Instant Hippo Thoughts – Week 4, 2023 Season

Don’t you just love the MANDATORY 14-hour marathon watches?  I sure does.  But shiiiiiit fahr, is it difficult to remember enough about it all for recap purposes.

Execpt that Denver won, thanks to some remarkably dumb Q4 play from the otherwise career-day-throwing Strawberry Fields.  That really was…a game that happened.  A 28-7 beating, turned completely around by Charmslinger, UDFA Jaleel McLaughlin, and a defensive scoop and score.  Oh, with the dagger provided by Lionel Hutz (from 51) after Chi**** went for it on 4th and 1 inside the Donks’ 20.  And failed miserably.  31-28, good guys.

The shame stank lingers, though.  The Bearistocrats were just very, very, very committed to losing this fixture.

(above photo h/t Rikki) Surprisingly enough, they didn’t cancel the rest of the slate!

They could have at least gone back in time and cancelled ATL/Duval.  Remember when the London game would sometimes bleed into RedZone hour?  No worry when Arthur Smith is in the building.  They went into half down 17-nil, managed their only score on the opening possession of Q3….and proceeded to play out the string as if in quicksand.  London’s beloved Jaguras wisely just went all “don’t fuck up” and took their two FG opportunities to win 23-7.  Never in doubt, barely took us to noon EST.

Because The Shield is determined to Make Fetch Happen, JAX will stay in Merry Old England, and face Bills Mafia next week.

That is, the whire hot Bills Mafia, who have been curbstomping all comers since losing the 9/11 game to MILF-Hunter Z.  Talk about net shifts – Miami went from +50 last week to -28 in WNY.  Net swing of 78 points – that has to be a salary cap era record, right?  Anyway, 48-20 was the final, and it could have been worse had Buffalo needed it to be.  So much for the showcase game of the day, unless you are a Bills supporter (enjoy it, Rev).

Perhaps the story of the early season was #ThePauls defensive unit, which put opposing offenses in a vice during their 2-1 start.  But lo, today they had to turn the quartered backing over to The Picture of Dorian Thompson-Robinson (the talk of the pre-season, and you know how predictive THAT always is).  It…did not go well for the home team (3.4 YPA, 3 pickerceptions).  They were lucky not to get shut out, and that Lamar! spent most of the 2nd half in cruise control mode.  28-3, Ratbirds.

2023 version of the Philadelphia Iggles?  Just plain weird.  It’s like there is a glitch in the matrix (no, I have not seen the movie – and will not), though they still flash in spurts, usually AJ Brown and/or Th’Andre Swift.  But they also fuck around, play passively (especially on defense), and fail to put teams away.  PHI was crap both early and late, allowing Rebecca Malone to complete a long drive (with under 2:00 and just one timeout), with the tying score coming at 0:00.

But yes, TYING – because “Riverboat” Ron chose not to go for two.  They won the coin flip, took the ball…and netted 5 total yards.  Hurts almost fucked up the winning FG taking a horrid grounding penalty on 2nd down.  But they picked up around 10 on 3rd and forever, enabling Jake Elliott to nail a 54-yarder and rob humanity of the possible draw.  34-31, Iggles.  Not looking Superb Owl worthy.

Oy, though.  They don’t look like Team WKRP.  As widely reported, Joe Burrow can hardly walk, let alone move within (or surely not outside of) the pocket.  Despite these limitations, Burrow kept his uniform pretty clean in last Monday’s win.  Mike Vrabel was far less kind, and blitzed the ever-loving fuck out of him.  He’ll (meaning Burrow) be hitting the oxy bottle pretty hard tonight, you’d think.  El Tractorcito‘s jump pass TD ended the competitive portion of the game right before HT, with the rest of the “action” just spent grinding Cincy into dust.  27-3, Tits.  Pretty much Peak Tits, so long as they punted well (we’ll wait for DonT to weigh in).

As scotchnaut noted early on, Coach Epps has made his coaching bones by almost always making his layups.  But maybe Yinzburgh is out of hat-rabbits, or the 500s are simply no longer a layup.  Probably both.  Anyway, CJ Stroud looked great (again), Uncle Jack rattled by pressure (again) – and then had to leave the game with a knee owie.  We’ll see if it’s serious, but I sense that it is.  Bollo del Verdad, come on down!  Final score – HOU 30, PIT 6.  And it very much reflected the balance of play.

Indy looked to go the same way of Pittsburgh, getting shellacked by visiting RRRRRRRRRRRAM IT!  But Bill Maher missed multiple, would-be-clinching FGs – and the D finally broke down, allowing three Fat Hump TDs in the 2nd half.  Both attempted two pointers also hit, so 23-zip became 23-all.  Neither team could take its chances late in regulation, so OT is what we got.  Pretty much out of nowhere, Fat Sackford got his shit together and rallied the troops for a game-winning TD drive.  Richardson never saw the ball in OT, as Pookie the Rookie finally scored his first NFL touchdown for a 29-23 escape job.  Both teams are 2-2, en route to 6-11.

MRSA looked downright sickly on Monday night, but Emo Carr with an arm owie was just the tonic they needed.  Don’t ask Baker Mayfield to do too much, and you just might have a winning – or at least competitive – formula.  Bucs led from start to finish, usually by 8+ points.  Final margin was 26-9, only a slight exaggeration of the gap in quality between these two perplexing squadrons.  Mike Evans did his hamstring, though.  If he’s out for long, I don’t see much hope – even in a dire NFC South.

Good Lord, those wacky Black Panthers.  Thanks to a Dingleberry pick-6 and a 2nd bad pick late in the half, Charlotte’s finest got staked to 10-0 and 13-7 leads.  But Brian Flores’ unit (PHRASING) mustered a defensive score of their own in the 2nd half, plus one to Justin Jefferson (who had a really good day despite Dingleberrry throwing a mere 19 forward passes – 12 complete to his teammates – for the game).  Bryce Young got to the red zone late, but came up well short.  21-13, Minnesota finally has a win in their ledger.

Only three AGAIN in the late window, but this time without any surprise competitiveness (Hippo wrote at HT, stupidly).

Zeke came to the Metroplex, for a “revenge game” against his former fellow Compersons.  Redshirt captured the essence of this fixture, succinctly and perfectly – The Legend of White Mac – Denouement.  Grumblelord finally put him down in Q4, mercifully(ish).  Enjoy the Bailey Zappe era, all!  Dallas gets well, 38-3.  Largest margin of defeat in Grumblelord’s head coaching career.  Spanning 29 years.

Black Powder and some AI-generated placeholder WR named “Michael Wilson” showed some gumption, cutting an early 21-3 Tomsulas lead all the way down to 21-16.  But that just made Santa Clara pay attention, with Purdy Mouth and McCaffrey grinding the Qards into 35-16 dust.  Give them credit, Arizona is playing hard for Jonathan Gannon, but they ain’t beating the NFC’s best team in their (library quiet) building.

Words cannot aptly describe how stupid the Clippers are.  Facing a green, late round rookie QB (a Rod Favra clone with AOC initials, give us all your memes), they fucked around for no reason.  Up 24-7 at the half, they completely checked out.  All of a sudden, it’s 24-17 with 4 minutes to play.  Coming up a half-yard short on 3rd down, Brandon Staley did the EXACT SAME DUMBASS THING he did late last week.  This time, he QB sneaks from his own 34.  Herbert the Duck is tall, but not particularly strong.  They can’t really do the Philly “rolling tank” play.  But sneak they do, and fail.  And just like last week, they pay no price for their chucklefuckery (this was a way dumber gamble, I can see the argument against giving the ball back to Cousins/Jefferson), as Asante Samuel picked off AOC to wrap up the win.

UH, or so Samuel thought.  A more game-aware fella might have noted 2:30 still on the clock, and the Raiders still having a timeout.  That means the most likely/cautious outcome gets Vegas the ball back, with maybe 70 seconds to work a miracle.  So…why would Samuel SLIDE DOWN AT HIS OWN 7, with acres of green grass ahead of him?  Because Clippers du Merde are a moronic organization, from soup to nuts.  Predictably, 2 runs get no yards.  Now, you still reckon to run, and burn almost half the remaining clock.  Remember – the opponent basically has no QB.  Odds of going 60 yards in 70 seconds are quite slim.  But no – they not only throw, but also take a DEEP SHOT to the boundary.  To Herbert’s credit, he completes it – but fuck a duck, talk about “good result, bad process.”  24-17, Clips back to 2-2 and Raiders ahead of the Donks at 1-3 (on goal differential, hee hee).

Also, Khalil Mack sacked AOC/Favra six motherfucking times.  I don’t care how immobile that fat fuck QB is, 6 sacks is impressive work.

That leaves SNF, an awful Chefs at Jest matchup.  NBC thanks their lucky ratings stars for the “Swifties” effect.  Q-aron (with new/terrible mustache) is also in the house, so I guess nobody has to talk about the actual game.  Except Hippo.  But this is why y’all pay me the BIG (imaginary) bucks.  That said, when it’s 17-nil with 3 and change left in the first QUARTER?  What the fuck really is there to say?  Was Taylor Swift in Blake Lively’s box, or was Blake Lively in Taylor Swift’s box?  YOU make the call!

Unpredictably, Noo Yawk stormed all the way back, tying things at 20 early in Q3.  But that was as far as the Jest offense could get.  Gangrene’s defense continue to make life very, very difficult for Mahomes (who apparently has never seen a LB drop into coverage in his life), such that KC had to run to get in FG position, then even MOAR to bleed the last 5-6 minutes off the clock.  Aaaaaannnnd…one defensive holding call that really set Robert Saleh off.  Anyway, Mahomes slid down at the 2 rather than take an extra score (and give the ball back), so 23-20 it ended.  Much better game than expected, and maybe Z will live to MILF-hunt another week or two.  Hippo’s apologies to Monkey Trev, who had to be looking forward to Week 5.