Crabcake

Joe Flacco and Todd Heap say hello.

They gave him nine figures. He better be their guy for the Snatit’s sake. (Spoiler alert: he isn’t. Giving a QB nine figures when he’s been a game manager his whole career and then experiences a career revival when he just so happens to start leading a team with the best RB of his generation always looked like a dumb move and it looks way dumber tonight.)

2 straight years Tannehill throws a backbreaking INT in the playoffs.

I would’ve said yes after the draft but after seeing it live I truly do believe that Burrow and Chase have a special connection. They’re basically Mahomes and Hill 2.0. That doesn’t come around very often. You can draft 1st round tackles or sign free agents later, but I now firmly believe Chase was the right pick. Those guys are gonna terrorize the NFL for a long time. That being said, your second statement is also true. As talented as Burrow and Chase are, notwithstanding whether it was the right pick or not, your O-Line just simply needs to do better than what it has been. I know the Titans’ pass rush is revitalized this year but this O-Line performance from Cincy is pathetic.

That is an UNREAL TD throw and catch.

Hey @Silent Wind of Doom, been a minute. I was wondering if you could update my trophies sig. I can't remember what I asked for the last time I submitted a request so I'm just going to submit a whole new one. Appreciate your time and effort in giving us great sigs to show off. Ravens: Super Bowls (2000, 2012), division titles (2003, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2018, 2019) Orioles: World Series (1966, 1970, 1983), AL pennants (1969, 1971, 1979), division titles (1973, 1974, 1997, 2014) Capitals: Stanley Cup (2018), conference championship (1998), President's Trophies (2010, 2016, 2017) Liverpool FC: Premier League (2020), Champions Leagues (1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005, 2019), FA Cups (1965, 1974, 1986, 1989, 1992, 2001, 2006) Fantasy Football: keep the previous three I had, and add: Yahoo Fantasy (2019, same team that won as in 2015), NFL Fantasy (2021, team logo below) Thanks again!

I think if the Bengals weren't division rivals, I'd be outright rooting for them. As it stands, they're easily the least odious (to me) of the Ravens' AFC North rivals, and watching Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase play football is equally as fun as watching Mahomes and Hill do it, with the added bonus of not having to cheer for a domestic abuser. They're far and away the lesser of two evils between them and the Titans so I'll be rooting for them this weekend. My ranking of overall rooting interest (even though I know no one gives a crap what I think): 1. Bills - Probably one of the best fanbases in North American sports, along with one of the most long-suffering. Josh Allen is cool and has a lot of similarities to Lamar which makes them a natural choice. The respect between the Ravens and Bills fanbases when we met last year in the playoffs has always stuck with me and was an incredible relief after having to deal with the Titans fanbase. I would be genuinely happy if they won it all. 2. 49ers - Jimmy Garoppolo, Super Bowl Champion would be objectively hilarious. This is only helped by the fact that if it happens there's a very real chance he gets Dilfer'd, since the Niners just spent a king's ransom to draft their QB of the future. Lance would have an immense amount of pressure on him if he has to step in for a QB just coming off of a Super Bowl win, making a Niners Super Bowl win potentially the worst thing that could happen to them long-term, and that kind of dichotomy is always fun and I will always root for it. Jimmy G winning the Super Bowl is also the spiritual successor to Joe Flacco's insane 2012 playoffs, except Jimmy G just tried his darndest to end the Niners' season last week so my confidence in him pulling off a Flacco-like Super Saiyan playoff run is basically shot. 3. Rams - Stafford finally winning the big one would be a great storyline. And Sean McVay winning it all would be a triumph for young, offensive-minded coaches, and the game getting younger is never a bad thing. Jalen Ramsey and Aaron Donald getting rings hurts my desire to see them win, but not enough to root against them. Plus it'd be hilarious to see this place implode in on itself if the Rams win it all in the bone unis. 4. Bengals - see above. They're easily my #1 or 2 if they play in a different division. 5. Packers - Aaron Rodgers seems like an arrogant jerk who thinks he's better than everyone else - the problem is, he has been better than everyone else (except for maybe Brady) for the last decade and a half. As much as it would be hilarious to watch the Packers lose another NFC Championship game, Rodgers probably deserves more than one ring for the kind of career he's had. 6. Bucs - I never like seeing a team repeat, much less a Brady-led one. My hatred for Brady has lessened significantly since joining the Bucs and I even found myself rooting for them over the Chiefs last year. At this point, there's no longer any debate in the GOAT conversation (save for Ken Anderson), and any more success Brady piles up just reemphasizes how insanely, ridiculously good he is at football. I just can't find the energy to be mad at that anymore. 7. Titans - The first team I would be upset to see win. Mike Vrabel pisses me off, I can't quite put my finger on why. He's obviously a great coach but he exudes this frat boy energy that just rubs me the wrong way. Derrick Henry is a monster and seeing him do his thing is always fun, except for when he does it to your team. Then it's very rage-inducing. No, I'm not still salty about 2019, why do you ask? Tannehill is a solid QB who benefits from having the most dominant running back of his generation taking attention away from him. Overall I just don't enjoy seeing the Titans succeed and would not be happy at all to see them win the whole thing. 8. Chiefs - It's impressive how quickly we all got sick of this team. It was 4 measly years ago that we were all rooting for them against Brady and the Pats, and 3 years ago that I was happy to see Patrick Mahomes' insane talent get rewarded with a ring. Now, though? The Chiefs are practically the old guard of the AFC. The fact that the Ravens have done nothing of note since 2019 makes the Chiefs' success a constant reminder of our failure to do anything with the best chance we'll have at a Super Bowl for the foreseeable future. Tyreek Hill is, well, Tyreek Hill. Tyrann Mathieu is, well, Tyrann Mathieu. The Chiefs and their fans needed a huge slice of humble pie last year and I would love to see them get served a repeat course.

A tough weekend for Lakers and Yankees fans.

I was gonna say. Isn’t that 2016 team known best for taking a picture on a boat the day before the game?

Not sure whether to shake my head at my misplaced optimism or be proud of including that last qualifier to cover just such a situation happening tonight. This game was over at halftime. Not all 21-0 leads are created equal. I would’ve taken a snowball’s chance in hell over the Cards getting something from this game at 21-0.

You know it’s bad when Louis Riddick and Brian Griese are easily outshining you in the booth. Griese especially screams “meh.” Riddick is alright. It just further proves that MNF (along with ESPN in general) is a rotting corpse whose days of being a national powerhouse are numbered, if not already over. I also genuinely believe I might not see a better MNF combination in my lifetime than Tirico, Gruden, and Jaws. They were perfection and everything since then has been a steady downgrade.

I think I’ve figured out what I hate so much about Steve Levy as a PBP guy. For about 90% of the sentences he speaks, he uses the same kind of “autopilot” inflection where you emphasize random words in a sentence to give the appearance like you know what you’re saying, but in reality you’re completely checked out and your brain is on autopilot. Not sure if that makes sense at all but it’s the best way I can describe it. None of his emphasis feels genuine, which makes him seem disinterested.

The fact that Cardinals-Rams will easily be the worst looking matchup of the weekend and will be called by the worst announcing crew of the weekend (sorry guys, Ian Eagle may be boring but I at least associate his voice with NFL football. Steve Levy is just the latest fill-in play by play guy that ESPN asked to try and revive the corpse of Monday Night Football. He sounds utterly disinterested the majority of the time) has really dampened my excitement for what should in theory be one of the more exciting games of the weekend. Of course, we all thought Bills-Pats was going to be a good game too and look where that got us.

Nevermind, the Cowboys out-Cowboyed the previous Cowboys teams who had already Cowboyed.

Jimmy G may have just out-Cowboyed the Cowboys.

Cowboys are absolutely killing themselves with penalties today. EDIT: Man, can’t believe Mike McCarthy just threw that absolute killer of a pick.

I’ll feel confident that the Steelers will lose when the clock hits quadruple zeroes. Until then anything is fair game as long as the NFL has anything to say about it.

Score one for public sanity!

Knew I was forgetting something. No shame in being #2 when that’s the competition.

Is this the most cathartic game of football for a historically tortured fanbase ever?

Exactly. Beware the post-halftime Belichick adjustment.

Haven’t seen a Belichick defense get shredded like this in the playoffs since Ray Rice took it to the house on the first play of the game in 2011.

At this point I think the NFL would have to pay me to go see the Pro Bowl. I’ve got better things to do.

Happy for the Bengals and their fans. 31 years is a heck of a wait for a playoff win. Burrow and Chase are going to terrify me for the next decade and I hate it. Raiders O-Line is certified cheeks, never seen a unit take so many untimely penalties in one game. As usual, the Raiders (offense in this case, the defense actually turned up after the half) folded around Derek Carr and made him carry the entire load, which he simply just isn’t good enough to do consistently.