CARTOON PICS WEEK 12 – If we don’t look directly at it, maybe Covid will go away
The NFL has had a…mixed handling of the virus situation overall. I think they’ve done better than I expected, but worse than I hoped. The early weeks started well but the Titans outbreak got me really nervous. But the league seemed to weather that early incident with just a few positives per team around the league afterward. I was expecting the league to be facing a crisis by Thanksgiving. They’ve managed to survive that, but we are once again on the verge of going off the rails.
The NFL really messed up by not gameplanning for an extra week or two at the end of the season that they could use as a buffer makeup game week. The NFL is doing what the country as a whole appears to be doing and is just sorta going “THIS IS OUR LIFE NOW UGH” and forcing things to happen because change means we’re weak or something. The Steelers already lost a week thanks to the Titans outbreak and are now being forced to reschedule to Tuesday after the Ravens started getting infected. The Steelers haven’t even had an outbreak yet and are getting screwed by other teams messing it up. Moving the Ravens game off Thanksgiving made sense, but it’s also weird that the league is so eager to shove the Ravens around yet the Broncos had a QB outbreak and were forced to play the game at scheduled time with a random guy off the street at QB. Kendall Hinton, you have my respect. That was an impossible situation.
The Giants are first place in the NFCE! Except Daniel Jones died. Bummer, he’s turned it around in recent weeks. He’s been much safer with the football and making better decisions and throws. It’s not a huge improvement, but enough that if it keeps up I’m fine with keeping him around for year 3. Unfortunately, he’s dead now, and I really wanted to see how he did against the upcoming gauntlet that is our next 4 games compared to these last 3, which have been bad teams.
Very pleased to see the Lions fire Matty Patty. Dude sucked. I’m hoping to make a comic on that so I’ll hold off on expanding my thoughts there.
Another week has gone by where the Raiders and Vikings have deliberately kicked me in the dick. Raiders especially. How do you almost sweep the Chiefs and then go lay an egg that size against the fucking Falcons? The Falcons! Yes, it was an early EST game and the Raiders tend to mess those up, but that bad? This should have been a blowout the other direction. Embarrassing.
I did pretty well this week, especially since I probably only picked the Bucs to win because I enjoy drawing Tom Brady being humiliated and would have picked the Chiefs otherwise.
Lets look at week 13, which at this rate could look completely different from when I write this Sunday night.
SAINTS @ FALCONS
I admire the Falcons ability to go out and win games when they should absolutely be tanking the season. Maybe that never say die spark will upset the Saints, who are still starting Taysom Hill instead of being fun. I doubt it. The Saints are probably one of the best teams in the entire league even with ancient Tim Tebow playing QB while Brees heals his 25 broken ribs.
If the Falcons win, I will draw Taysom Hill and Tim Tebow as that Spiderman Pointing Meme
JAGUARS @ VIKINGS
Every fucking week with this team. Vikings? If you can’t beat these lousy Jags, who are practically trying to lose, you can just go fuck off forever.
If the Jaguars win, I will draw Mike “The Neck” Glennon squeezing Kirk Cousins like an anaconda
BROWNS @ TITANS
So the Browns are this year’s “perfectly in the middle” team. They aren’t good, but they aren’t bad. They’ve beaten all the losing record teams on their schedule. They’ve lost, usually badly, to almost all the winning record teams on their schedule. The one exception to this is the Colts, who are good, and they beat. Fortunately for the Browns, they’ve played a lot more losers than winners and have guaranteed at minimum an 8-8 season. Good for them. The Titans are likely going to wipe them out.
If the Browns win, I will draw the Brownie elf throwing the state of Tennessee into a woodchipper
LIONS @ BEARS
Ah, this ought to be interesting. Will the Lions have the new-coach bump? I think they are great candidates for it. It would appear so many players hated Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia that I wouldn’t be surprised to see them rally around nu-coach and beat the reeling Bears. So yeah. Go Lions.
If the Bears win, I will draw a cute teddy bear dancing around Mufasa’s corpse
BENGALS @ DOLPHINS
Watching the Bengals play the Giants was sad. The Giants probably win that game in a blowout if a few things don’t swing the Bengals way. The kickoff return was a free 7 points, the patented “Evan Engram Fuckup” that got them more support, the terrible DPI call against the Giants to set up their late touchdown, and the fact that Jones went down early in the third made this game way closer than it should have been. Colt McCoy looked terrible in relief. Despite all the things going the Bengals way, Brandon Allen was terrible and the atrocious O-line sealed the deal allowing the game ending strip sack. The Dolphins are better than the Giants, even if they have to start Fitz again.
If the Bengals win, I will draw Joe Exotic with his brand new Dolphin Cage
TEAM @ STEELERS
There is a part of me that is kind of happy the Steelers are as good as they are, because after they’ve been jerked around by the NFL because other teams messed up their covid protocols I can just imagine the crying and whining that would be coming from the yinzers about it if they were average or worse. The Team briefly found first place this week, but it won’t last when the big boys beat them up.
If the TEAM wins, I will draw The Washington Monument kicking the ass of the Cathedral of Learning
COLTS @ TEXANS
DeShaun Watson is playing at an MVP level on this garbage fire and deserves so much better. Colts gonna win.
If the Texans win, I will draw DeShaun holding up the Texans logo a’la Atlas holding up the world
RAIDERS @ JETS
I’m scared that one of these days I’m going to actually have to draw the Jets photo
If the Jets win, I will draw a Jets colored Gundam stomping on Derek Carr
GIANTS @ SEAHAWKS
Man this was going to be a loss even before Daniel Jones died, but now it’ll be a depressing loss instead of a potentially funny one.
If the Giants win, I will draw One World Trade Center kicking the Space Needle’s ass
RAMS @ CARDINALS
Ugh, both the Rams and Cardinals had big fraud weekends. The Rams choked against Nick Mullens and the forever injured 49ers, and the Cardinals blew it against the cockroach Patriots. Now they have to fight each other and I have to care? Both of these teams are supposed to be good and yet this will somehow be unwatchable. I guess go…Rams?
If the Cardinals win, I will draw old man Larry Fitzgerald and small child Kyler Murray building a sandcastle on top of Jared Goff
PATRIOTS @ CHARGERS
The Patriots just won’t accept fate and stay down. They are 5-6 but juuuuuust on the fringes of playoff contention, enough that a win streak could put them in the line. I hate it. Let them die. Just let them die. I wish the Chargers could put that big nail in the coffin but who on earth could possibly trust the Chargers to do anything right.
If the Chargers win, I will draw Justin Herbert pushing Cam Newton back into the grave
EAGLES @ PACKERS
I don’t understand why the Eagles haven’t put Hurts in yet. Wentz is broken. The team has a ton of faults, but Wentz is broken. He’s making terrible decisions left and right. This season is a waste, even with them technically in the playoff hunt. They also have a hard schedule so they likely won’t make the playoffs even in this division, as they are really the only team in the NFCE trending downward, weird as that is to say. Put Hurts in. See what you got while you can. What’s the harm? Wentz needs a break to right his brain. The Packers are very competent though, and might be one of the most boring teams in the league to me. They are just like..yeah, they’re about as good as expected. They aren’t fun to watch.
If the Eagles win, I will draw State Farm guy giving the Eagles the Rodgers Rate
BRONCOS @ CHIEFS
The Broncos are still unwatchable. Not even the hilarity of no QB could make them watchable. I hope the Chiefs wipe the floor with them so I don’t have to tune into this game whatsoever.
If the Broncos win, I will draw Patrick Mahomes frozen on top of Pikes Peak
COWBOYS @ RAVENS
The Cowboys might benefit and not have to face Lamar Jackson! I hope not, because fuck the Cowboys.
If the Cowboys win, I will draw Andy Dalton as the human torch
BILLS @ 49ERS
Come on Bills, just win it. The less games I have to pay attention to the more sleep I can get.
If the 49ers win, I will draw Yosemite Sam dancing around a dead buffalo
These Patriots are the most unpredictable team in the NFL. Cam will go out one week and put up a legit statline, and they’ll either lose or almost lose because the defense gets eviscerated by Deshaun Watson (understandable) or Breshad Perriman (not as understandable). Then Cam will go out and literally have a game where his QBR is below 10 while the rest offense is in complete shambles…. and they somehow win because the other team’s special teams unit took the ‘special’ part a tad too literally or Belichick decided to toggle with the weather settings in the 4th quarter. I don’t know what they are, you don’t know what they are.. hell, not even THEY know what they are.
And as a fan… I hate to say it but I kind of love this Pats team. Once you get the Brady-era image of them out of your mind, you quickly realize that this is just a squad of goons led by one of the more outspoken personalities in the league. They’re a team that’s so bad that they should realistically be 3-8 right now, but also so unlucky that you could legitimately argue that they could be 8-3. They somehow underachieved and overachieved at the same time. They’re somehow one of the worst teams in football, but not too bad either.
I don’t think they’re dead–just in a coma, and will be for a very long time before finally kicking the bucket after Belichick retires. They’ll never be in the tank, but they’ll never be a true contender again. Perfectly mediocre, as any annoyingly dominant dynasty should end.
The Derrick Henry thing is gold. I hope the Falcons don’t win but will take solace in seeing that drawing. While I’d rather see Winston start I’m conflicted because of Winston’s scumbag tendencies. I also wish Winston would’ve picked a different number. Seeing #2 with that size, twirling around the pocket (how does he end up 180 some times?) while holding he ball far away from his body gave me flashbacks to the Aaron Brooks era.
I think the Tebow comparison is unfair because Tebow was too slow to do what Taysom does. A better comparison would be Cam Newton except much worse at throwing.
This is a bad year to be a Broncos fan. Seems like the game didnt get postponed just to punish the Broncos for not following mask protocol. Which while I get it is very frustrating.
I personally think it didn’t get postponed because the Saints were starting their best special teams gunner at QB. If Winston or Brees were starting they proba ly postpone.
That’s exactly why. The NFL warned teams that if they broke protocol and got hit with Covid they wouldn’t do any postponing. The Broncos broke protocol and the NFL made them play without quarterbacks. Part of it was almost certainly sending a message to the other teams too
It does suck, but I’m all for the punishment. Everyone needs to get it hammered into their heads that this isn’t a joke.
I also apologize if this is just salt on the wound, but for the last few years, the Broncos QB has been a spinning carousel of names the casual NFL fan can little remember. Them being forced to start a no-name QB off the street would be akin to the Giants being forced to sit their OL and bring up practice squad players. On the surface it’s unfair, but it begs the question… would you notice a difference? XD
Turns out yes. We definitely noticed a difference. A big difference. Cause mediocre to bad NFL QBs are still 100 times better than none QBs.
I don’t want to see Winston on the field for the rest of his career.
The Steelers HAVE had positive tests, but it looks like isolated incidents and not a team super spreader event like the Ravens.
The Patriots–I think the poster above summed it up well. Stunkei. Good call.
Kendall Hinton–Shitmer made the absolute worst play calls for the dude. He did what he could with horrible play calling and like negative amounts of time to prepare to play QB. He deserves AFC Offensive Player of the Week for showing up and manning up and doing his best.
I wanted to go all the way and just say the Patriots are the embodiment of 2020. They make zero sense and trying to guess what they might do is basically useless at this point. I think accepting that the dynasty died with Brady’s departure made watching them this season a lot more fun. They’re so bad at times that it’s hilarious, but I just can’t bring myself to root for them to tank for a high pick. Seeing them stumble around aimlessly is a comedy act, and I have zero issues if this continues for a few years.
MAYBE if half their defense didn’t click the opt-out button, the Patriots would be in the hunt
I don’t think the defense is the issue for them. The defense is regressed from last year, but their only major loss due to opt outs is Hightower. Winovich has really stepped up and turned into a solid EDGE rusher, Uche is turning out to be a great replacement to KVN, and the secondary is still playing fairly well (Gilmore-Jackson is still one of the best CB duos in football).
Their issues are on offense. The offense was just okay with Brady last year, middle of the pack for the most part. They do not have a passing game without him this year. That’s not an exaggeration. They literally do not have a passing game. Cam is on pace to throw for less than 3000 yards in 15 games. I know passing yards aren’t a good metric for rating QB play, but I’m pretty sure not breaking 3000 yards in a season is really bad. They can get by when the running game starts popping off, but if they’re playing a slightly above average secondary, they’re done for if the rush attack isn’t there.
Now, I’m not blaming Cam for this–if Tom Brady couldn’t make that offense work, no one could. There’s not much you can do when your best receiver is Damiere Byrd, and even then, Cam has put together some really impressive performances. I hope they try to build around him. I really, really want him to succeed. Cam is such a fun personality and a stark contrast from the old, stodgy “perfection is the goal” Tom Brady that I can’t help but wish he wins MVP again. Knowing Belichick though, Cam will probably be gone this offseason. Maybe we can steal Dak from you guys! You don’t mind, right?
If the Browns win you should have Nick Chubb winning an arm wrestling match against Derrick Henry. Stoically.
As a Raiders fan, I’m conditioned to think that the league is biased against us, but damn they went out and did that to the Broncos? That almost made me feel bad for them…almost.
i like the high art phase of cartoon picks referencing goya and atlas
If the Chargers win, you should draw Justin Herbert popping a Belichick-shaped zit on his face.
Ravens vs steelers still going on (we better win this like they dont have anyone to throw the ball)
Did you start drawing Henry eating the children after the 1st quarter or after the game?
The Broncos Covid outbreak and the Ravens Covid outbreak are an apples and oranges situation. They are not comparable. The Broncos had one person test positive, and everyone around that person was held out. It just happened to be the QBs. The Ravens had multiple people testing positive every day for 8 straight days. The idea is not to spread the virus to the opposing team. The Ravens didn’t know if they had a bunch of players who had the virus, and they might give it to the Steelers. That’s why their game kept being pushed back. The Broncos did not have continuing positive tests, therefore, they could play. Apples and Oranges, peeps.
The point is, the NFL would postpone the Ravens-Steelers game even if it was just the QBs.
If the Cowboys win, you should draw Dez Bryant
in a store of Dez Bryant Dallas Cowboy jerseys
That is simultaneously the most highbrow and lowbrow comic panel ever.
Honestly Dave, you drawing inanimate objects shitting on each other, flipping others off, and kicking them in the nuts are amazing. Please do more of them. Maybe… even a full comic?
The Giants just won’t accept fate and stay down. They are 4-7 but juuuuuust on the fringes of playoff contention (this still works since there’s a 1 game separation between winning this division and picking in the top 5 next draft), enough that a win streak could put them in the line. I hate it. Let them die. Just let them die. I wish the Seahawks could put that big nail in the coffin.
Giants vs. Patriots Super Bowl. The Threematch no one saw coming.
Late to this one, but Henry in the Goya painting is GOLD!