Instant Hippo Thoughts – Week 11, #NuAIDS Season

Holy cats, what a weekend.  Between NC State and Everton, I stayed pretty puckered until the sweet release of RedZone Heroine.  Which, as usual, hit the sweet spot.

We even got the mathematical beauty of Your 3-6-1, FIRST PLACE Philadelphia Iggles.

That was…not one of your more well-played of contests.  No offensive points scored the entire first half.  #ThePauls scored on a Pick 6, because Dakota Jeebus started awful, and stayed awful.  His entire essence can be summed up by doing a Q2, midfield pylon stretch on 3rd and 7.  After a scramble of MAYBE one yard.  He’s just that stupid, and that reckless.  Garbage time got him over 200 yards, and cut the final margin to 22-17.  But 2 picks and a fumble (which Philly recovered) dug an impossibly deep hole.  And having already signed his extension, that boat anchor will be tied to the franchise’s collective neck for some time.

What would a Redacteds home fixture be without “Bring out yer ded!!”  Sadly, Team WKRP lost their ray of hope (Joe Burrow) to at least a torn ACL.  The gruesome injury overshadowed a really excellent defensive performance by the Football Team, as they closed to within a half-game of mighty PHI.  20-9 is your final.

Los Gigantes are on bye, but we still have Red Rocket and his merry band of Non-Gendered Cowpersons!  Captain BlueBunny earned my ire by kicking a FG from inside the 1, with 5 seconds left in the half.  The home SKOL unit very quickly re-took the lead, but things went all back and forth, and Dallas surprisingly got the defensive stop they needed.  Perhaps more surprisingly, Dalton converted a key 4th down, then got them into the end zone for a 31-28 lead.  Then most surprisingly…stopping Captain Dingleberry (see, this was a Tale of Two Captains!) cold on the Vikes’ final drive.  Dallas is now also 3-7.  Special Needs Division for sure, but quite competitive.

Back to the real world, we had an excellent Tits/Ratbirds matchup, in Balmer.  One of those matchups where Tennessee just kept hanging around, mostly due to Lamar! being subpar (again).  Beastly A.J. Brown finally put his side in the lead, with a bulldozer of a catch and run.  Tanny Fanny ran it in for 2, and a 24-21 lead.  A Ratbird offense that had sputtered down the stretch re-discovered its mojo, and Tucker booted a short FG to take us to Extra Time.

BAL’s offense went right back into the toilet, immediately giving the ball back to TEN.  Rather than leave things to their shaky kicker, el Tractorcito provided DonT with some Erotic Friend Fiction, plowing in for 6 from 29 yards out.  TAKE THAT, A.J. Brown!  All of a sudden, Balmer is just 6-4, and not looking so hot for January.  I assure you that NOBODY wants to see the Tits on their schedule.

We may have unwritten the P*ts’ obituary too quickly.  Dropped to 4-6 by an imaginary squadron, no less.  New England kept within striking distance, but Cam Newton couldn’t make the key plays to get them level at the end.  27-20, 500s.  Grumblelord would likely have to run the table now, which ain’t happening.

Speaking of obituaries…that will be all for the Jake Luton boomlet.  PIT started uber-slowly down in Duuuuuvvvvaaaalllll, but the Jaguras’ opening drive FG would be all the points they’d get.  Final Luton #s?  16-37, 151 yards, and FOUR pickerceptions.  Ouchy the fuck ouch.  Getting harder not to believe in the Yinzers, especially given their near-certain first round bye and home field advantage.  They even converted a 4th and 1 from their own 39 (up 17-3 in Q3), because Coach Epps gives absolutely zero fucks at this point.  What was JAX gonna do, really?  And it’s not like they didn’t convert.  Easily.  27-3 was the final, because of cruise control.

Who pitched the only shutout of the day (or at all, in recent memory)?  OF COURSE, the Black Panthers.  Yes, I raised mah fist.  Fat Stafford played hurt, and did so very badly.  Teddy Ballgame, on the other hand, played it safe/smart, and let 90s quasi-punk artist PJ Harvey be all cromulent.  20-nil, with the No-Fuck Lions’ only near score being a hilariously bad miss (from 51, but still) by their fat, drunk kicker.  I was desperate enough to start the Black Panther D/ST, which came through in spades.  I still got my ass kicked.

Let the Angel Moroni sound the trumpets, and break out your goldest of plates!  Magic underwear aficianado Taysom Hill is 1-0 as a starting quartered back.  He didn’t throw that much, but was mostly accurate in compiling an excellent 10+ YPA.  Of course, he also rushed for 2 scores, and had more yardage on the ground than either designated RB.  A man on a mission, indeed!  Matty Ice remains a QB just good enough to consistently lose with, as no Falcon could score aside from Younghoe.  24-9, and PHRASING!

An early pickerception made me expect another lost week for Horse Cock Lock and me Donks.  But after Miami’s opening TD (really nice pass and catch from in close), they barely even got another first down – until BloodSugarFitzMagic re-entered the picture.  Unclear whether our Chubb knocked Tua out (with a clean hit), or it was Flores’ decision.  Likely a little column A, a little column B.  Fitz was better than Tua, but still not good.  He led them to a long FG, then put together a decent drive following motherfucking disphit Melvin Gordon’s fumble inside the 1 (when a FG puts the game out of reach).  Melvin gets a reprieve in the form of a fucking sweet end zone pick by Justin Simmons, and Hippo’s footy sides go 3-for-3 (as is super rare).  Donks 20, LOLfins 13.  Even more important than the win, Lock got a little rhythm and (in my judgment) self-belief back.  Good for the kid, good for the franchise.

Fox’s self-proclaimed “Murrika’s Game of the Week” was sure bananacakes enough.  A.A. Ron killed it in the first half, getting his 3rd TD pass right before the half, for a 28-14 Packers lead.

And that was IT, until after the 2:00 warning.  The Humps, meanwhile, went FG, TD/2-pointer, FG, tying the game at 28.  GB could still do fuckall, and the Humps got 3 MOAR.  What followed…were a series of BLEERGH-gasms all over the pitch, to the point where I just kind of lost track (I was a bit high, admittedly).  I thought Indy was in easy FG range, and would run the clock down to maybe 55 seconds.  And then they were punting, leaving A.A. Ron with like 1:45 to play with – AND a timeout.  Seemed like a bad oopsie-doodle.

On 3rd and 10, Rodgers tossed a bomb to MVS, who made the only nice non-Rodgers Packers play of the game with a catch near midfield.  GB got close enough to take one shot at the end zone, but still played the last 30 seconds (inside the red zone) curiously, for my taste.  Settling for FGs is bad, especially when you are pressing leverage.  Still, 31-31 and FREE FITBAW beckoned.  Fittingly, the Packers squandered their advantage (won the toss) almost immediately, with a catch-fumble.  The Humps took over in FG range, and Blankenship promptly sank the opposition.  34-31, fin.

In other news, the Jest covered!  34-28, following a late Clippers du Merde intentional safety.  I love intentional safeties, along with circuitous routes to normal scores like “28.”  Nothing else was really that notable, though.  Joisey’s Tank for Trevor marches on.

Mahomes-y and Reid headed to the desert, looking for some Sunday Night Vengeance.  It became readily apparent (to my old, jaded eyes) that they would not get it.  You know, I hate to ruin a good sportsball weekend like this with a turd in the punch bowl.  So, with KC trailing 24-21 in Q4, and punting back to the most disliked Raiders?  I turned the teevee box off, and went to bed with my book.  Y’all can discuss any further developments in the comments.

See y’all Friday morning, to recap The Shield’s three holiday offerings.  And to wallow in our collective shame.  So very much collective shame.