I really had hoped that Thursday night’s matchup between Dallas and Chicago wouldn’t be a total suckfest, and there were actually a few moments in the 4th quarter where it seemed like the Bears might actually make a game of it, but alas, those were short-lived. Anyone who watched that game has to feel embarassed on behalf of the Bears’ defense. Frankly, during most of the game I felt like I was looking out the window to see Tony Romo and his friends casually tossing the ball back and forth in the front yard on a Saturday afternoon.
Anyway, we move on. Tomorrow is a whole new day of football, featuring the following matchups:
At 1:00–PIT @ CIN, STL @ WAS, NYG @ TEN, CAR @ NO, NYJ @ MIN, BAL @ MIA, IND @ CLE, and TB @ DET.
At 4:05–BUF @ DEN, KC @ ARI
At 4:25–SEA @ PHI, SF @ OAK
And at 8:30, after “waitin’ all day for Sunday night,” we have NE @ SD.
Outside of the Sunday night game OBViously, there are a few others that have the potential to be good (Steelers-Bengals and Chiefs-Cards for two), and others that I have very little interest in watching (Giants-Titans? Niners-Raiders? Really??) save for the fact that they are NFL games and I am a complete slave to my desire to watch any and all games that take place during the precious short season.
Usually my preferred venue for a Sunday that is reserved for nothing but football is a sports bar, for obvious reasons, the most important of which are wings specials and 1,000 TV’s. However, at present it happens that I am eight months pregnant and there is no way in hell I am leaving my house tomorrow. This means that until the Pats come on at 8:30, I’ll have to settle for whatever two 1:00 games and one 4:00 game we get from our cable provider.
I just checked and apparently it’s Baltimore @ Miami and Indy @ Cleveland at 1:00, then Seattle @ Philadelphia at 4.
I can live with that, though the 1:00 games present a bit of a conundrum as to who I should pull for. I absolutely loathe and despise the Ravens but I certainly can’t cheer on an AFC East opponent against them, so my best bet with that one is going to be to root for a tie, I suppose. I love, love, love Andrew Luck; he is without question my 54th favorite player in the entire NFL (after the 53 guys on the Patriots’ roster, of course) and yet I suppose I should be rooting for the Browns since I would wholeheartedly welcome them finishing above the Ravens in their division.
The 4:00 game at the very least should be interesting. Neither of these teams is a total mutt, and I actually kind of like the Seahawks; Richard Sherman in particular is always a barrel of laughs. Plus, he reminds me of that badass sword lady from The Walking Dead.
However, my opinion on Russell Wilson (and I know I am in a serious minority here) is that he is extremely overrated as a quarterback. I’m not saying he’s bad (that would be stupid because he’s not even close to bad), but I just think he’s missing some of the sparkle and ability to make really big, clutch plays that draw me to other QB’s in the league. I don’t know. Yawn.
As for the Eagles, in general I have no use for Philly sports, but watching Eagles games in the second half of this season has been oddly satisfying because it almost always involves a mention of the butt fumble and I will never stop finding that funny as long as I live.
The moral of the story is that I have no dog in the fight for any of the games I’ll be watching, which means I can sit back and just try to appreciate the athleticism and brilliant strategery that make the NFL such a wonderfully consumable product in the first place.
And after the battle of the birds has ended I will move on to the main event of my weekend: Patriots @ Chargers. I’ll definitely be checking in again before that one kicks off with my thoughts.
Pats the Bunny 