#1: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (12-4, 4th overall) - The Colts are on a roll, and Peyton Manning, according to the sports meme machine that rules our menly thoughts, has turned a corner and become an even more complete player this year than ever before (similar to how things were engineered for Bill Belichick to become an even better coach than ever before - the NFL is great at creating storylines for you to believe in better than Jesus). They are the hottest team going right now, and somehow end up travelling to San Diego for the wild card weekend to face the second hottest team going right now, and a notable rival of recent years. This shit couldn’t be more fixed if Vince McMahon was doing it. But I would expect the Colts to win, as Norv Turner is not a higher-up in the football illuminati, and Tony Dungy may be making his farewell run this year, though we don’t really know. But I’m sure they will tell us at the most tear-jerking moment, complete with mentions of his kid who committed suicide. The NFL is sports entertainment at the ultimate level.
#2: BALTIMORE RAVENS (11-5, 6th overall) - I guess with no horse in this race, I am going to jump on the Ravens bandwagon, even though I think Maryland is the least useful state America ever came up with. I am not sure why states, even when within fifteen miles of the arbitrary state line, can be so different, but you can feel the suck when you crossover to Maryland. Such a strange place. I usually like to fill up with gas before I get there so that I don’t have to even stop the car in that piece of shit state. But I guess I can root for their football team, especially considering, technically, my piece of shit football team plays in their piece of shit state. Also, they stole my name, so I can’t front on that. Too bad their logo is so gay.
#3: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (9-6-1, 8th overall) - I guess the big question is whether or not Donovan McNabb has bought himself another year in Philly. The Vikings/Eagles game is a perfectly scripted story of the two ends of the black quarterback experience. You have the fading old veteran in Donovan McNabb, who’s welcome has been worn, but still maintains he is a credible NFL QB; and you have the young Tarvaris Jackson, who is shaky as fuck yet full of promise, although it’s hard to tell how much of the promise is honestly earned and how much is Vikings PR department hype. Making this even the more perfect Black QB spectacular is the history behind these teams, where Randall Cunningham made a name for both, on opposite ends of his own career, as the pre-eminent black QB double threat of his time. I would expect the Eagles’ glass slipper to come up short this week though, even if they are playing the Vikings. Losing to the Redskins on the road, 10 to 3, that is not the makings of a solid winter time road team.
#4: MINNESOTA VIKINGS (10-6, 9th overall) - Warren Moon also closed out his career in Minnesota purple, suggesting they have the NFL’s richest history of black QBdom, when you include the couple of good years Daunte Culpepper had. Makes me wonder if McNabb doesn’t end up there next year if they suck it up this weekend and Philly goes ahead and runs him on down the road. Remember when the Vikings and Chargers were both 0-2 and everybody on the TVs were like, “0-2 teams never make the playoffs blah blah blah”? Also, is it just me or is Adrian Peterson like half the size of most NFL running backs? Seems like he could get broke in half at any moment, much like Warrick Dunn always seemed, except Dunn had those dreamy eyes to take your mind off his fragile frame. Plus, he was always buying houses for single moms to knock boots with.
#5: ATLANTA FALCONS (11-5, 10th overall) - I think I will be rooting for the Falcons this weekend, even though they will probably lose to stupid Arizona and their stupid Arena League-in-the-desert offense. I wondered this week what must be going through Michael Vick's head, sitting in jail, out of football, the Falcons coming on a run-up in his absence, moved on completely. Jails are full of fools like that, contemplating back on those glory days where the clothes were fresh and the money was endless. I am sad for Michael Vick. I think I'll look for him on that prison penpal website. (Honestly, if I try to google that up, I'll either end up looking to see if there are new registered sexual offenders near my house, or searching for Filipino prison wives.)
#6: MIAMI DOLPHINS (11-5, 11th overall) - "Ain't no genius like a Parcells genius, because a Parcells genius negotiates a contract where if the owner sells the team Parcells can split town immediately getting paid his contract in full all night!" At the grocery store tonight, as the stoner kid rung up my heaps of nutritionless garbage, he called over to an older black dude checking out the next line over, "You're a Cowboys fan, ain't you?" "Nuh-unh. Miami." And we made small football talk, the older black dude stoked that his team didn't suck this year. The stoner kid was a Steelers fan and he used some strange meandering stoner math in his brain to get around to the realization that the Dolphins could play the Steelers next week. The older black guy left after friendly sign-offs, and the stoner kid said something about how you don't fuck around with Troy Polamalu, he was a headhunter. I signed my receipt, told him my grandfather was a Polynesian chieftain, and I found his headhunter comment racist, and pushed my cart as angrily as you can really push a shopping cart, which means you just kinda bump by the Food Bank donation box and don't stop to politely the ugly, fat white lady coming in enter at her ambling convenience.
#7: SAN DIEGO CHARGERS (8-8, 15th overall) - Norvell Turner survives yet again like the poorly-complexioned cockroach he is, and Chargers fans are doomed to chronic underachievement for another full cycle of the calendar. It really is amazing though (meaning suspicious) how they ended up hosting the Colts in a wild card game. The NFL is really good at maximizing storylines. Honestly, I'm already excited about the Tom Brady vengeance-against-the-NFL angles arising next year. But, thinking of the entire thing as fixed, that leads me to believe the Chargers will lose this weekend. There's no real high interest in the Chargers at either Pittsburgh or Tennessee, and sneaking them into the playoffs as a punishment for Mike Shanahan (who I hear molested Bill Walsh's grandson, which is why the Broncos were forced to choke out and Shanahan released to never be heard from again in the NFL) has kept the Chargers and L.T. relevant just enough, and it gives credence to the "Phillip Rivers should be MVP" talk that is very much like what people used to say about Peyton Manning a few years before he started winning playoff games. The Powers That Be obviously have big things in mind for the young Phillip Rivers.
#8: ARIZONA CARDINALS (9-7, 17th overall) - The never-punt philosophy has crossed my eyeballs like four times in the past week in one of those odd strokes of something you never see but know about all of a sudden being all over the place. I think about the only thing that could make me like the Cardinals is if they made their punter inactive this weekend and decided to go with the never-punt game plan. Before this season, I never much cared for Kurt Warner, but this year, I've learned to appreciate him being the wily veteran QB because it helps Matt Leinart not have film study and gameplanning cockblock him sitting around in hot tubs with Arizona co-eds. He's sooo cute.
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