RADIO
TESTING NEW WIDGET
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In the interest of full disclosure: I was at a music festival this weekend, so now I'm about 80% certain that I have every conceivable form of lung disease. You would not believe the things people were throwing on those bonfires. I mean, I saw people throwing in used napkins, lighters, plastic water bottles, styrofoam, you name it. The ACME-branded box of nitroglycerin containers was in one of the other fire pits, sadly. Wily E. was on the other side of the stage.
Seriously, though, if you see the headline "mildly entertaining Internet writer dies of emphysema" in the Southern California area, at least you've been adequately prepared for the grieving process. I bring this up mostly because there were some incredibly entertaining meltdowns this week, and things melting down that shouldn't have been seemed like a decent lead-in.
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It's Monday Morning... What Just Happened
The Stars:
- The Minnesota Vikings' Defense - You know how every year, you go to ESPN and you read a million draft guides that say "don't take a defense till second to last, just before the kicker" and then you watch the Seahawks, Texans, Broncos, etc. go in like the ninth and you're sitting there trying to figure out who you're gonna stream in Week 1? Did you pick the Vikings? If you did, can you tell me how you go around not bragging about it literally all the time? I'm incapable of it. I've been congratulating myself to everyone I know for three weeks now. It's like a disease. The Vikings have put up 21, 14, and 25 points, and two of those games came against Aaron Rodgers and Cam Newton. True story: someone in my league drafted THREE defenses and none of them were Minnesota. If the Vikings keep it up, I'm gonna be disowned by Halloween.
- The Kansas City Chiefs' Defense - I went back and forth on this. I wasn't sure if I wanted to write in the Chiefs' defense for picking off Ryan Fitzpatrick six (6) times here, or if I wanted to wait and make fun of the Jets further down in the column. Then I just realized that six picks (with a pick-six) was terrible enough that it certainly deserved to be mocked here multiple times. Ryan Fitzpatrick actually mailed out handwritten apology letters to every Jets fan in the country for his historically terrible performance. Sadly, though, Jets fans, Marcus Peters and Eric Berry intercepted them before they could get to you. If you were fortunate enough to start the KC defense, however, I need you to understand what you've done to your opponent. There's no comeback from "his/her defense dropped 35 on me, man...the defense" except for finding solace in the welcoming embrace of your buddy Mr. Daniels. Just know that you drove them to this. You monster.
- Carlos Hyde - Hyde struggled through most of the game, but punched in two touchdowns late in order to cement his status as #1 RB this week, and trick us into thinking the 49ers didn't get obliterated by the Seahawks yesterday. Chip Kelly is a next-level football coach, y'all.
- Terrelle Pryor - There was a point today at which Terrelle Pryor was the Browns' leading receiver AND passer. While that may be the Brownsiest stat of all time, his multifaceted efforts (8 receptions/144 yards; 4 carries/21 yards/1 TD; 3-5 passing for 35 yards ), the last man standing in Cleveland's potentially intriguing WR corps could not carry the Browns to victory against the Dolphins. And yeah, I know that "leading passer" thing was fairly disingenuous as Cody Kessler threw for 244 yards, but we all know the track record of USC quarterbacks in this league. The Browns, proud starters of like 30 quarterbacks since 1999, took a look at this track record and said "nah, man, we can fix that." Eventually, Kessler will do something that obliterates Mark Sanchez's buttfumble in the ignominy rankings. It's ordained by fate itself.
- Marvin Jones - The Lions wideout had 6 catches for 205 yards and two touchdowns. Of course, the Lions still lost this game, in which they had more total yardage, more first downs and ten more minutes of possession, but he definitely gets an A for effort.
- Antonio Brown - 14 points on yardage alone is impressive, and the 12 receptions he had make me once again furious that no one in my league will allow me to switch the scoring rules to 1-point PPR.
- Carson Wentz - Wentz topped himself again in the game against Pittsburgh, once again avoiding interceptions on his way to a 300 yard, 2-TD outing against the Steelers. Which is starting to get tremendously annoying as a person whose team celebrated its return to Los Angeles by NOT drafting Wentz.
The Busts:
- The New York Jets - My working theory is that Ryan Fitzpatrick had a Walkman as a child, but it was damaged to the point where the only music it could play is the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away," and it's now just a conditioned autonomic response. Ryan Fitzpatrick is making 12 million dollars this year, which means that each interception cost the Jets $125,000. The last thing to do that much damage and cost New York that much money was the housing bubble bursting. The last person to so thoroughly kill a representative of New York like that was Aaron Burr. The last time anything in New York was shut down that hard, the blackout was credited with the advent of hip-hop. I could keep going, but if I do I'll be writing till sunrise. Wait, wait hold on - the last time anyone sucked that hard and that publicly, we almost impeached a president. OK, now I'm done.
- The Kansas City Chiefs - SURPRISE, B*TCH! Bet you didn't see this coming! Seriously, though, KC, the Jets spotted you 6 turnovers that weren't immediately returned for touchdowns, and you only managed 10 points off of them? You do know that etiquette only demands that you turn down a gift three times before you take it, right?
- Rob Gronkowski - Look, it's another coaching masterstroke from Bill Belichick! "We'll stick Gronkowski in the game, but we won't actually use him, they'll never see it coming!" Congrats, bro, you just masterfully manipulated the team that solved its quarterbacking problem by throwing $72 million at a quarterback John Elway took great care to throw shade out as the door was hitting him on the ass. Truly, Belichick operates on a plane incomprehensible to mere mortals like us. Also, a shout-out to NFL.com, whose app didn't finish loading my draft until 5 rounds in and left me stuck with the human embodiment of Four Loko. Ugh.
That's about it for me - I need to go finish coughing up chunks of what I assume to be pure asbestos out of my lungs. See you next time.
