Hi, my name is Dan MacRae. (This is the part where you tell me your name.) That’s an absolutely lovely name and it is a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Aw NFL Naw, the Prairie Dog’s poorly titled new weekly NFL column. Every Wednesday, I’ll be writing a semi-coherent collection of thoughts and swear words concerning developments in the National Football League. Allow me to present to you my qualifications:
– I have one day of organized football experience. I went to a high school football practice and immediately realized how much I hate teamwork, dedication and sacrifice. I promptly quit the team before the second practice and signed up for my school’s improv team. I’ve written about this in a bit more detail a few years back on my blog. http://danmacrae.tumblr.com/post/175715068/ryan-leaf-aint-got-shit-on-me As you can probably guess from the above sentences, I didn’t kiss a girl until I was in the twelfth grade.
– What I lack in technical knowledge about football, I more than make up for it in knowledge of what team Lisa’s Dad likes on Fresh Prince of Bel Air. (Cleveland.)
– I operate mainly using bullet points, blurbs and outdated slang. Holy horsefeathers, I’m even doing that in this intro. Take that, challenging sports journalism.
– There’s a good chance I’ll include the video for “Ram It” in every single column.
Amazing. So put on your football reading costume and skip hand-in-hand with me past the jump.
This Will Show The World Why I’m A Super Genius From Beyond The Brainiac Galaxy: Last year, I skipped out on fantasy football. This decision completely ruined my 2010 NFL watching experience. I need to think that my pretend GM skills are important and that this multi-billion dollar league exists only so I can show the other seven guys in my pool that I’m the smarter than them and they can fucking eat it because my make-believe team is better than theirs.
I’m not sure what my chances are this year. I selected Michael Vick with the fourth overall pick. There’s an 87% chance he’ll get horrifically injured by Week 4 and a 62% chance it will come at the paws of Beatrix Kiddo-esque dogs seeking revenge. And who would blame them? Not me. I’d be inconvenienced, but I would completely understand.
Additional Fantasy Football Note: Do not draft Becky “Icebox” O’Shea. She is a fictional character from the film Little Giants.
Ryan Fitzpatrick Went To Harvard: Fitzpatrick’s Harvard education is the only talking point that people will use when talking about the Buffalo Bills. This is because Buffalo is terrible. It’s sort of an overrated talking point, seeing as Fitzpatrick isn’t going to “book smarts” the ball into the endzone. Ben Roethlisberger is the opposite of book smarts (although there are tons of book smart sex offenders out there) and he’s won two Super Bowls. If Ryan Fitzpatrick were as bright as advertised, he probably wouldn’t be in Buffalo in the first place. Maybe the dude’s just a really big Vincent Gallo fan.
Redskin Fans, Rex Grossman Is Your Starter: Pffft. And people say suicide is the coward’s way out.
Music (Was The Last Good Album From Madonna): Music at sporting events is a lot like thumbnails for scat videos on streaming porn sites. It’s unpleasant, but you figure out a way to get past it. That said, holy shit I’ve had enough of hearing “Bang the Drum All Day” after touchdowns. I hate Green Bay to begin with (despite watching Life With Louie as a child) and I don’t need to hear this nonsense after touchdowns. It’s about as appealing as unicorn crib death. Please knock it off.
Advertising! It’s Back!: Thanks to Canadian simulcast laws, a lot of NFL games feature Canadian ads from the CTV or CityTV feed. I used to get bummed out by this, but have grown to love the weird shitball local ads that come from the CityTV feed. The majority of 241 Pizza ads are a cross between a fever dream and a commercial outline that’s been knocked out at gunpoint.
Advertising! Still A Thing!: The Dr. Oetker pizza ads continue to be fairly troubling. They use a murderer’s row of Italian stereotypes to mask the fact their company sounds like it was named after a Nazi war criminal. Calling your pizza “Casa di Mama by Dr. Oetker” doesn’t really solve that problem. Also what kind of self-righteous dick uses the title of “doctor” to market pizza? Go back to medical school and prescribe yourself a fake Italian name so I can at least imagine a world where I want to eat your pizza.
Week 1 Game To Watch With Your Eyeballs And/Or Listen To With Your Earpowers: Saints at Packers. This will probably be the only Thursday game that will be enjoyable to watch. The rest of the season, you’ll be missing large chunks of the game to watch Parks & Recreation and Community. Shit, I’d probably watch Jersey Shore for a bit if the series got out of its three season long Sammi/Ronnie rut. (What’s your problem with golden geese, MTV? Did one beat you as a child?) The hoopla around the first game of the season normally leads to things like bad (read: all) Bon Jovi concerts and the disjointed feeling the season doesn’t properly start until Sunday. Still, this game should have things like offense, defense and opportunities to tweet the occasional observation where you pretend you’ve seen past episode five of Treme.
Week 1 Game To Not Watch With Your Eyeballs And/Or Listen To With Your Earpowers: Panthers at Cardinals. The Cam Newton era begins in Carolina. Feel free to tell your estranged grandchildren that you watched the start of the Cam Netwon era and watch their eyes light up with disinterest.
Misguided And Poorly Reasoned Super Bowl XLVI Pick: New Orleans 34 New England 17. (I can’t get into specifics how this will happen, but the NFL’s relaxation of their “no laser guns policy” will play a key part in this.)
Happy footballing, sports enthusiasts.
Dan MacRae is on Twitter. Most of the things he has to say are about candy bars. Feel free to harass him in the comments or on social media. @danmacrae
