Brothers and sisters and those in between, I thank you for joining the DFO congregation on this glorious day. It is a day of hope. It is a day of slacking. It is a day for reflecting upon what depths of inebriation you sank to last weekend in order to forget the off-season and all the summer weekends where you had to take your weiner kids to a field hockey tournament even though the forecast calls for 96% chance of Death Lightning. It is, my brothers and sisters, a day to be glad.

But, my friends and colleagues, my fellow travelers on the path, I say it is not The Time of Retribution. I say it is not the time to slash your Pats fan neighbor’s tires!

I say it is not the time to light the stupid-ass bandwagonner flag they purchased in 2005 on fire! BROTHERS AND SISTERS I IMPLORE YOU, I SAY IT IS NOT THE TIME TO SMACK FRED IN THE NEXT OFFICE IN HIS FUCKING FACE WHEN HE STARTS COMPLAINING THAT THIS IS AN ANTI-PATRIOT CONSPIRACY BUT THAT JIMMY G IS GONNA SEE US THROUGH!

For the acts are just, and the time will come. And on that Day of Schadenfreude we shall sing unto Bleergh a new song of thanksgiving.

Not that kind of thanksgiving.

But for now, we just have to hold our respective shit together and suffer in silence because THE “BUZZSAW” COULDN’T CLOSE THE DEAL WITH $500 IN A WHOREHOUSE! YOU HAD THEM! YOU HAD THEM WITHOUT BRADY OR GRONK!!!! FUCK YOU “CHANDLER”. FUCK YOU BRUCE, YOU OLD-CREEPY-DUDE-AT-THE-JUSTIN-BIEBER-CONCERT MOTHERFUCKER! THE ONLY MAN ALIVE WHO IS ALLOWED TO WEAR A KANGOL HAT IS SAMUEL L JACKSON!

FUCK.

Ok. Ok. I’m ok. We’re cool.

BRING FORTH THE ACCUSED!

BRUCE MILLER:

CHARGE: Punching a 70 year-old man in the face.

Once again, the Charge is pretty much the story. Bruce Miller, very recently of the San Francisco 49ers, allegedly beat the living sourdough out of a guy and his semi-elderly father for having the temerity to be in their hotel rooms. The bastards obviously had it coming then.

Apparently, Miller attempted to check into the Fisherman’s Wharf Marriott Sunday night, only to be told that the hotel was full up. An undetermined amount of time later, the 49ers fullback/tight end/Harbaugh leftover returned to the hotel and knocked on an apparently random room. A 70 year-old man staying with his wife came to the door. From next door, the couple’s son came out and informed Miller that he had the wrong room. Miller proceeded to punch the shit out of the son, then served the elderly man his own knuckle sandwich from Room Service. The charges indicate that Miller may have used the man’s cane in the altercation. Apparently realizing that something just might be amiss, Miller then fled the premises only to be arrested later. The Niners released the standard “we are aware of the situation and are investigating” statement, and (consistent with Miller’s status as ‘not a starter’) promptly concluded their investigation by releasing his ass.

Couple of things to point out:

1. Expedia lists a number of 4+ star hotels on Fisherman’s Wharf with open rooms, starting at $159. For Tourist San Francisco, that’s tremendous. Apparently Marriott’s brunch is worth going to jail over.
2. Both the father and son were hospitalized as a result of their encounter with Miller. No jokes, just messed up.
3. Robbie Gould was cut from the Bears as well that same day, despite not having another place kicker on the roster. No word on how old the guy he punched was, or where on his body. UPDATE: The Bears apparently released Gould because the incomparable Connor Barth became available.

   

   I mean, I suppose when a talent like Connor Barth gets cut twice in a single season (once by Tampa Fucking Bay and once by Nyew Orlins) you can’t dilly-dally and wait for some other team to snap him up.

4. Back to Miller- while I’m sure this incident had some connection to drugs, alcohol or CTE, I would like to remind everyone that Miller is an avowed Ginger, and thus cannot be trusted around civilized people.

   

   5. Apparently, Miller had been having trouble with the concept of ownership all evening. Earlier that evening he allegedly walked into a restaurant, sat down, “stared at the buffet line for 20 minutes” and then “approached the queue and started arguing with guests over a sandwich[.]”

    

   The money quote, really, comes from Night Manager Eddie Martin. “’I believe he wanted their sandwiches,’ said Martin, who guessed Miller wanted their popular brisket sandwich.” First off, big ups from ownership on managing to push the brisket even during a news interview. Second, I’m glad he cleared up that the argument was over Miller taking the sandwich, rather than something more obvious like the moral inexcusability of putting both sriracha and mustard on the same sandwich. PICK A CULINARY LANE, ASSHOLE!!!!

   Sharing may be caring, but ouch.

   Final note: here is Miller’s booking picture.

   I’d like to believe the old man caught him one right across the forehead with his HurryCane before it was turned against him.

CLEVELAND BROWNS

CHARGE:

Yep. The Cleveland Browns have once again managed to chimpfuck the football. In addition to losing the game (expected) to the Philadelphia Eagles, they managed to do it as a microcosm of their personnel dysfunctions. It was really less a loss and more a piece of performance art about sucking. Only the Rams’ delightfully karmic drubbing at the hands of the Denim Empire in a national game kept this from being my Game of The Weak.

First and foremost, of course, was the RGIII injury. Who knew that a team with a porous offensive line might get an injury-riddled quarterback killed and eaten? Recall that an already falling-over tent lost its last structural support over the offseason when Javon “Alex” Mack bolted on three years and $24 million to get away from the Factory. In retrospect, he did just fine- 5 years and $28 million guaranteed in Atlanta, but at the time it was essentially a flip-the-double-birds-as-you-walk-away move. In response to the loss of Mack and occasionally-decent Mitchell Schwartz, they added a guard who wasn’t good enough to play for the Jags and drafted two offensive linemen: third and fifth round tackles, which means not very good tackles.

I don’t know what kind of Moneyball advanced metric Paul DePodesta was using when the Browns assembled their offensive line- maybe sacks allowed is an undervalued stat? Whatever it was, I’m reasonably certain they didn’t work up any simulations of how that line would work with these quarterbacks. Regardless of the questions about his quarterbacking acumen and fragility, you had to know that Robert Griffin is no longer nearly as mobile as he once was, and certainly not mobile enough to escape the inevitable pressure. Then, factoring back in the fragility issue, you decide to go with the 37 year-old backup who is himself statuesque in the pocket, and not in the complimentary way.

After McCown, you’ve got Cody Kessler. Cody Kessler is a rookie out of USC. The only way USC quarterbacks have any success is if they horrifically blow out their knee. So somebody should have gotten Kimo von Oelhoffen off his lanai, gotten him on a plane and aimed him at Kessler’s legs the day after the draft.

The final movement of the Symphony of Suck is that the Browns chose to highlight their organizational ineptitude against the Philadelphia Eagles and Carson Wentz, the Man Who Would Be QB. And boy, did they make Gomer Pyle look like the real deal. At the time, the deal that sent the Wentz Pick to Philly sparked a general sense of bemused wonder that the Browns had done something rationally defensible. Wentz was an unknown quantity out of Division 4.3, and getting that haul of picks seemed like a good thing. Then everyone remembered that stockpiling draft picks is essentially pointless in Cleveland, because it’s just more chances to drive the fanbase nuts with illogical and pointless selections.

And then on the same day you face the man you could have built your franchise around, your Big Project gets borked AND you make What Might Have Been look like The Next Big Thing- 278 yards, a good completion percentage and two touchdowns. Shit, Cleveland, you made Nelson Agholohologlalar look good. That is really impressive in a tremendously sad way.

PAROLE EVIDENCE

HOWIE ROSEMAN

REASON FOR PAROLE: There’s always someone dumber.

Ah, the Circle Jerk of Life! In any small community of vaguely like-minded individuals, you often get these mutually reinforcing delusions that get repeated so often they become gospel truth through nothing more than repetition. The Salem Witch Trials. Wall Street. The concept that black players can’t be quarterbacks. The possibility that Donald Trump might not be the worst major-party presidential candidate in living memory.

In the current echo-chamber of NFL personnel people, the current mass delusion appears to be that Sam Bradford Is A Viable Starting Quarterback. I pilloried Howie Roseman at length and with great enjoyment for doubling down on Bradford’s contract extension, bringing in Chase Daniel at a near-starter salary, then selling the farm to draft the aforementioned Gomer Pyle. And this after Chip Kelly sacrificed a second-rounder to get Bradford in the first place.

But that same groupthink that put Roseman in a bind has apparently rescued him from it. In a classic knee-jerk (no pun intended) reaction to an injury, the Minnesota Vikings decided that Bradford was actually worth more than when he was younger and less banged up, offering up a first-round pick (and a conditional other pick that only becomes interesting if the Viking make it deep in the playoffs) to the Eagles.

Listen, Vikings, I get it- you’ve got a good defense, a reasonablish line, a new stadium that needs butts in seats. Hell, you probably want to get one or two more years out of Adrian Peterson before he lights a nun on fire or something. But jesus hellfire christ, Vikes- a first rounder? And the Talking Head Overlords are always bitching on about how hard it is for a quarterback to learn a new offense. You’ve got him for a season before his cap hit goes to a prohibitive $17 million. Correction: you’ve got him for as much of a season as he can survive. And that ain’t a ton of value for a first-round pick. A fairly reasonable SB Nation article highlights exactly how much of a panic move this was for the Vikings. By Rick Spielman’s own admission, they diagrammed out all the potential ways to get a reasonable replacement for Bridgewater and found “[t]o be honest, there was no solution. No good solution.”

And again, I get that. But there are levels and gradations of bad options. Everyone might face the Kobayashi Maru and lose. But this feels like Rick Spielman decided to lose by blowing up the civilians and offering to become a Klingon’s sexual plaything. There may not have been any good options, but there were a hell of a lot less-bad ones

But hey- Roseman benefits and looks like a fucking genius, so that’s nice. At least until Gomer decides to recreate the famous training run through Philadelphia from Rocky II and gets Hitchbot’d.