Holy cats, did my squadrons all get smoked this weekend.  NC State, pounded like a veal by U*NC (as expected, but still).  Everton, 2-nil losers at fookin’ lousy Saints, complete with a red card to star left back Lucas Digne.  And last but not least, Kansas City waltzed into snowy Denver and blistered my Donks, 43-16.  Even worse, my money league team was against the Chefs’ D/ST, which scored TWICE.  Jeebus Tapdancing Christ.

So forgive me if I am a little salty.  The snow was fun in the first half, though.

Remember last week, when Denver won solely on the strength of 6 FGs?  Well, it happened again, as Tyler Bass-O-Matic went 6 for 8 (those 2 misses were only medium distance, so not like he had a great day) to beat the hapless Jest, 18-10.  Jersey actually ran out to a 10-nil lead, and didn’t go behind (for good) until Q3.  I guess that’s progress?  Or maybe Buffalo has been found out, and is reverting to their 9-7 mean.

Remember also how impressive it was that Denver compiled that win in Foxborough?  Well, that doesn’t look so hot after Janeane’s Tomsulas went to the northeast and pounded the P*ts, 33-6.  No, that isn’t a typo.  And one of those NE placement kicks was gift-wrapped via a bad pickerception.  They did absolutely fuckall on offense, and look to be quite ded indeed.  Cam even got benched.  I can admit I was wrong about this still being Grumblelord’s division.  If anyone is to challenge those 9-win Bills, it will have to be Tua’s LOLfins.  What a year, this 2020.

Vegas also crashed and burned in horrid fashion, losing to Team MRSA – at home – by a 45-20 count.  Yes, even MRSA Dreamboat was good (LEGITIMATELY good, for a change).  Thank fuck this matchup got flexed out of SNF, but MRSA are in the Monday slot for Week 8.  Against the goddamned Gigantes.  BLECH.

Let’s just close out the late fixtures, because they were all complete and utter shite.  Even when The Shield gives us four options in the late RedZone window, it can still stink to high heaven.  Jaguras/Clippers du Merde at least had some funky scoring plays (thanks to missed kicks and 2-point conversions), and was knotted at 29 (FUN!) after 3, before Minshew and crew just fell the fuck apart.  39-29, which marks Herbert’s first win as a starter.  Pretty amazing, given how well he’s played, week in and week out.  A reminder that the AFC West is a one-team division, even if/when KC loses their concentration here or there.  FUN HIPPO FACT!  My team with BOTH Joe Burrow (MOAR later) and James Robinson…is still ded in the water this week.  I really suck at life.  Almost all of Robinson’s damage came in the first half, before not-SD adjusted a bit.

Black Panthers pushed the Saints (a complete pretender in the NFC, though you can say that about everyone outside the West) to the brink, but Teddy Ballgame took a late sack that pushed them about 5 feet out of Joey Slye range.  Facing 4th and like 20, and no reasonable way to get the ball back, Matt Rhule justifiably tried a game-tying, record-setting 65 yarder.  Would have been pretty nifty had he made it.  27-24, N’Awlins.

Now, we start getting into the crazy shit.  None more insane than ATL/DET, in which the Falcons found yet another amazing way to lose a game that was 99.9% in the barn.  After fat kicker put the Fuck Lions up 16-14, Ryan led a long, methodical drive down the field.  A first down inside the 10 meant that they could run out the clock, and kick a chip shot on the last play.  But the inner competitor in Todd Gurley outweighed his brain just long enough to break the plane (you could see the moment of realization kick in, when he tried to pull back inside the 1).  But the laws of physics made it 20-16, which moved to 22-16 after a successful 2-pointer.

Still, DET had to drive the field with less than a minute, and no timeouts.  But they quickly got into Hail Mary range, and smartly decided to go for the “completion/spike/not-quite-hopeless end zone shot” combo.  Amazingly, Golladay got into a soft spot in the zone, all the way down to the 10 yard line.  Fat Stafford spiked it with 3 seconds left, with a flag on the play.

Was it offside on the straggling ATL defense?  Maybe DET’s line didn’t come fully set?  NOPE.  The replay buzzer went off first.

Making things MOAR bananacakes, this was THE SAME SCENARIO BETWEEN THE SAME TWO TEAMS which caused a rule tweak.  Golladay caught the ball at :09, but play stopped at :03 for the review check.  Under the OLD rule, you go back to the time of the catch/no catch, and run off 10 seconds if the offense is out of timeouts (as they were, both seasons).  The game would have been over, after the call on the field “stands” as a catch.

But thankfully, now we go back to when the buzzer buzzed (:03), clock runs on the signal for play.  This allowed for a spike, and one last shot, which Stafford showed great agility in the pocket to extend the play and find his TE.

BUT WAIT!  Somebody on DET got a dumbass taunting penalty, turning the decisive extra point into a 48-yarder (Prater had been 3 of 4 on FGs from roughly this distance on the day).  Somebody was gonna get cut Monday morning, except that Prater drilled the kick for a 23-22 win.  Holy shit.

While this was going on, the Battle FOAR Ohio saw five go-ahead scores in Q4, with Cincy taking what looked like the final advantage on a gutsy, 4th and inches play action TD pass.  34-31, Team WKRP.  Joe Burrow, with no Beatie Mixon AND missing his left tackle for 90% of the game, absolutely killed it.  406 yards, 3 TD passes, 1 TD rush.  But he left a minute on the clock for Mayfield, who got into FG range, then hit on a TD strike to an unknown, practice squad-ish dude, who showed amazing body control to stay in bounds.

Of course, #ThePauls yoinked the extra point, because that’s just how the mojo went.  But Burrow only had 11 seconds to respond, and he surprisingly DID make the end zone on a Hail Mary toss from inside his own 40.  Instead of batting it DOWN, the defender amazingly knocked it BACKWARDS toward a receiver, but the bounce wasn’t quite fortuitous enough.  Ball hits ground, CLE keeps the state of Ohio for 2020, 37-34.

Shit, I am exhausted just remembering those 15 minutes when both of those wrapped up.  It is indeed, WHY WE WATCH.

Sadly, nothing else was that much fun.  We did get to see Red Rocket nigh-murdered, causing Riverboat Ron to apologize to Cap’n BlueBunny after the match.  But Dalton was horrid even pre-murder, and the random 3rd string guy was unsurprisingly no better.  Redacteds 25, Non-Gendered Cowpersons 3.  Yeah.  Wow.  Washington surges into 2nd place in the NFC Special Needs Division, a half-game back of 2-4-1 Philly.  Curse Los Gigantes for not finishing the jerb Thursday night.

Pundits surmised that A.A. Ron would be motivated/embarrassed by Week 6’s wet fart, and they were right.  8.3 YPA, 4 scores, no picks, a 35-20 win away to the 500s.  This game was never, ever really close/in doubt.  Houston is officially ded as fuck at 1-6.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the Cardiac (arrest) Tits, who spotted the Yinzers a 27-7 lead (game in Nashville) before storming back to just 3 points down, late.  The Ben almost led a final drive to kill things off, but tossed his 3rd pickerception of the game (after a red-hot start to things) on 3rd and goal.  Tanny Fanny had a chance to at least send us to OT, and quickly got into FG range…before fucking up and committing a dumb grounding penalty.  I hate the Stillers, but kudos to the officiating crew for getting the call right.   This caused TEN to back off any real attempt at the end zone, needing a safe 3rd down call to get within “reasonable odds of a make” range.  But the Gostkowski of Week 1 returned, and he missed from like 47 yards out.  27-24, PIT goes to 6-0 , the AFC’s only unbeaten team, with one hell of a tiebreaker advantage.

Remember, only ONE team per conference gets a first-round bye this year.  Not really sure I like 7 teams in the playoffs (out of a scant 16 contestants), but making first position so important…is kind of cool.

That leaves us with Sunday Night FITBAW in the desert, SeaTruthers/Qardinals in a conspiracy theory Battle Royale.  But as usual, having Russell Wilson was the decisive factoUr.  It was 10-nil (would have been 14, but for VAR) before I even really started paying attention.  AZ cut it to 13-7, and Budda Baker ALMOST had what seemed like a game-changing pick-6-erception.  But DK Metcalf…walked…him…down.  Inside the 5, which didn’t seem like much until the ‘Truther D held them 4 downs straight.  Wilson drove the field, BOOM, 20-7.  Kyler (who played really well, just within human limits) led a great TD drive, then BOOM.  Wilson answers in THREE PLAYS, under 30 seconds.  Even then, Murray gets them in FG range, 27-17 at the half.

But SEA made at least a few plays on D, and ain’t nobody stopping Wilson when he’s in this kind of zone.  He’s a complete savant.  OF COURSE, he made me look like an asshole with a bad Q4 pick, but Kyler gave it immediately back.  Because he RESPECTS his elders.

Yet somehow, SEA took its foot off the gas enough that the fucking game went to OT.  Tails never fails, Russell gets the ball first.  But the Qardinals D gets their first 2 sacks of the night, and you can guess the rest.  37-34, Arizona wins….OR NOT, Zane misses the not-quite-chippie.  Will we can has GLORIOUS DRAW?

Truthers get the winning TD via Metcalf, but of course they were goddamned holding.

3rd and 14, Wilson pickercepted, NOW we have the 37-34 Qardinals win.  Jesus, what a weird game.