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
Jacksonville 32, Cleveland 28 — Once in a while, two bad teams play each other and produce a great game. This back-and-forth game was one of those.
Tennessee 14, Indianapolis 22 — The Colts pretty much locked up the division championship and a playoff spot today by beating the Titans.
Chicago 20, Minnesota 23 — Both teams missed field goals which would have won the game in overtime before the Vikings finally kicked one successfully.
Miami 23, New York Jets 3 — For the first half of the season, a common story was how surprising it was that the Jets were winning games. Now we know why everyone was surprised!
Arizona 21, Philadelphia 24 — I’m not sure why, but these two teams are always connected in my mind. They’re both birds (Cardinals and Eagles) and they both tend to play fun, throw-a-lot styles. They played true to form today by playing a close game which left them both 7-5 on the year.
Tampa Bay 6, Carolina 27 — Eight straight victories for Carolina, many of them, like today’s, extremely convincing. Makes you think they are the best team in the league right now.
New England 34, Houston 31 — New England is definitely not the best team in the league. Too many close games against too many not-very-good opponents like the Texans. But, another game, another victory, and the Patriots are will easily win their division.
Atlanta 34, Buffalo 31 — This game was another just like the Cleveland v. Jacksonville game: two bad teams, one extremely entertaining game.
St. Louis 13, San Francisco 23 — Poor St. Louis, stuck in a division with Seattle and San Francisco. It’s hard to compete against those two teams.
Denver 35, Kansas City 28 — Three weeks ago the Chiefs were 9-0 and on top of the world. Now they’ve lost three straight and everyone is talking about them like they’ll never win another game. My guess is the truth is somewhere in-between.
Cincinnati 17, San Diego 10 — The Bengals don’t get a lot of respect — because they have a history of dumb decisions on and off the field, because they have a red-headed quarterback, and because they wear tiger-print helmets — but they’ve won twice the number of games that they’ve lost this year. That’s gotta count for something.
New York Giants 24, Washington 17 — In the last minute of this game, Washington had the ball and needed to go down the field and score a touchdown to tie the game up. The refs pulled a bait-and-switch move on them, the likes of which, I and announcers Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth had never seen before. What happened was that on second down the Redskins looked like they earned a new set of downs. Most of the officials on the field, including the guys with the chains and down sign on the side of the field acted like the Redskins had a first down but the head ref apparently did not agree. After the next play, which the Redskins thought was a first down, the head ref told the teams that it was now fourth down. The Redskins were furious but had no recourse and after one last unsuccessful play, they lost. People will definitely be talking about this today!