NFL WEEK 20: Conference Championships

They will look back historically at this 2009-2010 NFL season as the year in which the NFL lost its swagger, and turned into a much more dangerous yet just as boring NBA, but with far higher commercial rates. All year long, with the abundance of terrible teams and explosion of dominant teams that really aren't that dominant, it's been lackluster as fuck. I don't know what's wrong, but something is. Maybe they need to change the salary cap rules to allow for teams to re-sign players and actually, you know, build teams, not just in the sense of a collection of players that work together long-term to have chemistry, but to have fans be able to relate to a player, and know them well. Seems like the turnover for applicable jerseys for your favorite team is about four years now, meaning out of all the commonly available replica jerseys at the store for your #1 team this year, in four years maybe, just MAYBE, one of those dudes will still be on your #1 team. As for this year's conference championships, I think I may have the least amount of excitement for it I've had my entire adult life. I don't know if it's the Redskins being so terrible, or I'm just a disdainful asshole lately, or what. I actually don't mind three of the four teams, but I don't have enough faith in their consistency to really get behind them. This bullshit of teams being mediocre but then getting on a hot run to make it to or win the Super Bowl... I don't know. It makes the NFL seem as shabby as the NBA, where you could run on autopilot all year long, turn it on, and make a run. What's the fucking point? I think that's more reprehensible than making early playoff-locking teams play their players in the last couple weeks. They can look into all the other bullshit the commissioner's office looks into all the time, but what they need to do is make this shit less boring, and quickly. Not through rules changes that turn it into Arena League scores or put the QB in a bulletproof glass shield, but just let players stay longer with a team. Shit, start a developmental league with one team per division, to create inter-division rivalries, and have young players who will hopefully end up in the same divisions build a camaraderie that will make their on-field battles on the bigger stage more exciting. Do something. Fuck man.
Okay, for this week's rankings bullshit, obviously there aren't even eight teams left, so I broke down each team into offense and defense. Then, getting all nerdtastic, I took the overall team power rating that they have under my sixth grade formula, checked the stats as to where their offense and defenses ranked in the NFL, then prorated the team rating into separate offense and defense ratings. Yeah, I know... a bunch of jibber jabber. I just wanted to make sure that, one, you knew I didn't just make this list arbitrarily, that there was some half-assed science behind it, and two, you understood what a giant fucking nerd I can often be. So here's your listings for this week...

#1: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS OFFENSE (57.60 rating) - New Orleans, as a team, is ranked #1 overall on my team bullshit dork-o-meter, and this is a team that pretty much rides their offense. It's amazing that the Chargers basically just let Drew Brees go away, right as he was entering his prime. He's not an old man, and has plenty of good years left in him, and all I can see Philip Rivers doing in the next four years is trying to get to where he's as good as Drew Brees. Last week, Reggie Bush ran roughshod all over everything, which will probably be his career highlight over the course of however many years he underperforms due to lack of motivation since he has big diamond earrings and an old lady with a huge white ass (although I think the Kardashians might be some sort of weird eastern Euro/Arab/Mediterranean hodgepodge people). You ain't gonna motivate a dude with a hot wife and diamond earrings every week, and he sure as hell ain't gonna motivate himself. Still, the Saints are high-powered as fuck with a wide variety of draft day scrap heap offensive weapons, plus Jeremy Shockey is playing with spirited hatred again. Not to mention, they re-signed Deuce McAllister before the playoffs, if for no other reason than to keep him inactive but have him on the team that he was the star of for years and years in relative obscurity. Deuce McAllister is one of the chillest dudes, and I like chillest dudes to be rewarded in life instead of exploited because they are so chill, so it'd be great to see Deuce get a ring.

#2: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS OFFENSE (44.31) - In the Secret Clubhouse message board area, I was shocked at how I'm the only person there who detests Peyton Manning and his southern private high school fratboy dickhead ass. The Colts, to me, are a thoroughly unenjoyable team, vanilla personalities collected all together to wear some vanilla ass uniforms and play in front of a bunch of vanilla Indiana retards. But we live in a country that actually thought people like George W. Bush or John Kerry or John McCain or Sarah Palin or Al Gore would make, you know, a President. We are a watered down retarded culture, so I guess the dipshit private school fratboy who probably knew his wife was the one for him because he didn't want to roofie her, though he does make her have threesomes with other women regularly, should be our Greatest Player Ever of this time period. Good fucking lord, somebody blow up the planet.

#3: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS DEFENSE (27.69) - The Colts defense scores highly because the Colts team is so highly power rated in my dork-o-meter. But the Colts defense is surprisingly and anonymously good, and as Herr Peyton adjusted this year to being the bonafide head coach, trying to find new regular go-to dudes now that Marvin Harrison has left Indy to prove all the haters that he really is black in an ignorant street sense of the word, the defense has been strong. It's that Pittsburgh steel curtain style of a vast collection of highly competent but not quite superstars dudes too, that relentlessly punish because they've got five dudes off the bench just as ready and bad ass as the guys who start. Honestly, even if the Jets defense can ratchet down the Colts offense even slightly, I just don't see the Jets offense doing too well against the Colts defense, although I guess their achilles heel has been the run game, which is the Jets strong suit. Still, if the Jets fall behind, which they will, they'll have to open up the passing plays, and that has Mark Sanchez 3 INTs written all over it against this Colts defense.

#4: MINNESOTA VIKINGS OFFENSE (26.47) - Sadly enough, and a testament to how detached I've become this year, I'm probably rooting for the Ol' Gunslinger, just because. I mean, of course he's such a douche egotistic cocksucker, basically running schoolyard plays with Sidney Rice, but he plays with such passion. Did you see him running around the field last week? Did you know he loves the game? That's why he plays. I was slightly bummed that the Cowboys lost though because I was hoping to make a joke about a Saints/Cowboys conference championship that it was a Fox Sunday night characters all grown up showdown between Ralph Wiggum (aka Wade Phillips) and Malcolm in the Middle (aka Sean Payton). Another question, is Adrian Peterson really that great? Dude seems tiny, and ends up pretty slowed down the second half of every season he's played. Seems like he's on the accelerated Terrell Davis career path, where in four years he'll be gone and a supervisor at UPS, or working on the NFL Network.

#5: NEW YORK JETS DEFENSE (26.31) - You know, Rex Ryan is pretty awesome. And I know it's been the sports nerd talking meme the past two months, but really, rarely has there been a cornerback who just took over the game as the obviously best dude ever like Darrell Revis has done. That guy is out of control. I am probably most excited this weekend just to see him vs. Peyton Fuckface.

#6: MINNESOTA VIKINGS DEFENSE (25.53) - A strange and simple realization happened last week that made me change my mind and stop hating on Jared Allen. He wears the #69. I always thought of him as some fake ass pseudo-redneck jackass millionaire guy, but realizing that he purposely chose the #69, it was like he laid his true genetics out under a microscope and his DNA was driving home-painted camouflage '88 Ford Broncos. If you've ever been to a demolition derby, the two most popular numbers are 69 and 420, and although I would bet Mr. Allen is 420-friendly, the NFL doesn't allow for three-digit jersey numbers. Haha, #69, that's great. Also, those two Williams dudes are pretty goddamned big yet still athletic. It is a shame that sumo wrestling is not more popular here, legit, and you could make money at it, because a dude like Pat Williams would be great.

#7: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS DEFENSE (14.40) - The talk all year has been how Gregggg Williams has finally got this defense playing like a championship team should play. Yet, for the most part, they've been cushiony and just stopped teams as much as they needed to not let the game get away from their offense. The last few weeks of the regular season, the Saints caught flack for not looking like they were playing all out, but honestly, their defense has looked like that off-and-on all season long. I think the Saints/Vikings game will be a lot more interesting than people expect, and not the guns-a-blazing shootout I think most folks are planning on. The Vikings defense should partially stifle the Saints scoring machine, and the Vikings offense might actually bust up this defense right smartly, but not the whole game through. I predict a Vikings victory, because the Saints are still the Saints, no matter how much they wanna be good.

#8: NEW YORK JETS OFFENSE (10.69) - When your style is strong run first, pound away, wear 'em down on defense, but you are playing a team that scores like it's Madden set on easy mode, it's not a good combo. You remember when people were like, "Man, Mark Sanchez sucks," a couple months ago? They'll be back next Monday morning.