Fifth Down

We are back. We took Five for Friday off as I was doing much preparation for the Christmas festivities as I am sure you were as well. I am sure that is why I didn’t get any messages saying, “Hey Jeff, when are were getting our 5 for Friday.” Anyway we are back this week and there will be a Five for Friday this week. Week 16 is in the books and some NFL fans got some nice gifts for Christmas while others got gifts worse than coal (I see you Broncos fans). Let’s dive into the Rankings.

Playing in the Super Bowl: Bills and Eagles

The Bills struggled for a half with the Bears and then they didn’t anymore. This was a trap game for sure and it isn’t shocking that they came out a little sluggish. What was probably surprising for them was having to spend an extra night in Chicago followed by arriving back home and having to dig their cars out of 8 feet of snow. Good times in Buffalo. The Eagles lost a close game to the Cowboys…in Dallas…without their starting quarterback. Gardner Minshew almost led them to the victory so I am confident with Hurts they would have won. They have the unique opportunity this week to clinch the division and home field advantage and improve their draft position all with a win. Somehow the Eagles have the Saints first round draft pick this year. There are other teams that can win this thing but I still think these are the two most complete teams.

The Contenders: Bengals, 49ers, Chiefs

These are the other 3 teams I think can win the Super Bowl. The 49ers continue to win and seem to be a better team with Brock Purdy. They are actually getting healthy (49er fans are yelling at me not to say it out loud). They have a solid roster all the way around. I guess the question is, can Brock Purdy lead them to the show? The Bengals squeaked one out against the Patriots. The Bengals were up 22-0 and then didn’t score again. The Patriots were about to win the game when Stevenson fumbled. He’s had a rough couple of weeks after starting the lateral fiasco last week and then fumbling inside the 20 this week. He also crushed my chances of making it to the championship in Danielle’s work league. He scored 1.3 points. Ouch. Anyway, the Bengals have a good football team. They have been hit with the injury bug a bit as of late. They’ve got a massive game hosting the Bills this week. The Chiefs actually won by more than one score. The offense looked a little off at times but they also had several dropped passes that hurt them. The defense looked…dare I say good? The Seahawks have struggled and they were missing a player or two but the D really held their own. They had good pressure on the Quarterback and did enough to slow down the run. They also came up big on crucial 3rd and 4th downs. Also, Mahomes is amazing. Since the start of 2019 season he is now 16-0 against the NFC. The only team he hasn’t beaten is the Vikings because he was hurt and we won that game anyway. We haven’t lost a regular season game to an NFC team since Rodgers barely outplayed Mat Moore and the Packers beat us in 2019. Pretty impressive.

Ready to break your heart in the playoffs: Vikings and Cowboys

These two teams have playoff upset written all over them. The Vikings have won an amazing 11 one score games. Guys, they only have 12 wins. Their only non one score victory was week 1. That’s insane. Their luck is bound to run out. I guess you could argue they are just a really clutch team but I won’t. The Cowboys barely beat the Eagles minus Jalen Hurts at home. Assuming Tampa wins the South, I can certainly envision them going down there and leaving with an L. Plus over the past 20 years or so both of these teams have excelled at playoff disappointment.

Here comes the hype train: Chargers

The national media loves them some Chargers. They are always a preseason darling but then they disappoint. But now they have won 3 in a row and so they are currently Super Bowl contenders. During that 3 game win streak they have beaten the Dolphins who are on a 4 game skid (that I predicted). They beat the Titans who have lost like 5 in a row and just lost to the Texans and a Colts team that is a complete disaster. Look, they have a solid team and are getting healthy but its not like they are putting up 50 points a game in these wins. Maybe they could beat one of the Chiefs, Bills or Bengals in the playoffs but there is no way they are beating 2 or 3 of them to make it to the Super Bowl.

Teams you don’t want to play in the Playoffs: Jaguars and Packers

I thought the Jaguars were a year away but they have arrived early. They should win the next two weeks to clinch the AFC South. Much like the Chargers, they have what it takes to knock off one of the big 3. And this time next year, we will be talking about the big 4. Mahomes, Allen, Burrow and Lawrence should own their divisions for the next 10 years. It should be fun. As for the Packers, I have been saying it for a few weeks now but they are dangerous. Their roster is way better than their record. Their defense is playing better and their offense is doing enough to win without Rodgers playing great. He has a funny confidence about him. They host the Vikings and Lions in back to back weeks. I still think they win out. They need the Commanders to lose one more which I think also happens.

Playoff bound…I guess: Giants and Ravens

Ravens have clinched. The Giants can clinch if they win this week and they play the Colts…so…that’s pretty much a given. But if the two above teams are the teams you don’t want to play in the playoffs, these are the two you want to play.

Fighting for their playoff lives: Commanders, Dolphins, Patriots, Jets, Steelers, Lions, Seahawks, Titans

Somehow all these teams are still mathematically in it. The Commanders are probably going to lose out because they went back to Carson Wentz. No one knows who they are starting this week but a QB controversy in week 17 probably doesn’t equal playoffs. The Dolphins have lost 4 in a row and Tua is concussed…again. They head to the Patriots and then host the Jets. If Tua plays I think they win out but if he can’t go that opens the door for one of the challengers. The Patriots are finding new ways to lose and the poor Jets had to roll with Zach Wilson in back to back weeks. He literally not only sucks but makes everyone around him suck. He’s terrible. Matt White is back this week and I actually think they can win out even though they have two road games against the Seahawks and Dolphins. This would break the current longest drought of not making the playoffs. If the Jets make it then the title would go to the Broncos which would sort of be funny since some were picking them to win the super bowl this year. The Steelers have never had a losing season under Tomlin and somehow it is possible that streak will continue. They have the Ravens this week and the Browns next week. I think they keep that streak alive but they will need help to get in. The Seahawks and Lions both hurt their chances this week with losses. They like the Packers need the Commanders to lose at least one more. The Titans are about to finish the year on a 7 game losing streak. It should be an interesting couple of weeks but none of these teams are doing much if they get in.

The 2020 NFC East: The 2022 NFC South

We just need Tampa to lose one more game to assure that a team with a losing record hosts a playoff game. I love these sort of scenarios because it shows the occasional crack in the system that everyone gets all upset about. I mean yes this might happen two times in 3 years but overall in the history of the NFL it is very rare. But I am sure people will throw a fit and make changes to the playoff system. Regardless in order for that to happen, the Panthers likely need to win in Tampa. The Panthers have been significantly better at home but stranger things have happened. I am sure that this will be another close game and Brady will likely lead his team to victory again this week but it will be funny if he loses. The Saints are some how still in contention too. This division is real bad.

No one cares: Rams, Browns, Cardinals

The Rams won big this week on Christmas day but the story isn’t even about them. The Browns have somehow gotten worse with Massage Boy at QB. They are trying to compete for worst offseason trade but they can’t even win at that. Broncos are the clear winner. The Cardinals are so bad that JJ Watt is retiring and their coach is apparently contemplating leaving.

Raiders gonna Raider: They still got it

Two weeks ago, the Raiders won in the most improbable way. So what happens this week? They go back to their old habits of losing close games. They are the anti Vikings losing 8 games by one score. McDaniel even acknowledged they might bench Carr. This team is a disaster. They scored 10 points this past week. They finish out the year hosting the 49ers and the Chiefs. So in good news, they probably will lose by a lot more than one score in those games.

Still sort of fun: Bears

Justin Fields is apparently trying to make it to next year so he didn’t run much against the Bills. He also isn’t as good at throwing when the threat of him running isn’t there. Hopefully they are more fun this week when they play at the Lions.

Still terrible but not the worst anymore: Texans

The Texans almost beat the Cowboys and Chiefs in back to back weeks and then upset the Titans this week. The Titans aren’t great but the Texans don’t beat anyone so this is a big win. I am sure by early next year they will find there way back to the bottom because they are a very poorly run organization but they can enjoy being 3rd worst at least for this week.

Dumb and Dumber: Colts

The Colts traded for Carson Wentz. That didn’t work. Then they traded for Matt Ryan. That didn’t work. Then they benched Matt Ryan and that didn’t work. Then they fired their coach and hired a guy with slightly more experience than me. That didn’t work. Then they benched Matt Ryan again. Going to Nick Foles at this point in the season is sort of like when you are playing Madden and getting your butt kicked so you just put in the 3rd string QB to see what happens. It never works and it didn’t work for the Colts either. They somehow got worse offensively. At this point they might want to try what Walker does if I am beating him and put the punter at Quarterback. Unconventional times lead to unconventional tactics. I mean if you are going to hire an ESPN guy as your coach, why not have your punter play QB? It honestly can’t get worse offensively. Speaking of bad offense…check out our final team.

A very bumpy ride just got even bumpier: Broncos

Let’s ride…over a cliff. That was perhaps the worst performance I have seen in a very long time. Early on Russ had thrown 3 passes and 2 interceptions. It somehow got worse from there. The defense finally said screw it and gave up 51 points to Baker Mayfield and the Rams. To add to the fun the Broncos back up QB and an offensive lineman got in a shoving match on the sideline. Then Randy Gregory went and punched a Ram player after the game. Things were so bad that they woke up the next morning and fired Nathanial Hackett. He was not a good coach but hardly the only problem. Despite everyone speculating that this was a great roster and all they needed was a Quarterback, there wasn’t any real proof of that. It turns out this roster is pretty average when it is healthy and real bad when they have as many injuries as they did. Then you bring in Russ who apparently no one in the league likes and you treat him like he is the greatest QB of all time. Turns out there was a reason the Seahawks were so eager to trade him. Things are so bad that the defensive coordinator turned down the interim head coaching gig. This is actually a genius move by him. As of now, he is a hot coaching commodity as the guy who kept the Broncos in most games despite the worst offense in Broncos history. If he takes the interim gig, then he is the guy who was head coach for two weeks and got smashed by the Chiefs and Chargers. Nothing good can come from it. So who is the interim coach? The guy they brought in to run clock management. Yes you are reading it correctly. I mean, it’s not an ESPN analyst but it is pretty close. Amazingly, this team was better when Drew Lock was quarterback.

Playoff Predictions AFC:

1. Bills
2. Chiefs
3. Bengals
4. Jaguars
5. Chargers
6. Ravens
7. Jets

Playoff Predictions NFC:

1. Eagles
2. 49ers
3. Vikings
4. Bucs
5. Cowboys
6. Giants
7. Packers

Another crazy week in the NFL. Let’s get started.

Teams that are going to play in the Super Bowl: Bills and Eagles

The Bills were able to get the win in a close game assisted by some late snow and snowballs being thrown at Dolphins players in the red zone. I love that they had to announce to stop throwing snow balls or there would be a penalty. There were also lots of signs that said freeze the fish. Danielle said, Dolphins aren’t fish. And I pointed out that this is the same fan base that dives onto tables so while very loyal, might not be the sharpest fan base in the shed. The Eagles also held on against a bad Bears team pulling from the Chiefs playbook of playing down to their competition. I didn’t see anything from them or anyone else to predict a different two teams in the big show assuming Hurts is healthy come playoff time.

Team I hate that beat a team I hate: Bengals

The Bengals were down 17-0 near halftime and then rattled off 34 unanswered points. The Bengals are good. They have a good roster. They are well coached. If the Bills don’t go to the super bowl, the Bengals probably will. I hate them. But at least they beat the Bucs keeping all the NFC South teams with losing records so that is fun.

Team that gets better every time their quarterback gets hurt: 49ers

Trey Lance started the year and looked a little lost. He got hurt so they went to Jimmy G and immediately got better. Now Jimmy G is hurt and they bring in Mr. Irrelevant, Brock Purdy. And guess what, they are better again. Purdy is cool in the pocket and seems to be able to do everything Jimmy G can do. The biggest difference is Jimmy G is always good for 2 or 3 plays that are just terrible decisions. Thus far, Purdy doesn’t make those mistakes and is also a little more mobile. It’s hard to imagine Brock Purdy playing in the Super Bowl but hey, Trent Dilfer and Nick Foles won super bowls so who knows. They are the Eagles biggest competition.

I mean…come on: Chiefs

Mahomes completed 88% of his passes and we had to win in overtime against a team that was 1-11-1. Mahomes is great. Kelce is great. We have some other nice pieces on offense. But our tackles are awful. They are number 1 and 2 in allowed pressure in the league. Our secondary seems to be getting worse. Most of the guys they were guarding wouldn’t be on a lot of teams practice squads and they were still getting open. And we can’t get any pressure on anyone. Everyone doubles Chris Jones and no one else can win 1 on 1. But our most glaring issues are penalties and turnovers. We have to overcome multiple turnovers a game and yesterday we had 100 yards in penalties. If we can clean that up, we can beat the 4 teams above us despite having a lesser roster. But I don’t see us improving in any important areas. On the flip side, this is a young team that was supposed to be battling just to make the playoffs. Instead we just clinched our 7th straight AFC West title. So it isn’t all bad.

Might make it to the divisional round: Cowboys and Vikings

Cowboys blew a big lead against the up and coming Jaguars. Vikings gave up a big league to a terrible Colts team but because the Colts are so bad were able to have the greatest comeback in NFL history. (Thanks Matt Ryan). But nothing they did created any new level of confidence in them. The only reason I don’t think they will lose in the first round is because the Cowboys are going to play the winner of the NFC South which will likely be a loser. The Vikings will likely play either Washington or the Giants, which they could lose to but it is unlikely.

Playoff Bound: Chargers

The Chargers are making the playoffs. They play the Colts, Rams and Broncos. Not even the Chargers can mess this up. They should win all 3 and head into the playoffs on a 5 game winning streak. Are they good? I think they are pretty good. They will likely be the 5 seed and have a good shot of at least winning that first playoff game against the AFC south winner. Also, did you know Chase Daniel works on the NFL Network on Monday nights? He still has one of the best jobs in the NFL as a back up quarterback and now also has a tv gig. Google where Chase ranks as far as all time paid quarterbacks. He might have the greatest NFL career ever.

Playoff Bound???:Dolphins

I put the Dolphins here because I think they would beat most of the other teams in the league most weeks. But they have lost 3 in a row and a 4th loss on Christmas Day to the Packers wouldn’t be out of the question. Then they finish at the Patriots and home against the Jets. They should win 2 of those 3 and that will be enough to get them in but they have been exposed these last 3 weeks as who they really are; a fun team that isn’t really that good.

Where did you come from?: Jaguars and Lions

The Lions have won 6 of their last 7 with their only loss being a loss to the Bills in the last seconds. The Jaguars are playing great football and have learned how to come from behind against quality opponents. Both have a shot at making the playoffs but need to win out. But these teams are more dangerous than others that might actually make it.

Return of the Rodgers Rate: Packers

I said this on Friday, but I think the Packers have a real shot to make the playoffs. They need some help from Washington and I am not sure what their tie breaker situation with the Lions and Seahawks is but if they win on Christmas at the Dolphins, I think they win out. Rodgers was oddly confident last night. I think they finish 9-8. Whether that gets them in or not, I don’t know but it will be fun to find out.

Probably making the playoffs because they tied: Commanders and Giants

Giants are more likely at this point to get in due to winning last night in a game that at best Washington should have had an opportunity to tie. On what should have been a td, Mclaurin asked the ref if he was lined up on the line of scrimmage. The ref said no and so he moved up and asked again. The ref said he was good. Then the ref threw a flag. Then on 4th down there was a blatant pass interference that didn’t get called. I am not big on blaming refs but they sure did make it hard for the Commanders to win this one. Washington now has a big game with the 49ers and finish the year at Dallas. They can probably only afford to lose one more unless the Lions lose to someone. It is not certain that these two get in but if they do it will probably be because they have a tie instead of a loss.

Are these two even going to make the playoffs?: Titans and Ravens

These two have been leading their divisions for weeks but now the Ravens are in second and the Titans have a 1 game lead on the Jags and the Jags own the tiebreaker so far. The Titans still have to play the Cowboys and the Jags to end the year. If the Jags win this week at the Jets then they play the Texans and could create a win and get in scenario against the Titans. The Ravens didn’t look good with Lamar and look worse without him. This team has an easy schedule but finish with the Bengals and honestly don’t look good enough to beat anyone right now.

On the slow decline: Jets and Seahawks

These have been fun stories. The Seahawks are better without Russ than the Broncos are with Russ. And the Jets have been terrible forever but sort of put it together this year. But the Jets are probably still rolling with Zach Wilson and Seattle seems to have slowed down quite a bit. The Jets play the Jags on Sunday, then the Seahawks in Seattle and finish up at Miami. Good chance they go 0-3. Ouch. I am sure the Seahawks will lose a very close game to the Chiefs this week followed by playing the Jets and the Rams. They could finish 9-8 and maybe get in the playoffs but if they do it will likely be a quick exit.

Losing games in the least Patriot way: Patriots

If there is two things the Patriots are known for it is disciplined football and getting calls from the refs. Neither happened on Sunday. The Raiders scored a late td where it was obvious one foot was on the white line. They reviewed it for like an hour only to not overturn it which was shocking because it was clear as day his foot was on the line. The announcers were like well there wasn’t any chalk that kicked up. I feel like the announcers are working real hard to not make the refs look bad lately. Then the Patriots were supposed to run out the clock to go into overtime. Instead of just taking a knee, they handed off with like 3 seconds left. The running back ran for like 30 yards and instead of falling down lateraled the ball backwards to a receiver who for some reason decided to chuck the ball 30 yards behind him to the QB. As he said afterwards “I thought I saw that Mac was open.” Two things, first he was not open and secondly, what is he going to do if he got it? Mac Jones is slightly faster than me so I doubt he is going to run 70 yards for a td. Instead a raider grabs it and runs over Jones and scores in the oddest ending to a game I have seen in sometime.

Raiders didn’t raider: Raiders

The Raiders didn’t win on Sunday. They were given the game by the refs and the Patriots. But a win is a win. And it is ironic that because it was the Patriots making the biggest mistake I have seen maybe ever in a football game, we are shocked. But if it had been the opposite and the Raiders making that play, we would have thought…that’s about right.

These teams are still playing…I guess: Browns and Steelers

Massage boy and the Browns beat the Ravens without Lamar at home. The Steelers beat an NFC south team. Technically these teams aren’t eliminated but it sure feels like they are.

2020 NFC East (also known as dumpster fire): 2022 NFC South

These teams are terrible and one of them is going to make the playoffs. We just need Tampa to lose one more game to assure that a team with a losing record makes the playoffs. But admit it, if Tom gets in you are at least a little nervous he makes a run.

Justin Fields is fun: Bears

Justin Fields is fun. The rest of the Bears are not. That is all.

Baker is back: Rams

Baker is back…to being average. The Rams didn’t look terrible last night. They just looked okay. Sort of how Baker has looked most of his career.

Let’s Ride to an occasional victory: Broncos

The Broncos didn’t look half bad on Sunday. It was less painful to watch than normal. Of course Russ wasn’t playing and they were playing what’s left of the Cardinals. Got an exciting one on Sunday against the Rams. Putting that game in the afternoon slot on Christmas day feels like the NFL is saying “dude, it’s Christmas, stop watching football and spend time with your family.”

Anybody out there know how to throw a football?: Cardinals

Seriously…do you want to play quarterback for an NFL team? The Cardinals need you.

The scrappiest 1-12-1 team ever: Texans

This team is real bad but they almost beat the Cowboys and Chiefs the last two weeks so that gets you just a little credibility.

Should have hired me instead: Colts

Turns out hiring a guy who watches a lot of football, makes snarky comments and has little to no coaching experience isn’t the best idea after all. This really hurts my chances of getting a job in the NFL next year. They should have hired Gene Hackman instead. Now there is a guy who can turn around a team in the middle of a season especially when he is rocking Tom Landry’s hat.

Welp, I seem to be getting worst at this as I went 2-3 last week to bring my total to 13-7. In good news, I am in first place in all 3 of my fantasy leagues. So I’ve got that going for me…which is nice. Let’s see if I can rebound this week and get back on track. On to this week’s picks.

The Fish out of Water game: Dolphins @ Bills

I know Dolphins aren’t fish but it seemed like a clever title and this will definitely be an environment this team isn’t used to. The Dolphins somehow won the first match up despite giving up a ton of yards. However, as of late they have gotten exposed. Back to back road losses to the 49ers and the Chargers in which they looked very overmatched. Now they head to Buffalo. Apparently they are supposed to get over a half a foot of snow. The Dolphins apparently had heaters going in LA on Sunday when it was 55 degrees. I do appreciate the nerdiest coach in the NFL, Mike McDaniel, rocking a shirt that says “I wish it was a little bit cooler” during practice. He is about to get his wish. I bet he is rocking a big winter coat on Saturday night instead of funny t-shirts.

The Dolphins are all about speed and offensive movement most of which is hard to do in the snow. They also tend to get behind but this is not an environment you want to get behind in. Tyreek has spent the week talking about why he left the Chiefs…again. It seems the story keeps changing. He said it was a lack of getting targets. He had 159 targets last year and barely played in the last game because he was hurt. That is over 9 targets a game and nearly 10 a game if you don’t count the last game of the year. He then proceeded to say that he asked the Chiefs to give him the same amount of money as AJ Brown and that he didn’t need to be the highest paid receiver. One problem, AJ Brown was traded after Tyreek so he had no idea what AJ was getting paid at the time. Then he said that he allowed the Chiefs an opportunity to match the Dolphins offer which they declined. This also seems highly unlikely. The funny part is his agent already told us what happened. They were close to a deal. Then Davante Adams got paid and they wanted more money. The Chiefs said no and so they traded him to Miami. It’s pretty simple. And everyone seems fine with it except the guy with all the money. Why does he keep bringing this up? Who cares? it is week 15…move on with your life Tyreek. He then said if we run into the Chiefs in the playoffs he would go off and they better have two people on him. His team is about to drop to 8-6 after losing yet another game so he should probably focus on actually making the playoffs.

Meanwhile, the Bills keep winning. Josh Allen hasn’t been playing great but he hasn’t had to either. The Bills have gotten better at running the ball and their defense is playing well. Recently a reporter told Josh that the offense doesn’t seem to be playing at a level that can win the Super Bowl. Allen responded “Okay.” Which was a great response. Give it a google. Anyway, I think the Bills are just fine. And I like them over this particular Dolphins team in half a foot of snow. The nation will be tuned in and the Bills deliver big.

Bills 30 Dolphins 17

This game actually matters???: Lions @ Jets

If you had told me at the beginning of the year that I needed to circle Lions vs the Jets in week 15 because it is going to be a big game, I would have laughed at you. But this is the beauty of the NFL. These are two historically bad teams with terrible luck and fortune. Even as I say this game matters, it’s not like either team is crushing it. The Lions are 6-7 and the Jets are 7-6. But this game does matter as both teams are pushing for a playoff appearance and neither team can afford to lose.

I feel like every week I am detailing Detroit’s awful history. They haven’t been to the playoffs since 2016 and the last time they won a playoff game, I was in 6th grade and we were all still tight rolling our jeans. They beat the Cowboys that year. Erik Kramer was the QB and went off for 341 yards and 3 touchdowns. They lost 41-10 the next week and haven’t won a playoff game since.

Earlier in the year they were 1-6 but they have won 5 of their last 6 and had a shot to beat the Bills on Thanksgiving if not for terrible time management and terrible defense. But they are playing well and scoring lots of points.

On the flipside, the last time the Jets were in the playoffs, Nebraska and Mizzou were still in the Big 12 and actually good at football. The Jets lost back to back conference championships and haven’t been back to the playoffs since. They have the longest playoff drought in the league.

But they have turned things around and are a competent football team again and are hosting the Lions in circumstances that I would describe as Jared Goff’s kryptonite…outside. Goff has been phenomenal indoors this year. But he is flat out awful outside. It looks to be in the 30’s when these two teams battle it out this Sunday. There is good reason to cheer for both teams and I won’t be upset no matter who wins. I was all set to pick the Jets but now Mike White is out and they are going back to Zach Wilson. Wilson has been awful and seems to take no ownership of his struggles and has lost the locker room. Am I to believe that Wilson has turned the corner because he was put in timeout for 2 or 3 games and now all the sudden he is going to play competent and lead his team to victory? So now I have a terrible Zach Wilson versus Jared Goff outside. The only thing I am confident about is that there will be more interceptions than touchdown passes. In the end, I’ll go with the better defense and home team in a close, low scoring game.

Jets 13 Lions 10

Battle of teams with glaring weaknesses: Titans @ Chargers

The Chargers finally won a game so now they are the second coming of the 80’s 49ers. Look, I get that they have been banged up and are starting to get healthy. But let’s not forget they lost 3 of 4 before last week and their one win was a 1 point victory over the woeful Cardinals. They are much better offensively with Mike Williams and Keenan Allen back. Have I mentioned that I can’t stand Keenan Allen? He talks more crap than anyone I can remember for a guy who has won absolutely nothing. After Tyreek got traded, he tweeted that “some people were about to get exposed”, meaning the Chiefs and Mahomes. As Maury Povich would say, we have determined…that was a lie!

The Chargers have a lot of good players on defense and are terrible against the run. This is bad news when you are playing the Titans. That is the one thing offensively they do well. On the flipside, the Titans are terrible against the pass, which the Chargers do very well. So this game proves to be interesting. The Titans haven’t won since before Thanksgiving having dropped 3 in a row. People have realized if you stop Derrick Henry, you stop the Titans. The Titans are also on the road in this one. The good news for them is they are on the road against the Chargers and the Chargers don’t have any fans so it shouldn’t be too tough and might feel like a home game.

This is a tough game to pick. Everything on paper tells me that the Chargers are better. However, can you imagine Mike Vrabel letting this team lose it’s 4th in a row and falling to .500? Also, anytime the Chargers give people hope that they might actually be good, they quickly fall on their collective faces. Titans win a close one.

Titans 28 Chargers 27

To Tie or Not to Tie: Giants @ Commanders

The last time these two juggernauts battled it out, it ended in my buddy Evan’s favorite result, a tie. Ties are obviously not what the rest of the NFL viewership is looking for. These teams are pretty evenly matched as you can tell from their last outcome. They both have pretty good running games, okay quarterbacks, and pretty good defense. If you were asked to describe either team, I bet you would say “pretty good.” If you were going to rank all the NFL teams like I do, minus the snarky comments, I bet these two teams would fall somewhere between 13-17. Somewhere right in the middle.

The Giants started out hot and at one point were 6-1. Since then though, they have won only one game, an 8 point victory against the Texans. One of their major problems is that you have never heard of any of the players that they throw to. You might remember Kenny Golladay but they don’t actually throw to him. He was the guy who tricked the Giants into signing him after having a big year in Detroit. It has not worked out well. Daniel Jones has been alright at QB. Better than normal but that doesn’t say much. Saquon Barkley is getting the Derrick Henry treatment so he isn’t playing as well either as everyone is trying to stop him and he is banged up.

On the other side of things, the Redskins…I mean Commanders started the year with Carson Wentz at QB. It did not go well as they lost 4 of their first 5. Then the best thing happened that could happen to any team that Wentz is the starting QB for…Wentz got hurt. The team formerly known as the Redskins won 5 of their next 6 with their one loss a 3 point loss to the Vikings.

It really is like these two teams traded places with each other so it was very fitting that game 1 ended in a tie. Although, I would love nothing more than predict another tie, that seems highly unfathomable. The winner of this game has a great shot at making the playoffs. The loser will probably get in to but it will be harder. It’s crazy to think the NFC East is likely going to have 4 teams in the playoffs and even crazier that these two mediocre teams are going to get in more than likely because of that tie.

So who wins this sucker? Well I am going with the Redskins, I mean Commanders and my boy Brian Robinson. He got shot a week before the season started and came back like 3 weeks later. To put that into perspective, I played basketball with my kids one weekend in November and tweaked my knee and have been out for a month. I am still recovering for the foreseeable future.

Robinson has a big day and the Redskins…I mean the Commanders win at home.

Redskins 27 Giants 17

Baker’s Dozen vs The Rodgers Rate: Rams @ Packers

Two weeks ago I would have never thought about writing about this game. The Packers were dead in the water and the Rams were even deader. Somehow both teams are still alive in the playoff hunt but the Rams seem a lot farther away. Amazingly there is a path for the Packers. They need to win out for sure but if they win this week and beat the Dolphins in Miami next week, they host the Vikings and Lions in Green Bay to end the year. Would anyone be shocked if they won out? That would put them at 9-8 and they just might sneak in. After this week the Commanders still have to play the 49ers and Cowboys so even if they win, they likely finish 9-7-1 which would only be a game ahead of the Packers. But if they lose to the Giants, then the Packers would be ahead in the scenario. Similarly, the Giants play the Vikings, Colts and Eagles after this week. I doubt they beat anyone but the Colts. So they could easily finish 8-8-1. The more I think about it, the more I think the Packers are getting in. They have looked better lately and should be a little healthier coming off the bye. Rodgers can still sling it and he has found his new favorite target in Christian Watson (who if you haven’t been reading is on all 3 of my fantasy teams). They can run the ball and are decent enough on defense to stop the Rams.

Meanwhile, the Rams have new life with Baker at the helm. But they are still an overall disaster. You know if you need Baker to give you life, you aren’t very good. They have so many injuries and they spent so much money on free agents and resigning their top players that they have no quality depth. Also as fun as Baker was last Thursday, he still was only good for like a drive and a half. He also may actually play better when he knows less. Take away all decisions and thinking and he is pretty good. But now he will have an whole week and a half to get ready. So my guess is he resorts to his old Baker ways. But hey, it was one fun game when he ruined the Raiders lives.

On the other side does it get weirder than Aaron Rodgers? Has there been an odder superstar in a major sport? Dude, doesn’t talk to his family, does hallucinates, grows his hair out weird, dates celebrities and hosts jeopardy. Baker is weird too. He runs around and head butts people wearing helmets when his helmet is off. He often tweets and says weird things and they both make funny commercials. This really is a battle of two weirdos.

In the end, I don’t think what Baker did on one drive is sustainable. I think that he had a nice moment that we all enjoyed but now will go back to good old inconsistent, mostly bad Baker. Meanwhile, the Packers are way too talented to be 5-8. I think they are primed to make a run at the playoffs. And it starts on Monday night.

Packers 31 Rams 13

I am dedicating today’s rankings to the great Mike Leach who suddenly passed away due to a heart attack. Leach was a national treasure. Often controversial but always entertaining. He made hilarious comments and would do crazy stuff. In the honor of Coach Leach and ranking stuff check out the link below where he ranks the Pac 12 teams based upon mascots.

https://www.foxsports.com/watch/1604857923802

You will be missed, Mike, and the college football world won’t be the same without you.

Teams Playing in the Super Bowl: Eagles and Bills

Nothing happened on Sunday that would change my prediction at this point. The Bills won a gritty game in bad weather against a good Jets team that desperately needed to win. The Eagles absolutely destroyed an okay Giants team that desperately needed to win. Both these teams can beat you running, throwing and with defense. Both are beatable on the right day, but they are getting better when other teams look like they are getting worse.

Team I still hate: Bengals

Right behind the top two teams is the stupid Bengals and stupid Joe Burrow. I was hoping he would lose again to the Browns but they are such a mess that it didn’t happen. There was nothing wrong with their win but also nothing that made me think they are better than the Bills. The Bengals and Bills are still ahead of the Chiefs because they are willing to change who they are to win and the Chiefs are going to throw the ball 50 times a game regardless.

Team I said that not even they could play down to the level of their competition this week and they said, “hold my beer.”: Chiefs

I mean…can I just have one damn game where I can just relax? It’s like they have to make every game interesting until the very end. There is a simple solution. It’s called running the ball and dumping it off quickly to your backs. McKinnon and Pacheco had an absolute hey day all game but they don’t get enough touches. Instead, Mahomes is throwing picks trying to force it into Kelce. I swear, we should just spot the the team 14 points and then just get on with it. And how bad is our defense that we let a team that was averaging 11 points a game score 28? I love this team and they have overachieved in a lot of ways. I didn’t expect us to go to the super bowl when the season started so I guess I can lower my expectations again and be happy we are about to win our 7th AFC West title in a row. Honestly, I think we are a year away but it is fun we are in it. But if next week is close against the Texans then I will just assume I am going to have to prepare my heart every single week for the rest of my life.

Team that could win a regular season game with me playing QB: 49ers

I know Kyle Shanahan has had some failures in the post season but my goodness can he win some games in the regular season with random people. Lance goes down and they win with a guy who didn’t have a playbook. Now they go out and just crush Brady and the Bucs with the very last pick in the draft at QB. I am half serious that I could walk out there, get a couple of practices in and go win a game, Baker Mayfield style. It is so impressive. Almost as impressive as the amounts of injuries they have. Deebo is hurt…again and Purdy got injured too. Things keep going this way and they might actually need me to play QB soon.

Not as good as their record: Cowboys and Vikings

Both of these teams have 10 wins and are locks for the playoffs. But both have issues. The Cowboys pulled away from the Colts late and had to score a td with a minute left to beat the Texans. They occasionally blow people out but do you really trust Dak and Mike McCarthy in the playoffs? The Vikings are the kings of choking. They just lost to the Lions and again, do you trust Kirk Cousins. They are both winning one playoff game at best.

Might win a playoff game: Chargers and Dolphins

The Chargers are getting healthy and should make the playoffs. They play the Titans this week and then the Colts, Rams and Broncos. While all the AFC East teams are beating up each other, so in theory, they should coast in as the second wild card behind the Bengals or Ravens. But then again, it is the Chargers so if there is a way to not make it, they will find a way. The Dolphins will likely lose their 3rd in a row to the Bills. Then they face the Packers, Patriots and Jets to end the season. That last game could be a play in game. But if either get in, they are dangerous. Both have a lot of playmakers and score some points. If either of them get the Ravens or Titans, they will win. And if they get one of the top 3, I wouldn’t be shocked if they pulled the upset. But winning 3 in a row isn’t happening so they will be one and done regardless.

Teams that will lose in the first round of the playoffs: Titans, Ravens, Giants, Commanders

The Titans are going to win the South not because they are good but because the Jags have just lost too many games already. The Ravens schedule is so easy that they should win out until week 18 when they play the Bengals. If the Bengals lose before then, the Ravens could lose to the Bengals and still win the division. That is best case scenario because otherwise, the Ravens and Titans will play and that will be a very boring game. This is also the only way either of them wins a playoff game. Either way, neither of these teams will win a game past that. I am reluctantly accepting that the Commanders and Giants are going to make the playoffs. I think the difference will actually be their tie. I think the Giants will have the same amount of wins as the Seahawks and Lions but one less loss because of the tie. But the Cowboys will be the top wild card and play the NFC south champ with the best chance at winning. The Commanders could maybe beat the Vikings if the 49ers end up as the 2 seed. But I think all 4 of these teams are likely one and done.

Going to miss the playoffs but it sure has been fun: Jets, Jaguars, Lions, Seahawks

All 4 of these teams are technically still in it. But they likely need to win out to have a shot. The Jaguars need to win out and get help with the Titans losing a couple. The Seahawks, Jaguars and Lions both still play the Jets along with several other difficult opponents. The Seahawks play the 49ers on Thursday and the Chiefs next week (ouch). The Jets play all 3 other teams and end with the Dolphins. Pretty much every game is a playoff game the rest of the way for the Jets. I don’t see them going 4-0. The Lions have the easiest schedule but unfortunately for them 3 of the 4 games are outdoors. Jared Goff indoors is Tom Brady last year. Jared Goff outdoors is Josh Rosen. He has been terrible outside of domes. It’s been a fun ride but these teams are cooked.

2020 NFC East: 2022 NFC South

One of these pathetic teams is going to make the playoffs and host the Cowboys. Not only that, because the Cowboys are the kings of choking, they might even win a game. The Bucs are leading the way but are about to host the Bengals. After losing that, they should win out and finish 9-8. They play the Cardinals, Panthers and Falcons. But they have already lost to the Panthers and should have lost to the Falcons so who knows. The other 3 teams are even worse…although, I guess the Panthers have gotten better. But really we all should be cheering for the Bucs to drop two more and everyone else to lose at least one. There’s nothing funnier than a team with a losing record making the playoffs.

Team who’s Quarterback wants to be traded but this time it isn’t Rodgers: Packers

Apparently, Jordan Love would like to play some football. He sees that Rodgers isn’t going anywhere. Rodgers also hasn’t looked great so the Packers have a choice. Keep rolling with the old guy or bet on the young guy who has potential but is an unknown at this point. Geez, this Packers story seems familiar. The Packers are actually not eliminated yet but would need to win out and get some help. They have the Rams this week and then the Dolphins, Vikings and Lions. All of those besides the Dolphins are at home. I kind of think they might win out and sneak in. Regardless, I hope Christian Watson keeps catching touchdowns at least through week 17. (Fantasy football playoffs, here I come.)

Teams too boring to write about: Patriots, Steelers, Cardinals, Colts

Patriots still have a shot at the playoffs but no one really cares including them. Steelers are on their way to their first losing season. The Cardinals are a disaster but not in a funny way and the Colts were on a bye.

Team that’s Quarterback likes massages more than touchdowns: Browns

I was at Sports Clips last night to get my hair cut. I got the MVP because I like my hair washed after I get it cut. If you have have never been to a Sports Clips, you don’t know what an MVP is, so let me describe it to you. After they cut your hair they take you back to where they was your hair. They put you in a seat that vibrates (it is supposed to be like a massage chair but it basically just moves around a little bit). They put a warm towel on your face and then they wash your hair and massage your head. After this, they take you back to where they cut your hair and they use this massage club thing to massage your shoulders a little bit. I have been going somewhere else and hadn’t been to a Sports Clips in a while and I forgot how awkward this is. Besides actually washing my hair, none of the rest of it is needed or even wanted. If I could go back in time, I would have asked them to just wash my hair but by the time I realized/remembered how awkward it makes me feel I was already in too deep. I walked out of there feeling a little yucky and then I thought about Massage boy. Again, even if he did absolutely nothing wrong, it’s still gross. Sooo many massages! You know what he hasn’t had many of yet…touchdowns. It will be more of the same on Saturday.

Team with a guy at Quarterback that I need to score a lot of fantasy points the next 3 weeks: Bears

The Bears are not good. I am not even sure if Justin Fields is good or not. But he is good at scoring lots of Fantasy points. With Lamar hurt, he is my guy in my family league. He has Philly and Buffalo coming up. At least they are both at home and they will probably be losing so that means lots of passing which will lead to lots of running because his o-line sucks. All of that should lead to lots of fantasy points. At least that is what I am banking on. Wish me luck!

Baker’s Dozen: Rams

Dude, how awesome was Baker coming in with two days of practice and beating the Raiders with a 98 yard drive to win the game. More on the Raiders losing that game in a minute, but what a fun game for him. He has had a rough year from being traded from the team that picked you #1 so they could go with a guy who might go to jail and at best wasn’t going to play until week 12. To being cut from the team you got traded to after falling to 3rd string behind Sam Darnold and PJ Walker. To showing up Tuesday and then playing on Thursday. There is a lot of hate towards Baker. I don’t mind Baker. As I told one friend, he is like the loud obnoxious kid on your team. When you are winning it is alright and you sort of just put up with it, but when you are losing it gets old real fast. Unfortunately for the Rams I think this was a one hit wonder and they will go back to losing on Monday.

Raider’s gonna raider again: Raiders

After a short hiatus from this category because of Derek Carr’s tears, they are back! And I am so happy. This is where they belong. And they got their in the best sort of way. First of all, they couldn’t get 1 yard to close out the game even though they have the running back with the most yards in the league. Then they punt and pin them all the way on the 2. Enter Baker for a 98 yard drive assisted by an unnecessary holding penalty and then my personal favorite an unsportsmanlike penalty. They actually sacked Baker but then one of their idiotic players knocked the ball out of his hands when he was trying to give it to the ref. This stopped the clock, gave them 15 yards and a first down. Then for some reason, they decide to go with press coverage with 12 seconds left and give up a touchdown in man to man coverage. Richard Sherman hasn’t been this upset after a game since he was yelling “run the ball!”. Even Baker was like, yeah I couldn’t believe they were in that coverage. So bad and so awesome all at once. It’s great to have you back Raiders.

The Ride is almost over: Broncos

The Broncos had their best offensive day of the year and still lost. Wilson is concussed and will probably miss this weeks game. I am going to have to sit through Brett Rypien versus Colt McCoy…yuck. But the good news is, it is almost over. After the summer Broncos hype train, they are eliminated from the playoffs with 4 weeks to go. But only 4 more games of “Let’s ride.” I can’t wait to see what Russ’s tagline is next year. The suspense is killing me.

Team we should blow out but instead will beat by 10: Texans

The Texans just played the game of their lives and lost a close one to the Cowboys. I doubt they have a second performance in them. Their one good offensive player, Dameon Pierce is hurt. This has blow out written all over it. But I am sure we will start out slow…take a decent lead into half time, turn the ball over a couple of times and end up winning by 10. Go Chiefs and stuff.

Every week I give you 5 picks and more importantly storylines for this weekend’s games. I had an off week last week going 3-2 bringing my total to 11-4 over the last few weeks. Let’s see if I can get back on track this week. Also, how about that game last night. Baker, baby! And Raiders gonna raider. More on that in my weekly rankings next Tuesday. Here are this week’s games.

The Jets vs the Team from New York: Jets @ Bills

Do you ever find it funny that the teams that have New York in their name actually play in New Jersey? Meanwhile, the team that actually plays in New York, everyone thinks…where is Buffalo again? The Bills are riding high after the Chiefs loss as they now control their own destiny to have home field advantage. The most Bills thing to do here is immediately lose.

The Jets meanwhile are coming off a devastating loss when they had multiple opportunities to score at the goal line and were denied against a Vikings defense that apparently doesn’t try until the opposing team gets to the 3 yard line. The Jets have been much better offensively since Mike White took over. And by better, I mean functional. And they beat the Bills with Zach Wilson which is even more impressive.

Since losing to the Jets, the Bills have decided they should probably occasionally run the ball. That seems to be working. Everything seems to be pointing towards the Bills here. They just beat up the Patriots. They have had extra days of rest. They lost Von Miller but have been playing good defense without him. But something just feels funny here.

There is something I like about this Jets team. It’s hard to imagine the Jets sweeping the Bills but a lot of things that have happened this year are hard to imagine. It’s hard to imagine that the Rams would be this bad. It’s hard to imagine that the Russell Wilson trade would be potentially the worst trade in NFL history. It’s hard to imagine that the NFC East would have all 4 teams with winning records going into week 14.

But I go back to the Bills doing things that hurt them right after they accomplish something good. Mike White goes off and the Jets do enough to pull the upset victory. They drive down the field late and our boy from Mo West, Greg Zeurlein hits the game winner. Go Griffs!

Jets 27 Bills 24

The guy the Chiefs can’t touch vs the guy who wants to be touched by everyone: Browns @ Bengals

The Bengals have our number for sure. But on Wednesday I read two articles from people that watched the film. One was a Bengals article that showed how they doubled and tripled teamed Chris Jones every chance they got. The other one was a Chiefs article pointing out that our defensive ends aren’t really good at anything. Both were well written and depressing. Burrow was basically untouched and he owns the Chiefs. What is funny is you know who owns Burrow? The Browns. He is 0-5 against them.

Meanwhile, on the other side of things, Massage boy played his first game in 700 days and it showed. He was awful. It would be the most Browns thing ever to trade all those draft picks, deal with the controversy, and give him a bunch of guaranteed money only for him to be terrible. Creepo’s line last week was 12 of 22 for 131 yards and an interception and a rating of 53.4%. Surely he will be better this week but he is also playing a much better team. The Browns desperately need this win but there is nothing about this team that makes me believe they are any good. And honestly, I think Watson makes them worse because they feel like they have to try to be something they are not. Hand off to Chubb as much as possible. That is really all they should do. But we all know Watson doesn’t like to be hands off (see what I did there).

The Bengals could be in for a let down after the big win, but I just think the Browns are too bad for it to matter. This game is closer than it should be but stupid Joe Cool takes over in the 4th quarter and gets his first win over the Browns. All it took was for Baker Mayfield to leave. There’s a guy who went from leading the Browns to their first playoff victory to barely being claimed off waivers in less than two years. To somehow leading the Rams to improbable win after practicing for just 2 days. He’s had a a crazy year. Ironically, the Browns won more with Mayfield then they are now. Classic Browns.

Bengals 30 Browns 20

My Childhood team vs Dirty Detroit: Vikings @ Lions

If you like pretty good offense against subpar defense, then this is the game for you. The Vikings were actually my NFC team as a kid. I was always a Chiefs fan first but in the 80’s the Chiefs were pretty bad so you found other teams to cheer for as well. My older brother was a Bears fan. So naturally I picked the second place team in that division to cheer for. Plus I liked the color purple. The actual color, not the movie. I mean it is a fine movie, but not something I was watching at 6 years old. Anyway, I went pretty all in on the Vikes. I watched them almost make a surprise appearance to the super bowl in 1987. They beat the Saints in the wild card game and then upset the 49ers. All was going well until they ran into Doug Williams and the then Washington Redskins. A couple of years later they got a guy named Chris Carter on their team. He became my favorite player in the league. “All he does is catch touchdowns!” He did catch a lot of touchdowns but he also caught a lot of passes. A few years later, they drafted a guy named Randy Moss. In 1998 they went 15-1 and in true Vikings fashion became the first 15-1 team to not make the Super Bowl. Gary Anderson had not missed a kick all year but in that game, guess what he did. Missed a FG. If my wife is reading this, she is thinking why can you remember all these random facts from the 80’s and 90’s but you can’t remember what I tell you I want for Christmas. Literally, she tells me stuff all the time, texts me ideas and I immediately forget them. Don’t worry honey, your Patrick Mahomes jersey is on it’s way.

The following year, me and some buddies wanted to watch the high flying Vikings play in person. They were playing in KC so we sat around and waited for tickets to become available. You remember when that was a thing? But unfortunately by the time we were able to select the tickets they were sold out. So then we decided that we could go to Minnesota and check out a game. We selected the very last game of the year against…you guessed it….against the Detroit Lions. See how things are coming full circle. We would see this awesome team play against Barry Sanders. How cool would that be? Well we will never know for multiple reasons. First, Barry Sanders retired like a week after we bought the tickets. Secondly, the Vikings weren’t nearly as good. Then when it became time to go to the game, all my buddies wanted to back out. I got them all fired up that it would be a great experience and it was still an NFL game and we wouldn’t always all be young and single with little responsibilities. It was a good speech, as you can imagine. So we loaded into Evan’s Dodge Shadow and headed north. We spent the night at his sister’s house in Iowa and then the next morning we were on our way to the Metro Dome. There was one little problem. It was January in Minnesota. I fell asleep on the drive and woke up to the dodge shadow spinning in the median because we were driving in a blizzard. My buddies decided to turn back and I could not convince them otherwise this time.

I stayed loyal to the Vikings but over time my fandom waned up until 2005 and the Boat incident. If you don’t remember this, just give it a google but don’t dig too deep. You might be disturbed. Just imagine if Deshaun Watson threw a party on a couple of boats. Squeaky clean Nate Burleson was on the boat. He is on like every show now. I doubt anyone will ask him about it though. That was the last straw and so from then on I just focused on the Chiefs and Mizzou Football.

Oh yeah, the game. The Lions just won at home and haven’t won two in a row at home since 2016. No one is better at keeping streaks like this alive than the Lions but neither team can play defense so it should be fun.

Vikings 30 Lions 27

The Goat vs Mr. Irrelevant: Bucs @ 49ers

This is such a great story line. Mr. Irrelevant Brock Purdy was the very last pick in the 2022 draft. With Trey Lance as the guy coming into the season, the 49ers unsuccessfully tried to trade away Jimmy G. No one wanted him. So despite them not giving him a playbook and letting him practice with the team, he just hung around. Purdy getting some of those reps instead seemed to have paid off. Jimmy G was thrust into playing after Lance got hurt and was out for the season. At some point you have to question the 49ers medical staff. They have had more injuries over the last few years than any team I can remember. Last week Jimmy G broke his foot of all things. Which made Mr. Irrelevant quickly relevant. Purdy did just fine leading his team to victory and throwing for 210 yards, 2 touchdowns and a pick.

The Goat on the other hand has had an uphill battle this season. First he retired and then came out of retirement which did not please his hot wife. The beginning of the season started rocky for sure both on and off the field as he lost several games and his wife. But once the hot distraction got out of the way, the Bucs started winning games. They still lost to the lowly Browns in OT and every game seems to be close, but they are in first place in their division at 6-6. Luckily for them they play in the worst division in football. They could likely finish 7-10 or 8-9 and win the division. But I think 9-8 is the worst they could be and could be much better than that if they win this game. They play the 49ers this week and the Bengals next week but even if they lose both of those, they finish with Arizona, Carolina and Atlanta. Nothing would be more Goat then winning the division at 8-9 and then leading your team to the super bowl.

Although, Tom can relate to Brock being a late round draft pick, it is hard to imagine him losing to a guy who has never started a game. I think the Tampa defense will be ready to go and Todd Bowles will confuse the young kid in his first start. Brock seems just arrogant enough for this not to matter to him. He is a funny kid that stated earlier in the week, Tom has been playing in the NFL longer than I’ve been alive. But in the end, I think this will be another low scoring game with a late touchdown drive by Brady giving the NFC South a team with a winning record for the first time in weeks. Spoiler alert, I think Tom Brady is the starting quarterback of the 49ers in 2023.

Bucs 23 49ers 16

The Most uncomfortable game of the year: Chiefs @ Broncos

As you all know, I am big football fan and a huge Chiefs fan. What most of you also probably know is that my wife is a huge Broncos fan. She isn’t a fair weather fan and has been loyal since she was a little kid. She has experienced all the ups and downs and watches almost every game. She missed the game in London because she loves sleep more than she loves the Broncos. Here are her unofficial rankings.

1. Jesus
2. Me and the kids
3. The rest of her family
4. Our muppet of a dog
5. Sleep
6. Broncos

Anyway, every week we sit and watch football on Sundays. We both sort of cheer for each others teams. I don’t really like the Broncos and she doesn’t really like the Chiefs but we do like each other and more importantly we like when the other person is in a good mood.

But twice a year we have to awkwardly watch our teams play each other. Even though we have won 13 in a row…pausing for a sec to soak in that…several of the games have been close. Just last year the Broncos had us on the ropes until Melvin Gordon fumbled at the goal line and Drew Lock made a similar attempt that I could make to try and tackle Nick Bolton.

Most games during the season we are loud, celebrating touchdowns and big plays. Well, Danielle hasn’t done that much this season but usually she gets to do it at least a little. But when the Chiefs play the Broncos we both just sit their sort of quietly. It is almost better if it is a blow out because then at least we know it is over and can relax a little.

We literally sit on opposite ends of the couch and watch the game quietly. We don’t talk much during the game and then we don’t talk much after the game for a while. For most of you reading that are Chiefs fans, this is probably a fun week. I love Raiders and Chargers weeks especially lately. But I hate Broncos week. There are no winners in the Campbell house. And this year is even worse for me. If we lose, I will be very upset. Not because the streak would end but because the Broncos are so dang awful. On the flipside if we win, then we will have won 14 times in a row which is awesome but terrible for my wife. So this is really a lose, lose for us.

Now lets talk about the game for a second. We have the number 1 ranked offense against the number 1 ranked defense. So that is a good story line. The Broncos do have a good defense but it isn’t like they have played a ton of offensive juggernauts. Also, this defense has to be about ready to call it quits. I mean you can’t keep carrying this team to low scoring loss after low scoring loss without eventually cracking. Playing a pissed off Chiefs team after a loss is the perfect time for them to break.

On the flip side, the Chiefs defense is okay…sort of middle of the pack. But the Broncos offense is one of the worst things I have ever seen in NFL history. They aren’t good at anything. They are terrible on 3rd down. Russ gets sacked 2 or more times a game. They have a ton of injuries. They aren’t very good at running and they are worse at passing. I have sat through a lot of these games and I don’t see any possible way they can score enough points to win this game. The Broncos average 13.8 points per game. They have averaged 11.7 points per game the last 3 weeks. I can’t imagine a scenario where the Chiefs don’t score at least 20.

After all the offseason hype, the poor Broncos somehow got worse. Their quarterback is a ball full of positive energy and no self awareness. He has a lot of skill sets but reading the room apparently isn’t one. Russ has 8 touchdown passes. 8! A couple of weeks ago he was the #33 best fantasy quarterback. There are only 32 teams. The running joke on sports radio around here is that he will finish with more bathrooms than touchdown passes. Apparently he has 12 bathrooms in his house. It is looking more and more realistic that he will not hit that number in passing touchdowns. Their coach is even more lost and doesn’t seem to understand what he is even supposed to be doing or saying half the time. Then you tack on that they are missing about half their offensive starters and it is a recipe for disaster. The one thing they are good at is not turning the ball over so they have that going for them. But it doesn’t matter a whole lot when you go 3 and out most of the time.

The Chiefs usually play down to their opponents but I don’t think they can play this low. The Chiefs win big and the streak goes to 14. And I will be watching it all sitting uncomfortably on the far end of the couch. The only good news…we have is a new couch is being delivered today. Our current couch has all sorts of issues. It is beat up, broken springs, holes, you name it. It is the Bermuda triangle for remotes and other items. If you care about something, don’t bring it to our couch. You may never see it again. Anyway, we get a new one today. So that will make our uncomfortable Sunday a little more comfortable. So that is nice.

Chiefs 30 Broncos 16

Teams that are going to play in the Super Bowl: Bills and Eagles

The Eagles put on an impressive showing against a quality Titans team that hadn’t given up more than 20 points since week 3. They can run, they can pass and they can play defense. Their run defense was suspect for a couple of weeks but a couple of free agent signings have mostly solved that problem. Even better news for them is there are no other great teams in the NFC. The 49ers lost their quarterback who I didn’t trust in big moments anyway and the Cowboys are going to need to win a playoff game before I buy into Dak getting it done when it counts. The rest of the NFC is a mess.

Team I now hate: Stupid Bengals

The Bengals are really good and probably have the best chance to beat the Bills. They don’t have a glaring weakness. Eventually they are going to have to pay all these guys and they will take a step back but they are going to win a lot until then. They are the won thing that can stop Patrick Mahomes. I hate Burrow, I hate Chase, I hate them all. Stupid Bengals.

Team that can’t beat the Bengals: Chiefs

Top to bottom we are the 3rd best roster in the AFC and the Bills and Bengals are actually pretty far ahead of us. We have Mahomes, Kelce, and Chris Jones and that covers a lot but when we play these two teams it isn’t enough. We don’t have a legit edge rusher anyone fears. Our cover guys are young and might be good but aren’t good yet. And we don’t have go to receiver. The Bengals and Bills both have 3 receivers better than any of ours. These two games is where we really miss Tyreek. I think overall we are a more balanced team. We lost by 3 every time we play these clowns and only lost to the Bills by 4. So we are close and if a few things go our way we can beat them but make no mistake they have better rosters than we do. Also, I hate the Bengals.

Teams that have a lot of wins but will lose in the playoffs: Cowboys and Vikings

These teams have a combined 19 wins so I feel like I have to rank them this high. But I am not confident that either team can win games that matter. They might win a playoff game because the rest of the NFC isn’t great either. But neither team is going to Philly and winning and I think San Fran and Tom Brady would beat them when it matters.

Team that is the most injury prone ever: 49ers

I mean they keep winning despite it but come on, how do they have this many injuries? Jimmy G broke his foot! I can’t even remember the last time someone broke their foot playing football. So now they will roll with Brock Purdy who was the very last pick in the 2022 season. I guess it is sort of cool that Mr. Irrelevant is now Relevant. I mean cool for us…not the 49ers.

Team that is fun, will make the playoffs but is behind the top 3 AFC teams: Dolphins

The Dolphins are fun. Tyreek is fun. Tua is fun. But overall they just aren’t quite as good as the top 3 in the AFC. They will make the playoffs and they will win a game, maybe even two. But as I said last week, we will begin to see how good they really are. Losing to the 49ers and Brock Purdy wasn’t a good start.

Teams that tie: Commanders and Giants

A tie was the perfect ending to this game with two slightly above average teams. They were perfectly matched and neither is winning a playoff game. But one of them will make it. My money is still on Washington but they play again in two weeks will pretty much be a play in game. Or even better maybe they will tie again.

Teams that will make the playoffs but are boring: Titans and Ravens

The Titans got worked on Sunday and haven’t beaten anyone with a winning record. They can’t throw and can barely run now but play in the second worst division in football so they will likely be the 4 seed. The Ravens offense gets worse every week with or without Lamar. Also, for all the people who said he wouldn’t get hurt running all the time…he sure gets hurt a lot. It took them 3 quarters, 14 and half minutes to score a touchdown this week against the Broncos. But the Ravens schedule is soft so they will make it in even if they don’t win their division. Let’s just hope they aren’t the 5 seed because no one wants to watch these two teams play on wild card weekend.

Teams that are fun but all but 1 will miss the playoffs: Jets, Raiders, Chargers

All of these teams are way more entertaining than the Ravens and Titans but only one is likely to get into the playoffs. The Jets are way better with Mike White at quarterback. Turns out that Zach Wilson is more of a disaster than we thought. The Raiders haven’t lost since Derek Carr cried and this time they even did it in regulation. The Chargers are as always overhyped in the offseason all to choke away their season as they sit at exactly 6-6. But hey, Herbert is fun to watch. It is going to be an interesting next few weeks to see who gets in of this group.

Team I don’t know what to do with: Seahawks

Are they good? Is Geno Smith good? Are they a playoff team? I am not sure about any of it. But I am sure they don’t miss Russell Wilson.

Team that owns the Bears: Packers

Aaron Rodgers sure does enjoy beating the Bears. To bad they don’t own anyone else this year. To bad they can’t play the Bears every week. Also, how about Christian Watson. He is the next Chris Carter. (All he does is catch touchdowns! Said in a Chris Berman voice). He has 8 touchdowns in his last 17 receptions. Real glad I picked him up on my fantasy teams.

Teams that aren’t very good but are scrappy and fun: Lions, Jaguars and Bears

The poor Lions put on quite the show on Sunday. They aren’t very good but they do score a lot and that is fun. The Jaguars were embarrassed but I am leaving them in the scrappy and fun category and if Lawrence plays, I think they upset the Titans this week. And as long as Justin Fields is running around the Bears are fun. Without him, they are pretty awful to watch.

Teams that aren’t very good and aren’t scrappy and fun: Steelers, Patriots, Cardinals and Rams

The Steelers will probably finish 9-8 because that is what they do. But it won’t be fun getting there. There is nothing fun or interesting about the Patriots. The only interesting thing about the Cardinals is what a dumpster fire they are. The Rams don’t have anybody left playing that you have heard of.

The 2020 NFC East: The 2022 NFC South

The Bucs need one more win to end this category but until someone has a winning record they stay here. The Falcons lost to the lowly Steelers. The Saints somehow found a way to give up a 13 point lead with like 5 minutes left. And the Bucs needed the Saints bad decisions to win the game. The Saints last drive, they ran left for 3 yards which I had no problem with. Then on second down, they decided to take their best receiver, Olave off the field and then run play action with like only two routes and Andy Dalton took a sack. This set up a 3rd and long. Dalton actually made a good throw but of course the QB/TE/RB Hill, who isn’t good enough to actually play any of those positions dropped it. Giving Brady around 3 minutes to score the winning td. The Bucs didn’t even have to use their last timeout to do so. Unreal. The Panthers had the best week of the group as they were on a bye.

Team that traded a bunch of draft picks and gave a bunch of money to a controversial quarterback and still sucks: Browns

The Browns with Deshaun Watson are technically 1-0 but it was hardly an impressive win. The Texans are terrible and the Browns couldn’t even score an offensive touchdown. It was the Texans who helped them by turning the ball over multiple times. I know the Browns are desperate but Watson didn’t look good. He hasn’t played real football in like 2 years so maybe he is just rusty. If you are a Browns fan, you certainly hope so.

Team that should have hired a real coach: Colts

This thing was fun for a couple of weeks but over the last two weeks it is clear that Saturday is in over his head. It turns out hiring somebody with the same resume as me to lead your franchise isn’t a good idea. Who knew.

Worst…Ride…Ever: Broncos

This thing gets more brutal every week. It was a lot like a soccer game with little scoring and lots of kicking as both teams punted a lot and combined for 4 field goals. As boring as it was, what made it worse was that is was close. So you had to keep watching even though you didn’t want to. And then with 28 seconds left a touchdown was scored. My poor wife just walked away. Needless to say we weren’t a happy couple on Sunday with both our teams losing. The good news is one of our teams will win this Sunday. My money is on the team that can score more than 10 points.

Worst…Organization…Ever: Texans

There have been a lot of bad teams over the years. Even teams that went defeated and didn’t win a game. But I don’t remember anything as dysfunctional as the Texans from top to bottom. The only good news here is that I made a bet with a friend who is a big believer in Lovie Smith and said they would win 7 games. It is now mathematically impossible for them to do that. So I won the bet and have that going for me at least.

Every week I give you five picks and more importantly five story lines for this weekend’s games. I went 4-1 again last week bringing my total to 8-2. Last week I made the very bad decision to pick the Broncos to win. Don’t worry that won’t happen again this year. Let’s get started.

The fastest game of the week: Titans @ Eagles

These teams both like to run…a lot. This means the clock will be running. The Eagles are the much better passing team. They just choose not to throw sometimes. Last week Jalen Hurts had more rushing yards than passing yards. They have a good stable of running backs led by Miles Sanders. They will likely throw the ball more this week than last but even then they are usually high percentage throws or if no one is open, guess what, Hurts just runs.

On the other side, I am confident the Titans would prefer not to ever throw. The problem is the rest of the league also knows this. That is why they are focused on stopping Derick Henry. He is averaging less than 3 yards a carry the last 2 weeks. The Packers were able to run the ball well against the Eagles but they also had the threat of throwing. The Titans not so much. But this won’t stop them from running a bunch. They are who they are…even if who they are doesn’t beat good teams.

The other interesting storyline here is AJ Brown playing his old team that decided to trade him instead of paying him. This turned out to be a bad idea as the Eagles are way better at throwing with him and the Titans are way worse at throwing without him. AJ is a guy you can just throw it up to and he will win 75% of the time. This is the sort of receiver that Tannehill needs to be successful. Without AJ, Tannehill has been average at best. AJ was very vocal after the trade and I am sure he will be very vocal on the field. He doesn’t strike me as a guy who keeps his emotions inside.

If you listen to Skip Bayless, then first of all you are losing brain cells and secondly you know that he thinks Hurts is the MVP over Mahomes because he has won more games. This is a dumb argument because what happens if he loses a game? He is a Mahomes hater and it doesn’t matter what happens he will always pick someone else. But Hurts does have a fine resume. But there are also games where he doesn’t have to do a lot. This is one of the better defenses he will face and the Titans don’t let anyone score that many points.

Also, this could also be deemed the game of most grumpy coaches. Mike Vrabel always looks like he is ready for a fight and Nick Siranni looks like the most unhappiest 10-1 coach of all time and just a couple of weeks ago yelled at random Colts fans.

This literally might be a 2 and half hour game. Just like last week, I think the Titans are well coached, good football team that will keep it close. But in close games I go with the quarterback and kicker I trust most. And that is never the Titans. (Titans kicker missed a fg last week). The good news is if you are fan of either of these teams, you will be able to catch the end of all the other early games.

Eagles 24 Titans 20

Massage Gate: Browns @ Texans

This will likely be the only visit by the Texans in the five for Friday picks but this storyline is too good to be true. And I couldn’t resist the Massage Gate tagline to poke at my friend Evan. He rightfully has pointed out time and time again it doesn’t make sense to add “gate” to every controversy. This of course comes from Watergate which involved no water. So why do we add gate to spy gate or whatever controversy happens over and over again? It drives him crazy so I couldn’t resist here.

I am not here to claim Deshaun Watson is innocent or guilty. I like to do this crazy thing called letting the facts come out and seeing what happens before passing judgement. I know that is abnormal in this new world where Twitter decides the fate of everyone. I have said it many times before but I know our society will be back on track whenever news stories no longer report on what steve4712 said about something on Twitter. Why random strangers opinions on a social media platform where they can say whatever they want without consequence is news worthy is beyond me, but I digress.

Regardless of how you feel about Watson’s innocence you have to admit this is one of the weirder stories in sports history. Let’s say he is innocent. Even so, I don’t do anything as much as Watson get massages. I mean the rate he gets massages is higher than the rate at which the Texans organization pisses off their players. The sure number of people he got massages from is impressive. And we only know about the ones who have accused him of something.

Also, this might be controversial, but I think massages are weird. I’ve never had one because the idea of a stranger touching me that much freaks me out. I am like the anti Watson when it comes to massages. He wants everyone to touch him and I don’t want anyone to touch me. I am more likely to pay a stranger not to touch me than get a massage.

The Texans drafting a great quarterback with at a minimum a weird addiction to massages and at the worst a guy who gets massages to assault women is about the most Texans thing ever. Even when they get it right, they get it wrong. I have said for a few weeks now that this is the worst organization in Sports. You know you are a bad organization when your players don’t want to play for you. Before Massage Gate happened, Watson already said he wasn’t playing for the Texans anymore. He would rather take a 23 million dollar pay cut than play for the Texans. Think about that. Even good soldiers who don’t complain like Brandin Cooks don’t want to play for them anymore because even though he went out and played his best when they had the opportunity to give him a gift to trade him to a non terrible team, they declined. Knowing the Texans they probably even promised they would trade him. And now they have taken one of my running backs in fantasy football and made him completely worthless. Dameon Pierce was a top notch running back until teams figured out that literally all they had to do was stop him because the rest of the offense is so bad. He has had less than 10 yards rushing in both the last two games. The Texans are awful and seem to find a way to get even worse every week.

The Browns on the other hand are so desperate to not suck that they traded for Watson. Innocent? Guilty? The Browns don’t care. The Browns playoff history isn’t quite as sad as the Lions (check out my rankings to hear about that). But it is still really bad. Since 1994 the Browns have been to the playoffs twice. Their luck is so bad that the original organization actually moved to Baltimore and won a few championships. This isn’t even the real Browns organization. I know they got to keep the Browns history or whatever but we know who they are. Anyway they want to win in the worst way. They would take anyone on their team no matter what they had done if it helps them win. This might be frowned upon by most but I sort of appreciate this level of desperation. I mean I don’t condone it but I am not judging it either. The reality is most of us don’t care what it takes for our team to win, as long as they win. The Browns are just more honest about it. And I say good for them. Honestly is always the best policy.

The final character in this story line is the NFL. The NFL is all about saving face without really sacrificing anything. They also know they are a business. They let an outside source that they choose decide Watson’s Fate. He got 6 games because by NFL rules that is pretty much what he should have gotten. But the league knew the world wouldn’t accept that. So they simply didn’t accept the ruling. This forced Watson to settle and he got 11 games. This was perfect timing by the NFL. It is way far into the season…so much so that no one cares about this story anymore. The NFL knows America’s outrage is short lived. Where are the protests? Where is the anger? This is how America rolls. We get real angry about something for like a week and then we are like…That’s a lot of work….I’ll just go live my life now. And the NFL played it perfectly. And not even the NFL respects the Texans based upon inserting him so that his first game back is against his old team. This gives the NFL a story line that matters in a game that doesn’t. The other way the NFL won this battle is the Browns are not good. If Watson was coming back to a 7-4 team instead of a 4-7 team then there might be more outrage. But no one thinks this team is doing anything at this point with or without Watson. And by the time next year rolls around, America will definitely be over this story.

As for the actual game, the Texans are awful at everything and the Browns are less awful at everything so this won’t be close. It will be a great game for Watson to massage his stats (see what I did there) and the Browns will win big.

Browns 30 Texans 10

The Nerd Bowl: Dolphins @ 49ers

Are there two nerdier head coaches in football than Kyle Shanahan and Mike McDaniel? McDaniel is likely king of the nerds. I think we are all skeptical that this kid ever played a sport. He looks like he grew up playing video games instead of playing outside. Which is why he is probably such a good coach. I have always argued that ever NFL staff needs a madden player on it. But I never thought that person would be the head coach. He is a funny character that says funny things. My favorite moment was when he said Tyreek and the other captains decided to remove the ping pong table out of the facility so they could focus on winning. Tyreek came back the next day and said, nah…it is just broken and we are getting another one. McDaniel didn’t miss a beat and just kept on doing his thing.

Shanahan is a more serious nerd that has grown up in the game his whole life under the tutelage of his dad who sort of looks like a rat. But man, that rat could coach. Kyle is a really good football coach. He is also really good at almost winning stuff.

Both of these teams are very talented. They have lots of fast guys running around that can do lots of different things. They have great coaches that know how to use those fast guys and they have limited quarterbacks that seem to find a way to win most of the time. Tua is undefeated this year when he finishes games. But besides the Bills they really haven’t beaten anyone great. Jimmy G is very limited but wins a lot when he isn’t stepping out of the back of end zones or playing the Chiefs.

The Chiefs game is what makes me nervous about this one for the 49ers. The Dolphins can score a lot and Jimmy G is not good at keeping up. The 49ers have the better defense and are healthier now but they could not slow down the Chiefs at all. Also, I am sure the 49ers will have 3 or 4 injuries this game. Tua is playing well but this will be the biggest test he will face since he literally got knocked out of the Bengals game. This game should be a lot of fun. It will be my ipad game during the Chiefs game.

In a game like this, I don’t really trust either quarterback but I have less reason not to trust Tua. So I will go with the nerdier coach and the quarterback I have slightly more faith in. Jimmy G throws a bad, late interception to clinch it for the Dolphins.

Dolphins 27 49ers 20

The Hat Trick Game: Chargers @ Raiders

The Raiders have won back to back games in overtime. I don’t remember any team playing in 3 overtime games in a row but the Chargers are the perfect opponent to do it with. They also came off a very close win over the Cardinals by going for 2 at the very end of the game to win it.

Both of these teams are very competitive against everyone without actually beating anyone good. Both teams have had injury issues and both teams have had some brutal losses. Also, both teams along with the Broncos were overly hyped in the offseason. Unlike the Broncos both teams can score more than 10 points.

The Chargers are the perennial off season AFC West champs that become choke artists when the season starts. There run defense has been so bad that even the Chiefs ran for a lot of yards against them. On the flip side Josh Jacobs ran for like 300 yards last week. He does have a calf issue but is still probably good for 100 yards on 1 leg against the Chargers. I am not sure why their defense is so bad. They have good players and a “defensive” minded coach but that has not led to their ability to actually stop anyone.

The Raiders on the other hand can’t stop anyone either. But they are undefeated since Derek Carr cried. Davante Adams has been unguardable of late. And of course Jacobs has been running over everyone all year. The Raiders also had quite the hype train going in the offseason but started off terrible losing close game after close game.

These teams are in a lot of ways mirrors of each other which should lead to an exciting game. Both teams absolutely need this win and the Raiders are all but technically eliminated with a loss. Neither team is great but it should be a great game.

Herbert is the better athlete but those tears of Carr are hard to beat. I think the Raiders pull off the upset and the overtime Hat Trick for the win.

Raiders 37 Chargers 30 in OT

The Revenge Game: Chiefs @ Bengals

I love my Chiefs but I hate this match up. The Bengals are a good team. Lots of the media is jumping on their bandwagon. They beat us twice last year, both times in games we had no business losing. They have enough fire power to come from behind and Burrow seems to have our number.

To make matters worse, Justin Reid decided to talk some smack to give them extra motivation. This tends to never work out well. I was not pleased by his comments and based upon Big Red’s press conference today, neither was he. They have arguable the best receiver trio in the league with Chase, Higgins and Boyd. And even know Justin Reid doesn’t know his name, Hayden Hurst is playing quite well as well.

To make things even harder, when you look at our schedule, it is hard to imagine us losing any other games. We would finish 15-2 which seems too good. 14-3 for some reason just sounds more realistic. So losing this game seems about right. The bad news is if we lose, we would have lost to the Bills and Bengals who I see as our biggest threat to making it to the Super Bowl.

Also, for some reason we haven’t beaten the Bengals in Cincinnati since 1988. So I guess we are due. How we haven’t beaten them there since then is bizarre but also not the best sign.

There are some positives though. Although, I don’t think our defense is great it is better than last year. We have 35 sacks through 11 games. We only had 31 all last year. Chris Jones and Nick Bolton are playing at all pro levels.

Our offense also played bad last week which I think is good for us. When was the last time you remember Mahomes having two bad games in a row. Also, although he unlike stupid Justin Reid, has said all the right things, you know he is still pissed off about last year. The only quarterback better than Pat is pissed off Pat.

I don’t have a great feeling about this game but at the same time, the Chiefs have exceeded my expectations all year. I think it is a shootout, Mahomes drives us down for a game winning td and Chris Jones sacks Burrow to end any chance of a comeback and ends the game.

Chiefs 37 Bengals 30

Team that is really good but likes to play down to their competition: Chiefs

As I predicted, the game against the Rams was much closer than it needed to be. We tend to play at the level of our competition. That is good news when we play a team like the Chargers or 49ers. It’s not great news when we play the Colts or the Rams. The good news is we play the Bengals this week so we should see a better performance from our offense. After that we play the Broncos and Texans and those teams are so bad, I don’t think we can play down to their level even if we tried.

Teams that can score enough points to beat the Chiefs: Eagles, Dolphins, Bills, Bengals

These 4 teams have weaknesses for sure. But in order to beat the Chiefs you have to be able to put up points. All 4 of these teams have what it takes from a coaching and talent level to have the potential to outscore the Chiefs. Right now, I think these 4 teams and the Chiefs are the only ones with a realistic chance of winning the super bowl. I’m most skeptical of the Dolphins. We will know if they are legit over the next 3 weeks as they play 3 road games in a row against the 49ers, Chargers and Bills. (Although, I am sure the Chargers game will feel like a home game).

Teams that look like super bowl contenders one week but can lay a super dud another week: 49ers, Cowboys, Vikings

A lot of this comes down to quarterback play. Due to the NFC being sort of a mess, I actually think all 3 of these teams along with the Eagles have a chance to represent the conference in the super bowl. But on the biggest stage the only one I sort of trust is Hurts. Jimmy G obviously has his limitations and on top of that, they are the most injury prone team of all time. Elijah Mitchell got hurt again, Deebo is banged up and McCaffrey left the game for a little bit with an injury. The only stadium that takes out more players than sofi is what ever stadium the 49ers play in that week. Despite having more upside than Jimmy G and being surrounded by talent, I don’t trust either Dak or Cousins in big situations. And the Vikings D doesn’t put up much of a fight against other teams either.

They are who they are…and who they are is limited: Titans, Ravens

These are two really good football teams led by really good football coaches who have a very clear identity. The problem is they simply can’t throw the ball on any consistent basis. Lamar is on my fantasy teams and so I watch a lot of Ravens football. He has missed at least 5 or 6 wide open people on deep balls that would be touchdowns. His inaccuracy combined with injuries has led to this team being basically a run only team. Because of their schedule, that might be enough to win the division but not enough to win in the playoffs. The Titans have similar issues. The goal of the other team is basically stop Henry and make Tannehill beat us. That can work against lesser teams but doesn’t pan out against good teams like we saw on Sunday. They will never lose big…but they won’t win when it matters most.

Teams that are way better without Zach Wilson: Jets

Zach Wilson has been a disaster. I thought we would see Flacco this week but instead they went with Mike White. I know he has a generic name but he’s a real person, I promise. And he played a hell of a game. In games that Zach Wilson doesn’t play, the Jets lead the league in passing yards. In games that Zach Wilson does play they are 31 in passing (this still seems high). I know they played the Bears who have more holes in their defense then the movie Holes. But still the week before Wilson had less completions than punts. That is quite the turn around. Wilson’s career might be over.

Teams that had a running back have a big game and then wear a big hat: Commanders

Brian Robinson is on my fantasy team. Unfortunately he was on my bench. It was a rough week in my family league as I started Dameon Pierce and JuJu over Robinson and Chris Godwin. Needless to say, I did not win. Anyway, after the game Robinson wore an unusually large hat. It’s worth a google. You won’t be disappointed.

Best team in the league that doesn’t have fans: Chargers

Name a Chargers fan that you know. I’ll wait.

Team about to lose out: Giants

It was a nice story but sometimes your record is based upon who you have played. The Giants have dropped two in a row and now face Washington and the Eagles twice, Minnesota and the Colts. Sure they might win a game or two but I would not be shocked if they lose out. Now that I have said this they will probably win most of these games. You’re welcome Giants fans.

2023 AFC South Champs: Jaguars

They have lost one game by more than one score and that was only by 10. This is a very well coached young football team that is only going to get better. They are too far down to catch everyone in the playoff race but look out for the Jags next year.

Team that just lost to the Raiders but is still glad Russell Wilson isn’t their quarterback: Seahawks

Terrible loss to a bad team and they let Josh Jacobs run for like a thousand yards. Seahawks are starting to get exposed but are still at least fun and best of all don’t have to suffer through Russell Wilson playing quarterback.

Team that used to be great and now is irrelevant: Patriots

The Patriots without Tom Brady are pretty worthless. They beat the Jets in a game that had one exciting play at the very end. Then they lost to the Vikings in a game that had lots of exciting plays but not enough good ones for them. They are well coached and do enough well to win games but they are destined to be 8-9 or 9-8 for the foreseeable future.

Team that has a quarterback who really likes massages: Browns

Too soon?

The 2020 NFC East: The 2022 NFC South

This division finds ways to get worse every week. The Bucs lost in overtime to the lowly Browns. The Falcons literally threw away the game against the Commanders. I almost forgot the Saints were still a football team. Apparently so did their offense. The only winner this week were the Panthers but they beat the Broncos and that barely counts. This has all the makings of an 8-9 or 7-10 team making the playoffs. Hopefully there is another set up where one team loses on purpose and keeps another team from winning the division. That always makes for good tv and at least one angry fan base.

Team that still sucks but is starting to be a little more fun: Packers

Yeah they still lost but at least they are scoring points now. And Christian Watson is fun. They have good players so I am not sure why they are so bad. Maybe they will play Jordan Love and he will play well and he can end Aaron Rodgers career just like Rodgers ended Favre’s. Time will tell.

Team that refuses to ever have a losing record: Steelers

I don’t believe Mike Tomlin has ever had a losing record. Going into last night’s game, they were sitting at 3-7. Now they are 4-7. They can lose one more game and still finish 9-8. They have the Falcons, Ravens twice, Panthers, Raiders and Browns on the schedule. I mean it doesn’t look impossible for them to go 5-1 during that stretch. Maybe they can fit a tie in there somewhere and finish 8-8-1.

Team that is undefeated since their quarterback cried in public: Raiders gonna Raider

All it took was a few tears to win back to back games in overtime. Hosting the Chargers this week is a perfect set up for overtime game #3.

Team that should have hired me instead of Jeff Saturday: Colts

While Jeff and I have a lot in common as far as a resume to be a head football coach, (both coached high school football, both are named Jeff, both make snarky comments), there is one area where I am confident that I am highly more qualified as I am willing to bet I have played a ton more Madden than he has. I am firm believer that every team should have a Madden Nerd to help with clock management. Why he allowed so much time to go off the clock makes zero sense to me…but then again I have played a lot of Madden. When Matt Ryan scrambled and then dove but ended up 3 yards short of the first down (which is about the most Matt Ryan thing ever) you had to call a timeout there. You have two plays to get 3 yards. You call timeout to make sure you gather everyone together and make sure you get it right. You also save like 20 seconds on the clock. You had all 3 timeouts and still were only at the 30. It made no sense and his reasoning made less sense. But again, he probably hasn’t played much Madden.

Worst home team ever: Cardinals

They are 1-6 at home. Yes, you read that correctly. They are 1-11 in their last 12 home games. You can’t make this stuff up. Teams with more home wins this year include the Steelers, Broncos, Raiders and the Chargers (and the Chargers don’t even really have a home).

Saddest team to be a fan of: Lions

The Lions have been historically bad for a long time. Since the 1958 season, they have won exactly 1 playoff game. Let that sink in for a minute. They haven’t been to the playoffs since 2016. They haven’t won double digit games since 2014. They once went defeated (0-16). But under Dan Campbell they are at least scrappy and fun. They even had a winning streak of 3 games. Then the Bills were in town for Thanksgiving. The Lions played competitive football for 4 quarters. They were down 3 late and driving. They had a 3rd and 1 and for some reason decided to throw it deep. I’ve never understood the throw it deep on 3rd and 1 strategy. How about you throw it short and get the first down and keep the drive going. But instead on 4th and 1 they kick a FG to tie and go into overtime. The problem is there was 23 seconds left. Josh Allen needed basically one play to get the Bills in FG range because the Lions D is so bad. They kick the game winner and Buffalo wins two games in a row in Detroit. This is something the Lions haven’t done since 2016. Mad props to any Lions fans out there for hanging with your team through it all.

Team that used to be fun and scrappy and now is just injured and sad: Bears

Just a week ago, I thought this team is fun. Now Fields is hurt and Mooney is out for the year. Trevor Siemian, the back up quarterback got hurt during warm ups. If that isn’t the saddest line of the week, I don’t know what is. He got a shot so he could play through the pain keeping fans from having to watch Nathan Peterman play football. Their one good defensive player, Eddie Jackson got hurt too. And they traded all their other good defensive guys. It was a fun 3 weeks of being interested in Bears football.

Rams…more like Lambs…am I right?:

This team is a very bad football team. I mean our defense is improved but they are not that good. They can’t run. They can’t pass. They really just can’t wait for this season to be over.

Seriously…when is this ride going to be over: Broncos

I didn’t think it could get worse but apparently I was wrong. This team is so bad offensively. They are dead last in points scored averaging 14.3 points per game. The last 3 games they are averaging 12 points a game. At one point the announcer said they had 18 drives in a row without scoring a touchdown. And it looks like the defense finally gave up. Coming into this game, if they had scored 18 points a game they would have been 8-1. But the defense has had enough as they gave up plenty of points to Sam Darnold of all people. This is a new low. Russ is all about positivity except when it comes to getting positive yards. Even my wife who is die hard gave up. About half way through the 4th quarter she said change it, lets watch some good football. This is the first time this has happened in the history of our marriage. They traded Drew Lock for Russell Wilson and got worse offensively. Let that sink in. And now they face an angry Ravens team followed by the Chiefs. This ride is about to get a lot longer and a lot more miserable.

Worst organization ever: Texans

They are so bad that Dameon Pierce is worthless in fantasy football now. I literally can’t play him. Everyone just stops him because the quarterback play is so bad and they don’t have anyone to throw too. This isn’t just a terrible team, this is the worst organization in all of professional sports.

Every week I give you 5 picks and more importantly 5 storylines for this weekend’s games. Last week I was 4-1. Let’s get started with week 12.

Broncos @ Panthers: The “Do we have to” game:

True love is watching your spouse’s team with them no matter how painful it might be. But I will definitely be asking “Do we have to” in my head. The Broncos are coming off yet another devastating loss, this one to the Raiders…again. The Panthers are coming off a 10 point loss to the Ravens in a game that was tied 3-3 for three and half quarters. This one has all the makings of that exciting Thursday night game when the Broncos played to Colts. This is before the Colts hired Jeff Saturday and became fun.

I am not one to make excuses for the Broncos as they were just as bad in the beginning of the year as they are now, but their team has been decimated by injuries. While the 49ers are typically the most injury prone team in the league, we might have a new champion this year. The ironic part is Nathaniel Hackett insisted on not playing his starters in preseason games and running light practices to keep the team healthy. This led to a slow start followed by a ton of injuries. The recent release of Mr. Fumble, Melvin Gordon, only makes them more depleted. They are down to one starting receiver, their 3rd starting running back, half an offensive line and about a 3rd of their defensive starters.

But don’t worry they still have their Quarterback. The running joke on the radio is whether or not he will finish the year with more bathrooms or touchdown passes. He has 12 bathrooms, which seems excessive. He has a ways to go to catch up with touchdown passes. Russ has been a major disappointment to say the least. To my wife’s credit, she was skeptical from the beginning. Living in Denver, I heard all offseason on the radio how this was a playoff roster and how now we have the quarterback to take them all the way. As Maury Povich would say the evidenced has determined “That was a lie!” But even Maury couldn’t have predicted it would be this bad. The combination of injuries, bad play and terrible coaching decisions has combined to make this one of the worst teams in the league. A team who the year before had a quarterback battle between Drew Lock and Teddy Bridgewater, somehow got worse.

Meanwhile, the Panthers have been in tank mode for what seems like the better part of a decade. Their coach was fired very early in the year. Matt Rhule seemed over his head early on and never seemed to be able to figure it out. They have had a carousel of quarterbacks which is never a good sign for a team. That with questionable play calling and a lack of leadership skills led to his demise. The Panthers fired him and traded their best player and then…got better. That tells you all you need to know about Rhule. They improved by benching Baker Mayfield, a good plan for any team to succeed, and starting PJ Walker. Walker isn’t great but can run and doesn’t turn the ball over a lot. So basically the opposite of Mayfield. Unfortunately for the Panthers, Walker got hurt and with his loss they went from an okay team back to a bad one. They mustered 3 points last week which has led to the insertion of Sam Darnold into the starting lineup. You may have forgotten Darnold but he was a top 3 draft pick a few years back. Actually it was the same year Mayfield went #1. Literally, the Panthers have 2 of the top 3 picks for the 2018 draft and would rather not start either one of them. To say Darnold has been bad would be an understatement.

All this leads to what should be a very boring, low scoring game that we will suffer through because my wife is a very loyal fan. I can’t imagine anyone, not even the Broncos losing to Sam Darnold so I think they come out on top but it won’t be pretty. But hey, a win is a win and hopefully it will make my wife happy. Happy wife, happy life.

Broncos 12 Panthers 6

Bengals @ Titans: The I-pad game

While the Broncos will take over the big screen, I do have the NFL ticket so I’ll be switching around to different games on my iPad. I’ll be checking most games for fantasy football purposes but I’ll mostly be tuned into this one, a rematch from the playoffs last year. These teams had quite the battle last year as every divisional game went down to the wire. This game was so competitive mostly because Tannehill threw 3 bad interceptions and the Bengals kicker had what might have been the greatest post season by a kicker ever.

Derrick Henry has been running over everyone and occasionally throwing touchdowns. With such a good run game and defense, they really only need Tannehill to be serviceable which he is most games but occasionally turns the ball over multiple times. The Bengals are a formidable opponent with no major weaknesses. Their o-line has started to get better and is no longer letting Joe Burrow get sacked 6 times a game. And in good news for them and one of my fantasy teams, Jamar Chase looks like he will be returning.

These teams seem pretty equally matched. The Titans are at home and highly motivated after losing last year in the playoffs as the one seed. But in a tight game I typically go with the better quarterback and kicker. The Bengals have the better of both as the Titans have Tannehill and I am not sure who their kicker is, but no matter who it is they are usually good for a botched field goal every other game. The Bengals get another big kick late for the win.

Bengals 27 Titans 24

Rams @ Chiefs: The we play down to our competition game

At the beginning of the year, I saw this game and thought this will be an exciting game. The Rams have what looked like a great roster and just won the super bowl. But it turns out the Rams have like 5 great players and then a bunch of people you have never heard of. This has led to quite possibly the worst follow up season to a super bowl victory in the history of the NFL. To make matters worse, they lost their best offensive player a couple of weeks ago. And now their quarterback is concussed…again. Honestly, if it was up to the Rams, I think they would just call it a year and forfeit the rest of their games. But the NFL doesn’t allow that so they will show up to Arrowhead on Sunday even though they don’t want to be there.

So why am I worried about this game? Well the Chiefs have a tendency to play down to their competition. I am not sure why this is. It’s like they think they need to bring us to a near heart attack every week for entertainment purposes. Hey Chiefs, we think blow outs are fun. We won’t be disappointed at all.

There are a few things I am nervous about…this feels a little like week 3 against the Colts game. We just came off a big win against the Chargers and had a revenge game against the Bucs the following week. Well, we just came off a big win against the Chargers and have a revenge game against the Bengals next week. The Rams are not good but they do have some good defensive players that can create problems for us. They are starting a quarterback who is mobile and we have absolutely no real film on. And they have absolutely nothing to lose. A team with nothing to lose can be dangerous.

The differences between this and week 3 are two things. First of all, the Colts were desperate for a win. They had to win to save their season. I firmly believe the Rams gave up on their season a couple of weeks ago and are just waiting for it to be over. Secondly, we are a much better football team now. I think their quarterback will do enough to make things uncomfortable in the first half but we take care of business in the second half and win big…or at least big for us.

Chiefs 34 Rams 20

Packers @ Eagles: The Bragging rights for my kids game

My son is huge Packers fan. It started several years ago as he got tired of not being able to please both parents by picking either the Chiefs or Broncos so he went his own way. To his credit he has been loyal and I certainly can respect and empathize with his fandom has he has suffered much disappointment. We actually went to a game at Lambeau last year for his 13th birthday which was awesome.

Unfortunately for him, his Packers have not been good this year. The loss of Davante Adams has been a big one. Rodgers seems to think he should be able to just show up and do his thing without working out with his batch of new receivers. That has not proven to be true. Rodgers is a weird dude and seems unhappy most of the time when he is playing football. He’s like the teacher who has gotten tenure but still has to keep showing up for the paycheck but doesn’t really want to be there. They show up, throw out a few assignments and begrudgingly yell at a kid here or there that is misbehaving. It is painfully obvious to all the students and faculty that the teacher doesn’t want to be there, doesn’t actually like teaching and is just counting the days down to summer break. But no one knows what to do with him because you can’t really get rid of them but you can’t really have good classes with him either. I believe this is where the Packers are at with Rodgers. They have to keep running him out there and they don’t really have better options but they know he isn’t excited about it and it is sort of painful to watch.

My daughter on the other hand really cares very little about football. Her favorite game is the Super Bowl because she knows after that, she doesn’t have to watch anymore football for several months. This makes it all the more hilarious that she won our family fantasy football league last year. A few years back in a way to attempt to fit in and be a part of the Sunday festivities she picked the Eagles as her team during their Super Bowl run. One, they were winning and two, she likes birds. She has stayed loyalish to them ever since. I say loyalish because her fandom is simply asking me if they won. If they win she says “Yay!” If they lose, she says “oh, that’s too bad.” And then she moves on with her day. Let’s be honest, we would all be healthier people if we handled our fandom in the way she does.

However, this game is different. I think she will be more invested in this one. If there is one thing that brings joy to her it is antagonizing her big brother. She knows a win means bragging rights. And her Eagles are good. They haven’t played as well the last couple of weeks but I expect a bounce back game. They have a very good defense, a great running game and a good passing game. They don’t have any glaring weaknesses.

The Packers are desperate and will play them tough because they aren’t terrible. I believe the Packers will be down a score late and driving down the field. Rodgers will throw a late interception and blame the receiver for running the wrong route. And my daughter will pick at my son about it for the next several weeks.

Eagles 30 Packers 24

Steelers @ Colts: Saturday on Monday!

I don’t know why the Jeff Saturday story line brings me so much joy but it does. I am not sure if it is because they literally picked a guy off the street and he is somewhat succeeding. I don’t know if it is because all these former coaches that 3 weeks ago had the same job as Jeff Saturday are so upset about it. I don’t know if it is because we have the same first name and both once coached high school football. Whatever the reason I am all in on Jeff Saturday and the Colts. I am even trying to map out a path for them to make the playoffs which might make Bill Cowher and Rex Ryan’s heads explode.

Well, they aren’t making the playoffs without beating the lowly Steelers. The Steelers are actually playing better once they benched Mitch Trubisky in place of Kenny Pickett. It doesn’t take much to have an upgrade over Trubisky but Pickett is an upgrade for sure. They are sort of running the ball better and they win when TJ Watt plays more than they lose.

I am openly not a Steelers fan and also don’t really like Mike Tomlin. He once tried to trip a player on the field during a game and he often has food and spit stuck in his beard which really bothers my wife. But he is a hell of a football coach. He always finishes at least .500 no matter what talent or lack of talent he has. However, he is in trouble of keeping that streak alive. At 3-7 he can only lose 1 more game to keep that record alive. This is a big game in keeping that going. If they can win this game then they have a shot. The rest of the way, they’ve got the Falcons, Panthers, Raiders, Browns and Ravens twice. Win this and win one against the Ravens and they could have a realistic shot of finishing 9-8.

The Colts on the other hand also need a win to keep their playoff hopes alive. They are running the ball better and limiting the mistakes Matt Ryan can make. They are all of the sudden playing hard and almost knocked off the Eagles. A win here might send Bill Cowher straight to the hospital with a heart attack.

When I look at these two teams, I can’t really tell which one is better. They are both flawed and have issues. But I can’t help but to think at some point the fact that Jeff Saturday really has never coached before is going to catch up with him. Normally I would go with the home team, and I certainly will be cheering for Jeff and the Colts, but I think the Steelers pull this one out on the road. Assuming TJ Watt finishes the game. If Watt gets hurt then flip the score.

Steelers 20 Colts 17

Enjoy the weekend and check back in on Tuesday for my reactions and rankings.

10. Skip Bayless

Most of you know that of all the talking heads, Bayless is my least favorite. Skip is loud, annoying, biased and hates on Mahomes constantly. He also always refers to the Cowboys as “my Dallas Cowboys”. So why am I thankful for this idiot? Look we all make mistakes throughout the week. Forget to do something we were supposed to do, say something we shouldn’t have said, make a boss or a significant other upset with something we say or do. Whenever I am feeling low or stupid I can listen to him for 30 seconds and go man, at least I am not this moron. And not only that, this guy makes millions and millions of dollars so if he can be successful then so can I. Thanks Skip!

9. Streaming Companies

Have you really started to think about the fact that we can basically watch whatever we want, whenever we want, for very little costs. It is pretty amazing. Sure, I miss the nostalgia of going to Block Buster with my dad. But I don’t miss going to rent that brand new movie that I really wanted to see only to arrive and see 96 cases without one video behind the case. I love that I can watch any episode of Friday Night Lights without having to sort through DVDs. I love that I can start Lost with Walker. He currently gets upset because he has to wait a whole day before seeing the next episode. I had to wait a week and when they steal Walt off the boat I had to wait a whole year to see what happened. This generation will never know our pain. Anyway, streaming companies are great. All though there sure are a lot of them. I am glad they are all on automatic payments so I don’t have to pay attention to how much I am spending.

8. Christmas movies

Thanksgiving begins the process of watching as many Christmas movies as possible. We always kick it off with Home Alone because we often watched that on Thanksgiving in my family and we usually close it out on Christmas Eve with Christmas Vacation. In between you have Elf, the Santa Clause, Fred Claus, A Christmas Story, The Grinch, Home Alone 2, The Christmas Chronicles 1 and 2, Polar Express, Scrooged, Gremlins and more. And then at some point Danielle surprises me by turning on Die Hard and I surprise her by turning on Love Actually. (We also may or may not sneak in a viewing of Bad Santa). It is a great time as a family and takes away a lot of the decision making of what to watch for Movie night.

7. Getting Old

A lot of people don’t like getting old. And there are certain things I am not a fan of, for instance the fact that my knees don’t work anymore. But overall, getting old is pretty awesome. First of all, I avoid a lot of dumb stuff I used to do. Secondly, I do very little that I don’t want to do. I don’t need to impress anyone but my boss so outside of work if I am not feeling it, I am not doing it. And it is a great excuse to not do things. I’m too old to be out that late. I’m too old to go do that. As you get older you do what you want and say what you want. When an old person says something inappropriate or rude, we all say…ah, it’s okay they are just old. That’s the dream. Sometimes you see movies with a grumpy old man on a porch and he is always portrayed as someone who has issues. I think he has arrived.

6. Football

I love football. Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year because it involves my 3 favorite things. Food, family and football. I believe Football is the greatest game ever invented. I loved playing it. I loved coaching it and I love watching it. Some of my favorite memories involve football. Great memories from playing in high school and later coaching high school football as well. When I lived in St. Joe, we played flag football almost every weekend. It was a blast…although one time I did break my face. I kept playing which looking back was not a good decision. Pretty much if you are doing anything and you break your face, go to the hospital.

5. Thanksgiving meal

Some call it lunch, some call it dinner…who cares. It’s delicious. What’s not to love about this meal? I make a mean Turkey so I am pumped about that. But then you add in mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, usually some other random casseroles depending on who shows up and then you top it off with a delicious piece of Pumpkin Pie. Then you take a nap and then you eat it all again. Danielle’s favorite thing is Turkey Slop as she mixes it all together and warms it up. We actually got a second turkey this year to make after the meal so we could have more left overs. A genius move by my wife.

4. Fantasy Football

Fantasy Football is awesome. I am currently in 3 leagues. I am also currently in first place in all 3 leagues. This is abnormal but I am always competitive. My favorite league is my family league. It is a great way for us to communicate and keep in touch at least a little. My daughter, Savannah who was 9 at the time, won last year. Danielle’s sister’s family is especially entertaining as they all talk smack to each other. Her youngest niece responds to everything with “well…I have Tom Brady.” It’s a ton of fun. It also makes us pay attention to games that normally we wouldn’t care about. I watched most of the Bears vs Falcons game. I don’t particularly care about either team. But I had Fields and Kmet for the Bears and Patterson for the Falcons playing. That is the power of fantasy football…it gives me an excuse to watch more football. Also, as I mentioned earlier…I am winning. And winning is fun.

3. Patrick Mahomes

It may seem odd to some to have Patrick so high. But if my fellow Chiefs fans are honest with themselves, they would have him this high too. I have waited my whole life for the Chiefs to win something significant. I’ve been loyal, never jumping ship. All the winning is great. But we won before. But we lived in the world of “almost” and “should have”. We were the #1 seed at least twice. We suffered depressing playoff loss after depressing playoff loss. Andy Reid deserves a ton of credit as well as he took a disaster of a situation (we were 2-14 the year before and a player killed himself) and made us relevant again. In fact Andy has never had a losing record. Yet before Pat we only won 1 playoff game under Andy. It felt like Marty ball all over again. And then we drafted Patrick Mahomes. In my lifetime before Patrick was the starter, we were 4-15 in the playoffs. With Patrick we are 8-3. We have never not hosted the AFC Championship. We have only lost one playoff game in regulation. We won the first super bowl in my lifetime. We are never out of a game, even down 3 with 13 seconds to go. He has changed an entire fan base that assumed that things would go wrong and we would find a way to lose to a fan base now that assumes we will literally win every game and are disappointed whenever we don’t. It’s truly amazing. And oh yeah, he just turned 27. He’s the gift that keeps on giving.

2. Family and Friends

It starts with my amazing wife who puts up with my dad humor, constant watching of football, working long hours and all my other shenanigans. I have two kids that I actually like being around who are kind and can carry on conversations with adults and still think Dad is cool enough to hang around with. I have two exceptional siblings who I talk to and text with regularly. We aren’t just siblings. We do life together. I have two amazing parents that made and raised three mostly functional adults and are always there for us but also aren’t all up in our business either. And yes, I just wrote “up in our business.” Maybe I should start reading this aloud as I write.

I have a great extended family of nieces and nephews and cousins and uncles and aunts and was lucky enough to have 4 amazing Grandparents who have all passed. Not only that, I even like my wife’s family. Her sister and husband who live in Ohio are some of my best friends. Her family who lives close will all be joining us for Thanksgiving and I am legitimately looking forward to it because I like being around them. Not everyone can say that about their significant others family but I am grateful that I can.

And then I have had some of the greatest friends in the world. I have gotten to meet so many great people especially in St. Joseph and Jefferson City, MO. Some friends I talk to often and others I just see here and there or chat with on Facebook from time to time. But they are all special to me and I am grateful that each of them and the roles they played in my life. One of my favorite parts of this blog is that it has given me a reason to connect with former YL kids, leaders, high school friends and YL committee members. I miss you all but am so thankful for having you in my life.

And the number 1 thing I am thankful for….Jesus

Look I know many of you that are reading may have different views and overall this site was created to be funny and take a break from all the seriousness. But as I look at my life and look at all the people that are reading this…the one constant and the main connection point is Jesus. No matter what I have done good or bad I know that Jesus is my constant and because of my faith and my choice to follow Him, I have connected with all of you. So I am most thankful that I have Jesus in my life for all that I have been through, am going through and will go through. Enough said.

Happy Thanksgiving from Fifth-Down. Enjoy the best day of the year. I hope you all have a wonderful day with your families, watching football and eating delicious food.

-Jeff

Team that has a Cheat code: Chiefs

I am openly biased being a Chiefs fan but I don’t know what else to say than the Chiefs have a cheat code with Mahomes and Kelce. It’s ridiculous. Everyone knows he is going to get the ball but he is still consistently open and Mahomes has been incredible since we lost to Buffalo. Here are some crazy stats.

14-0: That’s Mahomes record on the road in the division. He has literally never lost.

25: That is the amount of games we have won in a row in November and December. The last time we lost was Nov. 10th, 2019.

10: number of Chiefs who have caught a touchdown.

4-0: Chiefs record when trailing at halftime this year.

49-3: That is Mahomes record when the opposing team scores 27 or less points.

I could go on and on. Look, I know we are beatable but at this point it sure feels like we are the most consistent and formidable team in the league. After all the media talk about the other 3 division rivals and how they all had a shot to dethrone the Chiefs, here we are 2 days before Thanksgiving and we have already pretty much won the division barring a complete collapse.

Super Bowl Contenders with issues: Eagles, Bills, Dolphins

All 3 of these teams are really good…most days. The Eagles are having trouble stopping the run and recently lost to the Commanders and almost lost to the Colts coached by Jeff Saturday who now has 2 more games of NFL coaching experience than you and I. The Bills go how Josh Allen goes which is normally a good thing…except when it is not. The Dolphins win as long as Tua is starting. But I still think Tua is limited and their defense gives up a ton of points to everyone.

Teams that will win their divisions but not much else: Titans, Ravens, Vikings

These are 3 solid teams. They will win a lot of games. However, they all have limitations. The Titans are run heavy and Tannehill is wildly inconsistent on how he performs. The Ravens put up 13 on the Panthers. Lamar isn’t a great thrower but he is also limited on who he has to throw to. I mean Demarcus Robinson is the leading receiver right now. He got cut by the Raiders before the season started. That should tell you what you need to know there. And the Vikings have Kirk Cousins. Enough said.

Teams that could win the super bowl or miss the playoffs: Bengals, 49ers, Bucs

I would not be surprised to see any of these teams in the Super Bowl come February. But I also wouldn’t be shocked if they miss the playoffs all together. Seriously how much longer can Brady play at a high level? Seems destined to fall apart at some point. However, now that his hot wife is no longer holding him back it looks like they are back on track and they play in the worst division in football so that should help too. The 49ers have the most injury prone organization in NFL history so although they look tough it is probably only a matter of time before half of them are on IR. The Bengals have perhaps the most difficult schedule in the league the rest of the way. They play @ Titans, Chiefs, Browns, @ Bucs, @ Patriots, Bills, Ravens. If the Bengals make the playoffs it will be well deserved. All 3 of these teams have scary potential and seem to be trending in the right direction.

America’s team that no one in America likes: Cowboys

Nice game Cowboys but everyone still hates you.

Teams that are starting to get exposed: Giants, Jets, Patriots

These teams all have glaring weaknesses. We saw them in their last games and will see them in future games as well. I won’t be shocked if they all get left out of the playoffs. Also, Zach Wilson sure knows how to win a team over. Less completions than punts but when asked if he let his team down…simply said no. Something tells me that we will see the return of Shane Falco…I mean Joe Flacco this week.

Teams that are glad they don’t have Russell Wilson as their quarterback anymore: Seahawks

I envision Pete Carrol watching the Broncos game on his bye week smacking his gum and laughing maniacally.

Teams that are competitive but will get left out of the playoffs: Commanders, Chargers, Falcons

The Commanders are playing good ball but will have a hard time making it in a loaded NFC East. The Falcons are some how competitive even though they literally can’t throw the ball more than 5 yards. And the Chargers are competing with the 49ers and Broncos for most injuries. Maybe they should have stayed in San Diego instead of moving to LA and playing in that death trap called Sofi Stadium where ACL’s go to die.

Teams that aren’t very good but are scrappy and fun: Jaguars, Bears, Lions

I think the Jaguars are a year a way but have some fun players and play hard. The Bears and Lions will continue to suck but at least they are some what entertaining now.

Teams that aren’t very good or scrappy or fun: Saints, Browns, Steelers, Cardinals

The Cardinals and Browns used to be fun…but they are getting worse every week. The Steelers and Saints showed some life this week but not enough to get them out of this category.

Teams run by a guy like me: Colts

This story almost got even better when they came so close to upsetting the Eagles. Let’s hope for all our sake they win this week.

Team that get more disappointing every week: Rams, Packers

The Rams have to be the worst returning super bowl champion in league history. Now they are without Cooper who was literally their entire offense. Stafford is on his second concussion. A long year keeps getting longer. Apparently maybe you do need draft picks. As for the Packers, Rodgers does not look good. He always looks upset or bored. But he also doesn’t look like a good quarterback. He missed at least 2 very easy throws that would have kept drives going and it looks like his veteran receivers are quitting on him. For all the talk of Mahomes missing Hill…Rodgers misses Davante Adams a lot more.

Somehow still getting worse: Texans

I have no words to describe how bad this organization is. They are currently on pace to have the number 1 pick in the draft and the number 8 pick from the Browns and I have absolutely no faith that it will help at all. Pretty sure they are the worst organization in all of sports.

Took a break from raider gonna raider to beat the one team they can beat again: Raiders

I predicted three things correctly from this game. First, the Raiders would win. Second, the first team to 17 or more points would win and third, the Raiders would win because the only good offensive player on the field was Davante Adams. Adams was somehow always open despite everyone knowing he was getting the ball on every play. It was a nice win, but I am sure they will go back to sucking this week.

Please make the ride stop!: Broncos

It’s to the point that my wife isn’t even mad when they lose anymore. She just sits there silently staring at the screen. They are literally taking the ability to care about the team from her a little more each week. The only thing more depressing than watching the Broncos is watching her watch the Broncos.

Tune in on Friday for 5 for Friday Picks for the Weekend.

Each week I give you 5 picks and more importantly story lines for this weekends games. Let’s get started with week 11.

Eagles @ Colts: Saturday on Sunday

If you are like me, you were excited to see the Colts win last week for many reasons. Sure, it was great to see the Raiders lose yet again especially so I can keep saying “raiders gonna raider”. But there is something to be even more excited about. If Jeff Saturday can coach an NFL team to victory, it gives us hope to one day do the same. I mean I actually have a lot in common with Mr. Saturday. Here are just a few of the things we have in common.

First name: Jeff…check

Age: mid 40s…check

Birthday: June 18…I’m March 18…close enough

Watch more football than the normal person…check

Make snarky comments and be critical from a very far distance…check

Previous coaching experience: high school only…actually I have also coached a good bit of little kid flag football (advantage me)

What does this tell us? It tells us that I am obviously more qualified to coach a NFL team to victory over the Raiders. And guess what, I have the perfect opportunity this Sunday. Denver Brass needs to give me a call. I am only a few minutes away.

As for the game, the Eagles are coming off their first loss and everyone is comparing them to the Steelers from 2 years ago. I mean sure they haven’t played the toughest of schedules but as some would say the pass the “eye test” much more than the Steelers did. In their game against to the Commanders the Eagles got ran over. This in theory is good for the Colts. Could the Colts win back to back games with a guy who has 1 more game of coaching experience than me? Unfortunately for them, the Eagles are not the Raiders. I think this will be closer than some might think but the Eagles get back on track.

Eagles 27 Colts 17

Browns @ Bills: Snowmageddon…almost

Apparently there is supposed to be some snow in the Buffalo area. Every weather man has a range of precipitation for each storm. And it is usually pretty ridiculous, like 2-10 inches. If only we could all keep our jobs being as accurate or inaccurate as meteorologists. But the range in Buffalo is extra special as they are expecting 3-6 feet of snow. That’s right…they are expecting either snow that comes up to half of me or covers all of me. The are also expecting something called thunder snow. I don’t know what that is but it sounds awesome. There have been so many incredible games in bad weather. My favorite all time weather game is the Fog Bowl in the playoffs when the Bears hosted the Eagles. I remember watching the game or trying to watch the game. It was one of the most memorable games in the history of the league. This could have been one of those games. But instead they moved the game to Detroit. So here are the winners and losers of the game being moved.

Winner: The City of Detroit. The home team will be a very good, competitive team with a winning record and super bowl aspirations. That is something Detroit hasn’t had in a few decades.

Loser: The Bills. Not only do they lose a home game in Buffalo but they have to go to Detroit. I can only assume since they play in Detroit again on Thursday they are just going to stay there. As someone who has visited Detroit, let me tell you that this is a loss. I used to go on baseball trips with some buddies and one year we went to Detroit and Toronto. The plan was to go to the game in Detroit and then spend the night and then drive to Toronto in the morning. We literally walked out of the Detroit stadium, looked around and said, let’s just go to Toronto now. Speaking of which, we got to the border and Chris who was driving was talking to the border patrol officer and he literally said “we don’t have anything illegal in the trunk.” I mean it sort of worked because I am sure the officer was like, these idiots don’t have anything in their trunk but I would not recommend this strategy to anyone.

Winner: Browns fans. Apparently Cleveland is just 2 hours and 45 minutes from Detroit. And they also won’t be driving to place that has 6 feet of snow. They have the opportunity to have more fans in the stadium on a “road game”.

Loser: Browns football team. While it doesn’t sound fun to play offensive football in 3 to 6 feet to snow, you also aren’t throwing a lot. Not throwing a lot is an advantage for the Browns. Had the game been in the snow it would be an advantage Browns. You remember last year when the Patriots beat the Bills while only throwing 4 passes? This is the sort of strategy the Browns could have used in 3 feet of snow. But that doesn’t work on the dome in Detroit.

Winner: The Chargers. They will no longer be the only home team that has less fans in the stadium then their opponent.

Loser: All of us viewers. Sure it will be better football in the dome and the teams will be able to actually run an offense. And for maybe a year at most we might say, “you remember that time it snowed so much they had to move the game to Detroit?” But if they had played in Buffalo surrounded by several feet of snow, we would talk about it for ages. Of course we might have lost a few players and knowing Bills mafia, likely several thousands of fans buried in the snow. So I guess the NFL made the right decision.

Winner of the game: Bills 30 Browns 17

Raiders gonna Raider vs Let’s ride: The Toilet Bowl

If you are a Friday Night Lights fan like me you remember Season 4, episode 8 titled “Toilet Bowl”. if you are not a fan of FNL, then you need to stop reading and start watching FNL because it is the greatest show of all time…just ignore a few plot lines in season 2. In the episode two teams that are terrible and hadn’t won a game play each other. The good news…someone is going to win. This game reminds me a little of that episode. The difference? In the FNL episode there is a functional head coach and offensive creativity and success.

Living here in Denver, I listen to sports radio all the time and all I have heard for the last 5 years is that the Broncos are just a quarterback and offensive minded coach away. They got both and look at them now. Somehow they got worse. They are literally dead last in offense. They average 14.6 points a game. The average 11.3 points a game at home. They played in what quite possibly was the most boring game in NFL history against the Colts. Because my wife is a die hard loyal fan, I have to watch this crap show every week. I almost feel bad for the Broncos at this point.

There is a movie called Office Space. In it the main character, Peter, hates his job and his life for that matter. His cheating girlfriend persuades him to go to a psychiatrist. He tells the psychiatrist that every day he wakes up and it is the worst day of his life. The psychiatrist asked Peter, “What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?” Peter says yes and the psychiatrist said “man, that’s messed up.” That is basically the life of a Broncos fan. Every game is the worst game they have had to watch. And it is messed up.

Russell Wilson only makes it worse with all his comments and answers and his commitment to not let his stupid “let’s ride” catchphrase go. Hey Russ, no one wants to be on your ride. I remember one year we went to the Platte County Fair and my siblings and I got on a ride called the Tilt a Whirl. It wasn’t very busy so the guy thought we would want an extra long ride. Either that or he just liked torturing kids. We were literally yelling as we kept spinning around for the ride to stop. But it just kept going. Every Broncos fan right now is yelling for the ride to stop but Russ just pretends like he can’t hear them. Instead he goes home and counts his money like Scrooge McDuck.

Amazingly, the Raiders season has gone even worse. They find way after way to rip defeat from the jaws of victory. They have lost pretty much every game after leading at some point. Last week they lost to a team coached by a guy who was doing what you and I were doing the week prior. Derek Carr cried at the podium after the game. And I don’t blame him. I’d cry if I was him too. Josh McDaniels seems to be a pretty terrible head coach as he also ruined a pretty decent Broncos team and now is ruining a Raiders team that was in the playoffs last year. To make matters worse, the Raiders are stuck with him because they can’t afford to get rid of him. Basically they are already paying too many coaches and don’t have enough money to keep paying Josh and another head coach.

What’s even more amazing as both these teams were media darlings. The AFC West was supposed to be the toughest division in the league. Instead in week 11, we have two of the worst teams in the league battling it out.

So who wins this crap show? While the Raiders are bad, 1 of their 2 wins was against the Broncos. I mean…first one to 17 probably wins. As bad as the Raiders D is, the Broncos O is even worse. The Raiders have the only offensive player that I have any faith in and that is Davante Adams. So I give the Raiders a slight edge.

Raider gonna raider 17 Let’s stop the ride 13

Cowboys at Vikings: Battle of the chokes

The Cowboys should have won last week and they lost. The Vikings should have lost last week and they won. This is the craziness of the NFL. These are two talented rosters with inconsistent quarterbacks. Dak doesn’t exactly shine in the big moments. Kirk pretty much loses every prime time game. Luckily for him, this one isn’t at night and is at home.

The Cowboys and Vikings are battling for playoff spots although with the Packers loss last night, the Vikings would have to completely fall apart to lose the division. That falling apart could start this week. Dallas on the other hand had an opportunity to gain some ground on the Eagles last week but instead choked the game last week. My favorite part was when their receiver that no one has ever heard of but for some reason was on the field in a crucial moment, lined up a yard in front of the ball. First of all, why is that guy even in? Secondly, you can turn to the ref and ask if you are on the line of scrimmage or not. Even I routinely did this in high school. So that was a special moment. Add that to the things I can do in the NFL. Line up properly and be the head coach. Let’s see if I can find a few more things I can do in the NFL this week.

All that to be said, it should be one of the better games this week. I think it is a toss up game. I have the Dallas D in fantasy football, so I will assume the Vikings offense will have a big week. Cowboys give up a touchdown late and lose.

Vikings 31 Cowboys 27

Chiefs @ the Pre Season AFC West champs (every year): AFC West Championship

The Chiefs got flexed to Sunday night football. The Chargers just played a road game on Sunday night last week and now they have to turn around and do it again. It must be so depressing playing for the Chargers. I mean this might be half their problem. That is why all their players are hurt. They don’t want to play on the road every single week. The other issue is that crappy turf they play on. While the Chargers and Rams suck, Sofi stadium is undefeated against ACL’s. Honestly, I am less worried about the Chiefs winning and more worried about everyone making it back to KC in one piece.

The Chargers have been decimated with injuries, but lets be honest, they would find a way to lose anyway. It’s what they do. They have a good roster so they are always the preseason darling but once the season starts they fall to the middle of the pack. It is a big game for them. Both the back half of their schedules are easier than the front half for the Chargers and Chiefs. If the Chargers win, they would be only one game behind. If they lose, they would be 3 back but really 4 back because the Chiefs would own the tie breaker. If the Chiefs win, it is hard to imagine them losing 4 or more games and even if they did the Chargers would have to win out. Seems unlikely with the schedules they have ahead of them.

Mahomes has been very good in prime time the last few years. He’s found a new toy in Kadarius Toney. We can sort of run the ball giving Pacheco the majority of the reps. We seem to be getting more pressure on the quarterback but I assume that will end now that Frank Clark is back. A healthy McDuffie is nice to have because it is fun to see one of our corners not get beat all the time. Hopefully he survives the SoFi turf.

All this to be said, even if the Chargers gets some guys back like they are supposed to, most of them are on offense. That doesn’t help stop Mahomes who has been ridiculously good lately. Nothing is ever easy when we play the Chargers and I am sure Butker will miss at least one extra point but I think we get the W.

Chiefs 30-Chargers 24

Check back in on Tuesday for my weekly NFL Rankings and reactions from week 11.