NFL Preseason Preview: Bottom Quadrant

Preseason football starts up in full (partially) tonight, and much like preaseason teams working out the kinks, I'm getting my fake deadline thing in order, missing last night's 10 pm thing, but postdating it blogospheric style since nobody noticed anyways. This first batch of eight is the dregs of the NFL, at least the four longest shots to win the Super Bowl this year according to Vegas oddsmakers.

#25: SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
PERTINENT DATA: 7-9 last season, 50 to 1 odds to win the Super Bowl.
PERSONAL PERSONIFICATION: Oh man, I used to hate the 49ers so much. When they were playing the Redskins one time when I was a kid, I made a voodoo doll with the #16 on it to try and break Joe Montana's career away. Like four plays later, an o-lineman with number 61 went down with some sort of knee injury. That shit taught me how powerful I truly am if I can only unlock my inner strength that cannot even be explained by science and mathematics. This is why I hate the 49ers to this day, even though they've been irrelevant for years, because of Bill Walsh's pseudo-scientific West Coast offense bullshit which has pilfered the NFL of its true soul for far too long.
FRESH INJECTION: Well, rookie WR Michael Crabtree is supposed to be the first bonafide superstar offensive weapon they've had (apologies to Frank Gore - the most anonymous Miami Hurricane ever) in a decade. Of course, at this point his cousin is talking shit about him maybe not even playing and waiting to get re-drafted next year. Yeah, I'm sure that'll work out well. Remember that Mike Williams guy from USC who was a top 5 receiver, took a year off, and got drafted but has never been more than that? Yeah. Exactly.
DRUNKEN SOUL: RB Frank Gore is one of those dudes who is really fucking awesome, but plays in obscurity, and by the time the rest of the league realizes how awesome he is, he'll be old by RB standards, so he'll have a couple lackluster but impressive seasons for like the Jets or Eagles or something, and play a couple playoff games, and then be gone.
TEAM ASS: Honestly, reading the Washington Post regularly, I'd like to like TE Vernon Davis, knowing him from his time at Maryland in college and all, but he just comes across as one of those overly dramatic types that ruins everybody's good time with too much seriousness and too much information all the damned time. I imagine he will marry a white woman but also eventually have a secret love affair with a black man. Because who else could truly understand his inner torment besides another black man?
TRENDSETTER: This team will succeed or implode according to whether crazy black dude coach Mike Singletary's militaristic oddballishness tricks them into not sucking.
TEAM ELDER: Both LB Jeff Ulbrich and TE/LS (that means long snapper bro, you will see it a lot with these longest serving members of a team) Brian Jennings were drafted in 2000, and both are role players on special teams at this point. Lunchpail type motherfuckers, except they make hundreds of thousands of dollars and the team provides lunch.
THE RUDY: WR Dominique Ziegler was an undrafted rookie in 2007, stuck with the team, and got off the practice squad at the end of last year, getting 5 receptions at the end of the season.
FORMER TROJAN: Starting guard Chilo Rachal is in his second year of fucking people up with his 315 pounds of Samoan mayhem.
VIRGINIA BOY: You know, they've got a couple former Va. Tech Hokies on their team (including CB Jimmy Williams as a back-up... what happened to that guy?), but the dude that stands out to me is back-up LB Ahmad Brooks, who came to UVA as a top national prep player and the son of a former Washington Redskin. But at UVA, he never fully lived up to that potential, though he carried himself like he went beyond it, eventually dropped out of school, got drafted into the NFL through the supplemental draft, and has bounced around. At 18, he was a can't miss next-Lavar Arrington. Eight years later, he's an also-ran on the 49ers second team.
WILD SAMOAN: 330-pound DT Isaac Sopoaga, a Hawaii Rainbow Warrior. I think I'll keep tabs on what school the Samoans went to in these write-ups, as it tends to be Hawaii, USC, and Mormon schools in Utah. I don't know what it is about Samoans and Mormonism, but they be on that shit. Personally, I'd love to see a couple of 300-plus pound Samoan dudes in the short-sleeved white dress-up shirt and dress slacks walking around trying to talk to me about Jesus. It'd be a refreshing change from the weasel-faced little pimple-freckled whiteboys we usually get. Oh yeah, so Hawaii - 1, everyone else - 0 on the Samoan pride scorecard.
THE ICKY: LB Takeo Spikes is one the NFL's best names of recent years, but I'm gonna have to pick over him this year for the first time in his career because the 49ers have a rookie TE named Bear Pascoe. Shout out to Richard Dawson.
INDUSTRIAL OVERLORD: Perhaps C Matt Spanos' forefathers helped exploit the labor of dream-seeking gold diggers during the gold rush to help build into the West Coast's financial heart, led by the now-gone and mostly-forgotten Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.
CRYSTAL METH BALL: Mike Singletary will scare motherfuckers that suck into mediocrity, which is what they'll be, and that'll be good enough for 2nd in the NFC West. I hope Singletary's wacky, intimidating ways are the wave of the future and not just something everybody will be like, "LOL, why did they think that type of coach would work?" in five years time.

#26: SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
PERTINENT DATA: 4-12 last season, 50 to 1 odds to win the Super Bowl.
PERSONAL PERSONIFICATION: Really, for me, the Seahawks have always been, at best, overrated pussies, and more often, a shitty team. So Shaun Alexander being hyped as the greatest RB in forever, having his gap-toothed smile of questionable sexuality, and getting knocked out of games fairly regularly because trigga gots no heart, that sums up the Seahawks for me.
FRESH INJECTION: T.J. Houshmanzadeh has been one of my favorite WRs in the league, because he plays with retarded passion, plus he's some sort of Hindu with longhair which makes me think he drives a car and owns a white tiger like Scarface. I mean, he has to. What millionaire Hindu dude with a ponytail doesn't own a white tiger and fuck Kim Basinger?
DRUNKEN SOUL: No doubt, LB Lofa Tatupu is a mid-sized monster, such a fucking bad ass presence that he's like the only Seahawk player in the history of the team that I don't think is a complete punkass.
TEAM ASS: I am so indifferent to the Seahawks, it's really hard for someone to even stand out as unlikeable. But for the sake of blogging out opinions for you, I will go with RB Julius Jones, because he grew up a simple small town boy in southwest Virginia, with a mom who worked in a prison and a dad who did something else all fucked up and tragically small town blue collar. He left the state schools behind to go play at Notre Dame, which is the least respectable, most traitorous thing a young man from these parts could do, especially considering the window of Notre Dame being an awesome showcase for yourself was nailed shut over a decade ago. Then, he played for the Dallas Cowboys once he went pro, which is something I hold against dudes completely, even if there's drafts and you don't really choose who you play for at first. Fuck Julius Jones. Why couldn't he be more like his brother Thomas?
TRENDSETTER: The foreseeable future of the Seattle Seahawks is in the hands of an old bald guy named Matt Hasselbeck. If he stays healthy, they will continue to be a large fish in the polluted cloudy pond that is the NFC West. If he is banged up and comes and goes and tries to squeeze another year out of his old ass self, they will suck, even in the NFC West. Best thing might be for him to just get concussed out of the league and let Seneca Wallace have a chance to shine briefly in David Garrard fashion.
TEAM ELDER: Starting tackle Walter Jones was a first round draft pick for the Seahawks back in 1997, when we didn't have terrorism yet and Octomom's mom wasn't made a Supreme Court Justice yet.
THE RUDY: LB Lance Laury came in undrafted in 2006, happily clunked heads on special teams, and has carved out a low roster spot ever since.
FORMER TROJAN: DE Lawrence Jackson was one of like 30 dudes drafted out of USC last year.
VIRGINIA BOY: Whiteboy wunderspirit DE Patrick Kerney is a former UVA Cavaliers standout, but's been injured at the end of the last three seasons, so is probably close to on his last legs, one would assume.
WILD SAMOAN: WR Ben Obomanu sounds like he might be Samoan, and that's good enough for me, since I used Lofa Tatupu in a different spot on this write-up. Obomanu played for Auburn though, which makes me wonder if he isn't Kenyan or something instead. I could look it up, but I have dial-up internet welfare and it's really not worth the trouble. You look it up if it concerns you. Samoan Pride Scorecard: Hawaii - 1, Auburn - 1.
THE ICKY: DE Baraka Atkins, who sounds like he might be some sort of real estate magnate in the manner of Furious Styles from Boyz-N-Tha-Hood. Remember when he took Trey and Ricky to that abandoned lot and schooled them on the scientifics of ghettotizing the black community, and then Grady from Sanford & Son wobbled up? Man, that was great. They should've had him say, "Good googley goop," though.
INDUSTRIAL OVERLORD: It sounds possible that C Mansfield Wrotto is descended from... well, Seattle doesn't really have old school industrial overlord type history. They've had Boeing, and the computer shit, but all that's been far more recent than dudes with wax-tipped mustaches and monocles standing around watching a clown they hired drive one of those bicycles with the big front wheel drive at a black guy in a fishing boat who turns toward the camera and has big bright white bug eyes before he dives into the water. You know them old time black folks can't swim.
CRYSTAL METH BALL: Holmgren got out just in time. I think the wheels are gonna come off this bus and Hasselbeck will be gone next year. Last place in the NFC West, but I could just be prejudiced because I hate them. Don't even really know why, but I do.

#27: KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
PERTINENT DATA: 2-14 last season, 60 to 1 odds to win the Super Bowl.
PERSONAL PERSONIFICATION: I have always associated the Chiefs in my brain with when big goofy Neil Smith was clogging up the defensive line and Derrick Thomas was stalking around, fucking up backfields with a vengeance. That, combined with that one period where their big rusher was Christian Okoye just kinda going helmet first through as many motherfuckers as he could, it makes me think of them as a hard ass team. This is also why Joe Montana didn't make sense there for me, and why Herm Edwards made perfect sense. Herm is old school. That's one former NFL head coach that I bet knows how to make some damned potato salad from scratch.
FRESH INJECTION: I'm not entirely sure the Chiefs getting what they got from the Patriots wasn't some sort of croneyism/collusion by the two sides, but - and forgive me for sounding like a normal football dork meme here - Mike Vrabel, regardless of how much he plays, will instill some fighting spirit into the 29 draft picks from the past two years on the team. It kinda sucks they also got Zach Thomas, because he's like the polar opposite NFL whiteboy LB. Vrabel is half-anonymous and a headcracker, and Thomas is well-known and not nearly as good as his hype for the past half a decade.
DRUNKEN SOUL: They ran Herm off, and Matt Cassell came in, but you know, Tyler Thigpen came from nowhere last year (well, actually Coastal Carolina University) to keep his head up at least under center, and give them some hope, and even caught a TD pass on some wackadaisical flea flickerings. Obviously, he's not the answer to anything, but if you have a clipboard holder who will do whatever the fuck you ask of him, that helps the Kool-Aid get drunk.
TEAM ASS: RB Larry Johnson is kind of a shithead. You know, often times, thuggish ruggish skill position superstars get by because they say wacky things or dress outlandish or something or other. But then every once in a while you get a guy like Johnson or Lawrence Phillips - straight up shithead dudes who beat on women and have names like any ol' white guy insurance salesman ever.
TRENDSETTER: Scott Pioli, you're the man now, dog. While I'm sick to fucking death of the whole BILL BELICHICK FOOTBALL INTELLIGENCE TREE thing, I would expect Pioli to not do too bad. They already had a ton of young talent, and he's done well. I'm actually surprised nobody yet has said, "How will Belichick do without his GM accomplice in success?" I was bummed Herm got let go, because that's a fun dude, but new coach Todd Haley has a healthy spark of retard passion as well.
TEAM ELDER: Hahaha, their longest serving player, starting guard Brian Waters, who they signed as a free agent in 2000, doesn't even want to be on their team anymore. That's probably not the best situation for locker room leadership.
THE RUDY: Their team Rudy is an actual Rudy - starting center Rudy Niswanger, who came into camp in 2006 as an undrafted rookie from LSU.
FORMER TROJAN: Well, even though he never actually started a game for them, QB Matt Cassell held a clipboard for USC. I bet he was actually doing one of those samurai sudokus though.
VIRGINIA BOY: Last year, the Chiefs spent their first two draft picks on dudes with the same name from Virginia - T Branden Albert from UVA in the first round, and CB Brandon Flowers from Virginia Tech in the second round. Both had impact, but I'd give the edge to Albert since he plays left tackle - THE MOST UNDERRATED AND IMPORTANT POSITION KNOWN TO FOOTBALL MAN! Seriously though, you can find competent cornerbacks at any warm weather school every other draft, but solid left tackles don't come so easy.
WILD SAMOAN: DE (of course) Tamba Hali, who will probably move to off-the-bench with the switch to a 3-4 defense and them drafting another defensive end with their first round pick the past two years. He played at Penn State, which means Samoan Pride Scorecard: Auburn - 1, Hawaii - 1, Penn State - 1.
THE ICKY: RB Dantrell Savage sounds like a wrestler's name from 1983 who would be managed by Sir Oliver Humperdink and be tag team partners with an evil Jap guy who carried around ninja weaponry.
INDUSTRIAL OVERLORD: DE Wallace Gilberry's family helped buy up smaller farms to turn red winter wheat into a prominent ingredient in mass-produced breads, and fix the market price using the Kansas City Board of Trade. The Gilberrys and Hallmark family, also of Kansas City, often make $1 bets about switching up-and-coming stockbrokers with common ghetto black guys, to prove to each other it is environment, not genetics, that breeds success.
CRYSTAL METH BALL: This is a young ass team stocked with a lot of potential. Regime change combined with them being in the AFC West - one of the shittiest NFL divisions in years this year - should fire them up to finish 2nd in their division, which will still be a couple games below .500.

#28: CLEVELAND BROWNS
PERTINENT DATA: 4-12 last season, 70 to 1 odds to win the Super Bowl.
PERSONAL PERSONIFICATION: John Elway putting daggers in their heart, and Ernest Byner helping with timely fumbles, has pretty much summed them up for me ever since they briefly absolved into Baltimore and sealed that memory. Ever since they came back, nothing's changed my memory bank yet.
FRESH INJECTION: He may only be a free agent trying to nail down a starting spot on the offensive line, but Pork Chop Womack would be a positive influence on any team, if for no other reason than he's 330 pounds and goes by the moniker "Pork Chop". Large black people from Mississippi named after pig products tend to be good folk.
DRUNKEN SOUL: Speaking of giant black dudes from the south, there are few dudes who look sharper in Cleveland Brown orange than 350 pound Shaun Rogers. That guy is awesome, and like any good defensive tackle, he'll clog some shit up and be a constant, heavy-breathing, overweight, annoying presence for opposing offenses.
TEAM ASS: With The Soldier gone, I guess WR Braylon Edwards will get a chance to drop twice as many passes.
TRENDSETTER: More than Brady Quinn, the future success of Cleveland will fall on Eric Mangini's head. Mangini didn't really do that bad with the Jets, but then again, you've gotta question a dude who got Brett Favre in and then named his own son after the guy. That's some pathetic ass bullshit right there. It also seems questionable the Browns would hire a Belichick coaching offspring in Mangini after things went so boringly unimpressive with previous Belichick coaching offspring Romeo Crennel.
TEAM ELDER: Phil Dawson has been the Browns only kicker since they reformed in 1999.
THE RUDY: Kick returner/WR/punt returner/RB/wildcat QB/nickel back/whatever else Joshua Cribbs is the perfect example of an NFL Rudy - came to camp in 2005, undrafted out of nearby Kent State, made the team, and after a few years, last year earned a reputation as a dangerous return man and do-whatever-you-ask straight-up bro. Homegrown heroes like that keep the drunks happy, especially in depressingly shitty places like Cleveland.
FORMER TROJAN: Rookie LB Kaluka Maiava is straight out the USC, and related to professional wrestlers, but honestly aren't all Samoans related to professional wrestlers?
VIRGINIA BOY: Virginia Tech pushes special teams as important in its "Beamerball" style, and it paid off for S Nick Sorensen, who hasn't exactly lit up the league with his defensive backery, but does well enough and complements that with tenacious special teams play to keep clocking his grip.
WILD SAMOAN: Well, they drafted David Veikune out of Hawaii to play LB, but I'm gonna go with Melila Purcell, a DE also from Hawaii, because he's been around the team a couple years (drafted in 2007) but hasn't really held on too well yet. Supposedly, with a new coach, this is gonna be his year. Samoan Pride Scorecard: Hawaii - 2, Auburn - 1, Penn State - 1.
THE ICKY: Even though it's the most popular name on earth, WR Mohammad Massaquoi is a great name, and it's not like I know a bunch of Mohammads. Nice repeating initial, and he sounds like he could be like a militant Muslim Iroquois, looking to secede from Quebec by accumulating a bunch of automatic weapons.
INDUSTRIAL OVERLORD: LB Kamerion Wimbley’s family used the introduction of the railroad sytem to capitalize on Cleveland’s excellent location on the Great Lakes waterways to establish a large shipping and freight corporation fueled by the area’s immense manufacturing center. That is, of course, back when people made shit in America other than fat ass bellies.
CRYSTAL METH BALL: They’ll be about like last year, and probably last in the AFC North.

#29: OAKLAND RAIDERS
PERTINENT DATA: 5-11 last season, 100 to 1 odds to win the Super Bowl.
PERSONAL PERSONIFICATION: Them somehow managing to make it to a Super Bowl during Al Davis’ descent into madness, and starting center Barrett Robbins disappearing into a Tijuana substance abuse haze before the big game, that pretty much sums up their highest point of this phase of Davis’ dementia.
FRESH INJECTION: Here he is again, Jeff Garcia, lurking in the background, trying to catch some spotlight behind an underperforming starting QB. What is it about Jeff Garcia that makes people not want to let him actually be their starting quarterback without having to eventually get around to it begrudgingly after injuries took away every other excuse?
DRUNKEN SOUL: CB Nnamdi Asomugha is probably overpaid (imagine that happening in Oakland) but he’s pretty fucking solid. Plus, even though his name doesn’t sound it, he’s a local boy, from Cal.
TEAM ASS: Guard Robert Gallery is probably a team goat for fans, but it’s hard to not figure WR Javon Walker as the biggest shithead on this team. He took a substantial drop in salary to try and stay on the roster, which most likely is his last chance at NFL wealth so he can spray people with champagne and then get robbed in Las Vegas alleyways. Or maybe he can have his good friend die in his arms outside a sketchy night club like in Denver?
TRENDSETTER: Usually, when trending a sports franchise, the old saying, “this team lives and dies with...” whatever or other you are trying to get over as the most important factor. But honestly, the Raiders will live or die with Al Davis living or dying. Brains don’t regenerate brain cells, so until the old dude kicks it, they’re kinda screwed. I always imagine Davis being the kind of owner you’d see feuding with Rodney Dangerfield in an ‘80s movie, who bosses the coach around and calls the sideline to demand a long pass play, and talks to players behind the coaches’ backs, and even like taste tests hot dogs before the game and sets the thermostats in luxury boxes with a piece of tape that says “Don’t set below 72, that’s more than cool enough!”
TEAM ELDER: Punter Shane Lechler and kicker Sebastian Janikowski were both draft picks in 2000. Really, we should’ve known Al Davis was retarded back then. No one drafts punters ever, but he did in the sixth round. And I don’t think anyone in history has ever drafted a kicker with a first round pick like he did with Janikowski. Amazing.
THE RUDY: DE Tommy Kelly came to the Raiders as an undrafted rookie in 2004, worked his way into the starting line-up, fleeced an old man with the early signs of Alzheimer’s out of a ridiculously lucrative football contract, and then tore his ACL and sat out most all of last year. The stupid movie Rudy could only wish his life went so well.
FORMER TROJAN: RB Justin Fargas, always headed head first towards a concussion.
VIRGINIA BOY: LB Isaiah Ekejiuba is a UVA product, and just got paid motherfucker, simply because of his special teams play.
WILD SAMOAN: Starting offensive lineman Samson Satele is a young brutarian. He’s also another Rainbow Warrior from Hawaii, making the Samoan Pride Scoreboard: Hawaii - 3, Auburn - 1, Penn State - 1.
THE ICKY: There’s nothing hilarious or wacky linguistically about the name Johnnie Lee Higgins, but it sounds great and conjures up images of juke joints and people getting stabbed with rebar behind cinderblock buildings because one dude danced too close to another dude’s big assed ol’ lady. Thinking about things like that makes me happy. Stupid fucking Wal-Mart, ruining everything good.
INDUSTRIAL OVERLORD: CB Stanford Routt’s forefathers controlled the labor at the Oakland Long Wharf, eventually owning a sizeable chunk of the Transcontinental Railroad, ended up buying parts of town on the cheap during the late 20th century, which it has parlayed into a nice profit selling back to white folks “gentrifying” Oakland, which means you take a ghetto place, squeeze the ghetto out but act like it’s still all ghetto-ey and multicultural so you can live vicariously through yourself until after about 10 years, everyone realizes there’s nothing but wine shops and organic delis and shit like that.
CRYSTAL METH BALL: They will really really suck again this year, but should be able to squeeze 3rd place out of the really really sucky AFC West.

#30: CINCINNATI BENGALS
PERTINENT DATA: 4-11-1 last year, 100 to 1 odds to win the Super Bowl.
PERSONAL PERSONIFICATION: The highlight of Bengals history in my dilapidated brain will probably always be the Icky Shuffle, which christened their new Bengal striped jerseys as something to enjoy, unlike those ugly ass plain pre-striped jerseys. Of course, Cincinnati's done everything they could to make the Bengal stripes a heritage of shit as well, but still, the Icky Shuffle man. Chad Ochocinco's got nothing on Mr. Woods.
FRESH INJECTION: Oh man, so Roy Williams' depleted soul apt to get burned so often the past two years got run out of Dallas finally and lands in Cincinnati as a "key free agent acquisition". No wonder this team is so shitty.
DRUNKEN SOUL: When you watch the Bengals, inevitably their defense is on the field. The one thing that stands out is the crazy 325 pound monster with the crazy long hair coming out his helmet all Troy Polamalu style, but twice as large. That is Domata Peko.
TEAM ASS: I know it's contrarian and funny to be all like, "Chad Ochocinco's the best," but really, I am not bringing the 8-5 dislike from a he-tarnishes-the-game's-noble-image angle. I just think he's a twinkly-eyed black dude who overcompensates for being secretly gay by trying to do goofy things in the football game to get attention from people. It helps him postpone his inevitable coming out of the closet. You see, much like T.O., 8-5 is probably not very much liked in most locker rooms, except for from people he buys replica wrestling championship belts for because they play dominoes together. So, also like T.O., he shows his ass to bring the further silent ire from his teammates. This meshes well with his deeply hidden homosexual desires, not really towards teammates because the gays aren't monsters or anything, but in regular life. But he has to suppress it in his current work environment. So if he can sabotage that, and cause silent scorn towards himself, it helps him justify that all those other dudes are ignorant assholes, which is also why he can't be allowed to be open gay. Hopefully, after another couple years of underperforming on his incredible self-hype, 8-5 can leave the NFL behind and find true happiness in a mutually satisfying homosexual relationship somewhere. I hope he has invested his money well. They could probably adopt a Russian kid together.
TRENDSETTER: This team pretty much sits in Carson Palmer's hands. If he can keep upright, they could be middling, nowhere near the firepower on offense they had when they made the playoffs a couple years back. If he is bludgeoned into early submission again this year, which is probably likely, they will continue to bludgeon up the game of football on Sunday afternoons.
TEAM ELDER: Long snapper, deep reserve tight end Brad St. Louis has been with the Bengals since getting drafted in the 7th round in 2000. They've only lost 85 games in that time.
THE RUDY: Back-up RB James Johnson signed on last year as an undrafted rookie, made the practice squad, and actually got upgraded and played in the final four games of the season.
FORMER TROJAN: Well, besides Carson Palmer, there is heralded rookie linebacker Rey Maualuga, who is supposed to be a super destroyer, but fell to the second round of the NFL draft for some reason.
VIRGINIA BOY: I root for my home state without prejudice in the college football, but my allegiance to either UVA or Virginia Tech wavers, depending on how fucking annoying Charlottesville people are to me. Today, I didn't leave the house because it was too fucking hot outside, so I shun former Virginia Tech kicker Shayne Graham in favor of perennial back-up linebacker/defensive end Darryl Blackstock, who has a thriving NFL career as someone who can fit well with the 3/4 defense that has become the new vogue-ish rogue-ish bone.
WILD SAMOAN: You would think after having used Pekato and Maualuga already, it'd be hard to find bonafide Samoan Warriors on this roster. Not true holmes, as Cincy's got the mad influx of former Boo-Yaa Tribe members. I will honor rookie fullback Fui Vakapuna, because that's a solid position that pays well if you're good at it, doesn't get a lot of attention, but if you can block through motherfuckers, power run in short yard situations, and maybe catch a dump-off pass or two, you can bank a fat stake out of the NFL. He played at Brigham Young too, making the Samoan Pride Scorecard now read: Hawaii - 3, Auburn - 1, Brigham Young - 1, Penn State - 1.
THE ICKY: Defensive end Frostee Rucker sounds like the type of guy that knows where to get a good barbecue sandwich, although I'm not sure on the local barbecue customs of south Ohio, which can sometimes lead to lengthy arguments between know-it-all white fuckers inside the internet about stupid shit they probably don't even really know about anyways. But I guess that's really the point of the internet anyways, isn't it?
INDUSTRIAL OVERLORD: Back-up QB J.T. O'Sullivan's family may have helped shape this Queen of the West city along the Ohio River all the way back when it was still known as Losantiville.
CRYSTAL METH BALL: I foresee a year better than last year, but still not so great (sub-.500), and a solid 3rd place finish in the AFC North, behind

#31: ST. LOUIS RAMS
PERTINENT DATA: 2-14 last year, 150 to 1 odds to win the Super Bowl.
PERSONAL PERSONIFICATION: I always thought the simple yellow and blue was a pretty pimp color combo, especially with the curly ram horn helmets. But right after they won the Super Bowl, they switched it up to those ugly ass gold and darker blue deals, all caught up in their own GREATEST SHOW ON TURF hype, which of course got derailed by Tom Brady's rising star and Kurt Warner's crucified son of god. That gold shit really is ugly as fuck, but unfortunately NFL uniforms are moving further and further towards soccerfag style trash with cybertronic doodads instead of nice simple primary colors.
FRESH INJECTION: Center Jason Brown is supposed to be a younger, awesome stalwart of the offensive line to help replace Orlando Pace's leadership in the trenches. But I have to say if you're biggest addition to a 2-14 team is a new center, well, there's not much to say.
DRUNKEN SOUL: It seems too easy to say Leonard Little as a joke. Steven Jackson is one of the best players mired in shit right now. Really, him and Calvin Johnson should start a support network with each other. The little bit of the Rams I saw last season before Jackson was banged up, it was almost sad to see him outperform and eventually get gang-raped by the entire defense, which kept him all sorts of fucked up. Perhaps Kurt Warner wasn't lying and there is some sort of God and he will smile benevolently upon Steven Jackson's health this year, and dude can see some jerseys at NFL Shop.
TEAM ASS: Again, it is too easy to pick Little, being he killed a lady while drunk driving. I got stuck behind a drunk driver in a truck last night with my three kids in my truck and it pissed me off, mostly because the dude pulled out a side road in front of me to where I had to slow down and shit. Then I noticed him swerving pretty badly, but the road he came out of was a road this dude who used to date my aunt and is the father of two of my cousins lives at the end of, so I was worried it might be his brother who lives a couple roads over. Well, the swerving truck didn't turn the way to that dude's house, in fact, leading me on my way home, so I figured now that we were on a back road, I'd get right on his ass real close to scare him and maybe he'll wreck, fucking drunk ass bitch. It was funny, every now and then he'd speed up ridiculously fast, getting a good quarter mile ahead of me, then he'd catch the paranoias or be cleaning up a beer he spilled or something, and I'd be right back on his ass. I have a lot of pent-up aggression lately, so I told myself if he turns onto my road, I'm gonna follow him home and fight him, just because that's how my mind works. Drunk driver, my kids in truck, unnecessary anger, let me fight. But he went straight when I turned left, and surprisingly he didn't wreck when he was flying like 65 mph through the curves heading down to the creek on Antioch Road. So yeah, I'm not gonna pick Leonard Little and instead will say rookie LB James Laurinaitis, because he is the son of a Road Warrior, but just looks like a douchey white dude.
TRENDSETTER: Steve Spagnuolo is a funny-looking alleged defensive mastermind, which means he's basically the 2009 version of Buddy Ryan. I don't see Spags doing anything awesome like punching other coaches on the sidelines or starting headhunting bonuses for rival team's star players, so I guess the Rams success will depend on how well Spagnuolo can instill a fortitude into a team that has looked like it just doesn't give a fuck half the time the past couple years.
TEAM ELDER: Leonard Little, defensive end, 3rd round draft pick in 1998.
THE RUDY: Back-up LB Quinton Culberson came in undrafted in 2007 out of Mississippi State, made the team through special teams play, and got a few shots to become a starter last year and make that last big Rudy-like jump, but there's a reason some of these guys are Rudys.
FORMER TROJAN: The Rams have no former Trojans on their roster, which is probably another reason they suck. Their back-up TE Daniel Fells played at Cal-Davis though, which has a prominent small college football history.
VIRGINIA BOY: Defensive end Chris Long was a monster in college and will eventually be the same in the NFL. He's the most dominating player I've ever seen play at UVA, actually winning games for the team as a DE. Every now and then I see his pops picking through the fruit at Harris Teeter on Emmett Street too.
WILD SAMOAN: Damn, they don't have no damned Samoans either. In lieu of actual Polynesian pride, let's go with safety Oshiomogho Atogwe, who sounds like he is probably from some other sort of country where we dump our lead-laden electronics trash at. No offense to foreign people with names that are outside my frame of reference, but that's the reality - America dumps shit in places where people have funny names to us. We suck. You should all join together and murder us, before we regroup from this most recent financial calamity and force our way upon you all again.
THE ICKY: Guard Richie Incognito has one of the greatest names in today's NFL. Sounds like he could be a shitty independent rapper or a character on The Sopranos, most likely as part of Ralphie's crew.
INDUSTRIAL OVERLORD: Back-up QB Brock Berlin's ancestors capitalized on a thriving river trade back when England took everything east of the Mississippi as laid out in the Treaty of Paris in 1769, so all the Frenchies jumped across the river, only to have the French sell the area to Thomas Jefferson in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
CRYSTAL METH BALL: They will still not be very good, but I think an offense re-energized by a new coaching regime, and a defense that has shown flickers of fuck-you-uptitude, will allow them to at least move up to 3rd in the mucky NFC West.

#32: DETROIT LIONS
PERTINENT DATA: Infamously 0-16 last year, 200 to 1 odds to win the Super Bowl.
PERSONAL PERSONIFICATION: They will always be the franchise equivalent to former coach Wayne Fontes - loveable, a funny assed dude, but even at their stars-aligned very best, they're barely better than average. I will always love the Lions though, I guess because I root for underdogs and that's basically been them my entire life.
FRESH INJECTION: Pro Bowl LB Julian Peterson returns to Michigan (he played college ball at Michigan State) to give a shitty defense a shot in the ass. Actually, they have a halfway decent corps of veteran linebackers all of a sudden, until one of them goes missing on a fishing boat or overdoses or tears his arm off in training camp.
DRUNKEN SOUL: Poor Calvin Johnson, probably the best WR in the league, mired in nothingness. I don't do much with the fantasy football, because it's a time suck, but last year the Yahoo league I was in, they had their ratings all wonky. Like Calvin Johnson was like 130th or some shit like that. So basically I just moved a bunch of dudes like that up to the mid-30s in rank, so that my early picks would be the normal bullshit, but I ended up getting a good slew of dudes who were undervalued. Actually, mostly I had a shitty team, but Calvin Johnson was really good, and he always will be. I feel bad because I'm old school in that I'd like for a guy to stay with a team and they improve eventually. But will the Lions actually ever get better? I'd hate to see a dude like Calvin Johnson spend his whole career doing nothing of note outside of individual accolades. Although it would be pretty funny if he did, and then the Lions would have the history of Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson, two of the all-time greats at their respective positions, who couldn't overcome the shit ass stank of the Ford family that owns them. (Insert Calvin pissing on Ford logo sticker here. Or one of a dude in a Calvin Halloween costume pissing on Jeff Gordon's wife.)
TEAM ASS: Defensive back Anthony Henry was part of Dallas' offseason scapegoating process. And with Phillip Buchanon new to Detroit too, lining up on the other side of the field at CB, it ushers in the Lions' new defensive backfield mantra of We Were Great Five Years Ago.
TRENDSETTER: Matthew Stafford will not be this year's Matt Ryan, but it's also not really up to him. After a lengthy, unexplainable tenure turning this team to complete shit like Matt Millen had, the future of this franchise is most definitely in new GM Martin Mayhew's hands. Shit, they went 0-16. He can't even think playoffs; he's got to think 8-8 consistency in five years time, and then think of moving beyond that. It's like taking over an expansion team.
TEAM ELDER: Kicker Jason Hanson has been with the Lions since getting drafted in 1992. By this point, I'm sure he's numb to everything and takes it out on the football with his foot, which has enabled him to remain successful at his frou-frou position.
THE RUDY: An undrafted free agent from Carroll College in 2003, Casey Fitzsimmons cracked the roster and now is an NFL whiteboy who takes on that straight-up throwback blue collar role of tight end slash fullback.
FORMER TROJAN: Platoon wide receiver Keary Colbert played at USC a while back. Lolol at Mike Williams, one of 17 first round wide receivers Matt Millen attempted to save this team with.
VIRGINIA BOY: No actual collegiate players from Virginia, so I go even further back to high school, when WR Ronald Curry was the Virginia state high school player of the year (he was a quarterback back then) and shunned the state schools to go play for North Carolina, because they'd let him play football and basketball.
WILD SAMOAN: The Lions have a handful of proud Polynesian men on their offensive and defensive lines, but none are more noticeable than starting center Dominic Raiola. He played at Nebraska, who also seem to have a healthy Samoan contingent in their recent history. Samoan Pride Scorecard: Hawaii - 3, Auburn - 1, Brigham Young - 1, Nebraska - 1, Penn State - 1, Stanford - 1 (that's where the Atogwe kid played at).
THE ICKY: Well, he's only a back-up kicker invited to training camp to give Jason Hanson someone to play backgammon with, but Swayze Waters is a great fucking name. Plus, when he gets cut, he can pack his bags, head to the door, snap his fingers and say, "I'm Swayze" and walk out the building with pride knowing he wasn't even good enough to play with the remnants of the shittiest team in NFL history.
INDUSTRIAL OVERLORD: Daunte Culpepper sounds as if he may have broken up unions to keep labor costs down as his start-up car company in the '30s took valuable market share from the Ford family since Henry Ford refused to offer any sort of extras to the car-crazy public back then. You could get it in black, or black. Really, the more you read about Henry Ford, the more of a trifling, stubborn asshole he comes across as, which makes it far less shocking that the Ford family kept Matt Millen around for so long.
CRYSTAL METH BALL: They won't repeat with a goose egg in the win column, probably winning a few games this year, but they'll still be last place in the NFC North, and mostly irrelevant unless you're some sort of closeted nerd who does 39 mock drafts between Thanksgiving and next April.