First Pre-Preseason Sunday Open Thread

[Walks up to podium, slight nod towards youse, adjusts microphone exasperatingly, grumbling atmosphere established]

Cough. Hi! Good evening. Yeah… I’m also bummed.

If only fortune granted us the treat of another NFL game and the witty, knowing, silly and hysterical scotchnaut pregame post. But–

🦺📢🚧OBVIOUS CRAP ALERT🚧📢🦺

–the 2022 season had to end sometime. Time is unstoppable, going forward with a determination much like the NFL’s flexing out Covid tests in late 2021 to maximize public playoff engagement. And, yeah: the 2021 Divisional Round was pure dynamite: the ritual SF playoff defeat of Q-Aron, the BUF @ KC OT game; RAMMMITTT besting Brady in Tampa, and Joe Burrow overcoming NINE SACKS to beat AFC top-seed TEN

2021 was the Titans year—but I digress. Better keep it in the present.

We are still in the 2022 NFL calendar year, which ends on March 15. That is a month and change after the ‘Perb Owl, typical NFL overreaching to further its grandiosity. The Owl carries the narrative through February, and then is bridged with Franchise or Transition tag designations (Feb. 21), and the rookie combine (Feb. 28 – March 6). By which time the Draft Content Concern overtakes the public consciousness, then the Fantasy Collusionatti starts to infiltrate until complete obliteration of MLB, NHL, and NBA coverage. Then sometime in late July training camps open and Pre-preseason ends. It’s a slog because there is no substitute for the NFL season.

The NFL season is the best of spectacles—incredible athletics with intricate strategy and…

waaaay abstract rule technicalities. Plus some violence is still allowed. Most who saw Lawrence Taylor and Steve Atwater play must feel shortchanged; the current QB strike zone is smaller and more arbitrary than the MLB strike zone.

It’s clear, to me, that the NFL will keep tinkering with the sport every offseason. That does not offend me. A game without automatic extra points and with 2-point conversions is more entertaining–for me. A downside of that tinkering could be fluky wins. Let’s say by the… The 2022 Vikings season (13-4). This is me right now, remembering having Justin Jefferson in FF and the biggest comeback in history against the Matt Ryan Clots.

Fact check: Frank Reich is only involved in the second biggest comeback in NFL history. So, if this is the chaos wrought by NFL tinkering, I say Satisfactory #👍🏻

Of course, celebrating the NFL is bad form. NFL brass is a cabal of late-capitalism caricatures whose any attempt at redemption must include kicking Dan Snyder out of the league ASAP, giving the players an even higher stake of league revenues, and keeping the salary cap socialist. Although, again (sorry), I must commend the NFL for their tireless effort to remind Bengal and Philly fans that Patrick Mahomes beat your teams getting a first down on a bum ankle—ok?

SPROTS TONITE

Painstakingly curated suggestions. All Times Central

La eNe Be A

All Star Game

Team Giannis vs. Team LeBron – 6:30 PM

Top Flight Fútbol

Secsi Mexi Clausura

First of all, adopt a Liga MX Team. That’s BoS & Fury’s dynamite guide to los equipos and the tournament. Liga MX plays a split tournament: Apertura, between August and December, and Clausura, between January and May. If you need a translation for clausura, you’re in good company. tWBS also had trouble with “closure”.

Club América hosts Tijuana – 7:05 PM

Per Balls:

Are you part of the Mexican Elite or desperately want to be? Do you think you can fix every problem by throwing money at it (it allegedly including referees)? Then this is the team for you! Truth be told, this is the winningest team of all time, so maybe there’s something to that approach…

Yeah, Club América is my team. It’s time for me to root for a team that wins SOMETHING.

América is fourth on the table and is riding a cromulent streak of three wins and a coupla empates. Meanwhile, Tijuana hired, for the second time, Miguel Herrera. Herrera, a famous gif,

, has the nickname “El Piojo”–literally, “The Head Lice” in English. Now, before you judge: we Hispanics use piojo with affection, usually to refer to someone small in stature, like a cute child. But I think English captures better Herrera’s essence: he’s prickly, starts becoming an annoyance and then BAM—full parasitism.

Sucking, however, would not be that catastrophic to Tijuana. Liga MX will not have relegation for the current Clausura. So the Xolos are free to emulate NFL teams of similar class. Perhaps Tijuana can be inspired by the Arizona Cardinals’ corporate culture of paying extravagantly for rot.

Pachuca hosts Toluca – 9:05 PM

Pachuca is the current champion and are currently in second place. They are coached by Uruguayan Guillermo Almada, who interviewed for the coach of the México national team, but was Bienemied. El Tri hired Argentinian Diego Cocca. (Fact check: Diego Maradona died on November 25, 2020.)

Toluca are nicknamed Los Diablos Rojos, although have yet to attract the Qatari dough currently tossed at their cross Atlantic namesakes. (Bof, Glazers and Cutter; talk about poisons.) Pachuca – Toluca is a rematch of last year’s final. The link is in Spanish, so click it to enjoy the most beautiful of languages (close second: Lisp).

Argentina – Clausura

Talleres (Córdoba) hosts Central Córdoba – 6:30 PM

A Córdoba derby, which is pronounced like “darkie” in englen.

Yeah… Rounding that half diss into a cutting comment proved too much. Imma bail from the bit.

Sincerely,

never.

Independiente hosts Defensa y Justicia – 6:30 PM

Defense and Justice—wait: an Argie fútbol club named like a white paper for fascist rule?

Independiente sits at 18^th in the table, which is technically in the middle of the 28-team sardine can that is the Argentinian top flight table. None of these teams face relegation, unless they piss off the right people.

FINALLY,

I had a bone to pick with the NFL since before the start of this season. NFL Sum, its streaming app for games, would be available in the United States AND overseas BUT not in United States territories. Getting in on the 2022 preseason Hate Bus was Paramount plus sign and CBS, for also not being available in Puerto Rico through streaming. So keeping up with the 2022 Titans required… alternative streaming, hoping Red Zone turned into Skinemax and shows some Tits (fat chance), or keeping up through cellphone play-by-play text gamecasts and letting my imagination color the punishing Derrick Henry 2-yard runs on 1 & 2 down, and daydreaming that the 3^rd down incompletions were thrown to a double-covered A.J. Brown.

Of course, having been raised in the ‘70s by tough-love parents, my inner voice said “Psht. Stop yer cryin’. Just get DirecTV again.”

So in the middle of the 2022 season, I started to do the unthinkable—that’s right, normal people shit on Sundays, like a schnook. The way I figured, the NFL doesn’t want my business, see ya. Same with Titans game radio broadcasts: unavailable in my area, eh? Well I hope you and the Grand Ole Opry get fucked and then be forced to travel to Massachussetts for a hush hush abortion.

In the meantime, I went to restaurants, movies, markets, hangs with non-sportsfans, saw tv shows, and even went to museums, and furniture shops AND outlets. I did everything short of reading, because, I mean, tch.

Reading? During the NFL season? C’mon. Now that the NFL season is over, maybe… pick up a book?

Have a great week, sickos.

Banner via Bridges of Hope Rehab.com, gifs via giphy.com