The previews are all in, and now all that’s left to do is
pick who is going to win each game, but also who will cover various gambling
debts and who will end up buried in the desert next to Jon Gruden. No wonder this
is far and away the most popular sport in this hell house of a country, where if
the ghosts don’t scare you away, the dead will eventually chew their way into
your heart, but not before getting a good run at your intestines which is a lot
of guts to eat and you’ll just lay there prone, watching the discourse eat its
way out of your television or phone or whatever the fuck you have and meet the
dead somewhere in the middle. Yes, your sternum will be where the dead and the
discourse meet, and I’m sure you can feel that bile rising right now. There is
no cure for this, though, no antacid that will soothe you. There is just the
realization that we are all living in our own dead, and the bodies have started
to stink. And so we embark on yet another weekend where we channel all of that bilious
suffering and heart choked bitching and panicked regret into watching dudes
smash each other’s brains in for glory, for sport and for the money which isn’t
even all that great relative to other athletes who, you know, don’t have to
kill themselves to get it. Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger. Blame the idiots
who let the owners break the union in the one sport that needs it the most.
Blame the billionaire owners, who live off your blood and piss in your face if
you dare overstep yourself. Blame the humiliating cattle call of the combine,
where the agents of billionaires poke and prod you and declare you beef for the
fancy folk or just grist for the hogs and poors to fight over. Blame everyone,
but don’t blame me, because I told you right from the start that this is a vicious
business and that I am not like the others. I will not pretend that this fucked
up league is anything more than an exploitative carnival where we can pour our hatreds,
little and big, into cauldrons representing teams that we vaguely identify with
because of geography or maybe because we are drawn to other broken people. This
is the National Football League, the apotheosis of everything that is America.
Let’s play.
Atlanta (+4.5) at Minnesota
I tacked on the Thursday night game between the Bears and
Packers to the end of my Lions preview because I knew I wouldn’t get it out in
time. So, go there for that, and then come back, where we can talk about how
Kirk Cousins will have to stand naked before his lord this season and admit
that he is a hollow man, soul lost with the afterbirth. He’s gonna get his
eight wins, but that’s all he’ll get, and he’ll get his eight losses and go
back to campaigning for Blackwater or the DeVos ghouls. He’ll pick off the
wounded and the crippled (insert sad knowing head shake from the bowels of Ford
Field) and he’ll put up big numbers, but when he’s up against a better version
of himself in Matt Ryan, my guess is that he will shit his little tighty
whiteys, the same ones that Dad told you to wear because boxer shorts are blasphemous
somehow, and also because your creepy uncle told you that the tighter the
better and also the whiter the better. That is just what Kirk Cousins knows.
Pick: Atlanta
Washington (+8.5) at Philadelphia
It’s my boys Raven and Paul against Tosh and the Always
Sunny Gang, but oh yeah, not so much since Raven and Paul have both sworn off
the Redskins (lol I can’t believe they still haven’t been forced to change the name,
I mean goddamn, we’re living in zero chill times, these days the Dukes of
Hazzard would be canceled because of problematic emblems and associations, so
it’s amazing that the Washington football team is still going out there with
REDSKINS bright and shiny. I don’t even give a fuck, really, it’s just funny to
me that they are still doing this and that one day some native activist will
probably skin Daniel Snyder and dump him into that swamp that his close
personal friend (I mean, I can only assume) Donald Trump promised to drain.)
Hell yeah, parentheticals within parentheticals, we are already in midseason
form baby. Anyway, The Skins probably aren’t gonna be any good this year, and
the Eagles are primed to move forward after getting over their Super Bowl
hangover. Put it all together, and you have an easy Philly win.
Pick: Philadelphia
Buffalo (+3.5) at NY Jets
Neither of these teams are any good, and really it will likely
come down to which second year quarterback is ready to take that next step towards
being a legit NFL gunslinger. I don’t like either dude to be honest. Darnold is
another SoCal dude who operated in that California daze and who is now thrust
into the I’M WALKIN’ HERE aggressiveness of New York City. And Josh Allen is a
decent athlete but a poor quarterback, and Buffalo isn’t any easier a place to
sling it than the Wyoming he came from. Put it together and you have what will
likely be a depressingly sad day in NYC or Northern New Jersey or wherever the
fuck the Jets play these days. I think Darnold is better than Allen, but
Darnold is also under more pressure than his Buffalo counterpart. It will be
interesting to see which one of them breaks first this season. My guess?
Darnold breaks.
Pick: Buffalo
Baltimore (-4) at Miami
It’s another matchup of second year quarterbacks. Josh Rosen
has already failed out of the Arizona desert and, wait, they’re not even gonna
start him after trading for him? No, it seems that the Dolphins are gonna roll
with Ryan Fitzpatrick, which I like because I think he is a true Spirit Warrior,
mixing a sort of Stablerish bravado that’s been missing from the NFL for a long
time now with an Ivy League brain, suggesting a true bon vivant, too smart to
get broken beneath the NFL wheel but too fucked up inside to not plow through
these weird fucked up 30s without the help of a gallon of grain alcohol and
maybe some ether. I get it, man, in a lot of ways Ryan Fitzpatrick and I are
the same person, and I will root for that dude wherever he ends up. Still, it’s
only a matter of time before Rosen is handed the job, which means Fitzpatrick likely
doesn’t give a fuck. That can either go hilariously bad or it could be freeing.
Because I’m an optimist, I’ll say he lets it all fly, nice and relaxed, with
the help of maybe a whiskey or two.
Pick: Miami
San Francisco (+2.5) at Tampa Bay
This will likely hinge on whether or not Jimmy Garoppolo is 100%
after his knee fucked off on him last season. Even then, it still remains to be
seen whether he is the dude who once was the legit heir apparent to Tom Brady
or if he is the dude the Patriots gave away for a song. Don’t fuck with Tom
Brady or he will have you sold to Jed York. Whether Brady had Jimmy G killed
because he felt threatened or because he was getting too familiar with Gisele’s
footstools doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he didn’t look so great
before he got hurt last season. Still, Tampa Bay has a new coach and the same
old Jameis Winston at quarterback, so all Garoppolo has to do is get friendly
with George Kittle and then watch as Jameis is haunted by the ghosts of them
crab legs he stole back in the day, each of them chittering as they crawl out
from the ghostly caverns of the pussies of the girls Jameis assaulted back in that
same day – ALLEGEDLY – and no, I won’t apologize for saying pussy here. I love
pussy. You should all love pussy.
Pick: San Francisco
Kansas City (-5.5) at Jacksonville
Man, those failure demons came swift for the Jaguars last
year, didn’t they? This is what always happens to them. They run off a magical
season and then collapse back to the dank Jacksonville streets and aren’t seen
again until another decade goes by. Meanwhile, the Jaguars owners are busy playing
money mark in the goddamn professional wrestling business, so who even knows
what in the fuck is going on down there. It doesn’t look good, though. And it
will look especially bad when Patrick Mahomes and his crew rolls through and shoots
up the place. Lynyrd Skynyrd don’t fly no more and Fred Durst is probably tied
up in some meth lab somewhere. All your heroes are dead, Jacksonville. Best
kiss the tip of Mahomes’ penis as he sentences you to a mercifully quick death.
Pick: Kansas City
Tennessee (+5) at Cleveland
Wait, what’s this? The Cleveland Browns are the favorites?
Yessir, which you already knew if you read my division previews which I know
you did because this is an organic thing and you can’t miss any of the nonsense
or maybe you can, fuck I don’t know, anyway, I hope you read it because I wrote
it and I am the last sane person in this fucking world. Anyway, if you did,
then you know that I am all in on the Browns this season, which is likely to
blow up comically in my face like everything else I get excited about. I think
Baker Mayfield’s the real thing, not Kenny Stabler, but the closest you can get
in this warped shrill hellscape where old dogs like Stabler drift off into
Valhalla in their 69th year. I think Baker Mayfield has at least an
echo of that legend in his heart and in his soul. He is a cocky motherfucker,
but it is the cockiness that comes from being a fucking walk on who no one
wanted and who made himself when no one else would lend a hand, until finally
he was planting flags in the middle of the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio in
savage defiance and big dicked glee while those reprobates all shit themselves
in terror and defeat. That is a dude who I can roll with, a dude who I think
will rescue the Cleveland Browns and it is a beautiful thing and I don’t
begrudge them any of it, my cousins of misery. Fuck em all, Baker, we’ll see
them in hell.
Pick: Cleveland
L.A. Rams (-2.5) at Carolina
I’m surprised the line is so close in this one. Sure, the
Panthers are at home, but the Rams are a 21st century fuck machine
and they are coming to your town to fuck all your women and maybe even some of
the men too. Don’t dismiss them as failed contenders because they fell before
the wrath of Brady. They are still maybe the best offensive outfit in the
entire NFL and they also have Aaron Donald waiting to eat anyone who tries to
fight back. Rams all the way, baby.
Pick: L.A. Rams
Cincinnati (+9) at Seattle
I’m a little surprised by how large this spread is, but then
again, the Bengals do have a first year head coach and are probably already
looking ahead to next year’s draft where they can rebuild from because they
think that Andy Dalton’s window has already closed, That is just speculation from
me, but it makes sense. He’s on the wrong side of 30 and he’s never really been
a top tier quarterback. It doesn’t make sense to try to rally him and AJ Green,
who is also old now, or Geno Atkins who, goddamn look at all these ages
starting with “30”. I just don’t see it, and so it wouldn’t be surprising if
they get silently merked in Seattle, which is one of the toughest places to
play anywhere. Good teams get murdered there. The Bengals are not a good team.
Pick: Seattle
Indianapolis (+3.5) at L.A. Chargers
lololol man, come on. The Colts are still reeling from
Andrew Luck fucking off with his $100million to whatever grotto he has picked
out to set up a new life with Bigfoot, just two bros hanging around the woods
together, frightening geeks and occasionally sucking each other off when they
get tired of eating bark all goddamn day. He straight up fucked the Colts,
which lololol good for him, but also, you can understand that the MAGA befouled
people of Indiana are angry and bitter, afraid of everyone under 60 or who has
a slight tan, and this all portends doom for the Colts. Meanwhile, the Chargers
have all the pieces and parts to win a bunch of football games and maybe even
some super ones too, but they are also oddly soulless, just renters in a Los
Angeles that has no time for them at all. Still, the Colts are just too broken
for that to matter. Chargers roll and then everyone fucks off to party in the Hills
where they will suck on each other like vampires while angels weep.
Pick: LA Chargers
N.Y. Giants (+7.5) at Dallas
Ezekiel Elliot is back in the fold, coerced by that vampire
Jerry Jones into signing his life away, and that is good news for the Cowboys.
The Giants, meanwhile, are still stuck with the Lesser Manning as he crawls into
his dotage and even super fuck machine Saquon Barkley probably won’t be able to
save them when the lights get bright and those Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders start
pressing the flesh and Jerry Jones is lording over all of it like fucking
Skeletor, hoping that the fuck money was delivered to the right people this
year. The NFL is built around the premise that the Dallas Cowboys are an
immutable thing, and Jerry Jones isn’t gonna let anyone fuck him out of yet another
Super Bowl, which he hasn’t won in almost a quarter of a century which means he
is desperate and honey, you knew what you were signing up for when you grabbed
those pompoms and Ed Too Tall Jones looked at you and said “yup, she’ll do”
before everything got hazy and hey fuck it, we’re on TV and this is America’s team,
you know.
Pick: Dallas
Pittsburgh (+6.5) at New England
Look, we all know it will be Brady and the boys in the end,
but we also know that Brady gets got early once each season and it will probably
happen here now that the Steelers are relieved of the Antonio Brown circus and
Devin Bush is flying around at linebacker murdering people. Still, it’s always
a risk to go against Tom Brady, especially since he is determined to prove that
age is but a rumor, but what the fuck, I am the king of poor choices, so I am
going with the Steelers here. Forgive me, Tom. We’ll always have that house
party in 1999.
Pick: Pittsburgh
Houston (+9) at New Orleans
A week ago, Houston looked like the team to beat in the AFC
South. Fast forward to today, where Lamar Miller’s knee has been blasted into
its base elements and where Jadeveon Clowney has fled the fucking state. That’s
a hell of a way to start the season, especially since the Texans have to roll
into New Orleans, where the hope is that the locals can voodoo fuck Drew Brees
through one more season of dominance, flushing all that Gitmo garbage into the
Gulf. Brees and the Saints always seem to get caught cold early on for some
reason though, so this isn’t as obvious as it probably seems at first glance.
Then again, no Clowney and no Miller probably means a Texans team that is
looking to regroup in April next year when the new beef gets sent to market.
And you always have to give a few points to the people of New Orleans, who just
want to fuck and have a good time and cheer on their football team, and so we’re
gonna do it too. That’s right, I am telling you that pulling for the Saints is
mandatory. At least until I remember that Drew Brees is a soulless ghoul.
Pick: New Orleans
Denver (+3) at Oakland
lololololol part two! Yes, the Raiders are busy trying to
contain a wild Antonio Brown, who is a fucking crazy person. I mean, the dude
actually tried to fight Mike Mayock, which I support, especially since his
daughter blew me off even though we are both friends of Tosh. You just don’t
come back from that sort of thing. You throw hands at the white boss man and
you will get fed to the dipshits who make up the core of NFL Fandom, Klan
Fandom and also MAGA Fandom. They all run in a vicious pack and they don’t have
time for an uppity N(eil plz). Even funnier, Vontaze Burfict was the dude
dragging Antonio Brown off of Mayock, and Burfict is maybe the biggest piece of
shit in the entire league! This is madness, a fitting end to the Raiders as
they skulk out of Oakland and head to their neon desert graves. Just keep this
moment alive in time forever, reminding everyone that there is no bigger group
of fuckups than the Raiders. It is almost poetic, and I am moved as we take
flight on yet another Poor Choices NFL Season. Vaya con dios, Antonio Brown. Vaya
con dios to us all.
Pick: Denver
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