NFL WEEK 14: The Playoff Bound

This week, as part of my last cycle of self-important football analysisting interweb dorkeries, I shall visit the NFL teams that I, with four weeks left, will wholeheartedly guarantee shall be in the playoffs. Most of these are no-brainers, but there's a couple divisions where it's not so obvious who will definitely get a playoff berth. But fuck it, this is the internet, I am a white man (we are a self-righteous people), and I can make confident statements publicly without qualms, mostly because maybe only like five people will actually see this. And of this five, probably none of them will hold me to any of this. So here we go...

#1: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (12-0, 1st overall) - Man, I was so sure my beloved beleagured Redskins were gonna pull off the upset last week, but like a shitty team does, they found creative and impressive ways to still come out on the bottom. And the Saints seem blessed at this point, which means engineered, because it has become obvious in the past decade how the NFL is half-fixed. Not outright predetermined like wrestling, but it's engineered in certain directions, through tuck rules and special field goal balls and so on to go in certain directions. It seems a little too much of a hotshot angle for them to be pushing a pair of undefeated teams into a Super Bowl, with the very great media match-up of the Saints and Colts, featuring New Orleans boy Peyton Manning. But that's a high watermark to establish, an epic battle like that, so I doubt it'll happen. But I think the Saints might be getting the undefeated push into the Super Bowl to lose to somebody, yet establish themselves as one of the pre-eminent franchies in the NFL, even though they don't really have any sort of playoff pedigree.

#2: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (12-0, 2nd overall) - Peyton Manning and the boys will not go undefeated, as they won't have to, but I think they're being pushed to the moon this year, with Peyton Manning being installed in football lore as an unparalleled QB, on a different level from even future Hall of Famers like Tom Brady and Brett Favre, which is how he's being regarded by TV football talking faces. Personally, Peyton Manning annoys the fuck out of me, but it's gotten to the point I begrudgingly accept his high-ranking position in the NFL hierarchy, and so long as the NFL doesn't engineer a Manning brothers Super Bowl, I'll quietly accept Peyton's success. The Colts have the most boring fucking uniforms in the NFL, by the way.

#3: SAN DIEGO CHARGERS (9-3, 3rd overall) - I am absolutely not sold on the Chargers being a legitimate upper echelon NFL team, and them having Norv Turner as their coach only reaffirms that opinion. Basically, they seem like the type of team that is really good, goes to the playoffs, and loses, and will barely be remembered in ten years because they never even made a Super Bowl to lose in. I've heard the hype that they are the team the Colts fear, because they beat them last year in the playoffs, but whatever man. The Chargers, beginning of the year, were about one loss away from total implosion. A game full of interceptions by Philippe Riviera and the defense getting picked apart by a quality QB, and they'll be right back near implosion. You have to give it to Norv Turner though, that guy is a cockroach of an NFL head coach, always doing just barely enough to justify not getting shit-canned.

#4: MINNESOTA VIKINGS (10-2, 4th overall) - All signs point towards Brett Favre leading the Vikings to a great showdown against the Saints in the NFC Championship game, but for some reason I feel like something's gonna break down on that team. Favre's an old dude, and if A.P. goes down with an injury, he's lost the thing that keeps defenses on the line, freeing up his hodgepodge assortment of no-name receivers to go long and have the Ol' Gunslinger sling a few pigskins their way. Even a tweaked knee in the playoffs that takes him out for the remainder of a game by Adrian Peterson could spell physical doom for Favre. Frankly, I wouldn't mind it either, as everybody's fallen in love with the dude again after his heroics this season, but he's still a fucking asshole who ended up exactly where his old team didn't want him to end up. If I was Aaron Rodgers, I would get Favre's daughter pregnant, if he has a daughter. If he doesn't, I'd make jokes about his wife's cancer.

#5: CINCINNATI BENGALS (9-3, 6th overall) - Here is the deal... it is very likely the Bengals, who sometimes dominate good teams and sometimes unexplainably lose to shitty teams, will back their way into the playoffs. They might very well only win one of their remaining games, but with a 3 game advantage over the Steelers and Ravens in their division, and having swept both those teams this season, one win is all they'll need to be AFC North champs. What happens then though? Probably not much. For all the self-hyping he does, Chad Ochocinco has never really crossed that threshold from great receiver to a memorable gamebreaker type, but he thinks he already is. That should help lead to a frustrating outing against someone in the AFC playoffs, and the back-up array of receivers in Cincy has not been as solid in recent weeks for Carson Palmer, whose window of proving he could be a Drew Brees or Eli Manning type of famous QB is inching ever closer to closed. Really, my favorite part of this team is Cedric Benson, who looks like a big goofy weedsmoking dreadlocked brother who would get arrested for drinking and driving a boat. It sort of makes me happy the NFL still has room for guys like that in today's stringent ass world. Oh yeah, also that Samoan d-lineman dude with the ridiculous ponytail that's like three times what Troy Polamalu kicks, I like that dude too. If I knew his fucking name (it's always covered by his hair), I'd wish for a jersey of his.

#6: ARIZONA CARDINALS (8-4, 7th overall) - There is so much about the Cardinals to like, with Larry Fitzgerald and Anquin Boldin, plus my man Tim Hightower repping Richmond, and a defense full of wacky black dudes who look like they could tear up some horseshoe pits at an extended family extended barbecue/cookout with pop-up tents just for the food to sit under. But damn it, there's stupid Kurt Warner, ruining it all by thanking Jesus for every fucking coin flip the Cardinals win, with his blurry ass concussion vision, seeing Christ with a Mac-11, loungin' between two pillars of ivory and shit. Therefore I can't fully endorse the Cardinals for anything, because as chill as their overall team vibe seems, the face of the franchise is a fucking shithead that fills my shrivelled little heart with hate.

#7: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (8-4, 8th overall) - Hard to say who is gonna be definitely coming out the NFC East this year, because the Cowboys are starting their standard December swoon right on schedule, and the Giants have looked shaky at times, and the Eagles have been touched up pretty hard by injuries. But it's hard not to expect the Eagles to make the playoffs yet again for the 39th time in 41 years, like they always do, and their offense is chock full of hardly known various threats, even with Bryan Westbrook on the shelf. And their defense always seems to be on the hunt, even with the injuries they've had on that side. Hard to not have faith in Assante Samuel making something happen if it needs to happen either. I don't see them going to any more Super Bowls any time soon, especially with Donovan McNabb's A-Rodesque playoff reputation, but they're the team to count on in the NFC East.

#8: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (7-5, 10th overall) - The Patriots also come out of a division where them winning is not so much a guarantee. But the Jets won't catch them, and the Dolphins might, but I analyzed the remaining schedules to get all for-sure on picking the Pats. Both the Dolphins and Patriots play Jacksonville and Houston, so we'll call that even. Outside of that, the Pats have Carolina at home and the Bills on the road, while the Dolphins play at the resurrected corpse of the Tennessee Titans and host the Steelers in the last week of the season where the Steelers will probably be trying desperately to get a wild card spot. Thus, it seems highly unlikely the Patriots won't take the AFC East, host a prominent wild card game the first round, and then we will get Tom Brady and his Super Bowl ring laden company going into Indianapolis for a much ballyhooed divisional round playoff game, most likely on primetime Saturday night, with extensive coverage ruining the game before it even starts. Congrats to Tom Brady and making an inevitably spoiled asshole son for the world as well. I'm sure the little future date rapist will be a great joy to Tom's life.