It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding): Tuesday Open Thread

So here we are: mid-December, and it’s All Coming Down To This. No more bye weeks. Precious little time for injured players to come back. The Patriots already eliminated from the picture and Darth Hoodie grinding tape of where the hottest MILFs live in The Villages. It’s the HOME STRETCH, BITCHES!

The glut of 7-6 teams in the AFC makes the playoff picture especially murky, with the Clots, the Boncos and the Bills all hovering around 50-50 at the moment, with the Bengals, Steelers and Texans lurking a little below that. Looking at the schedules, things should shake out in the next two weeks or so with some of these teams playing each other. But I fear we are going to go into Week 18 (god, that sounds weird) with one of those massively complicated “If X wins, they own the conference record tie-breaker over Y” diagrams that makes my brain go numb.

Tangent: Time is a cruel bitch- 23 years later:

AAANNNNYWAY:The NFC looks relatively settled in terms of Whose In, with the Vikings, Packers and Rams likely to be the wild cards. The biggest question is which flaming pile of rhino shit finally gives up and claims the NFC South (I’m picking Baker Mayfield as the Man Who Wouldn’t Be King) and who between Dallas and Philly gets the division and who gets the wild card.

Also: Brock Purdy is going to get Jimmy Garoppolo’d on Christmas. Get ready for Playoff Sam Darnold.

NFL NEWS

-Justin Herbert: ded. He fractured his right (throwing) index finger and needs surgery. Gone until next season. Procedurally-generated Madden player Easton Stick will take the reins.

FUN NOTE: Stick was one of three successive North Dakota State quarterbacks to be drafted, having backed up Carson Wentz, with Trey Lance replacing him.

In some respects, this is probably for the best for everyone. The Chargers are 5-8. Their last four games include an angry Chiefs team, a desperate Bills team and a “sure, fuckit, why not?” Denver team. Even running the table would be unlikely to get them into the playoffs. Herbert did not need yet more punishment in meaningless games, and you can absolutely bet that Brandon Staley was going to keep trotting him out their in a desperate attempt to save his job. Staley can now get on with convincing himself that he was star-crossed and waiting for the inevitable Defensive Coordinator position that is every fired white coach’s destiny (until he gets another head gig in three years).

FUN NOTE: search for Staley on Wikipedia and it comes up as “American football player and Former coach”. PROPHETIC WIKI!

-Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid have walked back their tirades about the refs from Sunday’s glorious defeat by the Most Excellent Bills, having now seen that yes, the officials were absolutely correct about Kadarious Toney being offsides. Sucks to suck.

-Speaking of the Vikings, yeahright’s heartbreak of choice will undertake their playoff push by starting…Nick Mullens!

I wish Dobbs had worked out, but I look forward to Mullens doing just enough to push Cousins out the door before reverting to…well…Nick Mullens.

ROMANTIC COME-ON LINE OF THE WEEK: