It is time yet again to embark on a season of insanity, misery and maybe a laugh or two. You know the deal by now. It’s only a few hours before the Thursday night game so we’ll see how far we get here before probably throwing down a TO BE CONTINUED. I know, I know, week 1 and I am already fucking this up. Again, you know the deal by now. And if this is your first time reading Armchair Linebacker, it’s basically Jackass crossed with Apocalypse Now, and I am both the jackass and Col. Kurtz.
The site I normally use for lines has fucked up its design so I’ll just be using Yahoo of all things. This place is a dirt shack so we’re certainly not above using a site best known from 1997. And, as always, this is mostly just for fun, for entertaining you jackals and scoundrels, but if you want to use it to legit gamble, feel free. Just don’t bother me when they come to break your thumbs.
With all that said, ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL??????????????????????????
Dallas (+9.5) at Tampa Bay
It’s all about Tom Brady vs Jerry Jones here, two dudes who have both flirted with tyranny and fascism. Brady, of course, spends his offseason undergoing esoteric treatments designed to keep him going like Nosferatu if Nosferatu also starred in American Psycho. These treatments sometimes involve roasting babies and I don’t mean roasting comedically, although it might be funny to watch Brady eat one or maybe throw one in the microwave like a degenerate at a house party microwaving the family pet. Jesus, even I am disgusted by that visual, I’m sorry dudes and lady dudes.
But Brady is too refined for that nasty business so I’m sure he just turns a blind eye as they make the babies into a tasty shake he can pound down every morning or after a workout. Either way, he is 100 years old this year and still playing like the Greatest of All Time. His lifestyle is super weird but it must work for him. I mean, he is married to a German Brazilian which is maybe the darkest damn thing. At some point, Uncle Klaus has probably stopped by to see Giselle and convinced Brady to let him undergo Boys From Brazil style genetic manipulation of the Brady kids. And maybe Tom gets an intravenous shot of that too. Who knows? Again, all I know is that Brady is the best in the world at what he does, shit at what anybody does maybe. It is almost inconceivable to imagine what he did last season, leading Tampa Bay from out of nowhere to win the fucking Super Bowl (not quite the same as the Super Bowl of fucking) and watching as Little Bill Belichick floundered in mediocrity and then panicked and drafted a fucker named Mac, which is too corny a name for a football star. It’s just not gonna work.
But this isn’t about Little Bill or the Patriots, it’s about Brady, whose sheer gravitational force turns everyone around him into something beyond their normal abilities. I don’t know what to call it. A fuckdragon maybe? Fuck it, who cares? The point is that Brady is the greatest all on his own but he also makes everyone around him the best version of themselves. That is some Alpha shit right there.
Meanwhile, Jerry Jones is still skulking around like fucking Skeletor, and his mere presence sucks the life out of everyone around him, sort of the opposite of Brady. They both probably eat kids, but Brady only eats organically farmed babies while Jerry Jones eats whatever he finds on the street. The shitty part is that Jones always overshadows his own team, which hasn’t won anything by the way in almost 30 years, which I guess is fitting for America’s Team. Like America itself, the Cowboys are little more than a brand name at this point, milking marks who haven’t caught on yet. But even Cowboys fans have to know this shit by now, right?
Never underestimate the power of delusion, which is probably how this thing stays so consistently afloat. But the hull is riddled with holes now and it should only be a matter of time before the whole fucking thing sinks. But if Jerry and Michael Irvin and a warehouse full of coke and whores couldn’t stop it, I’m not sure what will. Maybe Jerry gets exposed for an underground slaving ring, who knows?
What I do know is that the players themselves, like Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliot and whoever the fuck are perpetually overshadowed by this fucking monster. I mean, it is telling that I said this was all about Tom Brady vs Jerry Jones and not Brady vs. Prescott. This is a crossroads type season for Prescott and yet Jerry Jones looms.
The Cowboys offense as a whole should be good to awesome, which is always the case given the talent on hand, but you can already see it unraveling. Prescott himself said he couldn’t feel his feet after his leg surgery last year which is some scary and ridiculous shit. I mean… say what? He seems like he is well on his way to being a broken man and if he goes, this whole operation gets ugly and quick.
That’s because the Cowboys defense is still probably going to stink like a Panamanian prison and in the NFL the lifespan of anything is fleeting so you can’t afford to waste even a season, let alone several like the Cowboys already have.
There is perhaps some intrigue in seeing if Tom Brady finally breaks down, but probably not. And as long as he is a go, it almost doesn’t matter who else the Bucs put out there. Compare and contrast that with the Cowboys and their circus of shame and this should be a no-brainer, much like those organic babies after their brains have been scooped out. Listen, I don’t make the news, I just report it.
Pick: Tompa Bay
Philadelphia (+3) at Atlanta
Both of these teams have crashed and burned and both are debuting first time coaches, a couple of former offensive coordinators who have mostly been fairly anonymous until now, toiling away in Indianapolis like the Eagles new dude, and the Eagles have perhaps ironically stolen Frank Reich’s right hand man given that Reich was himself the right hand man in Philly when they won the Super Bowl, and who, history has kind of shown, was probably the dude who made that whole thing work. The Eagles are hoping to get so lucky with Nick Sirianni.
Meanwhile the Falcons are trying to dig from a deep hole of despair, and have brought in the Titans offensive coordinator, which seems like an odd fit since the Titans were/are so run heavy while the Falcons hope to put together one last gasp of quasi-glory with Matt Ryan and their first round tight end, which still remains maybe the funniest first round pick. I mean, I don’t care if this dude is the second coming of Gronk or Kellen Winslow (the non-rapist one) there is only so much a tight end is gonna give you when your entire team is aging like they drank from the wrong cup. Still, it’s an intriguing move, I suppose, one designed to give Matt Ryan a safety blanket as he gums his applesauce.
Spiritually, both of these teams are pretty rotten. The Eagles have done just about everything they could to make those Super Bowl memories fade away. Their only real hope is that Jalen Hurts rapidly develops into one of the best of the New Breed of NFL quarterback, the ones who can beat you with their feet just as easily than with their arms. And they better hope it works because if Hurts falls the Eagles will be forced to turn to Joe Flacco, which is just some depressing shit.
The Falcons, meanwhile, should have started to rebuild, like, two seasons ago but here they are trying to get in one last run before the sun sets on Matt Ryan. That might make some sense if they had been close the last couple of seasons, but they have been so bad that you have to wonder what the point of it all is. They aren’t ever winning shit again with Matt Ryan, and the scary part is that means they have yet another level to fall. The good news is that Atlanta is home to a ton of transplants from other places who probably don’t give a fuck about the Falcons. The shitty news is that the rest of Georgia is pretty ride or die when it comes to the Falcons and for most of their history it has mostly been “…or die” At least they are used to death, I guess. Sadly, the corpse is probably about to be dug up and vandalized.
Pick: Eagles
Pittsburgh (+6.5) at Buffalo
That line looks so weird given the contrasting levels of success these teams have had – or not had – before now. The Steelers should almost always be favored over the Bills and yet, here we are. Part of it is because Ben Roethlisberger has become an inanimate sloth in between rapes. The Steelers drafted a running back in the hopes of getting a strong run game going, but it’s not 1978 or even 2008, and running the ball doesn’t work unless you have a unique system or a monster like Derrick Henry. In some ways, it would fit the cultural ideal of Pittsburgh and the rough ass coal miners of Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and West Virginia who make up the bulk of the Steelers fan base. But it’s also fitting that the Steelers are likely chasing ghosts here just like those coal miners, eager for a day long gone that will never come again.
Times change. That’s the point. It’s just that so many
people, especially tough blue collar types, are almost allergic to change and
will give every part of themselves to bringing back “the good ol’ days”
when they rode high on the cresting wave of American culture post WWII. The
Steelers caught the last wave of that in the 70s before it all came crashing
down, and even though they have continued to win 40-50 years later, it is
always with a heavy air of nostalgia ignoring that the Steelers have been at
their best by throwing the damn ball all over the place, whether it was to
Hines Ward, Antonio Brown, or Juju Smith-Schuster.
But with Roethlisberger turning to stone like one of the trolls in The Hobbit, those days are past now too, and Najee Harris might be Franco Harris, but neither one of them can help the Steelers now. That’s especially true given that the Steelers defense, their true pride and joy through the years, has become increasingly mediocre, forcing Roethlisbeger into shootouts. And if the defense doesn’t get any better, the more Najee Harris runs, the further he’ll recede into a horizon of irrelevance.
The Bills, meanwhile, are just trying to show that they are for real and that whatever Superman blood got into Josh Allen stays in his system and doesn’t show up hot on a piss test. But Allen isn’t alone, as the Bills have found creative ways to run the ball – hence, the whole unique system thing – freeing Allen up to make plays all over the damn field.
The scary part, of course, is that the Bills spiritual history is filled with Failure Demons and heartbreaking defeats keeping them from healing. Whether it’s losing all those Super Bowls, their best player in franchise history turning into (an alleged) double murderer or their best quarterback losing his fucking face to cancer, there has been no respite for the weary, with most of the last two decades spent buried under the lake effect snows of Buffalo, like a car that was left on the street before the plows came by to bury it further.
But that is what has made Josh Allen so exciting for Bills fans, as they finally seem to have hit on something good, and hopefully this time he doesn’t kill anyone or get his face melted like he looked in the Ark of the Covenant. By the way, that is two Indiana Jones references I’ve made already because I am trendy and hip. I mean, they *are* making yet another one, and let’s just ignore that Harrison Ford is fucking 80 years old, just like Bills fans have to ignore that their own history is riddled with senility and snakes.
Pick: Buffalo
Minnesota (-3) at Cincinnati
I hate that the Vikings are favored here, especially because they are on the road and Kirk Cousins is his own brand of Failure Demon by now. Meanwhile Joe Burrow has fucked his way through Baton Rouge and the hills of Kentucky to reach the hellscape of Ohio, where it all started for him and where it will all probably end. But for now, Burrow seems like the real deal, or at least he did before injury took him out for the season last year.
This is a matchup of a former Michigan St. quarterback and a former Ohio St. quarterback, even if the Ohio Manchild temporarily went into hiding in Louisiana before somehow having one of the best seasons in NCAA history. But he was always a Buckeye at heart and that makes this matchup especially odious to me. It’s too gross, I can’t talk about it.
Pick: Cincinnati
Arizona (+3) at Tennessee
A side plot to this whole season here is going to be the fantasy league I joined with a few friends, all of whom are bathed in the waters of this godforsaken blog. Naturally, I fell asleep and missed the first half of our draft and when I finally woke up, I just left it on auto pick and shit talked my way through the rest of the draft as you might expect from me.
The point here, is that my QB is Kyler Murray, which I consider an inspired choice of the autobot who picked him. He is part of that new breed of QB I mentioned with Jalen Hurts (who the bots picked as my backup QB by the way), and even better, the league is a dynasty league which means that young dudes like this are extra valuable.
No one likes listening to other people talk about their fantasy teams, I get that. But the point is that I am set up well for the future and so are the Cardinals with Murray dropping bombs in the desert like they’re doing A-Bomb tests again. Also, never overlook my ability to turn something mundane into yet another ridiculous layer to this whole idiotic thing.
The time has come for the Cardinals to either compete for real in the NFC West, not an easy thing given that all the teams have been good recently, or die trying. Hell, maybe both given the NFL’s head injury plague.
But before they can get going in the NFC West, they have to get by the Titans here, which is probably going to be a problem given that the Titans are probably the favorite in the AFC South. But that doesn’t mean that anything is a given. Ryan Tannehill still could self-destruct, leaving the Titans offense one dimensional and even Derrick Henry can’t do this all alone.
Both teams need to win here, I think, if for their own fragile psychic identities than anything else. The Titans want to prove they are legit contenders and the Cardinals just want to prove they belong in the discussion. I’d say the most pressure falls on the Cardinals because they need all the cushion they can get in their record before being fed to the wolves of the NFC West. Meanwhile, the Titans play in maybe the NFL’s shittiest division (outside of the NFC East anyway) and can probably fuck up a little bit and still win it.
Failure Demons are always at play, though, for the Cardinals, who remain one of the most cursed of all NFL franchises with decades of hideous failure spent in three different cities – Chicago, St. Louis, and Phoenix – and Phoenix might be the worst of them. Sure, it is newer and fresher than Chicago or St. Louis, but it is a soulless wretch of a city set in the desert, where everyone is either a transplant trying to outrun their own Failure Demons, in the witness protection program or a lizard person and sometimes all three.
Not that Tennessee is any better, the home to fake country types and Klansmen. I heard you can get into Dollyworld for free if you wear your best white hooded robes. Okay, maybe I made that last part up. Or maybe I didn’t. It’s at least possible and that is because Tennessee is a spiritual shithole. How does that factor into the Titans psychic energies? Well, it can’t be good and that’s before I even mention that the Titans abandoned Houston to the floodwaters. It’s some dark shit, really, but in the dark realm of the NFL, it doesn’t make them much different than anyone else.
Pick: Tennessee
Seattle (-2.5) at Indianapolis
I’m deeply on record as liking Russell Wilson’s game, and I’ve also said some mean things about Carson Wentz, so if we’re going purely by quarterbacks, this should be a gimme. But I also sense that something dark may be coming for Russell Wilson. Maybe it could his divaish personality or his abandoning of the woman who knew him before he was famous. I don’t know. It just seems like he’s risked a lot of Moral Truth for a life of hedonism, which, I mean, who am I to criticize such a thing? But hedonism combined with abandonment of your base is always a dangerous game to play and sooner or later he might get mixed up in a sex slavery ring or some ugly shit like that. Who knows? You also can’t ignore that he was publicly unhappy with his situation – or the Seahwaks - all offseason and things like that don’t tend to work out well.
But still, he’s Russell Wilson and Carson Wentz is still the dude whose injury probably won the Super Bowl for the Eagles – which was his OWN FUCKING TEAM – and even if he is back in the bosom of Frank Reich, he is still marked as a Failed Man. Contrast that with Wilson, who has only ever proved his critics wrong every step of the way. From NC St. where his own coach ditched him for Mike Glennon of all people (lol) to Wisconsin where people said he was too small to stay alive in the physical Big 10, to the NFL where it’s pretty much unheard of for a dude listed at 5’11” (which really means 5’9”) to play quarterback without dying let alone winning it all.
But Wilson has won it all, and should have won another if it wasn’t for the moronic play calling at the goal line in the Seahawks second Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Wentz has won nothing in the NFL and even if Reich is a QB guru, he has a long way to go before anyone will trust him, and that probably extends to his own teammates, which is always a bad situation waiting to happen.
In effect, it means that it almost doesn’t matter what the rest of the two teams look like. Wilson always wins even if his teammates consist of a tin can and whatever Pete Carroll pooped out that morning. And if Wentz can’t win over the rest of his team, that is a slow poison that will eventually kill everyone involved. It is basic Failure Demon math, and until Wilson loses control and until Wentz wins over the Colts and their fans, you’ve gotta ride with Wilson and the Seahawks.
Pick: Seattle
LA Chargers (+1) at Washington
The spiritual energies swirling around this game are dark and terrible. The Chargers are a trendy pick yet play in front of nobody in Los Angeles (literally true last season), a city notorious for not caring about its teams unless it becomes a place to be seen like the Lakers or Dodgers. Meanwhile, Washington still doesn’t even have a name. How fucked up is that?
Sure, it’s an improvement over the fucking Redskins which is one of those things nobody will believe was actually real the more time goes by. But, you still have to have a name, right? Of course, their whole limbo/purgatory stage isn’t really just a stage so long as Daniel Snyder owns the team, and by the way, there is something especially fitting about Snyder sharing his name with the other Dan Snyder, who was the fat kid in Head of the Class and grew up to be a big time producer of teen shows on Nickelodeon and is widely rumored to have fucked all those poor girls. I’m not saying the Washington Daniel Snyder is that bad, or anything near that despicable, but then again, he did fuck the fandom right out of a large part of his fanbase, suing old ladies and driving Raven Mack hopped up on painkillers to call him and leave ugly messages on his answering machine before dumping the NFL and his fandom altogether.
It’s a dark, dark scene. That’s all I’m saying. And it’s kinda impossible to grow anything beautiful in that wasteland of the soul.
That’s also true for the LA version of the Chargers. At least to an extent. Justin Herbert looks like a star in the making, but at some point, the emptiness of that stadium and the apathy of all those people doing literally anything else in Los Angeles, from getting high in the hills to cooking meth the further east you get, past the barrios where no one gives a shit about football anyway, is going to drag this team down. But not until later. For now, Washington is still beset with more Failure Demons and although Failure Demon math can get complicated, the runes still say the Chargers should win here.
Pick: Chargers
TO BE CONTINUED
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