite superstars dudes too, that relentlessly punish because they've got five dudes off the bench just as ready and bad ass as the guys who start. Honestly, even if the Jets defense can ratchet down the Colts offense even slightly, I just don't see the Jets offense doing too well against the Colts defense, although I guess their achilles heel has been the run game, which is the Jets strong suit. Still, if the Jets fall behind, which they will, they'll have to open up the passing plays, and that has Mark Sanchez 3 INTs written all over it against this Colts defense.

#4: MINNESOTA VIKINGS OFFENSE (26.47) - Sadly enough, and a testament to how detached I've become this year, I'm probably rooting for the Ol' Gunslinger, just because. I mean, of course he's such a douche egotistic cocksucker, basically running schoolyard plays with Sidney Rice, but he plays with such passion. Did you see him running around the field last week? Did you know he loves the game? That's why he plays. I was slightly bummed that the Cowboys lost though because I was hoping to make a joke about a Saints/Cowboys conference championship that it was a Fox Sunday night characters all grown up showdown between Ralph Wiggum (aka Wade Phillips) and Malcolm in the Middle (aka Sean Payton). Another question, is Adrian Peterson really that great? Dude seems tiny, and ends up pretty slowed down the second half of every season he's played. Seems like he's on the accelerated Terrell Davis career path, where in four years he'll be gone and a supervisor at UPS, or working on the NFL Network.

#5: NEW YORK JETS DEFENSE (26.31) - You know, Rex Ryan is pretty awesome. And I know it's been the sports nerd talking meme the past two months, but really, rarely has there been a cornerback who just took over the game as the obviously best dude ever like Darrell Revis has done. That guy is out of control. I am probably most excited this weekend just to see him vs. Peyton Fuckface.

#6: MINNESOTA VIKINGS DEFENSE (25.53) - A strange and simple realization happened last week that made me change my mind and stop hating on Jared Allen. He wears the #69. I always thought of him as some fake ass pseudo-redneck jackass millionaire guy, but realizing that he purposely chose the #69, it was like he laid his true genetics out under a microscope and his DNA was driving home-painted camouflage '88 Ford Broncos. If you've ever been to a demolition derby, the two most popular numbers are 69 and 420, and although I would bet Mr. Allen is 420-friendly, the NFL doesn't allow for three-digit jersey numbers. Haha, #69, that's great. Also, those two Williams dudes are pretty goddamned big yet still athletic. It is a shame that sumo wrestling is not more popular here, legit, and you could make money at it, because a dude like Pat Williams would be great.

#7: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS DEFENSE (14.40) - The talk all year has been how Gregggg Williams has finally got this defense playing like a championship team should play. Yet, for the most part, they've been cushiony and just stopped teams as much as they needed to not let the game get away from their offense. The last few weeks of the regular season, the Saints caught flack for not looking like they were playing all out, but honestly, their defense has looked like that off-and-on all season long. I think the Saints/Vikings game will be a lot more interesting than people expect, and not the guns-a-blazing shootout I think most folks are planning on. The Vikings defense should partially stifle the Saints scoring machine, and the Vikings offense might actually bust up this defense right smartly, but not the whole game through. I predict a Vikings victory, because the Saints are still the Saints, no matter how much they wanna be good.

#8: NEW YORK JETS OFFENSE (10.69) - When your style is strong run first, pound away, wear 'em down on defense, but you are playing a team that scores like it's Madden set on easy mode, it's not a good combo. You remember when people were like, "Man, Mark Sanchez sucks," a couple months ago? They'll be back next Monday morning.

NFL WEEK 19: Divisional Playoffs

I am the least excited about NFL playoffs than I can remember being in most of my adult life. I just don't care about, and actively dislike most of the teams left playing. Part of this could be the fact my team is the Washington Redskins and I am a well-bred playa hater because the Redskins suck so badly (although we are well on our way to another off-season Super Bowl with the hire of Mike Shanahan!). But at the same time, there's not a lot to like about many of the remaining teams. Shitty personalities and overhyped superstars and teams that were unstoppable five weeks ago that looked pretty normally mediocre as the season wound down. Oh well. I will watch, because I am an American, and it is my duty to love football, passionately, so that the rest of the World will not understand me even more...

#1: SAN DIEGO CHARGERS (13-3, 1st overall) - When the Chargers were up-and-coming young team full of skill position players galore and a wacky yet brutish defense with that guy that got busted for selling prescription cough syrup on their secondary (who I've always pretended was Quentin Jammer ever since, even though I know it's not, but every time I see Quentin Jammer, I smile and go, "That dude loves listening to DJ Screw"; but then Shawne Merrimanne will jump in the screen and I'll frown and go, "That dude loves exploring himself fully in a sexual way while hanging out with the longhaired Indian looking dude from Black Eyed Peas"). But somewhere along the way, and I think it was the overuse of the powder blue jerseys, or it might just be the fact I hate Norv Turner like Tennessee people hate Lane Kiffin, but for different reasons though just as passionately, but I just don't like the Chargers. Sad thing is there's a good chance they'll play the Colts in the AFC Championship game, and I hate the Colts worse than everybody in football except for the Cowboys. Actually this year's playoffs is like a giant parade of Teams Raven Hates. I should really get satellite TV now that I have a job again and just start watching hockey.

#2: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (13-3, 2nd overall) - I think their last few weeks was just smoke and mirror laziness, and their offense will turn it back on pretty easily about halfway through this weekend's game against the Cardinals. Perhaps this will be out of necessity, because I don't think defenses can just turn it on or off as easily, far more rhythm oriented than people understand, especially with a blitz from nine angles attack like Gregggg Williams uses for the Saints. The Cardinals/Saints game could end up being even more high-scoring than the Cardinals/Packers one. That would be fun to watch. I missed most of the Cards/Pack game, and caught the overtime ending at the stupid laundromat drying our clothes since our dryer is still broke. (Should probably buy a new heater coil being I have a job again as well.) The laundromat on a Sunday night is a vast wasteland of bi-racial mongoloids and people of low mental aptitude with eyeballs slid too far apart like a rhesus monkey lab experiment on fetal alcohol syndrome.

#3: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (14-2, 3rd overall) - Yeah, according to my mathematically brilliant season-long scoring system, the Colts are only ranked 3rd overall in the NFL. I know everybody is all like, "This is the team to beat. Peyton Manning is the greatest QB you will ever see in your life even if they cryogenically freeze you and you come back in 200 years and your job is to watch every football game ever played with the eyes of someone who was alive back around the year 2000 when the game was considered more brutal and repugnant and caveman-like." Fuck Peyton Manning. And the Colts have ugly uniforms.

#4: DALLAS COWBOYS (12-5, 4th overall) - Oh man, Cowboys bring the hatred. I have a friend who is a classic cynical Philly-style Eagles fan, and in the last couple weeks, though our team allegiances are natural enemies, we have bonded strongly in our mutual distaste for the media hype machine being slowly cranked up for this Dallas Cowboy team, since they finally won a playoff game. The simple fact of the matter is it is still the Cowboys team coached by Wade Wiggum (a retard coach, so strike one), quarterbacked by Tony Romo (a closeted homosexual QB of middling talent, who wishes Jason Witten sang like Carrie Underwood, or that Carrie Underwood had an ass like Jason Witten, one or the other), and owned by Jerry Jones (who should be proud of himself because with Dan Snyder's recent forays into running blind circles, and Al Davis not dead, he's technically only the 3rd worst owner in the NFL). But the more complex fact of the matter is the NFL this time of year is pre-engineered like a Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. The Rock Wrestlemania bout, so things happen for a reason. And the Dallas Cowboys are a great storied franchise that can get hyped up at the right time, as the Vikings and Saints start to ebb backwards into a late season low tide, and such a great and storied franchise would make for a great Super Bowl losing opponent to Peyton's Colts, to make it seem like Peyton's won like 5 Super Bowls instead of just the one, as you flash through history and see all the Cowboy victories, and then those exact same uniforms losing to Peyton and the Colts. Really, I fully expect the Cowboys to go to the Super Bowl and lose to the Colts because I fully believe the league is crooked as fuck and fixed, not choreographed but fixed, and this will make Peyton Manning seem more God-like, which is the goal, as Tom Brady's knee did not stand the test of this season and the NFL figurehead superstar slot needs to be replaced, and without the same model good looks and charming smile, Peyton's gonna need to seem like the best QB ever forever plus two years to be the ultimate superstar.

#5: MINNESOTA VIKINGS (12-4, 6th overall) - Ol' Farvey and his new pack of schoolyard ballmates get to host the stupid Dallas Cowboys this weekend, in what should probably break down like this. First half is competitive, but not too exciting, more of a build-up than anything. Second half, early on, Farvey is hurt on a few rough sacks or near sacks, but plays on. This refers back to the previously established Farve/Childress stay in the game storyline. Then Farvey throws a few errant passes, makes a halfway comeback, almost there, but then an interception kills the tying drive in the closing minutes. This creates a good Super QB in the Big Game rub for Tony Romo, and the injured but refuses to quit angle plays well with Farvey's Ol' Gunslinger personna. Then he goes into mulling retirement mode until the first week of September.

#6: BALTIMORE RAVENS (10-7, 7th overall) - The Ravens are the only team left that I feel I can root for, and I don't necessarily like them in a franchise sense, with ugly uniforms and stoling my go-by name. But a friend is a Ravens fan, and I enjoy their style, at times, and Ed Reed's bushy Grady Jr. if Sanford & Son still existed beard fills my heart with joy. And really, their game with the Colts is gonna be made or broken by whether their defense can play up to the game, beyond the common sports media meme of "this Ravens defense is not as good as it usually is" and they can make some plays. Wouldn't it be awesome to see Ray Lewis piledrive Peyton Manning into the turf and he's out for the game and Jim Corgi or Ralph Blyleven or whoever the fuck finishes the season for the Colts? And man oh man, if ever there was a black dude who was more thankful for the whiteboy who worked for him than Jim Caldwell, I'd like to meet that black dude. Well, not really, because he'd probably be a dickhead capitalist fuckface managerial type black dude who felt he had come up in life by exploiting the talents and efforts of others who were below him on some sort of arbitrary chain of power chart.

#7: ARIZONA CARDINALS (11-6, 9th overall) - Usually I would root completely against Kurt Warner because of his whole Jesus Concussion thing, but I didn't when they were playing the Packers. And watching the game I realized what it was... Aaron Rodgers, with his dark sunken eyes and blank expression, looks 95% facial matching technology like my youngest sister's old crackhead boyfriend who wrecked their car on purpose, almost killed my sister, and went to jail for being a complete punk ass piece of shit. So as much as I hate fake ass Christian do-gooder asshole types, I hate crackheads who fuck up a few years of my sister's life even more. I'm not sure if that means I get into Heaven or Hell, so I guess I'm lucky neither of them even exist.

#8: NEW YORK JETS (10-7, 11th overall) - As much as I hate the San Diego Chargers, I don't much care for the New York Jets. It pisses me off a fat fuck loudmouth and loveable asshole coach like Rex Ryan is being wasted up in New Jersey. He'd be a much better fit in one of the North division teams, or better yet as the new coach of Tennessee. In fact, Rex Ryan is tailor made for the SEC, and his monstrous defense doing battle with Urban Meyer's finesse offense would be a tasty Saturday afternoon treat for years to come. Instead he coaches the stupid Jets, who hope Mark Sanchez doesn't get distracted by pussy so much he throws five interceptions and loses the game.

NFL WEEK 18: Wild Card Weekend

The NFL capped off an interesting year of their professional variety of the American football egg game with a lackluster week 17 that was uneventful as fuck. Like seriously, it was the one week of the year where both CBS and Fox had a doubleheader, but even in the few games that mattered, it still seemed lethargic and boring. Too much was already decided. And they want to boost it to 18 games, to make a few more weeks of uneventful football to push up home game revenues? Fuck that noise. But the playoffs are set, and next weekend means two great things for football fans - the start of one and done pro football, and the last weekend of the year we have to fucking listen to that godawful booth team of Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth. They, more than anybody, make me wish satellite radio didn't have the ten second delay behind the television rays. Anyways, here are the eight teams playing this weekend in wild card games...

#1: DALLAS COWBOYS (11-5, 4th overall) - Coach Wiggum finally whooped them boys into December shape. Now he can get r dun in January. Except Tony Romo, forever the employee of the month runner-up, already has an achey breaky back to use an excuse for flubbing up this coming week like he did the last playoff games Dallas had, the last few times. Tony Romo has still never won a playoff game, and the fact the Cowboys didn't fuck themselves up in December was like they cleared a new hurdle in life and don't have to try real hard to feel successful at the end of this season.

#2: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (11-5, 5th overall) - The Eagles seem to enjoy being the underdog, on the road, expected to lose. It's like Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb don't like to be the favorites for fear of fucking it up. Or maybe they don't want to play in front of their own Philly asshole fans, because it sure seemed like they didn't give a fuck last weekend at Dallas. Maybe they wanted an extra week away in a five-star hotel, to chill in the (relatively) warmer climate, even though the Arctic blast is on nationwide right now. Whatever it is, don't let last weekend fool you... I would be shocked if the Cowboys beat the Eagles again this week. As bad as the Eagle defense has gotten, their offense is like an Arena League team in the vein of the '99 Rams Greatest Show on Turf. They could backdoor their way into another Super Bowl if bitches ain't careful.

#3: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (10-6, 7th overall) - Wes Welker's double ligament blowout is a devastating loss to the Patriots, and might affect next year heavily having happened so late in the season, and ruins any hopes of playoff successes they might have entertained. Lucky for them all they have to do this week is play the New York Jets. Oh wait, they play the Ravens. Hahahaha. Brady's window shuts another inch.

#4: GREEN BAY PACKERS (11-5, 8th overall) - Last weekend's Packers/Cardinals game was a joke, but you know, the Packers defense has developed into a well-rounded monster, with strong pass rushing, solid veteran secondary, monster linebackers that look like vikings, and they will disrupt some shit. On offense, they lack the line and an abundance of offensive threats, but with a solid ass young defense and Aaron Rodgers, who has looked seasoned as well as solid, this could be a team for the next few years to worry about, considering the Bears are swinging low and the Lions are the Lions and Brett Favre might have this year and that's it in the tank for the Vikings, and that's all their division rivals. As much as it would be a media shitstorm frenzy, I'd love to see the Pack and Eagles both win this weekend and set up a Favre/Packers showdown in the stupid NFL playoffs.

#5: BALTIMORE RAVENS (9-7, 9th overall) - We live around and know a bunch of oversensitive hippie new age types, so the only dude around my regular life that actually likes a football team senselessly is a friend who likes the Ravens, actually the dude I bought my pigs off of, so I like to root for the Ravens just to see him happy. Plus, who doesn't hate the Patriots? Both Ed Reed and Randy Moss look like not-very-well-raised black dudes who have far too much money for their own good. Yet Ed Reed looks like a happy assed motherfucker who knows how to cook a whole pig inside a trash can (or more likely crabs up there in Charm City), while Randy Moss looks like a moody motherfucker for whom the allure of white pussy has long since faded, leaving nothing but an angry and unhappy man for whom nothing is good enough. Not the millions, not the touchdowns, not the screams of adoring children. Nothing. It would be nice to see Reed just lay Moss's cornrowed ass out one time, in the snow, a rumpshaker of a hit, just to see Randy Moss grow alligator arms for the rest of the game and be all pouty and moody during the final minutes on the sideline.

#6: CINCINNATI BENGALS (10-6, 11th overall) - The Bengals will unleash their full fur this coming week, against the most undeserving playoff team of recent memory in the Jets, meaning the Bengals will actually win a playoff game. The Cincinnati Bengals will win a playoff game. Unless of course Carson Palmer gets kneecapitated in the first series like a few years back against the Steelers. I think they could still win without him, at least against the Jets.

#7: ARIZONA CARDINALS (10-6, 12th overall) - Last year the Cardinals snuck through because no one really expected them to do shit. This year, again no one expects them to do shit, but nobody's gonna give them the benefit of a slack approach. Kurt Warner's god will fail him, I am sure of this. But if somehow the Cards and the Eagles make it to the NFC Championship game again, and it is a rematch of last year, and they win to go to the Super Bowl again, I will accept Jesus as my whatever the fuck he's supposed to be. So Kurt Warner, my soul is in your hands, if your wacky mythology is correct. You can save me like an African AIDS baby.

#8: NEW YORK JETS (9-7, 17th overall) - The Jets suck and shouldn't be in the playoffs. Mike Greenberg is fucking stupid and Rex Ryan is a fat ass. Mark Sanchez is one of those white Mexicans that gets all the pussy in the world and I hate him.

NFL WEEK 16: Fighting For Tha Playoffs

The final cycle of eight teams for the regular season will be teams still fighting for a playoff spot (click the NFL 2009 tag below for previous weeks about the hopeless, the best, and those playing out their season), and then I will take the last week of the regular season off in waxing inefficiently about the professional football like I know something somebody else don't know. Nonetheless, here are the last eight teams left, all of whom hold onto to various levels of hope for postseason dreams to have a chance to be fulfilled, especially with a number of wild card teams having one the Super Bowl, or at least gone, in recent years.

#1: DALLAS COWBOYS (9-5, 4th overall) - Coach Ralph Wiggum led this team away from their standard December swoon to give New Orleans their first loss ever this year last weekend, and everybody is all up on the Dallas finally turned it around bandwagon. But come on, let's be serious, there's plenty of sway to a swoon, and one win does not turn around this sinking ship. Even if they stumble their way into the playoffs, they haven't won a playoff game in way over a decade. And even though they could still steal the NFC East divisional title away from the Eagles the last weekend of the year at home, I find it hard to believe this Dallas team, as inconsistent as they've been this year and in many previous winters, will beat the best team in the NFC and then two hated division rivals, three games in a row. Which means that if they make the playoffs, they will most likely go on the road to either Arizona, Philadelphia, or Minnesota. I can't really see Tony Romo stepping his game up on the road in the postseason to handle the veteran presence of Kurt Warner, Donovan McNabb, or Brett Favre, especially when my last memory of him in the playoffs was him fucking up holding the ball for field goals and turning it over like Jay Cutler.

#2: NEW YORK GIANTS (8-6, 10th overall) - The Giants need help, either to gain a game on the Cowboys or Packers. They hold the tiebreaker over the Cowboys, and I'm not sure about the Packers, but they are not in the driver's seat of their own playoff destiny. I can tell you this much... I never thought I could be annoyed and hate another Giants QB as much as Phil Simms, but I think Eli Manning might have passed him. I got to thinking the other day while riding around in my truck with no radio before I thought to replace the amp in the back of the receiver about what a bitch Eli Manning was, getting drafted by the Chargers but refusing to play for them and wanting to be traded to the Giants. What kind of bitch shit is that, having never played in the NFL? John Elway did the same thing, refusing to play for the Colts back in the day, and forcing a deal to Denver. Now I am not looking to enslave football players to whatever team drafts them until they are concussed into uselessness or all their ligaments get torn to shreds, but to pull some bullshit like that, pure trifling. And that's the team leader right there. Everyone else takes their cue from that type of guy. I hope they lose their whole team to the swine flu.

#3: MIAMI DOLPHINS (7-7, 11th overall) - The Dolphins need help, but after the Ravens and Broncos, who are a game ahead of like 7 other teams, I have no idea how much help they need. Their final two games are at home, but against the always unpredictable Houston Texans and the fellow wild card stalker Pittsburgh Steelers. The only home games the Dolphins have lost this year is to the cream of the NFL - the Colts and Saints, and both games were competitive. But can you trust the Chad Henne era to get it done? I don't know, but somebody's gotta make the playoffs, and it'll probably be by default, and I'd love for Ricky Williams to be able to play on a grand stage again. That dude's the best. When I am playing Madden in franchise mode, I'm always looking for him to show up as a possible coaching candidate, but he never does. Madden probably be prejudiced against new age religions, with his old cantankerous corny ass.

#4: BALTIMORE RAVENS (8-6, 12th overall) - The Ravens control their destiny, but with games at arch-nemesis Pittsburgh and the black enigma known as the Raiders, it is hard to say if they can get it done. How do you get a pair of road games at the end of the year like that? And with a wild card berth in the playoffs their only hope, there will most likely be no more games in Baltimore this year, so the good folks of Charm City will have to watch the rest of the year play out on the television. Joe Flacco makes me uneasy though. The Ravens defense is not as impervious as it used to be, and sometimes Flacco gets all non-franchisey looking. But between the opposite side of the ball elderly influences of Ray Lewis and Derrick Mason, mayhaps the Ravens can be held together into the playoffs to enjoy a flight to either Cincinnati or New England. Oh man, a Ravens at the Bengals wild card round playoff game would be about intense. I have grown up an NFC East fan, but it's hard not to love the utter hatred felt between AFC North teams and so readily displayed on and off the field.

#5: TENNESSEE TITANS (7-7, 13th overall) - If the Titans can upset the Chargers this weekend at home and then beat the Seahawks on the road, and somehow back door their way into the playoffs after starting at 0-6, you'd have to give Vince Young Comeback Player of the Century award. They looked like the worst team possible, as bad as Cleveland, Detroit, and St. Louis, at one point this season, and here they are now, actually staking a shot at the playoffs, while those other three teams are jostling for draft position and hoping a new President/GM/Coach/Quarterback will solve all their problems. And you gotta give it to Jeff Fisher too, as much as he hates stupid Wonderlic failing Vince Young, he's riding that dude as far as he can right now, and probably bought himself an extra year in Tennessee, as there were actually rumblings of letting Fisher go earlier this year. Lost in all this blurbage I be rambling on about too is that Chris Johnson is suddenly what Ladainian Tomlinson used to be considered.

#6: DENVER BRONCOS (8-6, 15th overall) - Denver goes to Philadelphia, which seems like a hard win, and then hosts Kansas City, which you'd think would be an easy W, but they also just lost to a Jamarcus Russell led Oakland Raiders team at home last weekend. Much like the Tennessee Titans 0-6 start has led to a miraculous comeback that might end up in the playoffs, the Broncos 6-0 jump out the gate looks like it could crumble into another missed opportunity for this franchise which always struggles whenever a horseface named Elway ain't QBing them. I think the problem is they don't wear those awesome brown and yellow throwbacks enough. They should've just abandoned their Eurofag soccer uniforms for the yellow and brown throwbacks as soon as they went 6-0, and rode it out as long as it'd take them. I know the NFL has stupid rules about all that, and actually I was just thinking about how stupid the throwbacks are gonna look years from now when people are watching retro highlights of this year and like Tom Brady is wearing a 1982 uniform or the Broncos are wearing some weird ass vomit colors. Nonetheless, I like ugly clothes, because fresh threads take away from my naturally rugged good looks.

#7: GREEN BAY PACKERS (9-5, 16th overall) - Aaron Rodgers has proved himself, and somehow the Packers defense, stocked heavy with young bucks, seems like it might be about to turn a corner and become a stifling ass entity, especially with Clay Matthews suddenly playing like a cracked out beast. I don't know, I could see the Packers causing some damage to the end the season and maybe upsetting some division champion's playoff dreams this January.

#8: JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS (7-7, 21st overall) - The Jags loss to the Colts probably played them out of the playoffs, with a road game against New England next on the agenda, but one can never tell what that wacky Jack Del Rio will get out of his hodgepodge collection of nobodies and never-wills. Although Maurice Jones-Drew has become a fucking force and a half. If he played in an actual NFL city somewhere, his jersey would be in all the youtube rap videos.

NFL WEEK 15: Playing Out The Season

These are the teams who are not quite the shittiest level but won't be making no playoff games either. And as I reflect upon my penchant for reflecting upon bullshit inside the internets, I realize I have not played to my strengths often enough lately. Fuck trying to impress people with whatever the average retarded mindset of today is impressed by. I am a country ass boy, rough around the edges and sharp in the middle. I may not be well-groomed or bred for international success, but the fact I can stand knee deep in wet red clay digging at broken pipes and have a redneck dude named Rudy show up to help finalize the bullshit before the snow sets in and we laugh and laugh about getting drunk in the snowstorm. That's my strong suit, public relations with all classes of real humans. The robot world I sometimes can't swim through too easily, what with all the clusters of confusion and chatterboxes of sensory distractions. But nonetheless, here's more of that.

#1: ATLANTA FALCONS (6-7, 16th overall) - The Falcons seemed like they were on a high trajectory, built upon Matty Ryan and Michael Turners, but now both those dudes are broken, and the team is below .500 and struggling to maintain hope for the rest of the year. The great thing is they busted out those retro red helmets this year though. Fuck that all black bullshit. That got played out when every ghetto assed dude on earth was wearing Raiders gear post-NWA and then the White Sox changed their whole style to cash in on that trend. Plus, red, black and white is the triple colors of Hindu and Taoist balance, and have a tight style of mesh together anyways. I'm surprised more teams don't rock that simple yet stylistic uniform pizazz instead of all this goofy dark blue, pro America with a darkened edge bullshit that replaced the teal and aqua trend of the '90s.

#2: HOUSTON TEXANS (6-7, 17th overall) - Speaking of shit-tastic uniforms, there is none worse than the Houston Texans. How could a city with such a rich tradition of fucked upness, weird rich oil tycoons wealthy far beyond their intelligence, DJ Screwed music, the janitor dude who sells cumbias rebajadas mixtapes south of the border, the Oilers and Earl Campbell, how could all that lead up to this Texans team with those uniforms? They will be forever doomed until they make a rebranding change, because even if they rock the alternate red jerseys, it's still stupid looking.

#3: SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS (6-7, 18th overall) - When I made a list of the 8 teams I would put in this class, saving only 8 teams for the possibly making the playoffs list next week, the 49ers were the last team I moved to this failure category, because even with an unfavorable game at the Eagles this week, I could see them back dooring their way into the playoffs as the Cowboys and Giants slide. Which is understandable, because everyone lives in fear of Mike Singletary. Alex Smith is benched, comes off the bench, and is very serviceable as a QB suddenly for the first time in his career. Vernon Davis gets chased off during a game, and now catches more TDs than anybody. Michael Crabtree doesn't even play most of the year as a rookie, but comes in and gets it together quickly. It's like Mean Mike is running a scared straight program for pro athletes. I imagine he'll end up being considered the greatest black head coach ever, at least for a few years.

#4: CAROLINA PANTHERS (5-8, 19th overall) - Oh Panthers, forever kinda good but not quite good enough. It's not just Jake Delhomme's fault; it's like the stamp of the franchise. Yet they've maintained a power running smashmouth game style for a while now under John Fox. Has he finally lost enough games to justify getting fired so they can bring in Bill Cowher to create a bonafide Steelers south yet? Hard to say. They could easily rally and earn Fox another year. That dude is more of an unkillable cockroach head coach than Norv Turner.

#5: CHICAGO BEARS (5-8, 20th overall) - Oh man, Jay Cutler. That whole thing, being I hate the Bears, is so funny to me. And the internet is crawling with stupid Bears fans latchkey children from the '80s who wanted their dad to be a combination of Jim McMahon and Sylvester Stallone. Well, make room at the back of your closet for your knock-off #6 jerseys bros.

#6: PITTSBURGH STEELERS (6-7, 22nd overall) - There is nothing I can say I don't like about the Steelers - nice history, players that are not annoying, chill uniforms, head coach who seems like he's not averse to smoking a blunt while listening to Pete Rock & CL Smooth's Mecca & The Soul Brother on CD not from iTunes. Yet at the same time, being a lifelong underdog who is sposed to never amount to nothing and used to have people calling the cops on me when I was just in front of my building trying to make money for my baby daughter, I can't completely get behind a proven winner, so when something like the Steelers struggling this year, I can't help but smile inside my blackened heart a happy smile, content with other people's struggles, being they look all better than me and have a nicer house and be driving a new car that don't need new shit all over it any day now. Fuck successful people. And when they are beautiful plus successful, like Ben Roethlisberger or Troy Polamalu, they can't tear enough MCLs and ACLs and PCLs to make me feel better about my own life.

#7: NEW YORK JETS (7-6, 23rd overall) - As if I didn't have enough reason to hate the Jets, I blew the fuse in my truck radio the other week, but rode around for like a week before my boy D told me to check the fuse, which I did, dismantling my truck's guts to get there, and switched out a 15 amp fuse and had radio again. Of course, absence makes the heart grow delirious with idealized memories, so I thought it a good idea to listen to AM sports radio a lot this week, which invariably leads to the Mike & Mike show since the other AM sports show has Dan Patrick and he kinda creeps me out in a child molesty kind of way. But Mike and Mike are annoying as fuck, and even two minutes of Mike Greenberg's schtick will make you want to murder anybody from New Jersey with a knife dipped in AIDS tainted blood already. So now I hate the Jets even more. I hope they never do anything except be the stupid Jets forever.

#8: SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (5-8, 24th overall) - If the Seahawks and my interest level were geographic locations, we'd be on opposite corners of the world map and the earth would be flat and you couldn't crawl across on the underneath edge like those spiked turtle shells in Super Mario Wii. That means I know nothing, care nothing, and have nothing to say about the Seahawks, except for what I just wrote as a means of filling up this space with something that at least takes you time to read.

NFL WEEK 14: The Playoff Bound

This week, as part of my last cycle of self-important football analysisting interweb dorkeries, I shall visit the NFL teams that I, with four weeks left, will wholeheartedly guarantee shall be in the playoffs. Most of these are no-brainers, but there's a couple divisions where it's not so obvious who will definitely get a playoff berth. But fuck it, this is the internet, I am a white man (we are a self-righteous people), and I can make confident statements publicly without qualms, mostly because maybe only like five people will actually see this. And of this five, probably none of them will hold me to any of this. So here we go...

#1: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (12-0, 1st overall) - Man, I was so sure my beloved beleagured Redskins were gonna pull off the upset last week, but like a shitty team does, they found creative and impressive ways to still come out on the bottom. And the Saints seem blessed at this point, which means engineered, because it has become obvious in the past decade how the NFL is half-fixed. Not outright predetermined like wrestling, but it's engineered in certain directions, through tuck rules and special field goal balls and so on to go in certain directions. It seems a little too much of a hotshot angle for them to be pushing a pair of undefeated teams into a Super Bowl, with the very great media match-up of the Saints and Colts, featuring New Orleans boy Peyton Manning. But that's a high watermark to establish, an epic battle like that, so I doubt it'll happen. But I think the Saints might be getting the undefeated push into the Super Bowl to lose to somebody, yet establish themselves as one of the pre-eminent franchies in the NFL, even though they don't really have any sort of playoff pedigree.

#2: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (12-0, 2nd overall) - Peyton Manning and the boys will not go undefeated, as they won't have to, but I think they're being pushed to the moon this year, with Peyton Manning being installed in football lore as an unparalleled QB, on a different level from even future Hall of Famers like Tom Brady and Brett Favre, which is how he's being regarded by TV football talking faces. Personally, Peyton Manning annoys the fuck out of me, but it's gotten to the point I begrudgingly accept his high-ranking position in the NFL hierarchy, and so long as the NFL doesn't engineer a Manning brothers Super Bowl, I'll quietly accept Peyton's success. The Colts have the most boring fucking uniforms in the NFL, by the way.

#3: SAN DIEGO CHARGERS (9-3, 3rd overall) - I am absolutely not sold on the Chargers being a legitimate upper echelon NFL team, and them having Norv Turner as their coach only reaffirms that opinion. Basically, they seem like the type of team that is really good, goes to the playoffs, and loses, and will barely be remembered in ten years because they never even made a Super Bowl to lose in. I've heard the hype that they are the team the Colts fear, because they beat them last year in the playoffs, but whatever man. The Chargers, beginning of the year, were about one loss away from total implosion. A game full of interceptions by Philippe Riviera and the defense getting picked apart by a quality QB, and they'll be right back near implosion. You have to give it to Norv Turner though, that guy is a cockroach of an NFL head coach, always doing just barely enough to justify not getting shit-canned.

#4: MINNESOTA VIKINGS (10-2, 4th overall) - All signs point towards Brett Favre leading the Vikings to a great showdown against the Saints in the NFC Championship game, but for some reason I feel like something's gonna break down on that team. Favre's an old dude, and if A.P. goes down with an injury, he's lost the thing that keeps defenses on the line, freeing up his hodgepodge assortment of no-name receivers to go long and have the Ol' Gunslinger sling a few pigskins their way. Even a tweaked knee in the playoffs that takes him out for the remainder of a game by Adrian Peterson could spell physical doom for Favre. Frankly, I wouldn't mind it either, as everybody's fallen in love with the dude again after his heroics this season, but he's still a fucking asshole who ended up exactly where his old team didn't want him to end up. If I was Aaron Rodgers, I would get Favre's daughter pregnant, if he has a daughter. If he doesn't, I'd make jokes about his wife's cancer.

#5: CINCINNATI BENGALS (9-3, 6th overall) - Here is the deal... it is very likely the Bengals, who sometimes dominate good teams and sometimes unexplainably lose to shitty teams, will back their way into the playoffs. They might very well only win one of their remaining games, but with a 3 game advantage over the Steelers and Ravens in their division, and having swept both those teams this season, one win is all they'll need to be AFC North champs. What happens then though? Probably not much. For all the self-hyping he does, Chad Ochocinco has never really crossed that threshold from great receiver to a memorable gamebreaker type, but he thinks he already is. That should help lead to a frustrating outing against someone in the AFC playoffs, and the back-up array of receivers in Cincy has not been as solid in recent weeks for Carson Palmer, whose window of proving he could be a Drew Brees or Eli Manning type of famous QB is inching ever closer to closed. Really, my favorite part of this team is Cedric Benson, who looks like a big goofy weedsmoking dreadlocked brother who would get arrested for drinking and driving a boat. It sort of makes me happy the NFL still has room for guys like that in today's stringent ass world. Oh yeah, also that Samoan d-lineman dude with the ridiculous ponytail that's like three times what Troy Polamalu kicks, I like that dude too. If I knew his fucking name (it's always covered by his hair), I'd wish for a jersey of his.

#6: ARIZONA CARDINALS (8-4, 7th overall) - There is so much about the Cardinals to like, with Larry Fitzgerald and Anquin Boldin, plus my man Tim Hightower repping Richmond, and a defense full of wacky black dudes who look like they could tear up some horseshoe pits at an extended family extended barbecue/cookout with pop-up tents just for the food to sit under. But damn it, there's stupid Kurt Warner, ruining it all by thanking Jesus for every fucking coin flip the Cardinals win, with his blurry ass concussion vision, seeing Christ with a Mac-11, loungin' between two pillars of ivory and shit. Therefore I can't fully endorse the Cardinals for anything, because as chill as their overall team vibe seems, the face of the franchise is a fucking shithead that fills my shrivelled little heart with hate.

#7: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (8-4, 8th overall) - Hard to say who is gonna be definitely coming out the NFC East this year, because the Cowboys are starting their standard December swoon right on schedule, and the Giants have looked shaky at times, and the Eagles have been touched up pretty hard by injuries. But it's hard not to expect the Eagles to make the playoffs yet again for the 39th time in 41 years, like they always do, and their offense is chock full of hardly known various threats, even with Bryan Westbrook on the shelf. And their defense always seems to be on the hunt, even with the injuries they've had on that side. Hard to not have faith in Assante Samuel making something happen if it needs to happen either. I don't see them going to any more Super Bowls any time soon, especially with Donovan McNabb's A-Rodesque playoff reputation, but they're the team to count on in the NFC East.

#8: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (7-5, 10th overall) - The Patriots also come out of a division where them winning is not so much a guarantee. But the Jets won't catch them, and the Dolphins might, but I analyzed the remaining schedules to get all for-sure on picking the Pats. Both the Dolphins and Patriots play Jacksonville and Houston, so we'll call that even. Outside of that, the Pats have Carolina at home and the Bills on the road, while the Dolphins play at the resurrected corpse of the Tennessee Titans and host the Steelers in the last week of the season where the Steelers will probably be trying desperately to get a wild card spot. Thus, it seems highly unlikely the Patriots won't take the AFC East, host a prominent wild card game the first round, and then we will get Tom Brady and his Super Bowl ring laden company going into Indianapolis for a much ballyhooed divisional round playoff game, most likely on primetime Saturday night, with extensive coverage ruining the game before it even starts. Congrats to Tom Brady and making an inevitably spoiled asshole son for the world as well. I'm sure the little future date rapist will be a great joy to Tom's life.

NFL WEEK 13: Draftboard Time

There are many who have complained about how bad the lower tier of NFL teams is this year, but honestly, I have no problem with it. The fact we get to watch every game possible now and it stretches from Thursday to Monday makes us pretend every game is more important. But back in the day, other than Monday night, everything was Sunday afternoon, and there were all types of shitty teams buried in the non-cablefied mix of thangs. A nice slew of shitty assed teams help guarantee dominant dynastic teams, which possibly sets up bullshit like the Saints vs. the Colts, both undefeated, in the Super Bowl, which would be amazing as fuck, but won’t happen. That would be like an Arena League game. Nonetheless, I’ve called in sick a few weeks this year, but I’m gonna start my final regular season cycle of team talkings this week, with the lowest rung, the shittiest of shitty teams that really have no hope for much else than not only getting a top draft pick but actually magically not blowing it like they have a long history of doing, which most of these teams do.

#1: BUFFALO BILLS (4-7, 22nd overall) - The fact T.O. has not imploded shows two things... first off, Buffalo is a deep, dark corner of the NFL earth, and two, nobody cares. They will never win in those ugly assed uniforms.

#2: KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (3-8, 25th overall) - You would think the Chiefs would have a bright ass future, with like 25 1st and 2nd round picks the past few years combined, and they show flashes I guess, like beating Pittsburgh the other weekend, but they still end up being the Chiefs. I’m not sold on Matt Cassell as a solid dude to lead your team to not-sucktitude, but what the fuck do I know? I can’t even afford Madden 10.

#3: WASHINGTON REDSKINS (3-8, 27th overall) - My favorite sports team on the whole wide earth has pained me so painfully this year that I can’t even think of amusing or black-hearted ways to make fun of them. I am cry.

#4: OAKLAND RAIDERS (3-8, 28th overall) - When I feel really sad about the Redskins, I try to look at the Raiders, where Al Davis is building an offense even more retarded to outsiders than Dan Snyder has done. But Dan Snyder is young, so give him time. He can one day be as old, weird, delusional, meddling, and stupid as Al Davis.

#5: TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS (1-10, 29th overall) - I have heard talk radio talkings of how some dudes could get fired after one year head coaching, including Raheem Morris in Tampa. How the fuck can you throw a 23-year-old black dude into a head coaching gig with that shitpot of misfits and expect him to succeed? I bet it’s because he plays too much rap music and the Glazer family is racist.

#6: CLEVELAND BROWNS (1-10, 30th overall) - Man, the Browns are a terrible terrible terrible football team coming apart at the seams. And yet somehow they might not get higher than the 3rd or 4th pick in next year’s draft. I guess there really is an abundance of excellent mediocrity this year.

#7: DETROIT LIONS (2-9, 31st overall) - They still seem to be doomed. Maybe they should’ve sacrificed Matt Millen on a lakeboat casino in a pagan ritual meant to cleanse the team of its terrible and tragic history, and then changed their uniforms to blood red and black like that team from Hell in Madden football.

#8: ST. LOUIS RAMS (1-10, 32nd overall) - They won a Super Bowl in the past decade? For real though? Poor Stephen Jackson, dwindling away in obscurity, with a limited shelf life as an NFL running back.