Instant Hippo Thoughts – Week 1, 2021 Season

Oh my goodness, wan’t that just divine?  Lots of good games, lots of interesting strategy – and of course, surprises.  Always with the surprises, that National Football League.

I will hit you with my own surprise up front – I found the “all broadcasts” 12 September intro to be tasteful and well-done.  It didn’t overdo it, while still recognizing the importance of having made iit 20 years and a day.  Reminding us to reach back for our better angels now and again (while the politics of the nation and world just get uglier and stupider).  I teared up a little bit when they transitioned from the picture of the little girl who lost her father to those planes full of evil, to the adult survivor singing the anthem.  Not in front of any actual crowd, but rather – the memorial.

I am an asshole, and even MOAR – a cynical asshole.  But that worked for me.

To the action!  And YES, I really did only place one bet for Week 1 – $100 on the 500s to win (+155).  There is no easier “motivational card” for a head coach to play than “nobody respects us.”  At the end of the day, these are professional athletes.  With pride and at least *some* ability.  Playing at home against the trash Jaguras, under Urban Meyer – a man with lots of media hype, but one who seems (to me, at least) temperamentally unsuited to pro football.  Again, these are professionals – they expect to be treated like adults, not raw armed forces privates from 70 years ago.  Houston leaped ahead by as much as 27 points, before garbage time Prison Girlfriend made the final a deceptively “close” 37-21.

Jacksonville was my pick in The Athletic’s “Think You Know the NFL?” contest, for having the worst record in the League.  Feeling good about that, so far.

But I also expected Philly to be the NFC’s varietal of Jacksonville – and they William Tecumseh Sherman’d all over Megatron’s Butthole.  Atlanta sucked on offense, defense, and special teams.  32-6 to the Iggles.  Suffice to say, I did NOT see that coming.

That said, not sure that Philly had the worst NFC day – unless you’ve been firmly under a rock the last 24 hours, you noticed that A.A. Ron and pals completely shit their dick “away” to the Saints (in JAX).  Bay of Green had maybe ONE good offensive play, setting up the FG right before half, making things a seemingly manageable 17-3.  But it got worse.  Much, much worse.  Sean Payton’s game plan was heavy on ball control, which both frustrated and tired out his opponents.  Rapey Jameis wasn’t asked to do much, but he somehow managed FOUR scoring tosses, despite being under 100 yards total.  He went on to ruin that beautiful mathematical outlier, with a long 5th TD pass, making the score 38-3 and getting Jordan Love into the game.  A.A. Ron tossed two pickerceptions in the second half, and they were wretched ones.  He also showed more or less all of his ass on the sidelines.  Guess he wasn’t kidding about wanting out, and NO it wouldn’t all fade to background noise when the season kicked off.

Yinzers/Bills was a strange fucking game.  Buffalo raced out to a 10-nil lead, and PIT could do the square root of fuckall on offense.  Their defense kept them hanging around, and the game turned on a dime early in Q4.  17 Stillers points, added to two Q3 field goals, and that was mostly all she wrote.  Buffalo got a FG early in Q4 (temporarily pulling back to within 7), then again in garbage time before the failed onside kick.  23-16, PIT, and Coach Epps can spin his “we don’t care about style points” shtick.  For a week, anyway.  Najee Harris was bad, The Ben was bad.  That ain’t any kind of recipe for January joy, y’all.  I think the bigger issue is whether this will be a blip for McDermott’s charges, or a major course correction to 2020’s breakout.

Speaking of strange – Tomsulas/No-Fuck Lions.  For like 56 minutes, this played out like the murdering most of us expected.  Yeah, Detroit got a little production to the backs and Scotchy’s beloved TE Hockey, but their defense was getting gashed, and Santa Clara was putting up pinball numbers.  Who has two(ish) thumbs and auctioned/started Deebo Samuel??  Fuck, did he ever go the fuck off.  But his role in this little weirdo fixture was nae over.  At 41-17, they got a garbage score just inside the 2:00 warning.  Even got the two pointer, isn’t that nice?  Then, recovered the onside kick after a bad hop grounder to George Kittle’s facemask.  Bomb down the sideline, a few plays later…TD, Lions.  At this point, one notices they still have all their timeouts.  But it only matters if they get the two, and the great catch only came with one foot down…wait, the other ref saw a second toe drag, and was RIGHT – 41-33.  Now, we are cooking!  But they can’t manage two straight onside recoveries, so we have that “one first down ends it, and a non-eventful punt 99.9999999% ends it.”  Because you use up their timeouts, give them the ball back around the 10 with like 45 seconds left.

That was the path we headed down, no question.  But the DET defense got their backs up, and forced 3rd and 12.  Now, I very rarely approve of FITBAW (or any other) conservatism.  But the maths is the maths here.  You basically have to hit TWO Hail Marys in order to survive the handoff/punt combo.  Baby Shanny has other ideas, sends Janeane back to pass.  She dances in the pocket, tosses across the middle…and the aforementioned Deebo makes a nice catch, turns upfield and gets the first down.

Except that the chasing DL “Peanut punches” the ball out, Lions recover…around their 35 and WITH a timeout left!  Now, you are talking long shot, sure – but squint and you can see it.  And Buster promptly hit a play downfield AND by the sideline, all the way inside the Tomsulas’ 30, still like 20-25 seconds left AND that timeout still in hand.  But he curled into a ball (as he is wont to do), and they didn’t gain another yard.  41-33, fin.  But it just goes to show how quickly a snorefest can turn into Deluxe Bananacakes.  We missed you, crazy-ass NFL.  We missed you BAD.

Our magical pony Imaginary Friend Redshirt was on fire today, noting that one couldn’t really blame Team WKRP for not knowing how to play with a lead, since nobody on the team really had any experience doing so.  “Beavis” Burrow and crew were easily the better side, start to finish.  They built a 21-7 lead in Q4, and 24-14 in Q4.  But we’ve seen that movie before.  Even though they shut Minny down after Cook cut the margin to 3, even though they got a great coffin corner punt on their last regulation possession…they were gonna cock it up.  Captain Dingleberry (who was his usual, stats accumulating but still piece of shit self) made the ONE big throw he needed to get on the VERY EDGE of their placement kicker’s range.  And of course, Greg Joseph was good from 53 as the clock expired.

But these just MIGHT not be the Bungles we all know and “love” – they refused to go down for the OT count.  Even though they gave the ball back to the Vikes TWICE.  As Minny lurked near FG range again, they stripped Dalvin Cook on a VERY close play…that replay upheld, giving Cincy one last chance.  Mixon’s 3rd down run was JUST millimeters short, but they didn’t play for Most Glorious Draw, with under a minute to play.  They went for it, even sent Burrow back on play action…and he lofted a perfect toss to the TE.  Who didn’t drop it.  Then THEIR kicker was true as the OT clock expired.  27-24, and have we seen a worm turn?  I know I wouldn’t want to be on Mike Zimmer’s (and Mister Winkles’) practice field come Tuesday morning.

I already told ya that Philly won, so you know this can’t be the NFC Special Needs Division.  But indeed, one division has a 4-way tie for first place, at 0-1.  Who we talkin’ ’bout?  The NFC North – as the Beristocrats! neither disappointed, nor surprised.  As WCS rightly credited Redshirt – we got “Prime Time Andy” all up and down the pitch.  Red Rocket showed, and it wasn’t pretty.  David Montgomery looked really good, though.  Could round into an 8 or 9-win team, once Strawberry Fields adjusts.  Fat Stafford made a handful of good downfield throws, and that would suffice.  RRRRRRRRRRRRRAM IT!! 34, Chi**** 14.

Yes, on the flip side – the NFC West is all 1-0.  Arizona went into Tits Country and whipped ass.  Specifically, Chandler Jones made Tanny Fanny his personal punching bag.  FIVE sacks, including a strip sack setting up the Qards inside the TN 1.  It was never a game, and I wish I had better consolation to give DonT.  38-13, and it really was that lopsided.

Russ was at least afforded partial kitchen privileges.  Only 23 passing attempts, true.  But he made ’em count, 254 and 4 scores.  That’s 11.0 YPA, if you’re counting (and one should).  Unsurprisingly, Dakota Jeebus was kind of meh (surprisingly, so was Jonathan Taylor – outshone by the pedestrian Chris Carson), only a late garbage time score keeping the home side respectable.  28-16, sad Gravy Boat is sad.

I still expect Coach Petey (aka, 9/11 “I’m just asking questions” Truther) to outthink himself, costing the team 2+ wins and Wilson the MVP trophy.  Again.

Do you like REALLY good defensive back play?  Then P*ts/LOLfins was a real treat.  Tua looked better than last year, but he still made those handful of moron plays that will eventually get him benched.  Good ol’ White Mac (who has already won Foxboro hearts) game managed the way that gives Belicheat his most turgid of erections.  But lo, that aggressive Miami D stripped the ball from Damien Harris (who otherwise played really, really well) inside the 15.  Miami clung to just a 1-point lead, but even in spite of a holding penalty – churned out the two first downs needed to bleed the clock dry.  17-16, Miami.  The Year of Wakezilla continues unabated.

You didn’t see much of Denver/Noo Yawk on RedZone, but it was a pretty fascinating game to this (very biased) observer.  No, Vic Fangio hasn’t lit the world on fire his first two seasons.  But I urged patience, because I see something there.  He doesn’t seem full of shit, and importantly (in my evaluation) – he seems pretty humble, and willing to learn.  He’s admitted to clock management mistakes, and maybe playing things too close to the vest at times.  After all, he’s a defensive coach.  But in Jersey this Sunday, he read the maths correctly, and applied “game theory” leverage concepts just as we neeeerrrrddddssss would prefer.  He went for TWO 4th and 2-3 conversions, eschewing a punt in the last minute of the first half, near midfield (Denver trailed 7-3 at the time) and inside the Giants’ 10 (Denver up 10-7 at the time).  Each time, Teddy Ballgame made a play, leading directly to 14 points.  A stout defense (and Danny Dimebag’s butter fingers) did the rest, 27-13 Donks.  Judge Jeudy looked to get a nasty ankle owie, but somehow nothing broke.  FUCK, what a relief to start 1-0 for a change.  There’s hope in Mile High.

We talked earlier about Payton’s game plan, using ball control to keep a (theoretically) explosive Packers offense off the field.  You saw a similar approach in Arrowhead, with #ThePauls.  That one-two tailback punch of Chubb + KHunt chewed up the KC front seven, and converted almost every long drive into points.  22-10 Believeland at the half, then 29-20 in Q4.  Surely they wouldn’t chucklefuck the match away again?  Would they??

It was 29-27 Chefs after a 75-yard drive.  In one play, a bomb to known piece of shit Tyreek Hill.  But doesn’t that just put a tired KC defense right back into the muck?  Apparently they found a second wind, smothering Baker and his backs, leading to the first punting attempt of the day.  And I do mean “attempt”…because he dropped the snap and gave the ball back to KC inside the 20.  Three plays later, it’s 33-29 and #ThePauls had Pauled all over the place.  Again.  That would be your final score.

Still, there is now a blueprint to slowing down the Mahomes/Reid machine.  And sadly (for my fantasy squadron, at least), Clyde Edwards-Helaire still looks like a complete passenger in that offense.  It makes no logical sense, but results don’t lie.

In a complete snoozefest, Touch of Downs did get his vengeance upon Jersey B.  Zach Wilson recovered from a rough start to make things respectable, but 19-14 feels deceptive, somehow.  The outcome was never really in doubt.

Clippers du Merde mudded out a 20-16 over the Redacteds/Football Team, in Landover.  This game bored me, though I will admit that Justin Herbert played really well – like most of 2020.  Old man BloodSugarFitzMagic got a hip owie, so I guess they’ll be putting him down and calling Cam’s agent.  To back up Taylor Heinecke, that is.  He should start, and do so capably.  The real story of this one was the sewage pipe that exploded, raining human excrement among those dumb enough to give Li’l Danny Snyder moneys.  Would suck to share a Metro car home with any of those folk, fo sho.

I am happy to be PRETTY SURE I didn’t miss any games.  That’s a good start, in my book.  As always, apologies for the inevitable typos (I am high, after all) and I look forward to sharing a fun season with the Clubhouse.

Also, MRSA Dreamboat can still eat shit and die.