Playoff FOMO: NFL Week 14
Never have I seen a more appropriate headline- Shoutout to the Athletic for knowing us all too well. (if you don’t want us to nap, make the sport more interesting!)
In a week with a LOT of Big Sports Mistakes, the NFL proved to be typically unexciting. I mean, other than THE SAINTS WINNING (who dat, saints nation, etc etc) I don’t feel like a TON happened but it’s still crunch time so we’re going to break everything down for you anyway. Because we LOVE YOU all okay, don’t say we never do anything for you!
Games We Didn’t Watch
Falcons 29 Panthers 21: Cannot think of a game I’d like to watch less- and I say that about once a week. Cam Newton started strong but ATL pulled it out.
Seahawks 33 Texans 13: Russell Wilson continues to make a case that he is Not The Problem, Seahawks remain in the playoff race (by the skin of their teeth)
Chiefs 48 Raiders 9: Not sure what happened to the Raiders that we saw in October, but I’m glad we lost contact with the Chiefs from that era.
Browns 24 Ravens 22: Rollercoaster of a game, Cleveland came out strong but allowed wayy too much wiggle room for this sneaky Baltimore squad to make a comeback. For once, late game heroics didn’t save the Ravens, and also for once, the Browns didn’t blow it.
Cowboys 27 Washington 20: BIG divisional matchup here for the WFT, who have TURNED THEIR SEASON AROUND thanks to some good juju (or good QB playing, hard to say). They gave the cowboys a scare at first, but that Big Bad Dallas Offense got the W.
Titans 20 Jaguars 0: Gunna say the score speaks for itself on this one.
Broncos 38 Lions 10: Much like me on a Sunday, Detroit accomplished one thing and then took a nap.
Chargers 37 Giants 21: Is Justin Hebert MVP Material? Homie has put this Chargers team ON HIS BACK.
49ers 26 Bengals 23: No team is good forever! The Bengals are slipping and from the ashes of greatness SAN FRANCISCO WILL RISE.
Packers 45 Bears 30: We chose to watch the CBS special holiday film DEBUT: A Christmas Proposal and despite how high scoring this game ended up being, the end result leaves me with no regrets on our choice.
Rams 30 Cardinals 23: The Scary Rams are back1 Matthew Stafford remembered how to play football!!!! We’re living in Week 1 Rams territory! Kinda crazy that with Kyler Murray in INCREDIBLE form the Cardinals still can’t beat the Rams, sad!
Games We Did Watch
Vikings 36 Steelers 28
Back to normal behavior for this season’s steelers- they lost! The Vikings desperately needed this win (I cannot imagine morale was high in that locker room after losing to Detroit the week before) and had to find a way to do so without star wide receiver Adam Thielen. Luckily Dalvin Cook had a great game, and also luckily the Steelers blew defensive coverage SEVERAL TIMES. Like Kirk Cousins threw two interceptions (Big Ben threw one, for his part), and the Steelers failed to capitalize on those mistakes! Also the Vikings defense was more on point, sacking Ben FIVE TIMES. FIVE!!!!!!! (and he is NOT a small dude!!) Bruh.
Saints 30 Jets 9
I had a tragic realization this morning guys. First- let us bask in the glory of winning a game, of breaking a losing streak, of keeping playoff hopes alive. The Saints played pretty well, although this game was objectively a bad one, with verrrrryyyy little happening in the first half (somehow Taysom Hill managed to get sacked tho). Alvin Kamara was back in action, and had himself a DAY. So overall, a good day. But then I was thinking about the Playoff Race, and I realized that even if we CAN make the playoffs still…we probably shouldn’t. I know, I know, you’re all like, yeah DUH Elena, you’re the one who is always saying there are too many teams in the playoffs!!!! While that may be true, you all should know by now that sweeping declarations of disgust rarely occur to things I like, even if it means being contradictory, but in this case, I was thinking about the Champion’s League not returning until February (soccer- not to give you futbol whiplash) and I was like DANG the Saints would be one of those teams that is vying for a Champion’s League spot and wouldn’t be good enough to play in the Champion’s League. Like even if we make the playoffs we don’t DESERVE to play against the likes of the Bucs and the Packers. Even if we make the playoffs it’ll be like Cincinnati meeting up against Alabama- we’re going to get pummeled. But this is conflicting! Because I don’t want some OTHER SHITTY TEAM (The Washington Football Team, for example) to get to go when we don’t???? It’s literally fomo. Send help.
Bills 27 Buccaneers 33 (OT)
What a DOOZY you guys. Katrina and I were enjoying a nice afternoon nap during the majority of this game. (you gotta know there’s MINIMUM one game per week that we nap through, usually the 4pm one, and usually the Bucs). The Bucs were leading, Tom was vibing, Mark Evans was zooming into the end zone. It was a snoozefest! (Evidence: we were snoozing). When we woke up in the third quarter, I had the audacity to say: Damn, this game is over, and Katrina was like, yeah the Bills are WAY behind. And then I was like, well really they’re only 2 touchdowns behind, I guess they could catch up. AND CATCH UP THEY DID. I ATE MY WORDS DEAR READER. THE GAME WENT TO OT. (what else is new!! why can’t any of these team win in regualation???) Sadly the Bills didn’t win and Joshy Allen has an ankle sprain or something which ain’t ideal, but I guess it was an exciting game after all
Looking Ahead
The BAD news is that we are fast approaching the anniversary of Muppet Night Football and I have seen ZERO PROMO SUGGESTING THERE WILL BE MUPPET NIGHT FOOTBALL NEXT WEEK. So we are in crisis. If you have any connections to the Muppets team, please let us know ASAP, the situation is DIRE. The WORSE news is that next weekend there is football on both SATURDAY and SUNDAY (???? WHY??? does anyone know??) Once again, the NFL proves to us the No Day is Safe from the football plague. If only there was a booster shot for that illness, but until then we will just keep wearing masks (drinking beers to make football tolerable).
The GOOD news for all of you is that because of an ongoing partnership with Nickelodeon, the first round Wild Card matchup on CBS will be double cast as SLIMETIME FOOTBALL (get it, like PRIMEtime, but with SLIME), so there is SOMETHING to look forward to in these twisted times.
and the LATE BREAKING news is, a mere 24 hours after The Ringer published an article stating that the Urban Meyer experiment has been a fail, and the Jags have spent enough time fishing and need to cut bait, the Jacksonville Jaguars FIRED Meyer! According to reports, Meyer was just a terrible coach- uninformed, unliked, underperforming and lots of other words of that nature (so much so that his players actually bitched about it to the opposing players at one point). Does this prove that college coaches can’t coach the NFL? Maybe but more so, it proves that you can only be a dick when you’re winning. Prayers for Trevor Lawrence and the rest of the team for what little remains of their season!
