(OK, you're probably still an asshole, but...)
One of Jake's Points of Emphasis is the old song he likes to do, "Return of the Doink", a personal remake of the old hit "Return of the Mack" to highlight the number of balls that hit uprights, especially when it happens inexplicably.
The statistic? We have had EIGHT upright shots in the first two weeks.
Let. That. Process.
Sorry, been a Hell of a week, and this is a week where I am probably not allowed an opinion on the very central subject of the week (non-sports).
You may eventually get it anyway, but we'll see.
As for the rest of the blotter, there's no need to continue to list it as the NFL does so on a week-to-week basis themselves now. (Scroll to Week 1 if you see this in a later week.)
But there are some points to be made:
Kind of.
He will lose the Week 1 paycheck, rendering a $57,222 mark against the team for the new remittance policy. (All fines are paid also by the team at $94,500, including the first $94,500 -- with a maximum of $75,000 per incident.)
Announced today by the NFL, the suspension is deemed served because of the timing of the incident, being that he never played.
It is unknown, at this point, whether Carter will play Week 2's Super Bowl rematch with Kansas City -- but that will be a team issue and handled in-house, per the Eagles head coach.
Sixteen unanswered including a field goal at the gun, and Buffalo all but ensures any rematch with Baltimore is in Buffalo, 41-40.
Well, the Lamar Jackson pick took a nice dive right there.
ESPNBet still has them at the top two for the Super Bowl futures (+550 for Buffalo, +650 for Baltimore, +700 for Philly, +800 for Green Bay, +1000 for Kansas City), so how would I look at a Week 1 Political Rankings with Chicago vs. Minnesota tonight?
NFC:
1) Washington
2) Green Bay
and they play on Thursday. But there is an important play here.
He is trying to position himself, him being the Pigfucker, as the center of American culture and sport. He held another audience yesterday, this at the US Open Men's Final.
The biggest problem I have with both of these picks is the same problem I have with Baltimore now: If Donald Trump is the play, the quarterback almost certainly has to be White. That's Jayden Daniels out, that's Jordan Love out, that's Lamar Jackson out, that's Patrick Mahomes out.
The reason, however, these two still top my NFC Political Rankings is the military power desired to be asserted in Washington and the rural power (which overwhelmingly votes Trump) in Packer Nation.
3) and a distant 3rd at that, Philadelphia
They play Kansas City this week at Arrowhead. But that's not the problem. If the NFL wishes to take it's sportsmanship initiative seriously, you will see Jalen Carter pay, and pay huge, for that incident before the opening play.
Current word is that Carter still may be suspended as of posting this.
Once you get beyond Philly, it gets rather tentative on political ends: San Fran is too liberal, LA is probably facing a full martial law scenario after the Super Bowl through the World Cup, Arizona is just a flat no, and Tampa is just meh.
Biggest drop: Detroit. For the same reason that the Buffalo win reshapes the AFC, Detroit (until they got punched in the mouth by Green Bay, a hungry Green Bay at that, in one of the more convincing wins of the week) now probably has an uphill battle.
AFC:
1) Queasy, but Buffalo.
Same concept as Green Bay, White quarterback, you probably get most of the marks checked off with this.
2) Pittsburgh
Pleasedon'ttelltheYinzer... Pleasedon'ttelltheYinzer... Pleasedon'ttelltheYinzer... Pleasedon'ttelltheYinzer...
But that's one mark on the Aaron Rodgers situation.
They're, more, #2 in the AFC, at least for Week 1, because they check all the marks. Right-wing White quarterback, less urban of a following than their Philadelphia counterparts.
Biggest drop: Baltimore and Kansas City took pretty significant drops, but I think you have to go Miami here. Probably the flattest performance of Week 1 in a 33-8 loss to Indianapolis.
It sounds like that Dallas-Philly situation just got substantially more complicated, and the fact that the NFL hasn't immediately levied a three-game or so initial suspension on Eagles star defender Jalen Carter shows there may be more to this story than first meets the eye.
Including: Did Dak spit on Carter first? About the only reason one might not think that is that New York had jurisdiction to eject Dak Prescott on the play, once "non-football acts" were involved.
It appears that Dak Prescott may have been interpreted as to spit on Carter's feet, which obviously got the inappropo (and still a multiple-game suspension-worthy foul!) response from Carter.
That might explain, even with such an act, why the NFL decided to have the Eagles win anyway, when there was no case for them to do so otherwise. To literally have an incident like that before Play One is usually an indicator (at least to me) that something fishy is going on...
I still think the Eagles are gonna pay for that big-time, however. They'll just wait.
Edit to add Tuesday afternoon: Carter gets the game he never played in, and loses the paycheck. Probably some mitigation by Prescott's actions -- and that could be actionable on Saturday as well.
Meet your NFL Kickoff ad for the opening weekend of the season and ask yourself if you see something odd:
An NFL ad that basically says it could be anyone's year -- after the league effectively had to change course for the Super Bowl because they got caught...
And then, the Chargers beat the Chiefs in Brazil last night to "back it up".
Is this going to basically be the play here? The Return Of "Any Given Sunday"?
