CARTOON BETS WEEK 5 – The Chargers Are Real And It Scares Me
When I was in high school I broke my ankle in gym class. I went up to hit the ball, came down on a classmate’s foot, and my foot went sideways. Within minutes my ankle had practically doubled in size. I went to the doctor and they couldn’t get a clear X-Ray thanks to the extreme swelling so they misdiagnosed it as a sprain. They gave me crutches and for a week I occasionally just had my weight on a broken ankle. After the swelling went down my foot still hurt quite a bit and it had turned purple. My mom took me to another doctor and I had broken my ankle in two places.
I bring this up because when I watched the Saquon Barkley injury I basically had a flashback. Almost the same twist and fall, and when they showed his ankle on the sideline, it looked roughly as bad as mine did. Saquon is gone for at least a month, IMO, and I don’t even know what has been diagnosed as of this writing. Somehow what happened to Danny felt even worse. Dude looked to have had pretty much the textbook horrific concussion, stumbling, face vacant, getting carted off. Just to top everything off, Golladay also left the game hurt. Toney pretty much went from a guy the Giants didn’t even use to the entire offense in one game. A game he was ejected from after throwing a punch. So hey! The Giants finally replaced Odell with a new hot-tempered emotional stud at WR. Can’t wait to see what he does under a better coaching staff.
WHAT ELSE HAPPENED?
-The Panthers are repeating what they did last year. They started off strong, looking like a team that might actually have what it takes to compete despite a weaker roster. Then not too long after they were losing games it felt like this tough squad should win. This loss against the mediocre at best Eagles is embarrassing. They should have put the game away and instead let them just walk right back in. At least the Darnold rejuvenation chatter can die down a bit now.
-The Bengals might actually be a good team, but if they have a future this year we have to hope Burrow is okay.
-Russ is finally going to miss some time. The Seahawks actually gave themselves a chance with Geno under center, but it’s hard to feel optimistic in Seattle after this news. Also, could Fox try NOT constantly zooming in on gross injuries for like 10 minutes?
-I straight up missed the Falcons/Jets game as I forgot it was in London and I slept through it. Seems like it went about as expected.
-The curse against the Lions is apparently stronger than the curse against Vikings kickers. I thought for sure the Lions had finally stolen one when the Vikings lined up for the gamewinner.
-I absolutely hate the Saints. I’ve tried to be optimistic and they let me down. I tried to be pessimistic and they surprise me. I try to reverse-jinx myself and they still beat me. I found this years nemesis.
-Man, we got really close to the Patriots proving themselves completely irrelevant. They escaped with a win that never should have been a nailbiter. Mac Jones seems really good at throwing 5 yards downfield.
-The Dolphins are not good.
-The Broncos might be bigger frauds than anticipated.
-I take back everything I said about thinking the Jags were heading in the right direction. This team is going nowhere under Meyer and the video scandal got really funny really fast and now seems like it’ll be the highlight of his short tenure.
-The Raiders still know how to shit the bed and now Jon Gruden might be getting canceled after a racist comment in an email surfaced this weekend
-Holy shit, Cleveland vs Chargers is a top 5 game of the season. No defense, absolute offense, a complete joy to watch. The coaching on the Chargers just feels good. They finally have someone competent at the helm and it has made so much difference.
-The Chiefs are not themselves. They aren’t as bad as their record I don’t think…but they aren’t the mighty fearsome destructor they used to be before the SB loss.
-The Bills are terrifying
CARTOONS! I did pretty solid this week. I also changed my Hawks/Rams pick, if you get confused why that one is missing.
PIX FOR WEEK SIX
BUCS @ EAGLES
The Eagles have a little bit of fight in them and the Bucs are kinda banged up but it’s hard to pick against the stacked Brady offense.
If the Eagles win, I will draw Brady having a PTSD flashback to dropping the pass in the Eagles/Pats SB
DOLPHINS @ JAGUARS
The Dolphins aren’t very far from being 0-5. The team is in rough shape and looks lost. If they can’t beat the absolute joke that is the Jacksonville Jaguars, they are in massive trouble.
If the Jaguars win, I will draw Urban Meyer grinding on a dolphin
VIKINGS @ PANTHERS
The Vikings aren’t the worst team and the Panthers aren’t the best. I gotta go with the home squad even after they just dropped a deuce against the Eagles.
If the Vikings win, I will draw Kirk Cousins kicking Hey Darnold off his boat
CHARGERS @ RAVENS
The Chargers have my axe until they betray me
If the Ravens win, I will draw Edgar Allen Poe flipping off a thunderstorm
RAMS @ GIANTS
The Giants weren’t going to win this game at full strength, they certainly aren’t going to win it starting Mike Glennon and Devonte Booker.
If the Giants win, I will draw Kadarious Toney as the Joker
TEXANS @ COLTS
Colts are probably happy to start having some gimme games
If the Texans win, I will draw Carson Wentz hurt, emotionally
CHIEFS @ TEAM
Weird to have Washington no longer be the most offensive team in this matchup. Chiefs are still hard to bet against.
If the TEAM wins, I will draw Chase Young throttling Kermit
PACKERS @ BEARS
The Bears are at the very least competent now, and the Packers feel vulnerable but keep winning. Still, Packers.
If the Bears win, I will draw Aaron Rodgers drowning in a deep dish casserole
BENGALS @ LIONS
The Lions have to win one of these games eventually but I just can’t commit to picking which one.
If the Lions win, I will draw a Lion eating a Tiger’s kneecaps
CARDINALS @ BROWNS
Browns are good but they have no defense. Cardinals are good and they do have a defense. This might be the game that finally puts a tick in the loss column though.
If the Browns win, I will draw Myles Garrett feasting on Kyler flesh
COWBOYS @ PATRIOTS
The Cowboys are a good team with a frightening level of offensive potential. I don’t trust the defense as much, but they are still good. This is a scary Dallas team. The Patriots are mediocre at best.
If the Patriots win, I will draw Cowboy Mac Jones
RAIDERS @ BRONCOS
The Raiders looked good so far until the Bears game, when they laid an egg and now are down 2 in a row. The Broncos are frauds, but to what extent remains unseen. This is a tough call, going Raiders. NEVERMIND, GRUDEN GOT FIRED, LMAO
If the Raiders win, I will draw Derek Carr taking a Bronco behind the shed
SEAHAWKS @ STEELERS
The Seahawks are the better team! If Russ was involved. Now they have to trot Geno Smith into an east coast game against the Steelers defense and the seahawks woeful defense might actually make Ben look passable. I hate that the Steelers caught this lucky break.
If the Seahawks win, I will draw Geno wiping his ass with a terrible towel
BILLS @ TITANS
The Titans defense is woeful and nobody in their right mind would pick against the Bills right now
If the Titans win, I will draw Derrick Henry eating a card table
BYE WEEKS – FALCONS, SAINTS, JETS, 49ERS. Hooray I can’t pick the Saints wrong this week!
Jesus fucking Matrix, the Fins are bad. Brissett is worse than Henne was, and it’s like everyone else, to a ckeat, has just given up.
Last night was that bad, the WPSL radio feed couldn’t even be bothered with their usual analysis/preview postgame show, and just cut straight to Rays-Red Sox game 3. Which, it must be said, was an absolute belter – their rotations are both screwed for Game 4.
Sam Darnold drawn in the style of Hey Arnold was an unexpected treat! I’ll be sad if this isn’t his character in future comics.
I too am a fan of Hey Darnold.
been used in all 2021 cartoon bets i’m pretty sure
The Browns have a better defense than you think, assuming Garrett, Clowney, McDowell, Ward, Newsome, Greedy, and Harrison are able to play next week. Some good news: JOK is apparently A-OK.
The Cardiac Pack struck again, with Crosby missing 3 field goals and McPherson missing 2 in 8 in game minutes before Crosby finally kicked a game winner.
So this is like groundhog day, or something, for me. It feels like going on 20 years, I wake up every Monday, laugh at the Giants injuries, look in the mirror and cry for 15 minutes, eat my bowl of cereal… then I go outside, fall to my knees, lift my hands to the sky, and bellow at the heavens… HOW IS CRIS COLLINSWORTH STILL EMPLOYED?!?!?!
Anybody can look like a football genius when what you’re replacing is the senile version of John Madden. My team has won multiple championships in that same era, but the happiest day in my football life was when John Madden retired and I no longer had to listen to him “call” football games.
how can you talk about this week of football and not mention that the Packers/Bengals had 5 consecutive missed field goals including 1.5 doinks?
Missing field goals was hardly a Bengals/Packers thing this weekend, everybody got in on it
Only good coming out of this is that the ankle isn’t broken but even then…
wow, you’re picking the Browns against the Cardinals AND the refs?!?
No? I picked the Cardinals
Funny how the biggest Primetime dud so far has been… well it’s still Bears-Rams, but Bills-Chiefs is a pretty close second. Kansas City at 2-3 was definitely not something that I expected, and the crazy part is that if it weren’t for a second half collapse by Cleveland, they’d be 1-4 right now. They just look like a team that got complacent. Still huffing their farts from 2019 and assuming that everything will work out. They should get better (their schedule gets a lot easier from here), but this start is definitely concerning.
I hate to defend the patriots, but the “patriots are bad because they struggled against Houston” take is a really bad one.
When they barely lose a game to the Bucs or Fins, they got zero credit. That was the defending champs they nearly beat! But now they get a close *win* and that doesn’t count? So stupid, and lazy.
That said screw the pats lol
Okay but the Fins are 1-4 and so are the Texans. Losing at home to the Fins says you’re probably bad. There’s also them losing at home to a New Orleans squad that has serious question marks.
I think that struggling against a team whose lone win was against the one team that’s a bigger dumpster fire than them is absolutely cause for concern. Just last week the Bills (a legit team) blew that same Houston squad out 40-0.
Did you post this under the impression the Dolphins are good? They are terrible. Barely losing to them is not a mark of quality. The Bucs game was the best they played this year and still lost, the Bucs were very banged up and the weather was so bad it neutralized their passing capability.
If the Patriots handily beat the Texans that would be one thing. They made Davis Mills look good and had to squeeze out a come from behind victory against a team so hapless they had a zero yard punt. No, I don’t think the Patriots deserve that much credit for that win, the same way the Broncos didn’t deserve much credit for going 3-0 against the Jets/Giants/Jags combo.
Plus, the Cowboys have been on fire so far (still not getting my hopes up tho) and they also almost beat the defending champions, by the same margin. And they looked a lot better doing it. Also keep into account that Tom Brady was a patriot for years and the defense probably knew a few things about him.
The Cowboys sadly look legit.
WFT will not be the team to finally repeat in the East.
I mean at the time the Dolphins had their starting QB, so yeah, they were at least solid.
As a Pats fan… yeah sorry gonna have to disagree here.
This team is bad. It’s very bad. They’ve lost a couple tight ones, but the only decent quality win they have is against the Jets, and even that was extremely ugly (offense was mediocre at best and they really only won because Zach Wilson was seeing ghosts). Mac is solid, but he’s still young. The run defense is still bad. The secondary ranges from mediocre to outright terrible if Sunday is anything to go by. At this point, the only player whose really shown up consistently is Matthew Judon.
So yeah, when Dave says this team is kind shit, unfortunately I feel inclined to agree with him. Because they are kind of shit. They overperformed in a typical ugly weather defensive struggle against the Bucs but even then, cowardice in key moments cost them. I wouldn’t write them off forever–they’re still scrappy, and Mac has shown to be a pretty capable starter, but so far as this season goes, they aren’t much of a threat. Dallas will probably cook them unless another typhoon hits Foxborough.
> now Jon Gruden might be getting canceled after a racist comment in an email surfaced this weekend
And now he’s gone, thanks to not just that email, but a bunch of others that were just as bad if not worse. Although, given this is the NFL, I have to wonder if his biggest sin wasn’t the racism, homophobia, sexism, and everything else, but instead insulting Goodell.
Next comic should be the I Sleep/Real Shit meme but the guy is demon goodell
His crime was getting caught, that is all.
Hey Dave, here’s your pool update post week 5.
Your 12/16 was better than most, but there were four 13’s and one 15, which was me! PHI/CAR was the only one I got wrong. I have now earned enough to cover both my and your buy-in, and I’m playing with house money for the rest of the season.
Overall you’ve got 52, which is good for a tie from 6th – 9th (out of 27). The current leader (also me!) has 61, 3 points ahead of 2nd place.
“The Lions have to win one of these games eventually”
The 2008 lions would like to have a word with you. First team in NFL history to go 0-16, might as well be the first to go 0-17 as well. It would be the most Detroit thing ever.