IT’S CHAOS NOMINATION TIME
First off, if you missed the announcement on Monday, there will be a post every day this week, so if you didn’t check here Tuesday, you missed a comic! Check back tomorrow and Friday too!
CHAOS AWARD NOMINATIONS!
Time to award the stupidest shit from 2025!
Next Monday (before I take a vacation break), will be the annual chaos awards. This is the post where I want to hear from YOU.
Please comment here with your nominees, as well as making a case for them if you so choose. I will be choosing the winners and they will be posted on Monday. So, here are the categories once again, and with a small explanation as to what the criteria is that I’m looking for.
MOST CHAOTIC PLAYER – What players made a huge impact, both positive and negative, on the field. This player needs to have done some weird, unpredictable shit and generally made the season funnier.
MOST CHAOTIC TEAM – Which team made no sense? Maybe they were good but never won, or they won but were never good. Maybe they kept having bizarre games with high drama and wild nonsense.
MOST CHAOTIC MOMENT OR SEQUENCE – This is essentially the most chaotic play of the year. A wild gamewinner, or a play that completely turned the tide of a game, that sort of thing. It also doesn’t have to be a single play, it can be a series of quick events in a short time.
MOST CHAOTIC GAME – Basically the game that went hard. Turnovers, weird playcalls, massive impacts across the league standings.
MOST CHAOTIC COACH – Which coach always kept us on our toes? Can be a coordinator instead of head coach.
MOST CHAOTIC FRONT OFFICE MOVE – This one might be harder to come up with, so I want to emphasize this nomination includes the entire league year, from draft to post-super bowl. Hirings, firings, bonkers trades, you name it. If it was stupid, nominate it.
MOST CHAOTIC OFF-FIELD DRAMA – This may also include anything from the calendar year’s offseason. Players get in trouble and do dumb stuff all the time. So do executives. So do owners!
MOST CHAOTIC INJURY – The injury that changed the trajectory and vibe of a team and season the most.
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT DUCK TEAM OR PLAYER – The one that let us down the most. Who did we have high expectations for only to watch them fall apart and let us down week after week? Can be a team or a particular individual.
MOST UNWATCHABLE TEAM – What team gave you no joy watching. Not hate watching, not funny watching, nothing but apathy and mild disgust. The kind of team that rolls off the eyes and makes you want to go do anything else.
Feel free to nominate more than one instance in each category if you have trouble picking.
ALSO: YOUR PICK FOR CHAOS HALL OF FAME CLASS OF 2025! Vote for your pick of the names listed (or name one yourself you think I’ve missed and can put in for next year). The 3 top vote getters will be our new class. In case of any ties, I will be the deciding vote.
NOMINATIONS FOR PLAYER
Deion Sanders, Eli Manning, The Fridge, Fran Tarkenton, Michael Vick, Brett Favre, Marshawn Lynch, Jim Thorpe, Randal Cunningham, Kurt Warner, Patrick Mahomes, Peyton Hillis, Gale Sayers, Joe Namath, Chad OchoCinco, Bernard Pollard, Ryan Fitzpatrick, SEXY REXY, Terrell Owens, Devin Hester
NOMINATIONS FOR GAME
28-3 Patriots Comeback, The Famous Dolphins/Steelers Mud Punt game, Vikings Comeback against the Colts, the Bills Comeback against the Oilers in the playoffs, Jaguars sending Dan Marino into hell 62-7, 13 seconds, The Beastquake, Detroit/Philly Blizzard, The Fog Bowl
NOMINATIONS FOR PLAY
Immaculate Reception, Sea of Hands, Holy Roller, The Gary Anderson Miss, Wide Right, The Helmet Catch, The James Harrison Pick-6, The Malcom Butler Pick, The Music City Miracle, Sean Payton’s SB onside Kick, The Minneapolis Miracle, The Miracle in Miami, Fail Mary, One Yard Short
CURRENT CHAOS HALL INDUCTEES
Barry Sanders, Nick Foles
6-6 Sea/Ari Tie, 18-1
Miracle at the Meadowlands, River City Relay
Most Chaotic Moment: Jalen Hurts throws an interception, Da’Shawn Hand fumbles the ball back to Hurts, then Hurts fumbles the ball back to the Chargers. 3 turnovers on one play; 2 by the same guy.
I feel like this year there’s either going to be a LOT of competition or easy shoe-ins. No in between because football is nuts. I’d also be cool if you went back to your early season predictions to see how much you were on/off the mark.
Chaotic Team: You should’ve just put the Bears here and made us fight for the runner up (honestly Panthers and Falcons are pretty good teams for that spot).
Chaotic Play: You know, I was going to say a few options…but Seahawks 2 point helmet conversion (it might be called The Zackwards Pass, which…mwah). Perfectly summarizes the Seahawks this year; an upper tier under the radar chaotic team that congealed into the team to beat.
Chaotic Game: This and Play both overlap quite a bit and I don’t want to repeat ourselves, so let’s go with Bears/Packers round 3, I think that one hit the edge of nonsense.
Chaotic Injury: There hasn’t been that big of an injury shakeup in the playoffs like Bo Nix’s injury since…maybe RG3 died? That probably does enough to top it, I don’t think any injury can compare.
Disappointment Duck: Packers. The fact that Matt Lefleur got extended instead of making the threat of him being released after next year still is irritating to me. Considering the expectations after the Micah trade there’s no reason they shouldn’t have sniffed at least the divisional. Those implosions against the Bears really does seal it for me (also Miami, have fun with Hafley lmao).
Unwatchable Team: Does anyone actually give a shit about the Cardinals? Everybody else has at least a few more interesting things happen to them, though between them and the Raiders it might actually be the toss up.
Chaos HoF:
Listed players/games/moments:
Owens, 28-3, Helmet Catch (still think holding was the call on the OL)
Runners Up: Ocho, Mud bowl at Heinz, Surprise Onside
Unlisted nominees for Players/games/moments
Player: Antonio Brown, or whoever retired during the game a few years back for the Bills
Game: Manning Broncos- Brady Pats where Pats came back from a huge deficit and then Welker blows the Pieter call on the punt and Pats recover. The 105 point Chiefs-Rams game from about 7 years back was epic; haymakers on offense and defense from both sides. Or Thanksgiving buttfumble game, the Pats were low chaos but the Jets were high chaos that night.
Play: Definitely the 3 turnovers in 1 play from earlier this year, already mentioned above. Or Colts hanging gate special teams snafu… So stupid.
Player – JJ McCarthy. I feel like it just has to be Nine.
Team – Maybe the Colts. Absolute roller coaster of a season that only got crazier as it went on. Falcons were high up there for being so unpredictable. Maybe the 49ers defying expectations week after week, injury after injury.
Moment/Sequence – The two-point conversion in the Rams @ Seahawks TNF game in week 18.
Game – There are a boatload of good options this year, so just to name a few: Ravens/Bills week 1, Bears/Vikings week 1, Giants/Broncos week 7, Falcons/Bucs week 15, any Packers/Bears game, Bills/Broncos divisional round. Maybe the real chaos was Thursday Night being actually kind of good overall this year.
Coach – Not a lot of options here, even Campbell kind of toned down this year. Ben Johnson? I guess?
Front Office Move – A lot of good options here, too. Some might say the Cowboys trading Micah Parsons to the Packers, some might say the Colts signing Philip Rivers. All the post season head coach firings (mainly Harbaugh and McDermott). Maybe I’m crazy, but I’m actually going to go with the Browns trading Joe Flacco to the Bengals while Burrow was hurt. The Colts rolling the dice on Rivers actually made some sense given his familiarity with their offensive system.
Off-field Drama – I’m not sure if it counts as drama, but Mark Sanchez getting stabbed and peppersprayed while intoxicated was pretty wild.
Injury – Probably Bo Nix in the divisional round. He survives through the whole game, even into overtime, then injured at the last minute, helping give the Patriots the easiest path to the Super Bowl I’ve ever seen.
Disappointment Duck – Commies. They went from being one game away from the Super Bowl to 5-12 with the 7th overall draft pick.
Most Unwatchable Team – The Jets were a perfect storm of terrible QB play on offense and no interceptions for the entire season on defense. No other team was close in my opinion.
My hall of fame choices are the same as last year –
Player: Terrell Owens
Game: 28-3
Play: Fail Mary
Most chaotic front office move has to be starting Grandpa rivers off the couch.
Related most chaotic player: believing in Indiana Jones
Most chaotic team: the 49ers deserve some mentions for somehow continuing to win until the Seahawks made their backups look undersized.
HOF only
Player – Fitzpatrick (And Lawrence Taylor would be good to add to the list)
Game – Mud Punt (1979 Bucs-Chiefs Monsoon bowl would be good to add to the list)
Play – Holy Roller (Garo Yepremian Super Bowl pass fail would be good add for next year)
Coach – Bum or Wade Phillips
The only option for Most Chaotic Player is Caleb Williams as the Most Chaotic Team was the Bears.
It was chaos, and it was glorious.
Vote for Chaos HoF:
Player – Marshawn Lynch
Game – The Beastquake
Play – Fail Mary
Nominees:
Play – Beastquake Run (The play is more impressive than the game, but the game is higher chaos)
Play – The Zachwards Pass. High chaos play that pretty much determined the SB winner. Hard to say whether Seattle would have beat the Rams in the playoffs had they not had home field advantage.