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
Pittsburgh 27, Cleveland 11 — When it comes to sports Cleveland plays the role of Pittsburgh’s little brother.
Tampa Bay 24, Detroit 21 — Ho, hum, another weekend, another insanely close game played by the Lions. Meanwhile, don’t look now but Tampa Bay has been playing pretty well and has won three games after starting the year with eight straight losses.
Minnesota 26, Green Bay 26 — This game ended in a tie. According to Wikipedia there have only been 19 tied games since 1974. This, oddly, makes a tie an exciting result!
San Diego 41, Kansas City 38 — Kansas City’s dream of an undefeated season came to an end last weekend but their super bowl chances may have met their demise this weekend when two of their best defensive players left the game with potentially serious injuries.
Chicago 21, St. Louis 41 — With the Bears losing, the Lions losing, and the Vikings and Packers tying, the division they are in, the NFC North, may soon get as bad a reputation as the NFC East has had this season. It’s a shame that the Rams are in what people consider the toughest division, the NFC West, because they’re actually pretty good.
Carolina 20, Miami 16 — Talking about good, as good as the Panthers have been in their seven game win streak, they are still behind the Saints for the division lead. They play the Saints twice in the next four weeks, so we’ll get a chance to see which team is better.
New York Jets 3, Baltimore 19 — In news that’s the opposite of good, the Jets have now lost their last two games by a combined score of 56 to 17.
Jacksonville 13, Houston 6 — Like Tampa Bay, Jacksonville started the season 0-8 but have started playing better in the last few weeks. Some of this is just what the stats people call “regression to the mean.” As I understand it, this just means that if a streak seems unbelievably good or bad, wait a bit and things will start evening out.
Tennessee 23, Oakland 19 — These two teams are right on the edge of having a chance to maybe make the playoffs. The Titans remain edgy but the Raiders have now fallen off.
Indianapolis 11, Arizona 40 — I have no idea what’s going on with the Colts. They have a good record, a great quarterback, and two of the last five games they’ve been absolutely blown out by the Rams and now the Cardinals. The Cardinals are solid but I wouldn’t expect them to dominate like this.
Dallas 24, New York Giants 21 — I mentioned how bad the NFC east has been so far — this game between two NFC East teams was exciting to watch regardless of the quality of team. Dallas was ahead 21-6 and almost lost the game. The Giants were able to tie it up at 21 but lost on a last-minute field goal.
Denver 31, New England 34 — This game was one of those transcendent games that make it worthwhile to watch sports. The fourteenth matchup between Quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Tom Brady (somehow this is a big deal even though they are NEVER on the field at the same time,) this game lived up to its hype. The visiting Broncos were winning 24-0 at halftime mostly because the Patriots kept fumbling over and over again in the cold. The second half was the exact opposite. The Patriots scored 31 points and then, in overtime, another three to win the game.