#Thankful :NFL Week????
This is the point of the season where you, dear readers (all…. 5 of you?) are beginning to think “ A post on FRIDAY for the previous NFL week?" Slackers. These girls are going to abandon this blog any day now”. THINK AGAIN. While I might wish we could abandon the sport of American football as a culture for numerous aforementioned reasons (it’s the racism and injuries for me!) we, like this godforsaken NFL season, trudge on. As the saying goes, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor multiple players testing positive leaving a team without a quarterback, shall keep the game from being played!” (That might be paraphrasing?). If this post is delayed, it might be because the last game of week 12 was played… Wednesday at 3pm. Why? Well. This does bear a bit of explaining,
As you all know, Thanksgiving is an AMERICAN holiday, as AMERICAN as APPLE PIE (shut up Canada, we had it first) and what’s more AMERICAN than football! Normally there are 3 games throughout the day, providing the perfect dull background noise for your post-turkey, pre-dessert nappo, or an excuse to run away from family fighting. Normally. But not this year as the much-hyped (overhyped?) prime-time game of Ravens vs Steelers was postponed due to a Covid-19 cluster amongst the Ravens (And the steelers, no one is safe)… first to Sunday…. then to Tuesday…. then to Wednesday…at 3 pm (leading me to be wildly confused turning on the TV at 8 that night, expecting football and instead finding the much-bemoaned Rockefeller Christmas Tree lit up on my screen). It was enough to make ya girl quoth “Nevermore”. Why didn’t the NFL just cancel the game? Let’s explore this and other mysteries of life in this edition of NFL Week Who Even Knows At This Point. (money btw, the answer is going to be money.)
Games we watched
(not many because I couldn’t figure out what the f*** was going on with the GD schedule)
Thanksgiving Day: Houston Texans 41, Detroit Lions 25 and Washington 41, Dallas Cowboys, 16
We was able to watch small parts of both of these games as we had a pod Thanksgiving outdoors (#2020!) and we spent much of the day running in and outside preparing for a future career as a catering waiter. From what we did see, both of these games were trash. J.J Watt, former Badger and current star of Subway commercials, had an early pick-6 for the Texans, who easily dominated the Lions (can’t we just give Detroit SOMEthing?). Meanwhile the formerly-overtly-now-covertly-racist team in Washington trounced the Cowboys, who have been all over the place since the loss of Dak (see here). Also I was listening to a broadcast and someone CALLED THEM BY THEIR FORMER NAME and I was…I was shocked honey.
Chiefs 27, Buccaneers 24
As is often the case in football, this looks closer than it really was. Chiefs were up 20-7 at halftime (I was online shopping and had kinda checked out) when the Buccs (read: Tom Brady and his ego) decided they should try a bit more, leading to the final score.
Notable games we didn’t watch but can’t say I regret it
Pittsburgh Steelers 19, Baltimore Ravens 14
Just kidding Elena watched this one! In the middle of a December afternoon, I turned on the TV and found a football game! This game was upsetting to watch, because the Ravens were playing without Star QB/Last Years MVP/ Recent COVID Case Lamar Jackson. They kept on with their usual strat of running the ball, which was a bit of a losing battle despite the Steelers missing much of their defensive line (COVID). The Steelers did make several Red Zone (aka attacking team was within 20yds of the goal) stops, including one right before the half that made sure the Ravens had no momentum and no hope :). Then there were A LOT of flags thrown in the second half and I zoned out.
New Orleans Saints 31, Denver Broncos 3
I am so glad I didn’t watch this because shit like this makes me literally BAWL. The story here is, Broncos QB Jeff Driskel attended an in-person meeting with the backup QBs, no one wore masks (facepalm), he tested positive and as per contact-tracing protocol, all the other QBs were also out. The NFL maintained that the game should be still be played (as we say in the theAtre, the show must go on!!), so the Broncos scrambled to find a replacement, first trying to enlist one of their coaches (who, sure, played pro football… like a decade ago???) and then calling up Kendall Hinton, a PRACTICE SQUAD WIDE RECEIVER (played QB literally 1 year at college at like Wake Forest or something) who had been released and then resigned earlier in November. Like, my dude. This mans is way out of his element. This is beyond sad. Or…hilarious?? Hence, the score you see here. Also in response to this drama noted asshole and Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones was like “Denver, suck it up, you don’t need a QB to play well”, which is not a surprise because the Cowboys have had their fair share of QB woes and also because Jones has all the sympathy of a psychopath.
Back to the original question : What will it take to have the NFL cancel a game? For reference, many college football conferences have put in place cancelation/postponement rules based on not only a set percentage of the team testing positive, but also allowing for cancelations if key positions (such as idk QB) are out. (Not to say that college football isn’t having its own issues, i.e Ohio State being one of the best teams but only playing 5 games so far and maybe not qualifying for their conference championship, but I digress). The NFL doesn’t have this. In fact, there seems to be NO consistent standard for when a game will be postponed/delayed/ canceled, for how long, under what conditions… which means that some teams (Broncos, 49ers) have been forced to play with extreme disadvantages whereas others (Ravens, Steelers) have had their games delayed seemingly to promote a more favorable matchup. NOT TO MENTION the fact that actual PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY concerns seem to be the absolute LAST thing on the NFL’s mind? It truly just seems like this season is going off the rails on a Crazy Train (more so than the normal crazy train I mean) and the Commish is just out here trying to pretend everything is totally fine and normal! In fact he came on the Halftime show during ravens/Steeler and was like well we determined it was safe to hold the game it’s fine :) Wake up sheeple! Your consistent disregard for everyone’s health and safety is not cute!
In other, more hopeful and inspiring football news, this week marked the first time a woman played in a Power 5 College Football conference! Congrats to Sarah Fuller of Vanderbilt for this pioneering step or rather, kick, towards gender equality! As much as I deride the sport, it’s still a huge milestone for women who aspire to play football to have role models like Sarah (plus, once we get inside, we can destroy oops I mean reform from within! Infiltrate the dealer, find the supplier!)
Up next: Will the NFL start finally believing in Covid? Will the Steelers lose? Will I make the fantasy playoffs? All this and more in next week (which is…also this week?)’s recap!
