Why Your Team Is Overrated: The Indianapolis Colts

Trust me folks, I’m not writing this because the Colts have beaten the Chiefs way too many times for me to count. Actually the last time KC bounced Indy from the playoffs, and that was when the Colts still had Andrew Luck. No this is aimed at a franchise that despite having had multiple good and or great QBs and one Hall of Fame QB force his way to another team come draft time, they don’t have much in the way of rings to show for it. It’s quite pathetic, actually, even though I’ll admit my favorite team the Chiefs have the same number of Super Bowl wins.

That may or not may last, considering the Colts decided to sign…*checks notes* Matt Ryan, a QB present for the worst collapse in Super Bowl history. I’m not sure you can blame him for that one, yet I know he didn’t help. The Colts have given up on drafting or developing QBs and will probably continue to drunkenly swap in old QBs for the foreseeable future. This makes sense when you look at who the owner is: Jim Irsay, who has a history of both drug and alcohol abuse. In the NFL though that doesn’t matter when it comes to owners, and so Irsay will keep on running the team until he finally shuffles off his mortal coil on some acid trip while playing his guitar. To be replaced by his daughter, probably.

He looks so glad he escaped Atlanta. That’s how bad the Falcons were that someone would be happy to end up in Indiana.

Can Indy actually win the division? Eh, probably since it’s a joke and only the Titans offer up any possible resistance. The AFC South and NFC South are the two worst divisions in football imo, although I still give the edge to the AFC one just because at least the NFC one has one more total ring. It’s beyond pathetic and a reminder that for some parts of the NFL, division realignment would be equal parts necessary and a blessing.

What’s Not Overrated: Michael Pittman Jr. is very talented, as is the offensive line. Give that man the ball and watch him fly.

Enjoy It While It Lasts: Jonathan Taylor is a beast and yet as everyone knows running backs have a tragically short shelf life these days. Also Ryan isn’t exactly a spring chicken. Did I mention I drafted Ryan as a backup in my Yahoo league? Thank God that league is free.

Oddly for reasons I can’t explain I could see this team making a Super Bowl run just because the defense is solid enough and they could simply copy the Rams and the Bucs Super Bowl blueprints. Most likely this season ends in a depressing divisional round loss that wastes another year of Taylor. Still, you could root for a worse team in the Midwest. I’m looking at you, Browns….

Why Your Team Is Overrated: Phoenix Suns

Full disclosure: I’ve been a Phoenix Suns fan since 1992, age 6. In my lifetime they’ve gone to two NBA Finals and lost them both in heart breaking fashion to stacked Midwest teams lead by a dominating main player. The other sickening irony is that both those teams are rivals in the same division. I expect the Suns to lose their next title game appearance to another Midwest team from the Eastern Central division. Or blow it against the same team again. I donno nor do I really care. I should be dead inside to these jokers screwing up but I’m not. It still hurts a lot.

My great grandparents who passed away years ago used to live in Phoenix and so I visited there as a kid and got hooked on the Suns. I thought Charles Barkley was so cool and I still do. Little did I know their sad history of being one of the most winning NBA franchises to never win a title. They are literally the Minnesota Vikings of the NBA, West Coast version, only the Vikings actually managed to make the Super Bowl more times than the Suns have sniffed the NBA Finals. Being a fan of either team is an exercise in misery on a different scale. You witness success until it counts the most and watch division rivals achieve the goal you keep striving for every season.

This was fun until it ended all in tears

In fact I’m convinced this is an abusive relationship that I’m unwilling or unable to quit. Maybe this team will finally break through and achieve the dream. Maybe I’ll find a nice woman to settle down with and find a real career. I doubt any of this ever happens. Robert Sarver is a giant piece of shit who should be forced to sell the team and then shot into the sun. I live in Iowa and like the Bucks a lot actually and have much better options in different states to root for yet I continue to stick with the choke artists from a state I’ve only visited once. Why, I can’t tell you. I’ll quit drinking before I finally give up on these jokers.

What isn’t overrated: Devin Booker and the young core are fun to watch. This team has two Cams. Cam!

Enjoy It While It Lasts: Chris Paul keeps besting Father Time although that bill will surely come due when the Suns can least afford it.

There’s still hope this team can win a title and give the long suffering fanbase some real meaningful joy. Ha ha…oh boy. Go Suns! Fuck me.

The Greatest Bowl of Them All: Super Bowl LVI Preview

The NFL refuses to let anything get in the way of the big game. Or any game.

I can’t recall the last time I wrote one of these. Probably due to the Chiefs making the big game twice and rightfully acknowledging I wouldn’t be objective about the whole thing. I actually picked the Bucs to win last season on Twitter and the Chiefs to beat the 49ers. Plus I had Pats over Rams, too-I’ve seen that movie before. Historically both the Rams and the Bengals have seen plenty of Super Bowl heartbreak with only one ring combined among them. Someone has to win the whole thing, of course, and as usual one thing or another has to give.

The big matchup is the Bengals o-line and Joe Burrow’s endless swagger vs that nasty Rams front seven. LA’s secondary will be tested multiple times by not only Ja’Marr Chase but also potential X factor Tee Higgins. Cincy can also run the ball well with Joe Mixon and even Samaje Perine. The Rams can counter at least with Aaron Donald and Von Miller, yet people will be watching to see if Jalen Ramsey can lock down Chase or not.

Shinny helmets!

Both teams have injured TEs that might not play Sunday, although perhaps one of the backups will shine (Correction: C.J. Uzomah will play on Sunday). The Rams also have a good offense led by Matthew Stafford, who has Cooper Kupp, OBJ and X factor Van Jefferson to throw to. The issue will be if Stafford can afford tossing costly interceptions that may put the Rams in bad spots defensively. The Rams do have multiple running backs to spell him however in Cam Akers, Darrell Henderson and Sony Michel, the last one which they relied on pretty well when the others were hurt.

Kicking wise the Bengals have their young stud Evan McPherson, while the Rams rely on Matt Gay who is usually pretty good. Still if it comes down to field goals I’m giving the edge to the Bengals. My gut is telling me to go with the Rams, my head the Bengals. Or maybe it’s the other way around, I donno. If we are finding a potential tie breaker it’s that I trust Sean McVay more than Zac Taylor coaching wise, although that often means little come game time as one may have the more talented or healthier squad.

Just two dudes playing football with other dudes.

Oh and The Simpsons are telling me to pick the Bengals to win over the Rams 34-31, although Google says that didn’t happen haha. I’m not sure the score will be that high. I’ve got the Rams winning 24-21 in a close, hard fought contest that should be fun to watch. See you all next season.

Why Your Team is Overrated: Iowa State Cyclones

New series borrowed/stolen/whatever from um, someone else. Anyways this takes aim for the time being at college football teams. First up, Iowa State.

Congrats on never winning anything in your entire history until last season, and that came against an Oregon team that lucked their way backwards into a good BCS bowl. Yes those bowl games still matter until they eventually expand the College Football Playoff. Last season was as good as it’s ever going to get for the Cyclones. They beat Oklahoma once, then lost to them in the Big 12 title game when it actually mattered.

Sure they also got Texas’s coach fired, yet Texas chokes as hard as ISU does these days and then some. ISU also lost to an Oklahoma State Cowboys team that they should have beaten by now. Oklahoma teams own their shit. Oh hey I almost forgot that embarrassing early season loss to Louisiana that I’m sure everyone blamed on covid somehow. It’s probably for the best they didn’t play Iowa last season.

This season they almost lost to the University of Northern Iowa Panthers and as I write this they are going to lose to Iowa. The only thing ISU has going for it is the rest of the Big 12 save for the Oklahoma schools and maybe Texas (hah, maybe not) is pretty beatable this season. So 6-7 wins tops, and a pathetic pre-New Year’s Eve bowl game? Sounds about right. I can thank my dad who graduated from there and my little sister who went there for brainwashing me into becoming a fan all these years. Thanks a lot!

I didn’t even touch on the fact that the whole Ames area is Trump country (yeech) or that they named the stadium after a poor guy who literally died on the field (fuck you Minnesota, never forget). This season will be spent watching Brock Purdy’s draft stock continue to swing downwards as each week progresses. At least Breece Hall is pretty cool-I look forward to him getting drafted by an NFL team that I don’t like, which is what happened to the previous other ISU running backs.

What isn’t overrated: Charlie Kolar is a legit beast and Xavier Hutchinson is fun to watch. Mike Rose is a monster.

Enjoy it while it lasts: Matt Campbell will absolutely go to OSU, Notre Dame or *insert coveted job here* the first chance he gets. Or at least that’s the consensus here anyways. Unless of course the Cyclones manage to taint any possibility of that happening. Go Clones! I’m just a sucker…

Well That Sucked…Super Bowl Edition

New segment which may be balanced out by a good news one that could materialize one day when things improve. Someday. One day. Maybe in 2027?

Anyways I’m a die hard Kansas City Chiefs fan. They could change the name and I wouldn’t care. My folks got me a nice new black Chiefs hoodie for Xmas and I settled down into the couch, beer in hand, to watch them play Tampa Bay. My gut told me this wouldn’t end well. Guess what? It was right. A 31-9 ass kicking where Gronk caught two TDs, the Chiefs offense never materialized and Mahomes was running for his life.

In the past, I wouldn’t have taken it very well. The year the Chiefs lost to the Colts in the playoffs I was so mad I almost walked out on my job. I was pissed all day. Then came the Steelers beating KC on field goals in the playoffs and I had what most call an epiphany. This shit doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Also I became dead inside to the Chiefs’ playoff failures.

Yep when they lost to a Titans team actively trying to blow it so they could fire their head coach, I just laughed. Derrick Henry really should thank KC for him being a starter btw. I even thought it was going to happen, yet I picked the Chiefs to win anyways cause I wasn’t sports betting. Thank God I never sports bet although I would have made money betting against KC a lot of the time.

I actually wish I had bet my coworker that the Bucs would win. I could have made some money off of him this weekend. Look sure KC won the Super Bowl last year, yet I know better now. That was an aberration that most likely won’t happen again. It’s nice they made it back to back, yet expecting a third trip in a row goes against history and a legacy of flopping when it counts. I know better.

People thinking the Chiefs will be a dynasty are the same folks who thought that about the Seahawks, the Packers, the Steelers, the Eagles, and so on. The Pats were a dynasty but they got cheap and cute so Brady and Gronk packed up their shit and left. I don’t blame them. That’s how a dynasty ends.

I fully expect Tom Brady to be winning Super Bowls until he’s 50. I wonder if he can win one with an expansion team. You never know. This has been “Well That Sucked.” Have a nice day.

It’s a Simple Game…right?

A friend who plays with me in two leagues we are in, one free one money, asked me who I was thinking about drafting this year. Nevermind if there will be a season or if the season will even last that long, I realized that his answer depended on way too many variables. Is the league a keeper league? Dynasty league? Two QB’s or one? Is there three WR’s? Does it have a super flex? Kicker or no kicker? Are there defensive players you can draft or not?

Fantasy football used to be a lot more simple and not this complicated. Leagues are easy to start but if you are the commissioner you have to navigate a lot of issues with scoring and how many team slots plus bench spots there should be. This is why I don’t want that job, especially since I’m not getting paid to do it. Covid definitely will cause lots of problems and there are already players sitting out the season. Makes me almost not want to play this year.

However I am in one league, and maybe that is good enough. If the other three I played in last year decide to exist I’ll participate just like I always do. However fantasy football could use a nice dose of simplicity more often. At least there is a consensus on who should be taken number one….right? Maybe? Oh boy.

Back To School 2019 Edition: Week 15

Well we have come to the end of the regular season. Time for conference title games and then for (way too many schools) bowl season. Last weekend I went 8-2 for an overall record of 102-38. Not bad. Winners posted only:

*Oklahoma Sooners

*Central Michigan Chippewas

*Appalachian State Mountaineers

*Florida Atlantic Owls

*Memphis Tigers

*Boise State Broncos

*LSU Tigers

*Southern University Jaguars

*Clemson Tigers

*OSU Buckeyes

Back To School 2019 Edition: Week 14

Well we are almost at the end for pick ems. I went 9-1 last week for an overall 94-36 record. Winners only posted:

*OSU Buckeyes

*Clemson Tigers

*Minnesota Golden Gophers

*Alabama Crimson Tide

*LSU Tigers

*Navy Midshipmen

*K-State Wildcats

*Utah Utes

*Oklahoma Sooners

*Cal Golden Bears

Back To School 2019 Edition: Week 13

Another good week as I went 8-2 again. Overall record is 85-35. Winners only listed:

*OSU Buckeyes

*Minnesota Golden Gophers

*Notre Dame Fighting Irish

*Michigan Wolverines

*Baylor Bears

*Georgia Bulldogs

*Cincinnati Bearcats

*Oregon Ducks

*Utah Utes

*Boise State Broncos

Back To School 2019 Edition: Week 12

Back on track with an 8-2 weekend for a 77-33 overall record. Here we go again….winners only posted:

*Penn State Nittany Lions

*Michigan Wolverines

*Florida Gators

*Notre Dame Fighting Irish

*Texas Longhorns

*Clemson Tigers

*Georgia Bulldogs

*Minnesota Golden Golphers

*Oklahoma Sooners

*USC Trojans