Necessary Roughness, Week 4: Every Team Still Sucks
Greetings football fans, music fans, actual “fan” fans… greetings from the magical world of the N.F.L. where we closed out the first quarter of the regular season in typical hip-busting fashion. It’s been a crazy week around the Slave Pit as we get ready for our mighty “Madness at the Core of Time” tour, this one in support of our latest release Battle Maximus. The poll to get GWAR as the halftime show for the 2015 Super Bowl continued to gather votes, breaking the 40,000 mark, undoubtably because of Oderus’ kind offer of having GWAR actually play in the game itself. It still fell short of the 50 million votes needed to have absolutely nothing happen, but it’s bound to lead to something good for GWAR — an alternative GWAR halftime show on a different network, perhaps? And if it’s good for GWAR, it’s good for the people. Maybe we won’t get GWAR at the halftime show, but I’d settle for Motorhead! A punk/heavy-metal Super Bowl halftime show? Now THAT would rule! Keep signing the petition… every vote is a vote for freedom, artistic evolution, and the public beheading of annoying people!
The point of all of this non-football nonsense is that I didn’t have a lot of time in the last week to hear anything about players murdering people. That’s not to say it didn’t happen, it’s just that the N.F.L. did a better job than usual of covering it up. So there are no distractions — it’s all about the action!
With the season a quarter of the way through it’s still too early to tell with any certainty which teams will be dominant come December. Even in Denver! Fate forbid, but even with their great start the Broncos are but a single bad play away from losing their star player and possibly having their entire season come unglued. For now, at least, Manning’s season continues to be the stuff of legend with Denver’s crushing 52-20 defeat of the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles might have to remember that bowl of dick I ate for them as the sole bright spot in their season. So, Philly fan, if it’s any consolation, I still can’t get the taste of boiled dick out of my mouth.
It’s a common taste around the N.F.C. East where everybody continued to suck, especially the New York Giants, who slipped to 0-4 after a 31-7 drubbing from the Kansas City Chiefs, themselves a surprising 4-0. The Dallas Cowboys lost to the Chargers 30-21, despite more spectacular play from the Dez Byrant / Tony Romo combo. But this is all good news to me: my Skins managed to get their first victory of the season as they beat the Oakland Raiders, 24-14, leaving them only one game out of first place in the division. RG III showed brief flashes of his rookie season self, maybe enough to make us believe that indeed he has just been rusty, the knee is getting stronger, and the ‘Skins are poised to make a comeback run.
The game of the day that I didn’t see came from the Seattle Seahawks, as they stormed back from a 20-3 deficit against the Houston Texans to win in OT, 23-20. The top-ranked Seattle defense stopped Matt Schaub and company twice in OT, and a needless personal foul from Houston defender Kareem Jackson put the ‘Hawks in FG range for the win and their first 4-0 start in franchise history. In the only game of the week held in London (the NFL has done a game a year over there for the last seven years, and English people still don’t seem to give a shit), it was the battle of the 0-3’s as the Vikings held out against the Pittsburgh Steelers, 34-27, handing the Steelers their first 0-4 start since 1968.
The San Francisco 49’ers seem to be back on track with a 35-11 rout of the St. Louis Rams, who continue to blow. In the battle of the teams with a lot of brown in their uniforms, the Cleveland Browns prevailed over the Cincinnati Bengals, 17-6, and Cleveland is for the moment giddy with delight over the fact that they finally seem to have found a QB in the form of former Tom Brady back-up and Cleveland home-boy Brian Hoyer. Speaking of Brady, the New England Patriots withstood a 4th quarter rally from the Atlanta Falcons and emerged undefeated after four games with a 30-23 victory, with a cost: the season-ending torn Achilles tendon of nose tackle Vince Wilfork, one of the league’s premiere run-stoppers. There were injuries all over the league this week including Tennessee QB Jake Locker, who threw three touchdown passes before being carted off with a hip injury during his team’s impressive 38-13 win over the hapless-looking New York Jets, where New York QB Geno Smith put on his best Mark Sanchez impersonation.
Other teams played, won, lost, sucked and blew, but I was already completely distracted by the Breaking Bad finale (which was fucking great) and final GWAR dress rehearsals today. I’m out the door on tour tomorrow and that’s when life actually calms down. Of course our bus has the full NFL package so I will be able to focus a little more on this column and have more time to insult the uniforms of your favorite teams. I know I missed a ton, so let’s get me updated. The comments section is OPEN!
