NFC WEST
Arizona Cardinals That sound you hear is Larry Fitzgerald crying himself to sleep. There, there, Larry Fitzgerald…there, there.
San Francisco 49ers There’s a commercial right now for something—honestly I don’t know what—that involves Danny McBride yelling at Patrick Willis and some other NFL player while they train. At the end of the commercial Patrick Willis lifts up a golf cart and throws it to the ground. The first time I saw it I had a moment of clarity, where I realized that not only do professional athletes lead a life you and I don’t understand, but their fundamental beings are totally unfathomable as well. Just imagine what it would be like to be able to casually overturn golf carts? Seriously imagine it. The capability alone would completely change who you were. Rather than walk through shopping malls thinking about what your parents have to do to you to make you shop at Hot Topic, you would walk through shopping malls thinking about how many punches it would take to level a Foot Locker. Celebrities may be just like us; athletes fucking aren’t.
Seattle Seahawks Spending $75 million on Sydney Rice and Zach Miller when your quarterbacks are Charlie Whitehurst and Tarvaris Jackson is like dropping your paycheck on rims and a subwoofer for your ’97 Saturn.
St. Louis RamsThe Rams are going to be fucking awesome this year, and it’s going to be like your weirdest buddy being the only guy who hooks up with a bridesmaid at a wedding: It’s going to freak you out and make you happy in pretty much equal measure. By the way, props to Josh McDaniels for pulling a total Jason Statham: Blowing up the Broncos with a needlessly massive amount of explosives and walking away in slow motion without even looking back at the blast. That takes heart. Also balls. The Rams will have both this year.
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Playoff Prediction After a hard-fought win over the Jets in the AFC Championship, New England defensive lineman Shaun Ellis will make national headlines by spontaneously devouring running back Danny Woodhead during a post-game interview. Despite Woodhead’s having been swallowed whole in front of millions on live television, Bill Belichick will insist the following morning that Woodhead is “questionable” and refuse to discuss the matter further. Meanwhile, Sean Peyton’s introduction of trick plays involving multiple balls will propel Drew Brees and the Saints to dispatch the upstart Rams by several touchdowns as Troy Aikman continues to insist that the seven-win Cowboys, who didn’t make the playoffs and haven’t played in a month, have the talent to really go places “if they can just get some momentum going.†On Super Bowl media day, dueling brainiacs Belichick and Peyton will announce that they’ve agreed to new rules: Teams will have five plays to advance the ball twelve yards, they can listen in on the other team’s defensive play calling, and punters will be made to sit in the corner. The game will be more like watching a Madden simulation than an actual Super Bowl, and will be the highest-rated program in television history. Despite the unprecedented on-field action, however, all the post-game buzz will be about the evening’s most striking commercial: A minute-long spot in which Flo from Progressive goes rogue, steals a motorcycle, and pops up in a T-Mobile commercial to ride off into the sunset with that chick in the pink dress.
The country will blame Wade Phillips for this. And they will be right.
