“He’s always been a fraud to me. From day one, he’s been a used car salesman, and people bought it.”
Former Tampa Bay wideout Keyshawn Johnson, referring to who else but former Raiders coach Jon Gruden, who once, long before he brought his raspy loudmouth drama back to the Raiders to the modest tune of $100 million, coached Johnson’s 2002 Super Bowl-winning team — a team Gruden gets all the credit for, but Johnson claims he merely inherited from Tony Dungy and Rich McKay.
Move over Urby, there’s a new Number One NFL Skeezeball! (Non Dan Snyder division)
Look, I know you’ve heard more than you could ever possibly want to hear about Racist Chucky and his questionable email etiquette, but we would be remiss if we let such abject rottenness pass without comment.
The thing about this situation is that absolutely no one thinks this is some kind of anomaly, or that Gruden is a single bad seed that needs to be rooted out of the culture so that the true pearls beneath the crud can shine once and for all. The vast majority of the people in the NFL with any kind of power — namely a bunch of toothless liver spots who have all at one time in their lives worn blackface to a party, and whose accountants have ever-expanding line items for hookers, harassment lawsuits, and cutting-edge ED treatment — are right in line with Gruden’s spittle-laced misogyny, homophobia, racism, and general shittiness, and heartily endorse it behind closed doors. And most of the people they employ, from the coaches to the announcers to the players, are just variations of the same retrograde attitudes jacked up on HGH and Trump-roids.
Gruden is the norm, not the exception. He was just stupid (and arrogant) enough to permanently commit the evidence of his seething soul-rot to an email server. And worse yet, the WFT’s email server — thusly, forever linking himself to a vile organization so full of malignant incompetence that every “f-slur” and racial epithet and Fox News dog whistle talking point was bound to come out whenever the inevitable misconduct investigation was triggered.
Even if he realized the folly of his indiscretion, he didn’t care. He figured he was too powerful, too essential, too untouchable for it to matter. And to no one’s surprise, he figured wrong. Who could have imagined that the guy whose entire brand is pretending like it’s still 1997 and who, just by way of one example, traded away Khalil Mack right before his most game-wrecking season and who in 2021 remains PFF’s Number 6 overall player (sandwiched between Davante Adams and Tom Brady) might be too myopic and swole-headed to see what’s right in front of his face? (To be fair, edge rusher Maxx Crosby is playing out of his mind, but Mack is the kind of force that elevates an entire defense and changes the culture for the better wherever he goes).
It is unclear why Gruden’s emails were the only ones leaked out of 650,000 documents accrued in the 10-month long investigation of the Washington Fuck Trumpets, or who exactly leaked them (I think those who buy into some sort of larger conspiracy against Gruden give the NFL far too much credit for being competent enough to pull such a thing off). The emails are indubitably appalling and worthy of their subsequent consequences, but pale in comparison to the sheer onslaught of horrendous deeds turned up in the wider investigation (widespread abuse, harassment, and exploitation of female employees, all endorsed by Snyder, and deeply ingrained in the culture of the team). Certainly, if Gruden’s emails inhabit the bloody, shrieking Fifth Ring of Hell, Snyder’s entire being is deeply ensconced in the icy lake of the Ninth, no?
Gruden was forced to resign because he was the throbbing whitehead protruding above a sprawling subdermal infection. He was drawing attention to too many others around him — those who may not necessarily run their franchises like Jeffrey Epstein running a frat house, but who casually endorse despicable shit like eugenics, conversion therapy, and putting kids in cages — and he had to be publicly lanced before the damage could spread any further. Like Waystar/Royco on Succession when the New York article exposed the tip of the scandal iceberg (death, rape, embezzlement, corruption) in the company’s cruise division (yes, I did a recent S2 rewatch before S3 debuted on Sunday), the NFL chose to “condemn and move on,” in hopes that the rest of the league’s open sores would be left to fester in the shadows, an open secret that nobody wants to look at any closer than they have to.
Gruden had to go, and it’s good that he is gone. He’s a rancid pus balloon. He has been a prominent face in the NFL for far too long, selling his brand of bass ackwards macho pragmatism (“Just Grind, Baby”) to any sucker who thinks analytics are for f-slurs and kneeling for justice is worse than shooting unarmed black people in the back. Of course, the question is always there: If we remove everyone in the NFL who says racist and homophobic shit, who assaults women, who exploits others, who is morally and ethically bankrupt, who voted for the likes of Trump or Kanye or Jorgensen, who is just generally shitty, who do we have left? Like three kickers, a Seattle hot dog vendor, and maybe, I dunno… Ryan Fitzpatrick?
I’m absolutely not excusing any of the above. In fact, what I’m trying to say is that the NFL is a gargantuan shithole filled with charlatans, greedheads, fart sniffers, anti-vaxers, roid ragers, failsons, wife beaters, kid beaters, bigots, rapists, Nazis, morons, psychopaths, and wannabe plantation owners, and that pushing one of them out to sea changes absolutely nothing about the culture. It has always been morally bankrupt and it always will be.
The NFL’s only real redeeming factor is the sport itself. And to our collective chagrin, it is such a goddamn unbelievably great product that no matter how ghastly the company selling it gets, we have a hard time looking away. Try as they might, they cannot dilute the magic of a horizontal Adam Thielen TD catch or Trevon Diggs snagging seven interceptions in his first six games this season. If they ever do manage to make the sport itself less appealing (boy do they try!) then the whole mega super mothership pus balloon is gonna burst and we’re all going to get caught in the flood.
Until then, keep throwing Thielen the ball while he levitates six inches off the ground, and keep the f-slurs to yourself, fuckos.
“We weren’t desperate… We were just a little bit off.”
Chargers coach Brandon Staley, who has been making Riverboat Ron look like a miserly old banker who only invests in blue chip stocks. In Week 5 Staley set the NFL abuzz with fervent chatter when he put his foot on the gas against Cleveland and never let up, eschewing punts and field goals by going for it on fourth down and converting four times. These days, NFL coaches are adhering more to analytics and win probabilities and going for it on fourth more than ever, but Staley was doing it in situations where nobody ever goes for it unless they are trailing in the fourth quarter: on 4th and 7 and 4th and 8 in field goal range, and on 4th and 2 at their own 24. Turns out they needed all those points, because they barely hung on to beat the Browns 47-42 in the preeminent barn-burner of the season.
Of course, it’s easier to make those calls when the guy you are handing the ball to is Justin Herbert. After last week, the Chargers were 7 for 7 on fourth down conversions, an unheard of conversion rate (and it turns out, unsustainable). Subsequently, in Week 6, when the points weren’t coming so easily and the Chargers were down multiple scores against the Ravens, they went for it another four times, including twice from inside their own territory. This time they only converted once. It ended up making a bad beatdown into a worse one and making Staley perhaps look more reckless than brilliant this time around. “Going for it” is an all or nothing prospect, like pushing all your chips to the center in poker. You better be able to back it up or you’re going home with ringing ears and empty pockets. Staley didn’t waver afterwards, however, and made it clear he will continue to stay aggressive. It’s the style he likes to play and he feels he has the personnel to back it up. Swing for the fences, I say. Play for the win. You love to see it. Even when it means falling into quicksand and never coming out. Hell, even quicksand can be entertaining in its own right.
Robert Mays is one of my favorite NFL writers/analysts. He marries a deeply sophisticated knowledge of the game with his own infectious enthusiasm in a way that is very enjoyable to read (he writes for The Athletic) and to listen to (he is the host of The Athletic Football Show podcast). He has a talent for discussing complex schemes and packages in a manner that makes them more understandable to the layman, while never actually dumbing anything down. He loves this game so much that he can’t help but let his earnest adolescent glee gush out whenever he talks about some play or player that amazed him, and there are many such things that he finds amazing on a weekly basis.
He is also, sadly, a Bears fan. Born after 1985, he has never seen his team win a Super Bowl. He saw them lose one to the Colts in 2005, lose the NFC Championship to the Packers in 2010, and he delighted in the surprise 12-4 2018 Season where the defense wrecked everybody in sight (that year that Gruden gifted them Mack) but nevertheless they didn’t make it past the Wild Card round because of wide-eyed Mitchell Too Risky running for the sideline every time his first read didn’t manage to get 2 full feet of separation. Outside of those three seasons, with a few exceptions it has been a considerably bleak stretch for the Bears since that last Super Bowl win 36 years ago, filled with missed opportunities, lackluster management, and a lot of really bad, really cold football.
Chicago always seemed cursed at the quarterback position, which isn’t entirely surprising for a team whose successes have always seemed to align with bone-crunching defense and a ground and pound running game. Any top five list of Bears quarterbacks is enough to make you want to pour bleach in your eyes. But then of course now they have what most everybody believes to be a special talent in Justin Fields, and he is currently being hung out to dry by unimaginative play-calling and general dumbfuckery from the coaching staff. The kid is raw, and needs a lot of work in plenty of areas, from pocket discipline to passing accuracy, but Nagy hasn’t designed any sort of schemes that play to his strength as a runner, nor given him near enough reps as a passer, calling an average of just 21 pass plays per game.
It remains to be seen whether Fields will truly pan out as the long-awaited franchise quarterback, and whether the coaching and offense can live up to the promise of the defense before that window closes, but what has always been true and will remain true is that Rodgers wipes the floor with them regardless of who or how the Bears are playing. He has a 22-5 record against Chicago, including a 10-3 record at Soldier Field. Even in 2018, when the Bears were 12-4 and the Packers went 6-9-1 due a Rodgers knee injury, A-Rodg still managed to beat them in a thrilling comeback victory while playing on one leg (kicked off by an absolute motherfucker of a dime to Geronimo Allison). If that’s not an owner I don’t know what is. At the very least, that’s definitely some majority shareholder shit right there.
As for his recent outburst, the Packers QB claims a Bears fan flipped him a double bird from the front row and he immediately blacked out, unaware of what he said next. This rules. I am all for NFL QBs being demonically possessed by the animus of a long-standing rivalry. But let’s be real, he knew exactly what he was saying. The moment needed no actual words. Rodgers’ ownership was evident whether he screamed it or not. But markets are volatile, even in the NFL. They rise and fall at the whims of the rich and powerful.
Sometimes all it takes to set things right for a team is a loud and clear statement from its owner.
“I’m sorry, Chipotle. Chipotle got me. I’m sorry.”
Titans WR AJ Brown, about the case of gurgle gut soup he was suffering from in Monday night’s game against the Bills. Chipotle PR sure took a dump on this one. But it’s not time yet to flush Brown, who had his best game of the season despite having a wicked case of Montezuma’s Revenge. Which elicited the discharge of quite a long groan of relief from his fantasy owners. To be frank, the receiver has been remarkably shitty for a guy drafted by many (including yours truly) to be a WR1. Monday though, not only did he have the catches, but he had the runs, which in many cases were mighty explosive. The trots down the field were so dynamic that they left skid marks on the grass. There are still concerns about his hamstring injury, which will likely leave him on a crap… sorry, snap count, but fantasy owners are grateful that he wasn’t added to the Poop List. Still, after the game he was so happy about performing well that he talked a mile a minute and a stream of crazy words gushed out of his mouth. Some of his teammates went so far as to call it the Diarrhea of a Madman.
I’m just gonna get into it! I’ve been wanting to tell you about it since I first watched it about a month ago, but I cannot recommend enough the four part doc by the Secret Base guys (Jon Bois, also a primo Twitter follow, and Alex Rubenstein) on the Atlanta Falcons, called The Dirty Birds. If you don’t know about Secret Base, well you definitely should. It’s Youtube channel affiliated with SB Nation that puts out mostly short documentary films on a wide variety of sports-related subjects — quirky, funny, strange, and extremely smart stuff. But you know me, I’ll watch anything football-related at this time of year, and once Hard Knocks was over and All or Nothing cancelled, I found myself watching goofy shit like Peyton’s Places, which is fun but has its limits. So Dirty Birds fit the bill perfectly.
Naturally, Part 1 begins with a teaser for the fateful 2017 Super Bowl fiasco, but cuts out with the score at 28-9, just minutes before the end of the third quarter — perhaps the highest emotional peak in 51 years for a long-struggling, if not always suffering, franchise — right before everything goes to absolute shit. From there they go all the way back to the beginning, cataloguing the shaky, humble beginnings of an expansion team, then lead up through the four episodes to the ignominious, world-historical collapse.
Part 1 alone is chock full of amazing tidbits. A passing game in the mid-seventies that was historically terrible, between Bob Lee, Pat Sullivan, and Kim McQuilken. In 1974 the three QBs combined for 4/31 TD/INT ratio and a 44.3 % completion rate, which even by the relatively modest standards of the day was a league-wide embarrassment and notches in as the number 2 all time worst team QB season ever. In one game that season, against the terrifying Vikings defense, McQuilken threw 26 passes with ten total completions: 5 to his teammates, the other 5 to the guys in purple. Nevertheless, despite knocking out three of the worst all time individual QB seasons ever, McQuilken played 7 years as a starter and went on to several very successful post-NFL enterprises. Dude just had that je ne sais quoi.
They go on to profile the great Norm Van Brocklin, a standout of the 1970s golden age for “crabby, red ass coaches,” as Jon Bois puts it. The Falcons head coach chain-smoked on the sideline, hated everyone and everything (even his own players), and was famous for (dead seriously) challenging reporters to a fight right in the middle of a presser (or when he was slightly less feisty, merely calling them whores and sons of bitches to their faces). His teams were completely fucking awful, but he was still well-loved by the fans and the media (despite the weekly savaging he gave them). And for good goddamn reason. He was a shithead, but he was their shithead. He was gritty. He was colorful. We need more grit and color among NFL coaches today.
Now, given how thoroughly I disparaged Gruden above, hopefully you’ll forgive me for romanticizing the kind of guy who was clearly just as rotten, if not more so. Different times, blah blabba blah. Still, one thing at least Gruden had going for him was a kind of shithead charisma. I won’t call him colorful. Dan Campbell is colorful, gulping down red eyes and talking about chewing off kneecaps and whatnot, and we love him for it. The reason Gruden’s persona doesn’t count is because, as Keyshawn said above, he’s a fucking fraud. He built his entire brand on that 1997 shithead charisma, and he knew exactly what he could get out of it, which makes him entirely inauthentic and uninteresting, especially since we know who he really is.
Van Brocklin on the other hand was a genuine tornado of stale cigarette smoke and grumbled nastiness, like a real life bridge troll in a red polo shirt. If you are going to be terrible, at least be an entertaining shithead. Or lovably insane like Campbell. There are too many bad coaches in the NFL that are also just blandly awful people. The only thing that can save Nagy now is if he starts smoking crack at the podium, screaming at reporters who aren’t there, and hitting on Bears owner Virginia McCaskey. Or hell, just publicly calling the NFL a bunch of idiots as Van Brocklin did when the AFL and NFL merged in 1966. Start there. It was true back then and it was true today. Bring back crabby, red-ass coaches. Just not Gruden. He can stay the fuck gone.
Anyway, the Season from Hell continues for yours truly. I did follow up a heart-stomping 0-4 week 5 with a 4-0 Week 6, but now we’re in the middle of the Week 7 Bye-Nado and things are looking as grim as they ever have. Somehow all of my players who aren’t injured are on a bye, so I am throwing players out there like Taylor Heinicke, Tim Patrick, and Deejay Dallas, while the Dalvins and McCaffreys and Daks and Jeffersons and Antonios all flick their tongues at me and decompose on my benches. Somehow all of the teams I am playing seem to have all of their starters available, so whatever progress I made last week will undoubtedly end with me locked up in the basement again, waiting for Zed and Maynard to pull me out the next time two bald dudes come in fighting. (I’ve changed names a lot this season, but my Superflex team will forever remain Tha Gimp).
It’s so fucking frustrating to lose like this, to watch helplessly as every chance I might have to get out of the slimehole is taken away from me by injury or bad luck. It’s a lost season. The first I’ve ever had like this. I should stop fighting it and just enjoy the football, but I’m having a hard time letting go. I keep thinking I’m going to get a break, and then just get kicked in the teeth all over again. It’s enough to give a guy trust issues. I’ll tell you this though, I don’t give a good goddamn shit, I don’t care what pick I have, I’m never taking McCaffrey ever again. He will undoubtedly score 485 points on somebody else’s roster, but at least I won’t ever have to look at his pinched little Aryan face again. To tell you the truth, I might just skip the first round all together next year. Nothing but trouble and misery in that round. I’m taking a kicker or some shit.
Beggars Shadow still holding on tight to first place like he’s holding on to the arms of the chair when the edible kicks in. Lady Balls dangling sweatily and menacingly just behind him.
Quaranteam is out there quietly kicking everyone’s ass and judging all of you olds. Deal with it, y’all cheugy! His pops, Raul (my pops), and Dog Altogether round out the top half of the league, though the latter may be in a freefall that will soon equal that of the Shirlies start to the season. Especially with Team 14 lurking just behind, crushing baby skulls with Derrick Henry, Tom Brady, and a ruthless band of mercenaries backing them up.
Callously, I notched a win last week, leaving poor Lovejoy all alone in the winless club. We had a bet in Week 3 about who would win first, and our teams were so fucking pitiful it took until Week 6 for the bet to be resolved. Still in solidarity with you brother. No one knows our pain, because no one who actually tries ever has a record this bad. We are uniquely pitiful individuals. And proud of it.
Until next time,
Steer Styes, Zool Carts, Vindaloos
tg
GO RAMS!!!!
ASTRAL GEEKS FFL 