Wow, there’s only one more week to the NFL season, the first week 18 since 1993, when the league experimented with two byes. And there isn’t a whole lot left to play for either. Just three wild card spots and two divisional titles among four teams already in the playoffs anyway.
Don’t forget homefield advantage in the AFC Playoffs.
Ah yeah, I mean, you almost think it’s a foregone conclusion, but the Texans aren’t your run of the mill AFC South garbage heap, like Jacksonville.
Not at all, plus the last week of the year is always batty.
Oh yeah, but things usually settle down by the time the playoffs actually start. I mean, the Titans made that big run a few years ago to the AFC Championship Game, and then there was that time both expansion teams made it to their respective title games in their second years of existence. And don’t forget the Steelers hosting the AFC Championship Games two straight years to the Neil O’Donnell Chargers and Jim Harbaugh Colts.
TH, I’m not sure how much of your readership was alive for those two games, let alone cognizant.
C’mon, you can’t penalize me because I’m old. That just means you’re old, too.
Fuck.
Uh-huh. Anyway, what does normal look like this year? Who are the favorites?
I don’t know.
What do you mean you don’t know? You’re my brain. You know lots of things.
I don’t remember what we had for lunch on Saturday.
Yeah, but we both know we think football is important enough to remember the certain details of, like our wife’s birthday and anniversary, or our kids’ names, or who beat Shawn Michaels for the Intercontinental Championship at In Your House 4: Great White North.
Trick question, no one beat Shawn Michaels for that title. Dean Douglas won by forfeit after Michaels got into a dust-up at a bar with a Marine, and then Razor Ramon beat him.
You still got it.
Naturally.
So why don’t you know who the favorites are in the NFL playoffs this year then?
No one really does. I’m a brain, not an oracle.
Back up, back up, what do you mean no one knows? There are a wealth of pundits out there whose job it is to anoint a team before the playoffs, or at least one team. You’re telling me no one can really agree?
Every team has red flags this year.
Surely, the defending champions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, can repeat, right?
First, I was there when you watched Airplane the same time you did, that gag doesn’t work on me.
Yeah, yeah.
Second, the only healthy skill position player they have right now Rob Gronkowski. That’s bad.
Gronk does contain a lot of potassium benzoate too.
Stop making references at me! I am you!
Never.
*sigh* Anyway, the Bucs nearly lost to the Jets. Who loses to the Jets?
First off, the Bengals did.
Do you know what the Bucs and Bengals have in common?
A history of wearing various shades of orange?
Yes, but also neither one has the best offensive line. Having receivers who can get open helps that. Guess who doesn’t have any healthy receivers right now.
Hey, the Bucs have Antonio Brown…
…ah fuck
Yeah.
Well, the other defending champions, the AFC Champions, Kansas City, they surely have things turned around and can punch their ticket, right?
Were you watching their game yesterday?
I had the Eagles on.
That was rhetorical. Anyway, JaMarr Chase annihilated them.
I saw highlights.
And you wrote a newsletter issue on the other young, transcendent player who went haywire on them. Remember that?
Yeah, I do. Justin Herbert, helped me get to the semifinals of my fantasy league. What’s your point?
That maybe their defense isn’t fixed enough to survive an onslaught from a potent offense with one or more superstars? Like Herbert? Or Chase and Joe Burrow? Or Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs? Or Derrick Henry…
OKAY! I get it! So then, Green Bay?
Sure, the Packers are the one-seed but Aaron Rodgers’ lungs might fill up with soup.
You and I both know if he gets sick, he’s getting every treatment Donald Trump got and then some.
True.
Still, Rodgers and Matt LaFleur are finally due, right? I mean, he won one with Mike McCarthy.
Sure, and what about when that Rodgers/LaFleur tag team made it to the NFC Championship Game in 2020 and 2021?
Look, you…
No, you look, I’m just saying, how do we know LaFleur isn’t a McCarthy clone who will inexplicably shit his pants when Tom Brady starts doing his devil magic again?
Okay then, what about the Titans…
There’s no guarantee Derrick Henry gets healthy enough. Next.
The Cowb… no… I can’t do it.
Neither can I. Dez didn’t catch the ball.
We’re in agreement. Moving on. The Bengals?
Remember the Super Bowl? You actually gave a warning about the matchup that would win the Bucs the game, and it went and won the game? Now imagine that Kansas City offensive line, except they’re all replacement-level players.
But JaMarr Chase is…
Stop it. Burrow takes one bad hit and it’s Carson Palmer all over again.
I don’t wish that on Cincinnati twice in 25 years. Let’s move on. The Rams! I picked them preseason! Gotta stick with them…
Yeah, sure, just ignore that Matthew Stafford has turned into an interception machine lately. If one thing isn’t going completely right for them, another is a bottom waiting to fall out.
But they’re still in position to be the two seed.
But do you trust them? Remember back to the only other time Stafford was in the playoffs.
But that was with the Lions. They’re cursed.
How do you know Stafford didn’t bring some of that west with him?
Shit, I don’t. The Bills? The advanced metrics love them. They can put it all together at the right time. I mean.
Tre’Davious White is hurt, and Josh Allen is getting a bit sloppy again. You can be sloppy against the Falcons at home in the snow, but against a defense like the Patriots?
C’mon… what about the Cardinals? They were hot to start the season.
You know how that goes. They lose their best receiver, the other teams figure their defense out enough, and you and I both know Kliff Kingsbury is a fraud.
Yeah, he is, isn’t he… no, not the Patriots again. Please, I beg you, that might be worse than Brady…
I agree. But for all the existential dread, that offense is not built for a run in the modern NFL. I mean, their number one receiver is…
Okay, who’s left, the Niners? The Saints? The Chargers, Ravens, Raiders, Colts, Steelers… oh yeah, what about the…
Don’t say it, don’t you dare say it…
…the Eagles? Why can’t we win another Super Bowl?
Are you kidding me? Don’t do this to yourself, don’t do this to US again?
What do you mean? We’re playing a hot hand, house money, beating the crap out of bad teams after hanging in with good ones! The average margin of victory is 16 points! If you take out the loss to Dallas week three as an outlier, the average margin of defeat is seven.
No, it can’t. You can’t do this to me again. Every time it happens, you get your hopes up no matter what the circumstances are. You keep saying you’re not going to get hurt, but guess what? I have to yell at you to get out of bed every time the Eagles or the Phillies or the goddamn Philadelphia Seventy-motherfucking-Sixers get eliminated from the playoffs. We are not doing this again.
But remember Super Bowl LII?
STOP.
Tom Brady, bereft on the turf?
NO.
Brandon Graham, sealing the deal? C’mon, that lasted us what, two more years before Carson Wentz sucked all the joy out of our brainstems? C’mon, what’s the harm in believing? C’maaaahhhhn. C’MAAAAAHHHHHHNNNN.
Ok, fine. go birds.
GO FUCKIN’ BIRDS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO