Hi everyone,

Welcome to the third day of [DFO]’s annual Super Bowl tradition – Hate Week.

This is the annual airing of grievances we have about life, football, society… really, anything is in-bounds outside of the usual hot buttons. Consider the comments section a safe space to let your feelings on a topic be known.

As you have divined by now, for each day of Hate Week there is a theme. And as always, I am assisted in the photoshop department by fellow hater and Despiser of All Things Spanos, Low Commander.

With that in mind, let’s explore tonight’s rage-inducement.

Tonight’s theme: Narratives – Real and Imagined

“Wide Right”

“The Curse of Bobby Layne”

“The NFL is rigged”

These are all common themes we have been exposed to over the last three weeks. Let’s take a peek, shall we?

The NFL and narratives have been around since the league’s foundation. You don’t need “Wide Right” or “Wide Right (redux)” to see evidence of Buffalo’s pain. All you need to do is look up the “Staley Swindle” to see the origins of Buffalo’s pro football aggrievement from the very founding of the NFL. 

In this case, someone was screwed by the Staleys (Bears), instead of the Bears being the ones always getting screwed. Halas scheduled two exhibition games against Buffalo and won them both, then claimed the league championship by both lying about the games being exhibitions (because it was a handshake deal) and pressuring the league to do what he wanted (because he was George Halas). Some would say that by doing what he did in the 20s, George Halas guaranteed the Bears would remain cursed to this day. It certainly started the legend of the Buffalo sports curse.

The long-term effect of the Staley Swindle was to force the league to institute a championship game to settle the results of the regular season, and to prevent pricks like George Halas from trying to claim championships he didn’t deserve – like he tried to do again in 1924.

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Let’s stay in the NFC North and move east to Detroit.

For those of you unfamiliar with “The Curse of Bobby Layne”, the Detroit Free Press put it thusly:

The season after Layne helped the Lions win their third and final championship of the 1950s, Lions coach George Wilson traded the Hall of Fame quarterback to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Oct. 6, 1958. In exchange, the Lions received quarterback Earl Morrall and two high draft picks. Layne was angry and supposedly said the Lions wouldn’t win a championship for another 50 years.

Now, a curse – or, a “hex”, as he called it – is one thing. But that doesn’t take into account the sheer organizational mismanagement the Detroit Lions have been over the past near-sixty years. Failing to take advantage of athletes like Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson is more a testament to the administrative incompetence of the people charged with putting the proper pieces in place. I mean, ownership has hired a series of babbling idiots for upper management – including hiring Matt Fucking Millen to be their GM, despite all modern CTE research dictating he wouldn’t be allowed to run a Dairy Queen. (Remember – Sanders & Megatron made the Hall in spite of being Detroit Lions, not because of it.) But if a “Curse” makes it much easier to explain to the grandchildren why you keep spending their inheritance on season’s tickets, then you do you, Gramps.

Somehow, they managed to hire a coach and GM that possessed basic football competencies. They built a functioning team, instead of buying a bunch of fancy parts and calling it a “team”. They won their division instead of surviving the incompetence of others. They earned a home berth and won two playoff games; one can argue that they got the Eagles at the right time in their fall, and that the Packers saved them from the Cowboys, but you win the games you’re scheduled. They’ve beaten The Curse.

The counter to that sentiment is our good friend Brocky, whose words ring true for their accuracy as much as their drunken clarity:

The loss to the Niners wasn’t the Curse, it was Dan Campbell refusing to change for the sake of preserving victory. The Lions lost because he refused to change his tactics to better manage the end of the game, something that befalls other coaches who think they are too clever by half. (Other examples – 28-3; Russell Wilson to Malcolm Butler) If anything, the Niners shook off the “Kirk Cousins curse” and beat the Lions. (It’s a big fucking stretch, so you can read it and decide.)

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But the Lions are an ancient curse in a cursed city. Let’s look at something more recent, where a team left a perfectly nice town only to drag their failures along with them.

Of course, not all teams benefitted from leaving their cursed towns, or the curse in their town. Why, the Chargers moved up the Interstate to become Stan Kroenke’s rent boys. Let’s ask Low Commander for his opinion on the move and its outcome.

Doctor?

The LA Chargers, owned by the forever incompetent and cheap fail-son Dean Spanos, not only torpedoed any chance of ever rooting for them again by leaving for LA, they have also poisoned me against the NFL entirely. Thanks for calling Dean’s bluff, Rog. It’s really working out great for everyone.

Look, you’ve heard from me before on this subject and things haven’t changed. If you still root for this team, you have some serious problems and you are begging for all of the heartbreak that comes with them. Justin Herbert is somehow a darling to fans of other teams and I cannot wait until he completely flames out in another season or two. The defense is in exactly the same shape as I remember in 2016 where they’ll bend all game and then break at the worst possible time. Oh and Special Teams is still costing them games? WHODATHUNK?

The 2023 season has been an especially sweet one for me. I don’t have any interest in watching the games, but going out with the family for dinner one fateful Thursday night in December was quite the treat to enjoy with my meal:

Other than the many on-field highlights, my favorite moment was Lower Commander giggling to my “evil laughter every time the Chargers do something stupid.”

The lasting effects of the move are clear as most days here: Jack Murph/Qualcomm Stadium is no more, replaced by Snapdragon Stadium. The Padres are now the talk of the town, Aztecs basketball is finally (mostly) televised and there’s an MLS team launching next year. The idea of a soccer team playing on the hallowed ground where the San Diego Chargers used to call home would’ve been my worst nightmare a decade ago, but now sounds fitting. Oh, and Stan Kroenke is the majority shareholder of the ownership group in charge of rebuilding the Sports Arena (former home of the San Diego Clippers). I hope he reminds Dean that getting shit done in San Diego isn’t that hard every time his rent is due.

A recent interview with the Union Tribune’s Sports Editor Ryan Finley included an interesting perspective. To paraphrase: People are constantly telling me that we either write too much about the Chargers or too little; there’s no in-between. The fact of the matter is news about them is easily the most popular thing we can run. The Chargers are no longer the city’s favorite (they’re maybe in the top 5), but they are certainly the most hated, and that draws clicks.

For those that want to better understand the move and the history that lead up to it, I cannot recommend the 6-part BOLTED podcast enough. Raphie Cantor is an absolute treasure who has also worked on the Netflix adaptation of [DFO] backroom favorite book Three Body Problem that I can’t wait to see it come out in March.

The Heretics have done so little to truly ingratiate themselves to the city of LA, and that’s the greatest part. They’re an afterthought to literally every other team in the city limits. Dean has tried dumping endless resources into their social media, which I guess works if you’re going to watch the anime style season schedule on YouTube 500 times, but as far as actual fans go? Perhaps pissing off the 70% of your season ticket holders wasn’t the best of ideas. The worst thing that could’ve happened for them was the Rams immediately winning a Superb Owl following their move, and the more successful they are, the worse it is for Dean and his pocketbook, which is the only thing that matters to him. I do feel bad for DTZM and any St. Louis fans though, because this would be my worst nightmare.

Relocation sucks, but any owner (read: billionaire) that doesn’t negotiate in good faith or tries to extract every red cent from their home city simply should not own a professional team. The Chargers under the Spanoi clan never once did this. With the A’s now trying to following the Raiders to Vegas, I am very much reminded of what happened in San Diego, but I am excited to see where this goes. John Fisher is as similar as Dean as it gets and they both deserve every failure that ever doinks the uprights.

Oh, that’s delicious hate.

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Of course, social media being what it is, the annual launching of conspiracy theories around the fixing of the season begins in late-August. They almost peaked in September after Aaron Rodgers blew out his Achilles four plays into the season. (Because we all know vaccines strengthen bodily sinews.)

As the season dragged on, the grievances invariably grew. And as we got closer to the playoffs, the usual bleating about whom the league preferred in their dog & pony show became louder. Ultimately, this circles the drain towards Super Bowl conspiracies.

The first one of the year dates to early January, and the idea that the league had scripted its Super Bowl finalists based upon the colours of the logos from the last few.

This came from the generally banal NFL Memes twitter page on November 7th, and the conspiracy was predicated on the logos predicting the finalists months before the whole tournament had even started. (It also helped that they touched up the yellow a bit to make it more Rammy.) That got people going, especially when it seemed like the league, via scheduling and refereeing, helped engineer both the Niners and Ravens were the #1 seeds. That theory only flamed out after the Ravens proved they couldn’t stop a team with a competent run scheme.

Fortunately, as we discussed yesterday, the onslaught of “Traylor” and “Tayvis” coverage has brought out all the lunatics, from FOX News contributor to FOX News viewer. It started back in early January, when FOX contributor Jesse Watters had himself a “Simpsons did it” moment when he claimed, “around four years ago, the Pentagon’s psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset.”

Since then it’s gotten more virulent and sexist. White nationalist and apparent plastic surgery victim Laura Loomer has suggested that, “[t]he Democrats’ Taylor Swift election interference psyop is happening in the open. It’s not a coincidence that current and former Biden admin officials are propping up Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. They are going to use Taylor Swift as the poster child for their pro-abortion GOTV (Get Out The Vote) Campaign.” Having spent the briefest of time looking through her curriculum vitae I can safely say that, in the words of my grandfather, she’s crazier than a shithouse rat.

Since these former Reagan Republicans all love Russians so much, I’d advise them to read (if they can) the classic tale, Петя и волк – “Peter and the Wolf”.

^{And if any of those lunatics end up here, the David Bowie-read version ought to fix ’em.}

They don’t hear the lunacy that comes out of their mouths, and why it’s driving their loved ones away. Because it’s both how they sound and why their grandchildren look at their phones whenever they visit. I can just hear Grandpa complaining about THE GODDAMNED JAPS! when this news came out,

🇯🇵 Statement from the Embassy of Japan on Taylor Swift’s Reported Travel from Japan to the United States ✈️🏈 Are you ready for it? pic.twitter.com/wFKadehTJk

— Japan Embassy DC🌸 (@JapanEmbDC) February 2, 2024

And now, as we get closer to The Big Game (™), not all of them have MAGA on their minds. Of course, the stats lunatics are coming out of the woodwork / Twitter ether because they see Steve Kornacki on Sunday Night Football

and want to be a better, more accurate version of apparent douchebag Nate Silver.

Of the ones I could be arsed to investigate, there’s Jay Cuda, who apparently consulted both Miss Cleo and Neil deGrasse Tyson about who was going to win.

Not content with consulting the moon for the best odds, he also went to the firm of Rand McNally and used his dad’s odometer readings to figure out a winning strategy.

What is this bullshit? Can’t we use players’ zodiac signs like normal housewives?

Oh, and not to be outdone, someone went and asked Tom Brady’s opinion on The Big Game ®. He’s played against both starting QBs, so he knows what they bring to the table, and hopes they get their chance to shine, and that we get a good game.

They might as well have asked a bowl of ice milk for its prognostications, given how soft this analysis is. Who fucking asked for Dreamboat’s opinion anyway? Shouldn’t he be rehearsing his lines for next season? I can’t wait for him to make Tony Romo sound like John Madden.

Of course, controlling the narrative is always Roger Goodell’s endgame. Like all sports-league commissioners, he will take questions, but only the ones that won’t make him or the league look bad. Just last year, Jim Trotter got barred from most press conferences after asking Goodell a pointed question at the LVII presser about the paucity of black coaches in the league and whether it was a systemic problem. Exposure like that is why the NFL moved ol’ Rog’s annual Friday presser to Monday and made it invite-only. They didn’t invite noted throat-gobbler Mike Florio, and he’s PISSED:

On Monday, the Commissioner needs to have his own words [on gambling] from 2012 read back to him. And he needs to be asked what he’s doing to address [allegations of game fixing].

People think the games are rigged. That the outcomes are predetermined. That the red and purple Super Bowl LVIIi logo meant the 49ers and Ravens would meet in the Super Bowl, until the NFL decided that it wanted the Chiefs and Taylor Swift in the Super Bowl instead.

Will the Commissioner admit that it’s happening? And what is the Commissioner doing to stop it from happening?

Hopefully, someone who got an invitation will ask him.

I’d ask the question, if I was invited.

Maybe that’s one of the various reasons why I wasn’t.

That’s about as salty as it gets from someone who relies on access to make their living. He’s not Schefter or Rapoport, but he’s still an influential blob of grease oiling the NFL PR machine. So for him to bite back on his perceived lack of respect, his nose must be far out of joint.

JUST LOOK AT HIS RAGE!

Tonight’s sports:

• NHL:
  • Stars vs. Leafs – 7:00pm | Sportsnet
  • Wild vs. Black Hawks – 9:30pm | Sportsnet360
• NBA:
  • Raptors vs. Hornets – 7:00pm | Sportsnet1
  • Warriors vs. 76ers – 7:30pm | ESPN / TSN4
  • Pelicans vs. Clippers – 10:00pm | ESPN / Sportsnet1
• NCAA:
  • Men’s:
    • Alabama vs. Auburn – 7:00pm | ESPN2
    • Texas A&M vs. Missouri – 9:00pm | ESPN2
    • USC vs. California – 11:00pm | TSN
• Beisbol:
  • Caribbean World Series – Nicaragua vs. Venezuela – 8:30pm | ESPN Deportes
• AEW
  • Dynamite – 8:00pm | TBS / TSN2
    • Meanwhile, over where there have been fewer allegations of sexual misconduct, the other major wrestling federation has got a pay-per-view quality show simply to build up towards Sting’s retirement match on March 3rd.