Start with the easier half, the NFC:
Arizona still is undefeated, the only NFL team left as such.
In fact, all four divisions have outright leaders: Arizona, Tampa Bay, Green Bay, Dallas
0-5: Detroit: 2 Cliffhangers, a Last Chance Miss, and on the wrong side of all three. Not looking promising until at least Halloween with a date with Captain Fatfuck, Leader of Men...
NFC Political Rankings:
1) Tampa Bay
As long as Tom Brady stays upright and they keep winning, the pirate ship is sailing right for LA for Valentine's Weekend (and perhaps a couple weekends before, see #3).
2) Dallas
As much as the NFL might want something else (see #3 NFC and #2 AFC below), the league's ratings bread is still buttered with Tampa Bay and Dallas.
3) Los Angeles Rams
It'd be one way to at least make the LA Experiment profitable.If the Chargers and Rams end up hosting the AFC and NFC championship games, the NFL surely would dust off its Sunday-Monday plan from 2008, when the Jets and Giants were poised to possibly host both games in New Jersey. https://t.co/2BbFkVQ8ky
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) October 9, 2021
I have conglomeration of three teams I'm NOT QUITE SOLD ON, both conferences, for the same reason. So I'll combine that.
NFC DUD OF THE WEEK NOMINEES:
Pretty much the New York Giants here. No surprise. But you get saved because there will be one DUD OF THE WEEK winner here, not two, this week. (Plus your injury situation, I have to give a pass to the Giants here.)
AFC Political Rankings:
In fact, all eight divisions have solo leaders: Buffalo, Baltimore, Tennessee, LA Chargers
0-5: Jacksonville. If there's anything there at all, they do have two possibles with Miami and a Wilson-less Seattle in October... They get the Junior Varsity London Special this week with Miami.
1) Baltimore
Don't look now, but Jackson vs. Brady could make a very attractive Super Bowl, especially if you're trying to lure in Black fans with the shitfest they're going to have at halftime.
2) LA Chargers
See LA Rams, above.
3) I guess Cleveland, on a flier for Odell Beckham Jr. ????
NOT QUITE SOLD ON, BOTH CONFERENCES: Arizona, Green Bay, Buffalo.
All three of these areas have one thing in common, the complete lack of much inner-city energy at all. Yes, Arizona has Phoenix, but we already saw the league manipulate ONE Super Bowl because there just isn't enough fan power in Arizona to move the merchandise meter.
AFC DUD OF THE WEEK NOMINEES:
Jacksonville -- that's 20 in a row, but someone else went before Urban Meyer did. Get to him in a second.
Miami -- what the blazes was that with Tampa?
Kansas City -- and that might be the exposure, right there, for Kansas City. Yeah, they'll put up tons of points... They might just give up a ton too.
But you're all spared.
==============================
JON GRUDEN, YOU ARE A FUCKING DUMBASS.
Forget Dud of the Week -- that might be going back to Ray Rice or Adrian Peterson territory.
Here's the fun part that's coming out: Gruden was actually nailed for e-mails to Dan Snyder of the Washington Football Team and THAT investigation!
He wasn't even PART of what was going on with this one, and the e-mails were so gross, they ran him out.
But here's a problem, NFL: You were investigating Snyder in 2019 when you found these. Why was Gruden allowed two more years in Oakland and Las Vegas?
This almost proves what I really believe happened: Even DeMaurice Smith admits that's not the only racist language used toward him as head of the NFL Players' Association.
Jon Gruden was fired because he went after Goodell!!!
Forget the "It Takes All Of Us" in the one end line and the "End Racism" in the other. Jon Gruden was fired today from Las Vegas because he went after the Untouchable One -- the One Without Reproach -- the Indisputable Head of the National Football League... He went after Roger Goodell.
And it really started getting interesting this morning, when it came out that the NFL was metering these e-mails out to the Raiders. It was clear the intended result, and they got it.
But I wanna show you another manifestation of what went down...
Monday Night Football. Baltimore vs. Indianapolis -- not one of the more attractive MNF matchups, but, none the same, that's the one we got.
76 yard TD pass two minutes in for Indy, one field goal for Baltimore, and the game screeches to an utter halt for most of the first half.
With the score 7-3 late in the first half, word comes into ESPN and they break in with the news of Gruden being fired/"mutual parting of the ways"/who the fuck are we kidding?
So that takes over the coverage and the halftime -- the score is 7-6 to Indianapolis.
The game ends 31-25 to Baltimore. Not just the fact Baltimore won (but that did keep them at #1 AFC above), but the fact that the game basically took off the moment the ball went in the air for the second half kickoff.
It's this that Brian Tuohy talks about, regarding the NFL being a television show. I get it. I truly do. Hell, they're even slating Monday Night Football to this effect: A first-half graphic: "Ravens Offense Coming On The Field" washing across, followed by "NEXT ON MNF -- Lamar Jackson"...
But the NFL was who fired Gruden today. They already basically rigged a loss to the Bears (who still suck) on Sunday, but the Raiders were cooperative to that effect.
I do think there is one major concern, though, the NFL is going to have to deal with with respect to the Silver and Black: Can the NFL continue the kind of image that the Oakland, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas Raiders have had as the renegade outlaws of the NFL?
I'm not sure it can. They certainly got their cooperation today -- message LOUDLY sent. They could get rewarded down the line with a playoff spot. Not sure -- 3-2, right now, awfully crowded in the AFC.
But is this going to have to be the end of the Autumn Wind being such a renegade outlaw, as it has since the days Al Davis wanted to become the Commissioner of the merged NFL in 1969?
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