Instant Hippo Thoughts – Mega Uber-Duper Wild Card Round

Oh my cats, did we ever see some shit, y’all.  Credit to sharky for finding this perfect banner pic, to summarize Saturday night.

Can’t complain about 5-for-5 entertaining games this opening weekend.  Hopefully, that ball keeps on rolling.

We opened Sunday with Brokeback’s Bills, seemingly ready to skullfuck the LOLfins’ practice squad.  But…uh…Allen and the Buffalo special teams sort of lost focus for the back half of Q2, and a 17-zip lead was only 20-17 at the half.  Can’t be sure, but I could very much see this being a problem the next two weeks.  Shit, Miami even turned a sack fumble into a go-ahead TD, to start Q3.

Bills Mafia extended the lead back to 10, but then relaxed…again.  Skylar Thompson even had one last drive to tie or take the lead, but delay of game is apparently his and McDaniel’s kryptonite.  Pretty tough loss in the end, but at least they put up a fight.  34-31, BUF limps into the next round.  Hey, at least nobody sorta/almost died!

SKOL needed an absolute miracle to beat the Vertically Enhanced Persons, way back in Week 6.  We get the re-match back at the Bird Murder Dome, but this time Noo Yawk didn’t let Dingleberry off the hook.  Saquon was awesome.  Dimebag was vintage Lamar! (minus only the flannel), and Justin Jefferson completely disappeared from the 2nd half gameplan.  Unless I am missing an injury, that’s just a really boneheaded plan.  Point differential said Minny was a fraud all year, and I guess it played out that way – being the only home team to lose (so far).

That said, Kirk had one last drive to salvage things, thanks to a hideous Darius Slayton 3rd down dropsy-doo.  No timeouts, but almost 3 minutes on the clock.  Should be easy peasy against a mediocre defense – but they barely crossed midfield, before checking down on 4th and 8.  Is that ever Peak Dingleberry or what?  It must be noted that Big Blue finally managed to cover (and even tackle!) the opposing tight end on the decisive stop.  31-24, Gigantes run it back in Philly next week.  There Will Be Blood.

Even the nightcap was a barnburner.  Team WKRP had a 9-zip lead early, and possession for almost all of Q1.  But the script almost completely reversed in Q2, except Justin Tucker made his extra point.  10-9 at the half.

Burrow got 8, then Fiona Apple criminally (/ducks rotten veg) blew coverage deep – gee, we’ve never seen THAT movie before – knotting in back up at 17.  Cincy was now down BOTH starting offensive tackles, and it was showing.  Ratbirds had all the momentum, except…Tyler Huntley miscalculated how far he had to stretch the ball over the pile.  Game of inches ain’t a cliche for no goddamned reason!  Instead of Balmer taking the lead, Cincy alertly volleyball spiked the ball out of Huntley’s hands, for a 98-yard Fat Guy TD.  Harbs, Karma for being sassy to Melissa Stark earlier – then made a complete ass of himself with clock management.  Leaving himself with TWO worthless timeouts in his pocket, facing 4th and 20 from the CIN 28.  All they could manage was a last-ditch Hail Mary…that got deflected beyond all lines of defense and JUST past the outstretched arms of the rando WR (BAL’s WR room was as decimated as the CIN OL).  By the skin of their ballsack, WKRP squeezes out the 24-17 win.

Cincy will be away to Buffalo (almost surely one of the night games), because The Shield made no allowances for THEIR homefield tiebreaker chaos.  Funny, that.  Duuuvvvvaaaalll at the Chefs will be a tasy matchup, too.

This is all why the NFL dominates live TV, and is pretty much the last thing average Americans still have in common in the 2020s.  But fuck a duck, thank God we still DO HAVE THAT to cling to.

See y’all tonight, when Micah Parsons hopefully kills, then eats MRSA Dreamboat on various ESPN platforms.