5 Things We Learned From The 2013 NFL: Week 10
Seattle doesn’t even have to play away games, hope springs eternal in the NFC East, and bullying is bad, m’kay?
Photo: Aaron Doster / CSM / Landov | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2013
1. It Doesn’t Matter If The Seahawks Suck On The Road
As this tweet by Seattle sports radio bro Mitch Levy points out, if the Seahawks win their final four home games, they could put a girl scout troop on the field at the San Francisco 49ers and at the New York Giants (okay, the girl scouts might actually beat the Giants) and still get home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Seattle’s last home loss? Christmas Eve…2011. Considering almost every NFL player comes from a college system that routinely packs 100,000+ fans into stadiums screaming at decibels only drunk teenagers can reach, it has to be more than the noise at CenturyLink field (even though, yes, they got in the Guinness World Record book for it) that gives the Seahawks such a tremendous home field advantage…we’d guess it was a raging staph infection blazing through the visitor’s locker room, but that hasn’t helped Tampa Bay at all!
2. Giants And Redskins Fans Are Drinking From The Poisoned Chalice Better Known As “Hope”
At just a game and a half out of first place (thanks to byes) in the NFC East, the Giants and Redskins are clinging to the slight chance that a miracle will shoot them into first place or a wild card spot. Except both teams are…como se dice? Oh, right – bad. Each team has scraped together ugly wins against truly bad squads suffering from season-destroying injuries, and lost handily to the more elite franchises. The Giants and Redskins aren’t teams that, barring a bad bounce or two, would have their records reversed – they deserve to be 3-6 and (unless there’s a monumental shift in their play) not in the playoffs. And that’s not even bringing up that one of their NFC East opponents has reincarnated the ghost of Dan Marino (he’s not dead?).
3. Nick Foles Is Drinking Dan Marino’s Soul Juice
The Eagles’ backup QB has played in seven games this season. He’s thrown 16 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. He tied the record for most TDs in a single game last week with 7…all thrown before the 4th quarter. He’s only the second quarterback in history to throw for more than 400 yards and get a perfect passer rating of 158.3. His 4th quarter QB rating is 145.8. Shoot, he even averages 4.0 yards a carry rushing. And he’s only in his second year in the league. The only thing that could stop Foles’ meteoric rise is some kind of animal fighting ring…but what millionaire athlete would be dumb enough to ever do that..?
4. Bullying Sucks
Mostly because we have to hear NFL pregame show hosts bloviate for hours about it. Now, unless you’ve been living in a cave that doesn’t have satellite TV, you’ve probably heard of this Jonathan Martin fellow, a Dolphins offensive lineman who left the team and checked himself into a hospital after suffering alleged bullying from teammate Richie Incognito. Since then, columnists have written about 8,000,000 words spanning everything from the “Seriously?” to the “Why do we care what this guy thinks?” There’s no way we’ll ever know exactly what happened in the Dolphin locker room. There is evidence of racial slurs thrown Martin’s way, that Incognito was told to “toughen” Martin up, and it’s reported that coach Jeff Ireland told Martin to solve his problems by fighting Incognito. Whatever did happen, what will happen now is becoming clear: The NFL is going to go hard into locker rooms, for better or for worse. And whatever professional football players are, they are professionals, and teams and the league office are going to start coming down hard on players still acting like high school or college kids…whether they’re just having a good time or being ginormous assholes.
5. Innocent Guys Don’t Sweat So Much
That’s all we’re saying…
Check out Fantasy Basement: Week 10 and The 2013 NFL Big 5: Week 10.