For sports fans, the weekend is a cornucopia of wonderful games to watch. This is particularly true in the fall with its traditional pattern of College Football on Saturday and NFL Football on Sunday and Monday. As the parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend of a sports fan, this can be a challenge. It must be true that some games are more important to watch than others but it’s hard to know which is which. As a sports fan, the power of habit and hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars get in the way of remembering to take a break from sports and do something with your parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend. To aid all of us in this, and just because it’s fun, I’m going to write a weekly post on Friday highlighting a single game that is ideal for skipping. Use this to help tell yourself or someone else: “Do not watch this game!”
Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET, NFL Football, Denver Broncos vs. Kansas City Chiefs. It’s on CBS but do not watch this game!
I can hear the objections already. “Denver has Peyton Manning, a god among dominant-football-players-who-still-manage-to-remind-you-of-accountants.” or “But the game is a division rivalry!” Don’t listen to them, this game is almost definitely not worth watching. The Chiefs simply aren’t the same football team they were last year. They might not have even been the team we thought they were last year. One of the cool statistical things about football is that turnovers (fumbles and interceptions) are essentially random. Because they’re also extremely important, you can often predict when a team got really lucky one year and is likely to do worse the following year without all that luck. Last season, the Chiefs opponents turned the ball over 18 more times than the Chiefs did. That was a part of why they seemed like they were really good. Since then, they lost two star players, Brandon Flowers and Branden Albert to free agency during the offseason at essential positions, cornerback and left tackle respectively. Then, last week, in the first game of the year, they lost Derrick Johnson, their best linebacker to an Achilles tear. Just as a bonus prize, Mike DeVito, a defensive tackle also tore his Achilles. While everyone was busy tearing tendons, the Chiefs lost convincingly to the Tennessee Titans, a team that is a 75/1 long-shot to win the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, their opponents are thought to be the second most likely team to win the Super Bowl at 11/2 (if the season was played eleven times, Vegas thinks the Broncos would win twice.) And they played like it last week, shooting out to a 24-7 lead in the first half of last week’s game.
I know there’s tradition and rivalry involved but when it seems so likely — the Broncos are favored by almost two touchdowns — that the mercy rule would be involved too (if the NFL had one), it’s time to give this one a pass. Do not watch this game!
Of course, if you or the fan in your life is a Denver Broncos or Kansas City Chiefs fan, this isn’t a good game to skip. As an alternate, skip the Thursday night game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Why? Because the who wants to listen to another three hours of talk about Ray Rice and the NFL’s complete incompetence?