Cellar Divsion WEAK XV Wrap-Up and Disposal

Cellar Division Weak XV Wrap-Up and Disposal

Ok it’s Christmas Week and I barely have time to go to the bathroom, so

I’m going to try to keep it brief.

BREAK UP THE BROWNIES!!

Brownies 41 Cheaps 34

We shoulda known. You get two teams with defenses that play the Bend-but-don’t-stop-anything format and this is what you should expect. 3 out of the last 4 weeks the Brownies give the NFL the most fun game to watch. WTF!?!

But let’s not get carried away by Joshua Cribbs and Jerome Harrison. We’re not footballs. This is the CELLAR, and the team that gets the credit here is the CHEAPS. Each team fought hard to lose this one, constantly allowing ridiculous amounts of yards to players nobody’s ever heard of (OK we’ve heard of Cribbs in the last 3 weeks), and letting the points rack up. Jim Brown was in the house and I bet he was thinking he could have gone for 400 yards against that defense. It was two prize fight stooges trying to throw the game at every opportunity, and the WORST team won…lost. The Cheaps move into first in the AFC Cellar, something I did not think was going to happen this season. I was sure the Brownies had the culture of losing nailed, and were taking it to the house.

Ha! Watch those two kick-off return TDs by Cribbs- but watch the ‘tackling.’ Wow! Can a team really tackle that wimpy? I think the Cheapettes, or whatever their cheerleaders are called, could have gotten that guy on the ground faster. They could get me on the ground very fast, I’m sure.

LOSER OF THE WEEK

The Cheaps, man. I don’t care if they piled up 491 yards. This was hard work losing this game against a team clearly matching them dumbass defensive play after another.

These guys knuckled down and let the Brownies pull it out in the W column when it looked like they just couldn’t give up any more yards. Way to go guys!!

(runner-up in loser of the week: Chicago CareBears losing 31-7 to the Ravens)

BLOWOUT OF THE WEAK

Deadskins 12, NYG 479

OK OK it was only 45, but after Jason Campbell tossed the worst screen pass in history to Giant DB Thomas at the 14 and he ran it in for a TD to make it 38-6, you could see coach Jim Zorn cleaning out his desk, mentally, as he stood, like a lonely figure slowly twisting in the wind, imperceptibly mumbling into his headset on the Deadskin sideline. Campbell pretty much looked like he was done in D.C. too. What with new GM Bruce Allen (son of George) pacing in the luxury box upstairs, I think he was warming up the ejector button like crazy. Better get some oil on that, Bruce, you’re going to be really busy really soon.

STIFF OF THE WEEK

Altanta-Jets game sported 15 punts, but more importantly:

Lambs 13 Texans 16

Still have a guy named Null at QB. It’s perfect, except they have one win. Lambs are taking it to the house. Cardinals next week, followed by 49ers (uh-oh Danger of Victory Index goes up slightly). Lambs are nailing down WORST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE. The Lambs stand a-LONE at the top of the Cellar! No matter how bad the other team plays, engaging in a field goal fest, the Lambs can do whatever it takes. Keeping Stephen Jackson under 100 yards being their big focus.

Biggest Deflating Moment (or Flop of the Week, in honor of the Floppers)

Kittens 24, Cardinals 31: Kittens come from 17 down, tie it with 4 minutes left, and then just hand it to Warner and the Cards in the final 2 minutes. In Detroit. Merry Christmas.

But, of course, in Cellar terms, waaaaaaay to go, men! How about a little more rum in your eggnog?

SHOCKER OF THE WEEK

Bootineers beating the Seahags is shocking, but I predicted it, so I’m not shocked.

Raydurz beating the Broncos is VERY Shocking, what with Ja-miss-it winning the game, but you can’t top this:

Pansies 26 Vikings 7

This was shaping up as the stiff of the week, frankly, a Puntfest (15!) and completely crap game from the Vikings offense, and then the defense got tired of the whole thing and just collapsed in the 4^th quarter. Pansies take advantage because Jake Delhomme is not under rump. Honestly, Pansies played great defense, just crushed the Vikes (I watched this one) and it makes you wonder about the purple and gold for the post season, if they can turn in such a stinker in week XV. Back when they wore satiny purple pants and Fran Tarkenton was running up, back, side to side and Jim Marshall was just running the wrong way, they were my favorite team. With Favre back there, for some reason I just want to see a sackfest for the other team. And I got one last night.

LOW END TOTALS FOR WEEK XV

Points: 7 Vikings, Jets, Carebears

First downs: 10 Vikings (Yikes!)

Total yds: 237 Vikes (Yikes!) and Lambs, tie.

Passing: 66 Brownies (Brady Quinn, in victory, still plays like kee-rap)

Rushing: 41 Vikes (Yikes and away!)

Turnovers: 5 Seahags (4 int, 1 fumble)

Penalties: 10 for 84 yds. Steelers

Time of Poss: 22:01 VIKINGS (boy did they play a lousy game.)

aaaaaaaAAAAAAND that’s the view from the BASEMENT!!!

Cellar Playoff Methods and the Underdog

Only 6 weeks to go for the Moldy Carpet.

Week 13 will be the beginning of the ELIMINATION ROUNDS, when teams no longer have a mathematical chance of taking the Moldy Carpet. They will be eliminated from the standings.

As each succeeding week unfolds, teams that can't hang with the real pros at getting your lunch handed to you week after week (and what DOES that phrase mean, anyway? Somebody punched you in the gut, you throw up, and then they HAND it to you?) will be kicked upstairs into the blinding light of contention. OR at least, dubious mediocrity.

This season of close scrutiny of the underbelly of the NFL has taught me a couple of things. One is it's really hard to execute well on any sort of high percentage in football. It's not as hard as hockey, but let's face it, in hockey you've got football players playing basketball on ice, so good luck with that. Most NFL teams are working really hard just to be OK. I have a renewed appreciation for the difficulty of pulling off a play 100%. If you interviewed coaches/off/def co-ordinators around the league, I wonder what percentage of success they would give you. 30%? 20%? Having a game turn out 13-10 is really not an embarrassment. It may not be entertaining, but we get very skewed memories about great teams of the past. the 49ers are 5-0 in Super Bowls, but if you look at regular season games of the Joe Montana era, there are many many low scoring games that were not pretty. Around here, in San Francisco, you'd think Joe threw for 400 yards every game.

Also, some of our beloved bottom dwelling teams are bad almost by accident, and some are bad by design. The Raiders are bad by design. It's been carefully crafted. The Lions were made REALLY bad by design in the last 5 years because they had Matt Millen guiding the team carefully into the abyss. I remember 10 years ago, it seemed like the Browns were building a great franchise with many front office people snatched from the 49ers, but it all went south, and they have, I think, been shocked by what has happened to them.

If the Browns OR the Lions started winning, I think I'd become rabidly involved, now that I'm following them closely. When I first moved to San Francisco, in 1976, the 49ers were TERRIBLE. They were Kings of the Bonehead Forest. I had never lived in a town with an NFL team, and though the Raiders were faves, too, I followed the Niners, especially since they had the extremely amusing Lon Simmons at the mike for radio- a man who could take a one sided blow-out and turn it into a absurdist romp through non-sequiter free form Ken Nordine style thinking, exiting the horrors of the game completely. The man knew when the pain of the game was too great, and radios were going off all over. Fellow Cellar members DTRocks and Walkfish attended the Buffalo-Niners game at the end of the '80 season with me, when Montana and company began to show flashes of talent. The game seemed completely lost, but somehow at the end the Niners were right there, hurling passes into the end zone on the final play (though losing still). The next year, they won the Super Bowl. Their odds were something like 200-1. I had moved to Seattle, for one year, at the time, and almost went insane because I couldn't be in SF for the playoff run. I can't explain the joy I felt- but if you've ever lived through the interminable losing, when suddenly the team wins- at all- it's all good. And many times the games you really love are the 13-7 affairs, where they play like crap but WIN ANYWAY. That's football at it's finest, really. You fight to win the game.

So, with all our celebration of the competition for the Moldy Carpet, I give thanks to these teams that have my attention, because one of these days one of them is going to rise up, and snatch the crown at the other end of the tunnel, and there will be joy in Mudville. Even if it isn't my hometown. Toss the coin, you bums, you never know what's going to happen.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.