Aw NFL Naw: Run Up The Score Up The Flagpole (Week 9)

I’m currently in Toronto and it appears they do sell milk in bags. (Hey Toronto! Put it in a jug, you urban hillbillies!) I’m going to drink some bagged wine to steady myself and get to Aw NFLing for Week 9 after the jump. (Jump!)

Tim Tebow had a miserable day on Sunday. After a “miraculous” win over the Dolphins last week, the Broncos looked like the sort of club that, well, needed something miraculous to beat a winless Dolphins team. Denver weren’t simply outplayed in the first half, they were practically disemboweled. Now the sportsmanlike thing for the Lions to do, would have been to ease up on their opponent and courteously supply Denver with some orange slices at the half. They didn’t and that’s because the sportsmanship element of football is kind of overrated. I’m pretty sure all the players in the NFL once played for a junior high or high school football program that absolutely clobbered a St. Lopsy’s School For The Limbless type team and spiked the ball in the mascot’s face after the score reached triple digits. I want my millionaire tacklepals to absolutely batter their millionaire tacklepal opponent. The NFL isn’t built on sportsmanship, it’s built on endorsement deals that make coaches wear windbreakers to manage an extremely expensive business investment.

Fashion Is Danger: There’s a part of me that believes that graphic designers get their revenge on bullying jocks through the use of goofy uniforms. No self respecting multimillionaire would go to work wearing tiger stripes, but everyday these super-rich guys have to earn their money dressed like something out of the circus-edition of the Sears Wishbook. Grrr! Tiger stripes all over! Grrr!

(*pauses to accept that suits look silly too and that we should all just dress Halloween style all the time*)

Bocephus Watch: Remember how we all joked about how outdated that Hank Williams Jr. intro was on Monday Night Football and that no one would be sad to see it go? On Week 8’s edition of MNF, Phillip Rivers literally wasn’t ready for the football. I refuse to believe this was a coincidence.

Lexus, The Car That Likes That One Mystikal Video: The Lexus Masquerade Ball ad isn’t really as charming as it thinks it is. They have the “hip young people smiling and being attractive while listening to Caribou” part down, but the part where it’s revealed that the male lead took another woman home from party is just weird. It seems to imply that the lead has to have sex with the mystery lady because driving her home would be remarkably inconvenient.  Either that or he’s very excited about this prospect and is hoping his wife is getting a genital bonanza back at the weird mansion on the other side of town. I’m sure a lot of people that own a Lexus have an open relationship, but there’s just something gross about the “it’s the car that makes polyamorous sex stuff happen” vibe of the commercial.

That said, it’s still better than Denis Leary yelling at me for thirty seconds about how I need a truck that can transport concrete slabs into the heart of Alaska or whatever.

Week 9 Game To Watch With Your Eyeballs And/Or Listen To With Your Earpowers: Ravens at Steelers. It’s a question that has troubled humanity since the dawn of time: What is more powerful, Birds or Steel? If this quandry has not been answered by the film Real Steel, the world will find out on Sunday! (Do not try to figure out the winner without watching the game. The only homemade non-TV combining of birds and steel should be you making protective armour for robins, sparrows and blue jays.)

Week 9 Game Not To Watch With Your Eyeballs And/Or Listen To With Your Earpowers: Rams at Cardinals. It will likely come up that the Cardinals used to play football in St. Louis. That’s all the excitement you’re going to get from this. Maybe you could take the three hours you might put into watching this game and invest it into investigating the different backgrounds of people from St. Louis that may have moved to Arizona. Oh the stories you could learn! You could start by asking if they miss the Gateway Arch and follow up with questions about the difficulties facing the Southern US housing market. Maybe you could write a book or an article for an in-flight magazine about your experience. You can do all that without having to watch two teams play a game that exists mostly as a showcase for “experts” to fawn over a tall athletic Stanford student. (“He’s studying architectural design and has a blueprint for my heart. Sigh.”)

Toronto (The City, Not The Band): I’m currently getting adjusted to living in a new city. I’m having a great time and I hope that I didn’t just move here because of my loyalty to City TV’s softcore porn programming block of the late 90s and early 2000s. I’m a little bit homesick at the moment, but I am having a blast. I may weave some stories of my exploits into future posts, so apologies in advance. Play us out, Grum

Feel free to harass Dan on Twitter or in the comments. He has not yet solved the mystery of the CN Tower. He apologizes to the Queen for the delay and hopes to give her (and the entire Commonwealth) the complete story on how the Aztecs built it.