Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.
On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:
NFL One Liners
New Orleans 26, Chicago 18 — The Saints go marching into Chicago and come out with a win. Apologies for the pun. The NFL seems to be dividing itself into good teams and teams that look like they are unstoppable video-game football teams. Chicago is a good team. New Orleans is a video-game team.
New England 6, Cincinnati 13 — Cincinnati seems to specialize in winning ugly. In a New England rainstorm, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady did not score a single touchdown for the first time in 53 games.
Detroit 9, Green Bay 22 — Talking about video games, the Lions star wide-receiver Calvin Johnson (nick-named Megatron) did not play in this game because of an injury and his team was not able to generate much offense without him.
Kansas City 26, Tennessee 17 — This game is an example of the importance of quarterbacks. The Chiefs remain undefeated behind their new quarterback this season, Alex Smith. After their quarterback, Jake Locker, sustained a hip injury last game, the Titans were forced to turn to backup quarterback and Harvard man, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and lose.
Seattle 28, Indianapolis 34 — For reasons unclear even to me, I consistently think the Seahawks are not as good as they are. Today I was right.
Jacksonville 20, St. Louis 34 — There is no better medicine this year for an ailing football team than playing the Jaguars.
Baltimore 26, Miami 23 — It’s pretty clear that both of these teams are good.
Philadelphia 36, New York Giants 21 — It’s pretty clear that both of these teams are not good.
Carolina 6, Arizona 22 — Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton played like a super-hero in his rookie year two seasons ago but seems to have wedged his cloak in a phone booth since then.
Denver 51, Dallas 48 — This game tied for the fourth highest scoring game in NFL history. Both teams played like video-game teams. Dallas’ quarterback Tony Romo has been known for always messing up at the last minute his entire career and played to type by throwing an interception in the last three minutes of the game that led to Denver’s winning field goal. Romo is the guy who does everything right, right until he stubs his toe, scratches on the eight ball, and steps on the tines of a hoe which flies up to hit him in the face.
Houston 3, San Francisco 31 — The story coming into this game was that Texans quarterback Matt Schaub had thrown an interception which the defensive team had then converted into a touchdown on that play in each of the last three games. Although that is the most destructive thing an offense can do, it’s also relatively random whether or not the defense scores once they intercept the ball. Random or not, Schaub had done it for a fourth time within the first few minutes of this game. He threw two more interceptions before being replaced by backup T.J. Yates. Fans will spend the next week talking about whether Schaub should lose his job for good.
Oakland 27, San Diego 17 — The Oakland Raiders share a stadium with the major league baseball Oakland Athletics who were hosting a playoff game Saturday night. The stadium workers needed more time to convert from baseball to football so the start time for this game was moved from 1:25 Pacific Time to 8:35 Pacific Time. We had the fourth highest scoring game ever in Dallas this weekend, this may be the latest game ever.