CHAOS REPORT WEEK 11: THE CHARGERS SUCKY HAT TRICK
THE WEEK IN CHAOS
–This was a week full of teams that narrowly escaped very embarrassing losses. A real “whoo boy, we barely got away with that, now let’s go home” kinda week.
Jets/Patriots kicked off the week and that’s the only thing worth mentioning there. Moving on.
The Steelers took care of business this time against Cincy. 9-8 season stays on target. Rodgers hurt his hand though, so that’s funny. His definitely real wife can put a Band-Aid on it.
I have found a good rhythm with international games. They start at 630 am Pacific Time, and I’m not waking up for that, but I can wake up, walk the dog, & eat breakfast just in time to see the 4th quarter. That appears to be all I need to do for these games. Miami/Commies was hilarious in the 4th and a genuine contender for Chaos of the Week. Tied 13-13, the Commanders looked like they had it, only to get stuffed at the 1-yard line. Miami gets nothing and punts it away, only for Washington to muff the catch and give the ball right back. Miami gets into easy field goal range, stupidly goes for it on 4th down and gets stuffed. Washington goes nuts, gets into long field goal range to win it, and then shanks that kick. Overtime. Mariota immediately gets picked and Miami kicks the game-winner. Stupid football is the best football.
The Panthers spent most of the Falcons game looking like they were going to once again get exposed as frauds, until they managed a legacy drive and Atlanta fell. Barely escaped. Wipe that sweat from your brow, Carolina.
The Texans spent most of the game losing a clunker to Tennessee, the worst team in the NFL. They finally managed to score a few points and held off overtime with a field goal. The Texans escape. Wipe that sweat from your brow, Houston.
The Packers lost Josh Jacobs and temporarily lost Jordan Love. They dropped multiple easy picks and several good passes. They shanked extra points. The Giants hung around and even came down into the redzone to force one final stand. Never should have been that close. Wipe that sweat from your brow, Green Bay.
The Bears held a reasonable lead over Minnesota and the increasingly funny NINE looked awful…and then the Vikings managed a couple good plays and one good drive and suddenly the Bears were losing. They did it again, they collapsed in the 4th to Minnesota…AGAIN. But they didn’t! They worked out a field goal and walked away winners. Wipe that sweat from your brow, Bears.
The afternoon slate was fun as hell. Haunted Sam Darnold showed up, chucking 4 picks in a game the Seahawks actually still had a good chance to win. The 49ers and Cardinals traded stupid play for stupid plays in one of those rare consistently entertaining blowouts. Browns and Ravens was far closer than it should have been, with Cleveland ruining the Ravens hope for 3 quarters. And then Gabriel got hurt and Sanders finally saw playing time, and the results were even worse than you might have expected. If you are a Sanders hater, twas a good day. If he truly starts next week he’s on the hydra.
Then we also had Chiefs/Broncos, which was an unwatchable slog for sickos but the Broncos confirmed that they stole the Chiefs devil magic and are now far and away the leader for the division, putting the Chiefs in a tough hole that likely leaves them a wildcard. Nice.
One team that didn’t escape the embarrassing loss was the Chargers. Coming into East Coast time to play the mediocre Jaguars, the heavy favorite came out hungover and stumbled into traffic. Sexy Trevor remains sexy…for now.
The Eagles defense looks elite again. The offense remains stagnant. They feel like a team that is one second away from either blowing up or figuring it out and winning it all. The Lions are problematic. Jared Goff is a good QB, but he’s a statue, and any team that can get to him the Lions simply do not have answers for.
Cowboys/Raiders was a game that happened. There was a safety in it! That’s neat at least.
GIANTS CORNER
–That went about as expected. The Packers are a mediocre team with the record of a decent team. The Giants seemed to be on par with their usual crap. They ran the ball well, and I think the offensive playcalling was pretty good overall. The weakness remains the run defense and the secondary. Jameis got away with a number of dropped INTs but eventually the Packers nabbed one to seal it. This is probably just who the Giants will be for the rest of the season: capable of scoring but not stout enough on D to stop the bleeding. I don’t have much reason to care for now.
CHAOS OF THE WEEK
–I typically view chaos as things that are stupid. I like stupidity. But sometimes a game is just so good you gotta hand it to ’em. Bills/Bucs was football at its best. Stupid, exciting, and nonstop. This game had everything in it. Amazing touchdowns. Stupid interceptions. Crazy returns. Scorigami. Football Moose had 3 passing TDs and 3 running TDs, as well as a very stupid interception. The lead swapped like 10 times. This is one of the best games of the year. Never a dull moment.
CHAOTIC MOMENTS OF THE WEEK
–SPIT GATE 2. Jalen Ramsey got suspended for punching Ja’Marr Chase. Turns out, Ja’Marr spat on him and is now suspended.
-Giants rookie Abdul Carter missed the first series. Apparently it was a benching for sleeping during the weekly walkthrough. Brian Daboll must have had no control.
-This week in THE OFFICIATING IS TRASH: Cris Collinsworth openly shitting on the lame call that ended the Eagles/Lions game.
THE VIBE CHECK
– Just when the Bills are out, they yank me right back in. The Bills have been a disappointment duck this year and then they go out and look unstoppable against a quality team and goddamnit you just cant write them off till the playoffs can you.
The Falcons choked away a win and lost Penix for the season in the process. The vibes are putrid. Small English children during the German air raids had better morale than the Falcons fanbase right now.
The Rams set themselves up as the NFCW favorite, and thanks to the Penix trade on draft day, are set up for a high pick too. Great time to be a Rams fan.
The growing pains in Minnesota are real, and the fanbase is feeling it. The JJ McCarthy online army has gone from boldly defiant of any criticism, to tepid, to quiet. When Justin Jefferson is visibly throwing his helmet around after another bad throw, it’s tough to defend his current state.
CACKLES OF THE WEEK
–When the Commies shanked the game-winning field goal I let loose a cackle that would scare the joker.
–I love a good flop
BIG OOF OF THE WEEK
-I didn’t have high expectations for Shedeur when he was forced into the game. It was still hard to not wince on that interception. He was a little rushed but the pass was way off target.
CHAOS WATCH
–The Ravens are always played hard by Cleveland (I blame lingering cultural resentment for ‘95) but they survived this one, and they remain on target to recover from the bad start. Especially if Rodgers’s little hand injury is a problem for Pittsburgh.
–Im interested to see what becomes of the Falcons with Cousins back under center.
FRAUD WATCH
–Can we really call a 5-win Texans team missing their starting QB a fraud? I think so. They needed a miracle comeback last week and barely escaped against the worst team in the NFL this past week. They could easily be a 3 win team. Without that defense this team might be complete poop ass.
The Packers are one of the least convincing 6 win teams I’ve seen. They have their positives, but considering how good this team was supposed to be, it’s rough.
The Broncos defense is legit, but lol they got that Chiefs devil magic mirage going on.
SNUFF FILM OF THE WEEK
-Jaguars took the Chargers behind the shed and executed them so efficiently the game ended a half hour before every other game.
DISAPPOINTMENT DUCK
–Feels like the Chargers and Bills have taken this slot every other week. The Chargers might have gotten Eastern Time Zone Jetlagged here, but that doesn’t excuse getting pummeled by the mediocre Jaguars.
MOST UNWATCHABLE TEAM OF THE WEEK
–Chargers with the clean sweep of the ugly team awards this week. They got blown out, they should have done better, and they looked dismal the entire time. Congrats, LA. The first-ever hat trick of making me hate watching you.
————————————————————
BETS FOR NEXT WEEK – Stephen King Week! Little-known Dave Lore: I love Stephen King
TNF – BILLS @ TEXANS
General Mills leads his Texan Brigade against the scourge of the north. Can he succeed? If the stupid Bills show up, maybe.
If the Texans win, I will draw Davis Mills head and neck coming from the sink as “The Moving Finger”
STEELERS @ BEARS
The Bears got drunk, stumbled into a construction zone with no safety equipment, and suddenly ended up as foreman on the project. They don’t know how it happened either. I love these drunk ass Bears and the Steelers would absolutely lose this kind of game in stupid fashion.
If the Steelers win, I will draw Rodgers, having gone through “The Jaunt”
PATS @ BENGALS
The Patriots are on to murdering Cincinnati
If the Bengals win, I will draw A bengal rising from the Pet Semetary
GIANTS @ LIONS
Like I said for the Packers: if the Lions lose this game they go on the fraud meter for the rest of the season. This shouldn’t be anything but a “get-right” game for Detroit.
If the Giants win, I will draw a giant Brian Burns looming in The Mist
VIKINGS @ PACKERS
The Packers are blessed. They get to have another ugly win. NINE is going to throw like 5 good passes.
If the Vikings win, I will draw NINE as Annie Wilks, holding a cheesehead hostage
SEAHAWKS @ TITANS
Seahawks took a tough L against the Rams and get to lick their wounds on a nice bachelor party in Nashville.
If the Titans win, I will draw Sam Darnold, dead from Mononucleosis Captain Trips
COLTS @ CHIEFS
This is a big one for KC. The Chiefs have 3 probable wins left on their schedule (HOU, TEN, and LV), but every other game is a challenge. If they lose this, the playoffs are legitimately in jeopardy. This is also a big prove-it game for Indy, who has stumbled a bit recently. I’m going to pick the home team, because the Chiefs are a team that sucks the fun out of every game they play.
If the Colts win, I will draw Daniel Jones as Pennywise
JETS @ RAVENS
The Ravens recovery stint continues unabated
If the Jets win, I will draw Tyrod Taylor, Firestarter
BROWNS @ RAIDERS
The Browns defense, namely Myles Garrett, is actually good. Is anything on Las Vegas actually good besides Brock Bowers? EDIT: So apparently, Shedeur is starting. I think that tips the scales to the other side.
If the Raiders win, I will draw Shedeur Sanders as the Man in Black, the Walkin dude, Randall Flagg
JAGS @ CARDINALS
The Cardinals are weird. Bad weird. Jacoby Brissett just set the NFL record for completions in a single game in a clear loss to San Francisco. That’s stupid!
If the Cardinals win, I will draw Jacoby Brissett as Jack Torrance and Trevor as Wendy
EAGLES @ COWBOYS
The first game didn’t have Jalen Carter due to Spit-Gate. The Eagles defense has improved since then, even if the offense remains dreadfully constipated.
If the Cowboys win, I will draw Jerry Jones as as the elder vampire Kurt Barlow from Salem’s Lot
FALCONS @ SAINTS
Phat Dumpy returns. I’m just going to give it to New Orleans so I have a chance to draw him again.
If the Falcons win, I will draw Kirk Cousins in Richard Bachman’s “Thiccer”
SNF – BUCS @ RAMS
Every year I want to love the Baker Bucs and I do, but these injury problems are just a bit too much. Rams.
If the Bucs win, I will draw Baker as Carrie
MNF – PANTHERS @ 49ERS
These damn Panthers, man. Another team that has me very puzzled. Sometimes they look genuinely good, like at the end of the Falcons game. Sometimes they look awful, like for most of the Falcons game. They are currently over .500 though, so I’ll go 49ers to put them back at .500.
If the Panthers win, I will draw Bryce Young as Cujo
BYES – BONCOS, Dolphins, Chargers, Commies
A TIE
If we get a tie I will draw The Dark Half
Hey! The Broncos are not frauds! We’re hack frauds, like those hack frauds Mike and Jay!
*Rich Evans Laugh*
Dave needs to do a comic about AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDDSSSSSSSSSS
Some of those teams, I would still pick the Bye Week to win.
I’m honestly not sure at this point that the chiefs are better than their record. _Mahomes_ certainly is, and his presence alone is enough to be scared of. But the team as a whole is just not particularly exciting this year.
They aren’t, but I completely understand the hesitancy to declare them dead, or at the very least garbage for this season. They look dreadful right now, but a lot of fans remember the song and dance they went through with New England for the last 15 years of that dynasty, and they’d rather not go through that again by jumping the gun on the Chiefs here.
For what it’s worth, New England (at least at this stage of their run) was never in as dire of straits as Kansas City currently is now. That team did miss the playoffs twice during the Brady Era, but one of those seasons was very early on (Brady’s 2nd year as a starter) and the other was after Brady tore his ACL and they still managed to win 11 games, so I understand why people are completely out on the Chiefs right now. Their chances of winning the division are basically zero, and they don’t have tiebreakers over any current Wild Card team, nor Pittsburgh who could very easily end up losing their division. It’s very awful spot to be in given how terrible the team is playing right now.
I’ll give you some of the earlier games, but I really don’t think there was any devil magic going on in Denver on Sunday. That was just Vance Joseph being the best coach in the stadium that day.
Agree, and Broncos fans really can’t do enough to apologize to him after the rhetoric during his HC stint.
As a Ravens fan, we should be on Fraud Watch. Our winning streak has been largely against bad teams (and a Bears squad that might be worse than their record) and we weren’t even that impressive in those wins.
You put way too much stock into the Chiefs and the Ravens. I know they have been good the past few years, but they are not on the trajectory.
Hey, we won on the road against a division rival coming off the bye week without our starting QB or Kicker. It could have been a trap game, but it wasn’t, so our season is still alive to die another week!
Big opportunity missed to draw the Bengals being fought by The Running Man’s Captain Freedom.
” Jacoby Brissett just set the NFL record for completions in a single game in a clear loss to San Francisco. That’s stupid!”
Doesn’t help when your offense is getting flagged every fifth play to the point that you set a new franchise record for penalties committed in a game. As a Niners fan, the Cardinals offensive woes really papered over how poorly the SF defense did – and the latter lost even more guys to injury!
Awesome theme for the week! It’d be great if you could slip Trashcan man in there (Matt Frewer version).
Aaron Rodgers would go into the Jaunt on Ayahuasca and come out talking about how his latest retreat helped him enough he can play for another couple years. He’d still be fucked up about it but he’d go out there and throw hail marys while shrieking from the horrors.
“Aaron, how much longer do you think you can play QB?”
“LONGER THAN YOU THINK! HELD MY BREATH WHEN THEY GAVE ME THE GAS! LONGER THAN YOU THINK!”
Pats keep killing bad teams the way a good team is expected to, to the point that Dave won’t even talk about it. But then Dave refuses to acknowledge that they are a good team.
The entire “worse than their record” category doesn’t make sense to me. 4 of the best record teams in the AFC, plus all the best record teams in the NFC outside of the NFC west. At some point you need to admit teams are what their record says they are. Are those teams perfect? No. Do they have flaws? Yes.
There is a pretty good chance the Super Bowl will be between two of the teams that currently are in the “suspicious” category and some people will still say “A HA, the Broncos lost to the Packers, I *knew* they were a fraud!”
Yea apparently the Rams and Seahawks are the only 2 good teams. I’m fine if you want to argue teams are flawed, but “as good as their record” is a relative term year-to-year. A 9-2 this year is not the same as a 9-2 another year.
The patriots have had an easy schedule, but they’ve beaten the only 2 solid contenders they’ve played in the bills and buccs, and their losses were early in the year when they were still figuring themselves out. The broncos have had an easy schedule, but they’ve beaten the eagles and the chiefs and their 2 losses are to 2 other strong competitors.
At some point you just gotta listen to Dennis Green. They are who we thought they were.
The Stand is my favorite Stephen King book, though I have grown to love his works in general over the years. The Dark Tower was so good (I read The Stand, Salem’s Lot, and Insomnia along the way, and also the newest 3.5 or whatever prequel story thing).
My recent favorites are: The Long Walk (the movie was solid too!), and Under the Dome was also way better than I expected. I liked The Running Man but am uncertain on the new movie (despite liking so much about the trailer). I haven’t seen the Arnold one.
I haven’t read IT but I loved the two newer movies. The series is on my list but waiting for girlfriend to watch movies with me first. (I also liked Castle Rock!)
I’ll definitely take any recommendations you all might have for next King reads, I read allllllllll the time. (When I’m not saying prayers to [INSERT DEITY] that the Cowboys can remember that This Is Our Year (probably).
My all-time favorite is 11/22/63, so if you haven’t read it, it’s a must. Also has some fun allusions to his previous works. Needful Things is another excellent one from his older material, I think he really nails the slow unraveling of the town in that one more than any others (up there with Salem’s Lot for me).
In terms of his very recent work, I would say The Outsider is well worth the read, although it’s gruesome. If you like any of his crime-adjacent writing, this is sort of the perfect marriage of that and his horror work. And you should check out this The End of the World as We Know It short story collection he just put out, it’s a Stand anthology.
I don’t know if you’ve read Joe Hill’s stuff at all, but some of it is really good. It’s very King-flavored but he has his own voice. NOS4A2 is my favorite (has the King quality of disturbing visuals that just stick in your mind) and I also really liked The Fireman, which is reminiscent of The Stand in terms of the societal breakdown piece, really good read.