Instant Hippo Thoughts – Week 17, 2017

Yes indeed, we have reached the end of regulation play.  To celebrate the absence of the Shitty Clippers, here are your Wild Card matchups:

#5 Tennessee Titans at #4 Kansas City Chefs (4:20, ESPN/ABC)

As always, KC gets the worst time slot whenever they are part of the tournament.  I do believe the Tits can take ’em out, because they are sentient.

#6 Atlanta Falcons at #3 Los Angeles Rams (8:15, NBC)

Primetime spotlight dance in Tinseltown?  Why not??  RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAM IT!! fever burning at an all-time high, no doubt.  Matty Ice and crew have no chance whatsoever.

#6 Buffalo Bills at #3 Jacksonville Jaguras (1:05, CBS)

Bet nobody imagined this matchup before the season started.  Entropy is a beautiful thing.

#5 Carolina Panthers at #4 New Orleans Saints (4:40, Fox)

Both these teams looked like merde on Sunday, and the Panthers don’t match up well at all – especially on turf.  GAMBLOR HINT!!

Is there really anything to discuss beyond Chris Coleman’s pathetic drop to damn #ThePauls to 0-16 and break the hearts of the 2008 Detroit Lions?  I mean, MEIN GOTT does DeShone Kizer ever deserve better than the kind of “effort” he got out of his teammates this season, and in particular this week.

Yinzers wisely rested starters assuming the P*ts would run train on the Bryce Petty Jets, which they did.  Still, 5-11 with that dead fish of a roster represents yeoman’s work by Todd Bowles.

Chi****’s Foxball era was mercifully euthanized after a painful-to-watch 23-10 loss in Minny-SEW-ta.  Truth Biscuit had a hilarious, moronic safety.  That’s about it for highlight plays.

Dallas missed a chip shot FG and an extra point, but still defeated the #1 seed in the NFC Philadelphia Iggles, 6-nil.  Yes, you read all that correctly.  One can see why nobody was knocking themselves out to get that 3rd seed.

Another weird score – Los Gigantes 18, Redacteds 10.  I enjoy things like that.  Elisha and Captain Dingleberry played like themselves in their likely swan songs.

Coach Cancer goes out a winner in his Humpin’ around finale, 22-13 over the Hopkins-less Imaginarium.  Even got a safety and surprise onside kick in the process!  Another fun score, 22-13.

The Lions beat the tar shit out of the Packers, 35-11.  Nobody cared, and Jim Caldwell still (somewhat surprisingly) got fired.

Speaking of nobody cares, how about them Chefs and Donks backups!  KC blows a late 2 score lead, but recovers to win on a last-second FG and secure Denver the 5th overall pick, 27-24.  Thanks!

You wouldn’t expect the Tits to do it all pretty like…and they didn’t.  Scratched and clawed to a 15-3 lead, had things well in hand before gifting the Jaguras a defensive TD that kept their sphincters tight until Mariota converted the clinching first down run.  Welcome back to the playoffs, Tennessee.

That knocked out the Shitty Clippers, whose 30-10 win over pre-Vegas just fucked up their draft position. HAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Unsurprisingly, Jack Del Rio got fired.

Down South Beach way, the wagons were a circling.  Somewhat hilariously, Buffalo almost gakked away a 22-3 Q4 lead to David Fucking Fales but mercifully picked him off after a successful Dolphin onside kick at 22-16.  WHEW.

Which meant…they just needed a Bungle win in Balmer.  Not as unpossible as it might seem, given that Cincy had a 2 TD lead for much of the afternoon/evening.  But these are the Bungles, and they fucked it up, giving up 17 straight.  With 2 minutes and change to play, Dalton got it back on his own 10.  He used up about 100 seconds of that to get it to midfield, facing 4th and 12.  No more timeouts.  And Tyler Fucking Boyd of all people runs a perfect slant and go route, makes a nice open field move…and is gone.  31-27, Cincy.  40 seconds and 3 timeouts, but Flacco and pals are shell shocked and done.  PAR-TAY TIME in WNY.

Less meaningfully, we still had the NFC South to settle.  N’Awlins and the MRSA Men went back and forth, but Rapey Jameis found Chris Godwin for the winning TD (when it looked like they would set up a possible winning FG instead) with 9 seconds to play.

Twas a bit anti-climactic, knowing what we knew from Megatron’s Butthole – that Cam and crew were phoning it in.  22-10 Falcons.  So…it stays NO at 4, CAR at 5, ATL at 6, just as the day began.

Too bad for the SeaTruthers, their late 24-23 comeback win against Birdcano being all for naught.  We were (almost) all tired of them anyway.  With the Fightin’ Tomsulas on the rise, and RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAM IT!!! already among the NFC’s elite (with young talent leading the way), a re-tooling is likely in order in the Pacific NW, and the long knives could be out for Petey.  Ed. NOTE: This game became so inconsequential that I failed to notice that AZ actually kicked a FG after SEA took the lead, and ended up winning 26-24.  I left the original text in place because funnier.  Only noticed because checked scoreboard to see if I missed any games LMAO.

Speaking of the two ascendents, they met in LA, with RRRRRRRRRRRRRAM IT!! trying their best to tank, partly for rest, but mostly (in my view) because they wanted a piece of Iggle flesh (as opposed to the Viking juggernaut) in the Divisional round.  Alas, NO had the same thought.  Still, 34-13 is a nice hiding for Santa Clara to wind up their 5-game end of season win streak.  Take a bow indeed, Ms. Garafalo.

See you next season, coke-up Red Zone guy.  We shall miss you greatly.