The NFL (AND AMERICA) Voted!
We’re reaching the point of the football season where I realize that not only is football still happening but… it is not even close to over? It’s literally the MIDPOINT? HOW? WHEN WILL (College) BASKETBALL SEASON START?
In any case, as you probably know if you live on planet Earth (shoutout to all our interstellar readers!), there were quite a few other things going on this week, meaning that I (Katrina) spent Thursday glued to the NYT Electoral map hitting refresh, and Sunday lying on my couch in extreme physical distress (celebrated too hard) but also emotional euphoria. For Elena’s part, she was ready to numb her brain Thursday with some football, but about 10 minutes into the Packers whaling on the 49ers, she got bored. Football WAS watched, but alas, both of these aforementioned situations resulted in very little gameplay actually sinking into my brain. So bear with us folks, like my appearance Sunday am, this post is going to be a bit rough.
Steelers 24, Cowboys 19
While the final outcome of the game was predicted by all the pundits, how we got there was a different story (hey, kind of like another contest this week! cough Nate Silver). The Cowboys (America’s team!) actually gave the Steelers (the only undefeated team in the NFL) a run for their money with their 4th (yes! 4th!) string QB Garrett Gilbert. Gilly actually did way better than their guy last week (much as it pains me to say, since last week we had a offbrand Giuseppe stromboli garrapoli mf-er out there); the commentators decided to talk about about this for a bit but focused mostly on “Big Ben”. Stop the SIZE Shaming! There was also a big kerfuffle when “Big Ben” appeared to tweak his hamstring. He was fine but you’d never know it from all the blah blah from the commentators. I know no one cares about my fantasy (league update- I did lose recently but my table standing is still okay) but I find it ironic that I have ONE player on the Steelers, and it’s their kicker who is one of the top rated kickers in the league… and he proceeded to boof it SEVERAL TIMES. You have one job! In his defense, he did have to try one kick like three times. In conclusion, a wild ride, but the expected winner did prevail. The Steelers are now 8-0 for the first time in their storied franchise history, which is a bfd. Don’t get TOO crazy, because you might remember that the Ravens went undefeated from week 5 until they lost in the divisional round of playoffs to the titans.
From Elena:
Ravens 24 Colts 10
Did I want to watch this game? To be honest no, I wanted to watch the Bills Mafia take on the Seahawks, just like at 4pm I wanted to watch baby QBs face off in the thrilling Arizona/Miami game but, as we say in real estate, location location location. At this point, you’re probably all like, girls, pay for a better streaming service! And to that we say: NEVER! Anyways I haven’t watched the Ravens all season and have refused to watch the Colts since they betrayed me week one, but this game was spicy! The Colts did a pretty solid job of shutting shit down in the first half but then Lamar Jackson proved to us he is worthy of his Reigning MVP title and pulled off the W. I would say more about this game, but at this point in my hangover I was not fully awake, so I really only got the highlights.
Saints 38 Bucs 3
VICTORY! IS! SWEET! Was I nervous about this game? Admittedly yes. As much as I know AB is overrated, since these two teams faced off in week 1 Tom has had the chance to get cozier with the Tampa Bay offense. Also apparently they still, despite almost LOSING TO THE GIANTS last week, have a top-rated defense (because I guess the raters took a bye week?) so, there was reason for concern. And you KNOW the Fake News outlets hyped up this great SNF battle of the old boy QBs and how they’re competing for most touchdown passes ever and blah blah blah. BUT everyone in the pregame show picked the Bucs which I knew was a good omen and, America, we are in a winning mood this week. Drew (And Taysom Hill, and even Jameis Winston) did not disappoint, and Ol Tom threw THREE INTERCEPTIONS and ZERO TD PASSES. Now the Saints will lose to a garbage team (see you next week 49ers!) and all will be at balance in the universe.
Patriots 30 Jets 27
Ah a good ol fashioned Northeastern Face off. While I love to see Bill Belichick sad, I don’t love to watch Cam Newton be frustrated. The Jets defense did play well in the first half, but Cam really has just not thrived yet with this new team, with the COVID and other general woes. On the Jets side of things, Sam Darnold was not playing, so Old Man Joe Flacco came out and threw a 50yd TD pass. Going into halftime the commentators are like “Well the jets might be excited to be winning, but are they going to throw the game to preserve their number one draft pick? ha! joking!” which tells you everything you need to know about how dumb the draft system is and how this whole thing is rigged. Hard to solely credit the corrupt system, because in the second half Flacco threw an interception and Cam quarterback sneaked his way to a very slim victory (literally in the last seconds of the game). The Jets have still not won a game.
IN OTHER NEWS Big College Football drama happened this weekend on Saturday when Notre Dame, who you might know as The College Football Team Without a Conference faced off against Number One Ranked Clemson, who you might know as The [Other] Tigers Whose QB Has Covid. I would say that I don’t know how people made it through an entire football game in primetime when some of us started celebrating at…11am and passed out WAY before then, but then I look at the target audiences and I understand they had a little more free time saturday than some of us. Not to generalize! In a VERY exciting DOUBLE OVERTIME drama, Notre Dame (who has been thriving in the ACC, despite all their bullshit) got the WIN, boosting their ranking to no. 2 and pushing Clemson back to no. 4. (Unsuprisingly, Alabama who you might know as The Team Whose Fans KILL TREES is No. 1)
This matters for 2 reasons: 1) it proves we are right about NFL overtime being dumb and 2) your ranking in college football is very important because they decide who goes to the championship based on “the rankings” but actually based on a bunch of back door hogwash. Really, we just wanted to talk about some fresh faces here. College football doesn’t matter this year because it’s dangerous to force (UNPAID) players to play in COVID and LSU isn’t good so WHO CARES.
To conclude, this was a poll-er coaster of a week for the country and for the NFL! I’ll have so much more free time to focus on football now probably. (JUST KIDDING IF WE FLIP GEORGIA I’LL BECOME A FALCONS FAN). Oh, did you not come to this blog for political takes? Well, if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen!
We warned you- the takes are hot, the beer is cold, and we’re just getting started!
Us, when people ask why we made a blog for an audience of literally just our mom.
