Following Sports Archives - Page 65 of 79

Do Not Watch This Game 9.20.14 Weekend Edition

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 highlighting a single game that is ideal for skipping. Use this to help tell yourself or someone else: “Do not watch this game!”

Sunday, 1:00 p.m. ET, NFL Football, New England Patriots vs. Oakland Raiders. It’s on CBS but do not watch this game!

Hmm, let’s see here: Oakland Raiders wins in the last ten seasons: 49; New England Patriots wins in the last ten seasons: 124. It’s just about that simple — both of these teams have been remarkably consistent over the last decade. The Patriots have had one coach and, except for one year lost to injury, one quarterback. The Raiders are on their sixth head coach and something close to their seventeenth starting quarterback. This year, the Raiders are led by Rookie Quarterback Derek Carr, who won the job in training camp from veteran Matt Schaub, who the team signed after what had to have been one of the most ignominious seasons ever for a quarterback. Meanwhile, Patriots coach Bill Bellichick and quarterback Tom Brady just keep on chugging. They’re like a pair of crusty old train engineers who won’t quit shoveling coal. When Brady was recently asked how he would approach retirement, he said, “When I suck, I’ll retire. I don’t plan on sucking for a long time.” Although he is in the tail end of his career, Brady hasn’t started sucking yet, and this game will almost certainly not be the moment he starts sucking.

If you look at team defensive statistics so far this year, the Raiders look like they are pretty good at defending the pass. They’ve allowed the third fewest passing yards. This is a case where statistics lie. They’re not good at defending the pass, they’re just wretched at defending the run. They’re by far the worst run defense in the league, having allowed an average of 200 yards per game against. That’s almost 25 yards more per game than the next worst team and almost four times the best team. Another factor to consider is that NFL teams often run once they have a lead. The Patriots aren’t like most teams. They generally choose what they think is going to work best against their opponent and then they do that mercilessly the whole game, no matter what the score is.

The battle between spiky leather and tricorn hats is going to be over before it starts. Do not watch this game!

Of course, if you or the fan in your life is a New England Patriots or Oakland Raiders fan, this isn’t a good game to skip. As an alternate, skip the Sunday early afternoon game between the New York Giants and the Houston Texans. Why? Because Ryan Fitzpatrick and Eli Manning don’t exactly scream “excitement.” I can see them antiquing together. No, really.

Cue Cards 9-18-14

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.

Yesterday — Wednesday, September 17

Another division has a winner in baseball — The Los Angeles Angels won their division, the American League West last night. When baseball teams win divisions, they sometimes celebrate in wacky, ritualistic ways that involve spraying champagne all over the place. The Angels did that last night but not too many people saw it in person because their definitively winning the division relied on the outcome of a rival team’s game and that game didn’t end until an hour after their game. So, the team waited in the locker room, watched their rival’s game on tv, and then, when it ended the way they needed it to, they “roared up the tunnel and onto their home field, goggles in place and champagne bottles in hand.”
Line: Did you know that this will be Mike Trout’s (excellent young player with a great name on the Angels) first time in the playoffs?
European Champions League soccer — The Champions League is the most prestigious club soccer tournament in Europe. It matches the best teams from all the domestic leagues, the English Premiere league, the Spanish La Liga, the Italian Serie A, the German Bundesliga, and so on. Even for a sports fan like myself who doesn’t follow European soccer closely, it’s exciting just for the novelty and the romance of seeing teams that normally only play opponents from within their country compete internationally. There were eight games yesterday. The biggest one was probably between English powerhouse Manchester City and perennial German Champions Bayern Munich. Munich won, 1-0. For sheer international mystique, it’s hard to beat Amsterdam’s Ajax playing Paris Saint-Germain or AS Roma vs. CSKA Moscow. The game with the best story was absolutely the 0-0 tie between the Spanish team Athletic Bilbao and Ukrainian Shakhtar Donetsk. There was a great New York Times story about Shakhtar Donetsk this past week. Donetsk, home town to the team, has been in an active war zone for the past six months, so the team has had to relocate to Kiev, where they are followed by a small but passionate group of fans. New York Times reporter James Montague caught one of these fans leaving a game. In place of a line for this, just relay this awesome story:

“This was the best day of the season!” said one fan, a 21-year-old finance student named Vladyslav, who declined to give his last name. He beamed as he left the stadium. “I don’t know how I’ll get home,” he said. “Maybe I’ll hitch a ride on a tank.”

Is it ethical to keep Adrian Peterson on my fantasy team?

Dear Sports Fan,

This may be out of your wheelhouse, but … ever since Randy Cohen retired, I can’t bring myself to email the Ethicist.

I loved watching football last year, even though I didn’t understand a thing. It’s been suggested to me that in order to really learn what’s happening, I join a Fantasy Football league. So, I have. My friend is helping me and our first-round draft pick is Adrian Peterson… Yeah. So, assuming he eventually plays again this season — what do I do? Is it ethical to keep him on my team?

From,
Erica

P.S. If it helps you decide, I stopped watching the WWE mainly out of ethical concerns. Am I just done with sports?

— — —

Dear Erica,

You are facing an ethical quandary.

For those who don’t know, Adrian Peterson has been accused of child abuse. Peterson left deep cuts on his son’s legs after beating him with a switch (thin tree branch). His son is four years old. The facts in this case are undisputed because Peterson readily admits what he did. In an article from the local CBS in Houston, near where this happened, reporter Nick Wright describes Peterson as “very matter-of-fact and calm about the incident, appearing to believe he had done nothing wrong and reiterating how much he cared about his son and only used “whoopings” or “spankings” as a last resort.” Like in the Ray Rice domestic abuse case, this story is augmented by visual evidence. In this case, photos of a four-year-old’s wounded legs. They’re readily available online but the child’s mother is apparently asking for them to be taken down, so I won’t even link to them. I’ve seen them and they’re fairly deep, long cuts around the thighs. They’re bad, and they reinforce Amy Davidson’s brilliant argument in the New Yorker that this case should not be a part of the cultural conversation about the appropriateness of corporal punishment. About that conversation, she writes:

This is a valuable, crucial conversation, and Carter is an important voice. It’s not, though, what we’re really talking about in the Peterson case. This preschooler wasn’t paddled or, as Peterson put it to police, “swatted”; he was whipped with a stick and left with open wounds on his body.

When this news broke, Peterson’s team the Vikings deactivated him from their roster. Since then he was briefly activated and then, perhaps after some serious meetings on the part of team management, re-deactivated. That’s where we stand now.

To return to your question — is it ethical to keep Adrian Peterson on my fantasy team? It’s an interesting and complicated question. First of all, let’s establish that it is a reasonable question to ask. As I wrote in my post about why fantasy football drafts are so exciting, fantasy owners do sometimes make (one-directional) emotional connections with the football players on their fantasy teams. Your success becomes linked with their success, so as you root for yourself, you root for them. Once you know that’s likely to happen, you do think about whether or not you’ll want to root for a player when you choose to have him on your team. In the past, players like Ben Roethlisberger (accused of sexual assault,) or Riley Cooper (filmed using the racial epithet aimed at black people during a country music show) would give fantasy owners pause during their drafts. In this case, when you chose Adrian Peterson, his record was clear and clean. You certainly were not acting unethically when you drafted him.

Now that you know what you know, is it unethical to keep him on your team? Being on your fantasy team doesn’t help Adrian Peterson in any material way. I suppose you could make the argument that the more fantasy teams he’s on, the more popular he is, and the more popular he is, the more likely it is for companies to sign him to endorsement deals. Rest easy, he’s not going to be getting any endorsement deals any time soon. Playing fantasy football absolutely supports the National Football League, and I could see an argument for not playing fantasy football as part of a larger boycott of the NFL, but that’s not what you’re suggesting here. Likewise, dropping him is not going to punish him in any way. While athletes are often very concerned with their video-game alter egos’ skill ratings, very few seem to care about their fantasy instantiations.

When you play in a fantasy league, there’s another set of people you should think of when it comes to ethics: your friends who you’re playing fantasy football with and against. You owe them some ethical consideration too. Here, the ethics are clear — dropping a player who you think has more value based on the rules of your fantasy league than the player you’re replacing him with is unethical. It’s unethical because it means you’re intentionally not abiding by the spirit of the group activity you agreed to participate in. You’re throwing the competitive balance of the league off. If your league, like many, plays for money, this ethical consideration is reinforced. In fact, with a star like Peterson, you often cannot drop him. Fantasy sites maintain lists of “undroppable players” that protect leagues against unscrupulous fantasy owners who may decide that if they can’t win, they just want to mess it up for everyone. Peterson has been on that list for years but was just taken off either because of people asking your question or because his suspension makes dropping him defensible from a competitive standpoint.

Ethics don’t require you to drop Peterson but they don’t mandate that you can’t either. You may be so angry or upset from reading about this story or seeing the photos that you just flat-out don’t want to see his name near yours. That’s fine, I support you in that decision. If you do decide to drop Peterson for non-competitive reasons, you should email your league first, let them know what you’re doing and why, and give people a chance to chime in. Perhaps they will simply agree to let him sit, unclaimed on the waiver wire, as if he has been put in time-out, which, come to think of it, is a strategy he might benefit from learning about.

Thanks for the question, let us know what you decide to do,
Ezra Fischer

Cue Cards 9-17-14

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.

Yesterday — Tuesday, September 16

Two divisions settled in baseball — Yesterday we mentioned that the baseball season is coming to an end soon. Just to prove the point, two of the six division winners in Major League Baseball (MLB) were conclusively settled last night. The Washington Nationals won their National League East division after beating the Atlanta Braves 3-0. The Nationals have now completed their three-year journey from surprisingly good to incredibly disappointing and now to living up to the expectations of being good. Their geographic neighbors, the Baltimore Orioles, also clinched their division after winning 8-2 over the Toronto Blue Jays. The Orioles are in the same division as two giants of baseball, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, so division victories are hard to come by. Congratulations to both teams!
Line: Are you ready for the baseball playoffs? In case you don’t know how they work, here’s a Dear Sports Fan post explaining it.
Crime and punishment still reign over the NFL — The scandalous season of the National Football League (NFL) continued yesterday with three stories. In the Adrian Peterson story (arrested for child abuse in Texas for beating his four year-old child) the Vikings reversed course. After benching Peterson for a week, they had announced he would practice and play this week but then yesterday they changed their minds and re-benched him. Maybe it had something to do with a major sponsor dropping the team. Meanwhile, the NFL Players’ Association (NFLPA) is officially appealing Ray Rice’s suspension. When you think of it just from a labor/management perspective and look at the process, it is a pretty messed up process. First he was suspended for two games, then the league changed the rules about domestic abuse so that they called for a six game suspension for a first offense, and then a week or two after that, the league suspended him indefinitely and has still not put a time-frame on the suspension. It’s good that the players’ association is playing their role properly here, no matter how repugnant the crime is. In other policy-changing-after-the-fact news, the NFL and NFLPA is about to agree on more lenient punishment for drug violations which will retroactively lesson the punishment for 20 or so suspended players, including some high-profile ones like wide receiver Wes Welker of the Denver Broncos.
Line: So, lemme get this straight, Welker’s suspension gets shorter, Ray Rice’s is being appealed, and Adrian Peterson? After one day of practice, he’s “excused” from team functions again.

Cue Cards 9-16-14

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.

Yesterday — Monday, September 15

Eagles beat Colts, no one was arrested — The Monday night football game was between two teams that most everyone thinks are in the top third of the NFL. They played true to form by having a close, tightly contested, high scoring contest. The Eagles won, 30-27, moving to 2-0 (two wins, zero losses) while the Colts moved to 0-2.
Line: Did you know it’s the first time the Colts have lost two games in a row since Andrew Luck became their quarterback?
Rutgers apologizes for “classless fans” — Over the weekend, my alma mater, Rutgers, hosted their first ever Big Ten Conference game in football against what, geographically speaking, should be our new rivals, Penn State. Rutgers lost the game 13-10 but we upheld our reputation for vulgar behavior when some fans publicly and visually mocked Penn State for its recent sexual assault scandal. I can’t say I condone the behavior… but when I was at school there, we were way better at ceaselessly mocking the other team than we were at beating them in football.
Line: There’s been so many other scandals lately, Penn State’s issue feels antique in comparison.
Baseball’s checkered flag — In car racing, a checkered flag means ‘one more lap.’ Major League Baseball teams have about twelve games left in their 162 game season. Playoff races are in full swing (pun intended) and last night the first team clinched a playoff spot. That team was the Los Angeles Angels. The Kansas City Royals also helped their playoff cause by beating the White Sox in a “dramatic ninth-inning comeback.”
Line: Wow, the playoffs are coming up fast. I better start paying attention to baseball!

Cue Cards 9-15-14

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.

Yesterday — Sunday, September 14

The NFL plays football — After a week full of ancillary cultural stories, the NFL actually played football games yesterday. Read the Week Two NFL One Liners for full (and brief) coverage of each game.
Well, that was easy — The United States Men’s National Basketball team finished their romp through the FIBA World Cup of Basketball with a 129-92 victory. Looking back on the tournament, the toughest game the team had, was against Turkey in the group stage. It may have been different if Spain had made it to the finals, because they were expected to be around even with our team, but they were knocked out of the tournament in the quarterfinals by France.

Week Two NFL One Liners

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 on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

Week 2

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, AT 1:00 P.M. ET

Miami Dolphins 10, at Buffalo Bills 29

This past week, Buffalo got a new owner for the Bills who is likely to keep them in Buffalo instead of moving to Toronto or somewhere else. The Bills capped off a good week for them with a victory over the Dolphins.

New Orleans Saints 24, at Cleveland Browns 26

Mirage or reality? Both teams are wondering that after the ordinarily terrible Browns start the season respectably and the Saints start the season disrespectfully.

Detroit Lions 7, at Carolina Panthers 24

Panthers quarterback Cam Newton returns from bruised ribs and makes the Lions’ defense look like figs. (I am allowed one Fig Newton joke per year.)

Atlanta Falcons 10, at Cincinnati Bengals 24

The Bengals continue to be a really good team that doesn’t get the credit they deserve, I think maybe because they wear animal print uniforms and have a red-headed quarterback.

Dallas Cowboys 26, at Tennessee Titans 10

The Cowboys have become such a soap-opera that its surprising when they win a boring, well-played football game like this one.

Jacksonville Jaguars 10, at Washington Redskins 41

The big story here isn’t the convincing win but the dislocated ankle of Washington’s quarterback, Robert Griffin III. He was replaced ably by Kirk Cousins who, an infinite number of bloggers and media pundits will tell you, just might not relinquish the job even when RGIII’s ankle is healed. Drama!

New England Patriots 30, at Minnesota Vikings 7

Good team beats less good team missing their star running back because he was arrested for child abuse. Gah!

Arizona Cardinals 25, at New York Giants 10

After the first week, many people suspected the Giants were bad. Now, after losing at home to a team who had to start their backup quarterback at the last-minute, that suspicion is confirmed.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, AT 4:05 AND 4:25 P.M. ET

Seattle Seahawks 21, at San Diego Chargers 30

Down go the champs! Arm-chair sports psychiatrists will tell you this is actually a good sign for the Seahawks because it keeps them from getting too cocky.

St. Louis Rams 19, at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 17

Third string quarterback, Austin Davis, started this game for the Rams because of injuries to the top two quarterbacks and played well enough for the Rams to beat the Bucs.

Kansas City Chiefs 17, at Denver Broncos 24

Oddly, this close defeat may be the high point of the season for the Chiefs who just seem cursed this year. They lost another two important players, Jamaal Charles and Eric Berry to injury today.

New York Jets 24, at Green Bay Packers 31

Both teams are 1-1, both teams wear green, and we’ll have to wait at least one more week to figure out if both teams are good, bad, or just middle of the road.

Houston Texans 30, at Oakland Raiders 14

No such questions here, the Raiders are bad! Sorry Oakland fans.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Chicago Bears 28, at San Francisco 49ers 20

The story of this game was penalties. So many penalties! The announcers, much to my amusement, didn’t even bother to hide their disdain for the number of penalties in the game. After pulling out to an early lead, the 49ers kinda fell apart and Chicago came back to win.

NFL Week 2 Good Cop, Bad Cop Precap

The NFL season has started but how do you know which games to watch and which to skip? Ask our favorite police duo with their good cop, bad cop precaps of all the Week 1 matchups in the National Football League this weekend. To see which games will be televised in your area, check out 506sports.com’s essential NFL maps. If you’re worried about watching too much football or if you’re negotiating for a little break during the weekend, read our weekly feature, Do Not Watch This Game.

Week 2

Sunday, September 14, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills

Good cop: The Dolphins and Bills are both 1-0 after surprising victories in week one! After this game, one team will be 2-0!

Bad cop: You did say, “surprising,” didn’t you? I’m surprised that you’re so enthusiastic about this matchup between teams that are going to inevitably fall apart, just like they do every year.

New Orleans Saints at Cleveland Browns

Good cop: Both teams are coming off high scoring, close losses to rivals! This one should be good!

Bad cop: Cleveland’s loss to Pittsburgh looks a little less like a sign of quality after Pittsburgh’s sad showing versus the Ravens. This is going to get ugly fast.

Detroit Lions at Carolina Panthers

Good cop: Wow, did you see Detroit wide receiver Calvin Johnson last game? He’s unbelievable! I can’t wait to see what he does this week!

Bad cop: Teal and Honolulu blue together are an eyesore. Just like this game.

Atlanta Falcons at Cincinnati Bengals

Good cop: I can’t wait to learn more about these two teams! Both looked great in week one, what will happen in week two?!!

Bad cop: One team will win, one team will lose, and you will overreact like a crazy person.

Dallas Cowboys at Tennessee Titans

Good cop: That wasn’t very nice! You’re not very nice! This game is nice though! Both teams have great pass offenses — should be fun!

Bad cop: Now you’re starting to understand. I’m Bad Cop. I’m not nice. Neither is this game. Both teams are awful. Why would you watch this junk?

Jacksonville Jaguars at Washington Redskins

Good cop: The Jaguars got off to a great start last week with 17 straight points! The Redskins didn’t play well but how long can you hold them down? They’ve got such explosive offensive players!

Bad cop: You’re not mentioning the 34 unanswered points the Jaguars allowed after that first 17. And the Redskins lost 17 to 6 to the Titans. Come on.

New England Patriots at Minnesota Vikings

Good cop: Bill Bellichick and Tom Brady are angry after their week one loss! I don’t understand that emotion but I think it makes for entertaining football games!

Bad cop: Ha ha ha. You’re funny, an emotion I don’t understand well. Another thing I don’t understand is how you think the Vikings are going to have a chance against the Patriots here. Boring.

Arizona Cardinals at New York Giants

Good cop: The Cardinals looked good last week!

Bad cop: The Giants looked horrible last week.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Seattle Seahawks at San Diego Chargers

Good cop: The defending champs against many people’s favorite long-shot to win the Super Bowl this year!

Bad cop: Seattle? With ten days rest? Against San Diego with six? Blowout.

St. Louis Rams at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Good cop: These teams both have great defenses!

Bad cop: These teams both have incompetent offenses.

Kansas City Chiefs at Denver Broncos

Good cop: Division rivals! Two playoff teams from last year!

Bad cop: Ha. You walked right into the trap. Read this week’s Do Not Watch This Game.

New York Jets at Green Bay Packers

Good cop: Gang Green against Green Bay! So much green!

Bad cop: I don’t even understand. How does that make me want to watch this game?

Houston Texans at Oakland Raiders

Good cop: I was just trying to distract you from this game! Even I don’t want to watch this game!

Bad cop: Really? I do. I love train wrecks.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Chicago Bears at San Francisco 49ers

Good cop: This game has everything! Two great coaches! Two exciting quarterbacks! Dynamic wide receivers! Solid running backs! Strong defenses!

Bad cop: A classic ‘too good to be true’ game. Something will happen to mess it up.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Philadelphia Eagles at Indianapolis Colts

Good cop: A great test of system vs. singular talent! Philadelphia’s got a remarkable offensive system but Colts quarterback is an amazing talent! I can’t wait to see them compete!

Bad cop: You do know that the offenses don’t play against each other, right? They both have bad defenses.

Cue Cards 9-12-14

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.

Yesterday — Thursday, September 11

Goliath beats David easily — After France’s upset of Spain in their FIBA Basketball World Cup quarterfinal game, it was easy to feel like upset was in the air, and to get a little nervous about the United States’ game against Lithuania. Not to worry though, after a slow start, the United States outscored their opponent 53 to 24 in the second half. The U.S. team moves on to the finals in Madrid where they will face the winner of France vs. Serbia.
Line: It’s starting to look like the U.S. team, even missing some of our biggest stars like LeBron, Kevin Durant, and Paul George, is simply in a different class from its opponents.
It’s us against the world = victory — One of the incongruities of how people within the NFL talk about football is the subject of “distractions”. “Distractions” like from having an openly gay player on your team are seen to be a legitimate cause of concern as something that could derail the performance of the team. But, predictably, when there are real distractions, like when your team is embroiled in a domestic abuse scandal and potential cover up, that “distraction” gets used as a rally cry within the team’s locker room and seems to almost always lead to a victory. So it was last night when Ray Rice’s old team, the Baltimore Ravens played their division rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Ravens won, 26 to 6.
Line: I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised at the Ravens performance. Doesn’t it seem like teams in the middle of scandals always play well and usually win?

Do Not Watch This Game 9.13.14 Weekend Edition

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?