The NFC North is obviously a division that stirs deep
feelings, mostly ones of disgust and horror, but I’ll try to be as fair as a I
can, especially because I’ll only be talking about three of the teams here.
That’s because I’m going to use this as a springboard towards my multi-part
Lions preview beginning on Friday. That will likely be its own special brand of
fear and loathing, but today it is fear and loathing of another sort as I
plunge into the sick, fucked up world of the Lions divisional rivals.
It’s actually kind of an easy division to call this year,
maybe the easiest in the entire NFL save for the AFC East. But even the AFC
East has its own intrigue this season as Tom Brady and Bill Belichick battle
the clock, each other and common decency for one more season. The NFC North, on
the other hand, should go the way everyone expects it to go. “Should,” though
is a dangerous word, a heartbreaking word, the mother of all disappointment and
despair. So, with that said, let’s get these fucking teams out of the way.
Minnesota Vikings
Why They’ll Win: The
Vikings have arguably the best defensive line in all of football, led by
Everson Griffen and Linval Joseph, and have a Pro Bowl laden back seven behind
that, and that’s just the defense. On offense, the Vikings have a Pro Bowl
receiver in Adam Thielen, a Pro Bowl tight end in Kyle Rudolph, they get Dalvin
Cook for a full season at running back, and oh yeah, they add Kirk Cousins at
quarterback. They went 13-3 last season and should be even better this season. What
the fuck, man, I’m already depressed.
Why They Won’t: The
Vikings always blow it. Always. It’s in their nature. And that’s because they
don’t really know who they are – or at least they don’t accept it. They should
be wild-eyed Vikings, a band of degenerate marauders hated and feared by the
rest of the league and strip-club bouncers around the country. Instead, they have
always been the team of “Minnesota Nice”. They’re not Vikings, they’re good,
sober Midwest Methodists. They rise early to tend to the fields, only fuck in
the missionary position with the lights off, and secretly hate their wives.
This was most obvious during the 1970s, the team’s glory
years, when Bud Grant led them like a grim, sober, passionless preacher. That
clean living meant that they were good enough to get to the edge of the Promised
Land, but they could never enter because to truly enjoy Paradise you have to
fire in your soul. You have to have True Belief and Love for who you are, for
what you are. You must have Joy. Obligation isn’t enough. It’s never enough,
and anyone who tries to build their life – or their team – around Obligation
will only see it fall apart when it really matters. Men will fight and die for
Belief, for Love, for that Fire. They’ll break and run if Obligation is the
only thing holding them. Vikings rape and plunder the nice, sober people.
The only Viking who’s ever had that Viking spirit was Randy
Moss, and they didn’t know what to do with him. They were always vaguely
ashamed of him, never truly accepted his ways, and they killed his spirit. Don’t
talk to me about that fake ass Jared Allen, either. He wasn’t a Viking. He was
just an asshole cop.
All of this brings me in a roundabout way to Kirk Cousins. I
hate Kirk Cousins. I loathe that fucker. Why? Tribal reasons, of course. But
there is also this: he comes from a town only about a half hour away from me.
It is the most self-righteous white-ass conservative town you could imagine. I’m
not talking Klansman shit, I’m talking that sober upper middle-class Christian
living culture, a bunch of Dutch moralists who look down on the rest of the world,
living their lives out of Obligation. This is the sort of place that Betsy
DeVos comes from, that the fucker who started Blackwater comes from. These people
are evil and fucked up.
This is where Kirk Cousins comes from. This city is so
insular, so addicted to the smell of its own ass, that it drove my own beloved
sister away. This is true. She used to work there, an important member of the
city government. But she wasn’t one of them, and they made her life miserable
because of it. She almost had a goddamn nervous breakdown and said fuck it and
quit even though she didn’t have another job lined up. My sister is the best
person I know, the hardest working person, the most goddamn decent person, and
they almost ruined her. Fuck that place. Fuck Holland, Michigan.
This. Is. Where. Kirk. Cousins. Comes. From.
And in that sense, he is the perfect quarterback for the Minnesota
Vikings. He fits that moralist self-righteous, missionary position lovin’ team
and place to a tee. But that sort of passionless corruption of “decency” always
unravels when it matters most, and so does Kirk Cousins. There’s a reason the
Redskins basically pushed him out the door. He wanted a contract extension, but
they kicked him out of town instead. They then went and gave that contract
extension to a dude five years older than Cousins. They did not like this
asshole.
That is a pretty big red flag right there. It is hard to see
a dude like that winning it all, of being capable of rallying his team when
they need it most. The Vikings have always been dudes just doing a job, not
dudes fighting a Holy War, which is what you need to truly win at, well, at
anything. It has to consume you, it has to become you.
So, yeah, the Vikings will probably win this goddamn
division. And then they’ll fuck it all up like they always do.
Green Bay Packers
Why They’ll Win: Because
they’re the Packers and they have Aaron Rodgers. Really, like the Patriots,
like the Seahawks, that’s what it will come down to. Like those teams, the
Packers have whittled away their actual team because they know that Aaron
Rodgers can go out and win this shit all by himself. If the Packers win, that
will be why. Aaron Rodgers. That motherfucker.
Why They Won’t: Look,
I just talked about this with the Seahawks. There comes a point where that
whittling strategy, that cutting corners shit, goes too far and you find
yourself throwing for 500 yards in the Super Bowl and still losing. The
Packers, like the Patriots, like the Seahawks, have passed that point. That was
shown last season when Rodgers got hurt and pretty soon the Packers were
getting whipped on at home by the Lions. We all know that never happens. Lord
how we know.
Rodgers by himself gives the Packers possibility. He could
drag them to the Super Bowl and win the fucker because he is a goddamn vampire
and even when you think he is dead, he pops back up and starts gnawing at your
neck.
But even vampires are easy to kill when you get one trapped
with no place to hide. Or so I imagine, anyway. I haven’t personally killed any
vampires. I thought I did once, but it just turned out to be a meth addict with
fucked up teeth. I mean, vampires are supposed to burst into flames when you
kill them, like in the movies or like Al Davis, but this dude’s corpse just
laid there, looking dumb. I had to burn it myself. That’s a bunch of bullshit.
Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Aaron Rodgers is
a vampire, but even vampires blah blah blah. The point is that he doesn’t have
anyone helping him here. This should – SHOULD – be comforting, but somehow we
all know that he’ll manage to fuck the Lions when it matters most because that is
the world we live in and we’re just dumb bags of blood sitting out in the open
waiting for him to suck us dry like he always does. This goddamn sonofabitch.
It’s not fair! Cheese is full of fat and Milwaukee beer tastes like piss. Fuck
this goddamn state and fuck Aaron Rodgers, I will see him in hell, because we
all know that’s where I’ll be going.
Chicago Bears
Why They’ll Win: Uhhhh,
well . . . I mean . . . I guess . . . hmmmm. Okay, maybe Mitch Trubisky makes a
leap and becomes a franchise guy. That’s about all I’ve got here. There’s also
this, I suppose: the Bears have a weird habit of having a good season out of
nowhere before heading back to the shit pile the next season. In the last 25
years they’ve had back-to-back winning seasons only once, but they’ve also won
double digit games four times after a non-winning season. This is a weird
franchise, and weird shit happens. So . . . you never know. That’s all I’m
saying here because, really, that’s all I – and the Bears – got.
Why They Won’t: Well,
there’s that whole back-to-back winning seasons only once in 25 years. That is
a lot of Failure Demons to have to try to fight off, especially for a second-year
quarterback who didn’t exactly look like a goddamn Ghostbuster his rookie year,
not even a nerd like Egon.
Look, I’ll be honest with you. The Bears were the first team
I was ever conditioned to hate. That’s because they were on top when I came of age
as a fan. I hated Mike Ditka, hated the entire menacing aura of his Bears teams
back then. They were The Enemy, and so they always will be to me. This also
means that it makes it hard for me to ever truly size them up. I want them to
be bad every season, I need them to
be bad. Sorry, L.B. You’re my boy, but your team can get fucked.
But really, there’s just not much to fear here. Jordan Howard
is a good running back. That’s about that. That’s all they’ve got. Trubisky
didn’t look like he was ready, and he’s in really a pissy kind of environment
here, right? I mean, when was the last time the Bears truly had The Man at
quarterback? Fucking never. That’s when. Their entire history is one built on
failed quarterback dreams. Whenever they’ve won it’s because the defense has
dominated, and the Bears defense looks like dogshit this year. It’s just too
hard to see Trubisky doing anything.
Worse, they know it. Their fans know it. My boy L.B., an
Armchair Linebacker vet himself, tried to fire up his own blog again, and with
it his fire for his team. He already said fuck it again. That’s because the
Bears ruined him before the season even
started. That is dark. Dark and terrible. But that is who the Chicago Bears
have become. They are not the Ditka Bears anymore and haven’t been for a long
time. Christ, they’re not even the Lovie Smith Bears and how fucking sad is
that shit? That’s embarrassing.
This is a team going nowhere in a division filled with killer
quarterbacks. There will be no easy wins for the Bears, probably no wins
period, in the division. I say that knowing full well Matthew Stafford will
throw, like, six interceptions in Soldier Field because that is the horrible
world that I live in. Even when they Bears are utter shit, it’s hard for me to
truly enjoy it because my team is the fucking Detroit Lions, and they are the
kings of utter shit. And like a fine jazz improv artist, I guess that brings me,
finally, to the Lions . . .
(to be continued)
Final Non-Lions
Judgment:
Vikings 11-5
Packers 10-6
Bears 5-11
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