How exciting is the first week of the NFL season? You circle the date on your calendar and plan a huge barbeque with all your friends. The anticipation is almost unbearable. Then it gets here and the worst possible thing happens: your team loses. You've waited seven months for this day to come and your excitement has instantly gone to dark depression.
If your team lost, let's take just a moment to examine why this happened and how we can prevent future calamities. It may seem like we're just making fun of them, but it's coming from a place of love. It's constructive criticism.
Baltimore
Hahahaha...you guys got destroyed! The Super Bowl champions not only get beat, but Peyton Manning throws seven touchdowns against your defense, SEVEN! The last time I saw seven touchdowns thrown in a game was when I played my friend Chris in Madden and I had food poisoning from the chicken crispers at Chilis, so when I ran to the bathroom to throw up he kept choosing my defense as special team punt return and would just air it out every time. Chris is a douche. You can say it's because Ray Lewis and Ed Reed are gone, but come on. Those guys are a combined 215 years old. You can't get someone else to quote 300 before the game and do the Stanky Leg to get your team psyched up? It's a sad day when Joe "Autocorrect changes my last name to flaccid" Flacco is the most productive guy on your team.
Buffalo
You almost pulled off a huge win against New England until you suddenly remembered that you're Buffalo. By the way, your mascot is the Bills, but your logo is a Buffalo. Shouldn't you technically be the Buffalo Buffaloes? In case you're wondering what the top player from Sunday's game for the Bills looks like, good luck. Here's his photo from Yahoo! Sports:
The Unabomber had a more descriptive image than your starting quarterback. Is that actually what he looks like? Is he just a shape, like some sort of orb man? I really wanted you to beat New England if, for no other reason, than to shut up all the Patriot "fans" all over the country who suddenly realized their love for Massachusetts football, despite never even visiting the state, once they started winning championships. What an amazing coincidence!
Carolina
Sure you had a tough game going up against Seattle - a team many experts are picking to win the Super Bowl - but how do you keep being so bad every year? Do you actually draft new players? I'm 99% sure Steve Smith and Deangelo Williams are the only players who have a name on the back of their jerseys. Of course there's also Cam Newton. He's an incredible running back quarterback that has MVP potential according to everyone in North Carolina. I guess anyone would seem like a superstar compared to Jake Delhomme. You do, however, hold a record for opening day games. Over the last 18 years you've lost 12 of those giving you the worst opening game winning percentage of any other team! You couldn't have done it without Jake Delhomme!
Minnesota
I have no idea how Minnesota ever loses a game. That's the easiest coaching job in the world. Here's our offensive game plan: hand the ball to Adrian Peterson. That's it! You remember in "Major League" when Charlie Sheen would come in to pitch and they knew he was just going to throw a fast ball down the middle every time but they still still couldn't hit it? That's Adrian Peterson! Why does your quarterback have any pass attempts whatsoever? If you taught a parrot to say "Adrian Peterson handoff" it could be the offensive coordinator for the Vikings and a highly successful one at that.
Jacksonville
The Jaguars are like that kid whose parents made him sign up for the basketball team despite having any skill or desire in sports. He'll never do anything of value or significance but his parents will be there every week yelling, "Good try, pal!" I went to a Jacksonville game once, only to discover that they have a cheer for every first down. It's the saddest thing I've ever heard. Not only did you get demolished, you got demolished by the Chiefs! Kansas City is where football dreams go to die. You put up two points. That means Craig Hodges could have defeated you in 1991 with a single shot. That is literally the lowest amount of points you could possibly score. Astounding.
Tampa Bay
You know how everyone loves to make fun of the Jets? Well...your team lost to them! Tampa Bay is full of solid players and yet Geno Smith led his team past yours. I'm particularly upset about this because under no circumstance do I want Rex Ryan, who now looks like some sort of sunburned Glo-Worm, to be able to celebrate and gloat in any way. Also, great call demoting your starting quarterback from Team Captain a few days before the game. Nothing boosts your confidence more than your team and ownership saying, "Hey, we don't believe in you!" Maybe change his jersey number to -4 next week. After that, just make him wear a bunch of Wal-Mart bags tied together with a sad face drawn on the front.
Green Bay
I can't really blame Green Bay too much for this loss, considering the refs forgot how penalties work after offsetting personal foul calls, they didn't let the play stand, they gave San Francisco a do-over. Great job, gang. I'd love to talk to you more about your call, but I know you're late to go officiate the game between the Monstars and the Looney Tunes. Maybe next time do a Discount Double Check of the rulebook. This is all Wisconsin has in the world, don't take this away from them.
New York Giants
Oh boy, the Giants are back, aren't they? It's hard to find a team that figures out how to lose a game like them. Eli Manning, who bears a striking resemblance to Walt "Flynn" Jr. from "Breaking Bad", always looks like he's trying to see the dragon in one of those magic eye puzzle while tossing up some awful interceptions. Before you fanboys jump down my throat and talk about his Super Bowl rings, let me remind you the names of a few other Super Bowl winning quarterbacks:
-Trent Dilfer
-Jeff Hostetler
-Brad Johnson
So yeah, he's in amazing company. Also, I'm 80% sure Tom Couglin beats him with a belt when they lose games so I pity him more than anything. Can we talk about David "Whoops" Wilson for a minute? Dude, what the heck? Seven rushes for 19 yards and two fumbles?? Eli would have literally been better just taking a knee than handing him the ball. For everyone's safety don't let Wilson carry any small children or fragile pets this week.
Cleveland
It's a football team that has chosen to be led by Brandon Weeden, a guy who is actually as old as Greg Oden looks. What else could I possibly say about them?
Cincinnati
Way to just throw this one away Cincinnati. After getting everyone excited with the coverage of the Bengals on HBO's "Hard Knocks," Cincinnati comes in with a flourish of interceptions and fumbles, followed up by wasting two timeouts because they couldn't figure out how many guys they had on the field. A defense requires 11 guys. If you see 11 out there, stay on the sidelines. Problem solved. To top it all off, after all these idiotic mistakes, the Bengals had a chance to make a winning drive (See: throw the ball as far as you can in AJ Green's direction) but, of course, blew it. They had just held Chicago on third down when Rey "Jacknife Powerbomb" Maualuga thought it would be a good time to work out some creative differences with a Bears lineman and tossed him like Kane in the 1999 Royal Rumble. Great idea, Rey.
Oakland
Despite being a team assembled as poorly as Sid's creations from the first "Toy Story" movie, the Raiders had a serious chance to win this game. I like to think that it wasn't the Colts impressive play or Andrew Luck's skill that won, but rather a reverse "Angels in the Outfield" where Al Davis' ghost swooped down and lost the game for Oakland once again making sure that his franchise will never be successful.
Atlanta
Despite having more talent than the 1992 Olympic basketball team, the Falcons found a way to lose. The team that went 13-3 last year then added one of the best running backs in the league in Steven Jackson, somehow always finds a way to come up short. Spoiler alert: the Falcons will go 12-4 then lose in their first playoff game. Save your airfare on booking a ticket to New York for the Super Bowl, you'll be gone in the second round just like last year. I still love you, Julio Jones.
Pittsburgh
My how the Steelers have fallen. This game started out with one of the most embarrassing plays you'll ever see, as Tennessee's Darius Reynaud forgot how football works and let the ball bounce towards him before kneeling in the end zone. That's a safety. The Steelers were automatically given two points and the ball without even getting their jerseys dirty and still lost. Tennessee isn't exactly a quality opponent either. I watched one of their preseason games and the announcers were trying so hard to find bright spots in their play that, at one point, started complimenting the player's smiles. It's going to be a long season for Ben "Law & Order: SVU" Roethlisberger and the boys.
Arizona
How exactly do they pick a starting quarterback in Arizona? Is it an essay contest? Maybe a Snapple bottle cap that says YOU WIN? The Cardinals are on their 5th different opening day quarterback in the last five years. It's not like they get better, it's basically the same guy in a different jersey. This time around it's Carson Palmer who has the accuracy of a gorilla playing skee ball with honeydew melons. Cheer up, Cards fans, maybe next year you can get Brady Quinn!
Washington
Remember when everyone made fun of Jay Cutler for sitting on the sidelines and nursing his injury during a playoff game? Jay Cutler walked off the field a winner on Sunday. Remember when RG3's leg fell off in the final game of the season and Coach Shanahan said, "Just put some Icy Hot on it" then slowly parted his hair to the other side? RG3 limped off the field a loser on Monday. All we saw during the offseason was RG3 making appearances, bragging about his recovery, and letting civilians shoot rubber bullets off of his bionic knee. Maybe you should have spent a little more time working on your accuracy because there were moments you looked like an unpolished Henry Rowengartner tossing Daniel Stern wild curve balls in Rookie of the Year. Also, Washington's defense needs to get it together. How does Michael Vick play a whole game and not get hurt? You should be ashamed.
San Diego
Everybody at ESPN was so excited that you guys had a big lead in the first half. I assume Chris Berman was excited, but it's hard to tell with his coma-inducing commentary. Despite jumping ahead by three TDs in the third quarter, Philip Rivers and the gang still figured out how to lose. I feel like when San Diego dumped Drew Brees when he injured his arm, he put a gypsy curse on them similar to the movie Thinner, except instead of getting less fat, they choke in big games. By the way, great idea by the NFL to put an extra game on Monday night after the first one, because everybody on the east coast would love to stay up until 2:00am on a work night to see if Ryan Matthews is going to blow your fantasy lead. Maybe next year you can squeeze in a third game and have the Rams play at 3:30 in the morning.
