Week 9 Results 2021

I have complained, and will continue to complain, about the inelegant mathematics of the league’s new 17-game schedule. But I have to admit, it makes me very happy that there is an actual halfway point to the season at week 9, as opposed to pretending that week 8 marked midseason even though it was really 8.5. Either way, these seasons go by a lot faster when I don’t really care and expect the worst from my favourite team.

• Colts over Jets
  I was terrified that Mike White would turn out to be some MAGA idiot because we can’t have nice things. Turns out the stronger force here is the Jets’ inability to have nice things, because the other outcome happened: White got injured early in his first start. The early goings were looking like a shootout, then the Jets started failing to score even though Josh Johnson also had a lot of production stepping in. The Jets just could not stop the Colts to save their life. What fun.
  
• BRONCOS!!!!! OVER!!!!! COWBOYS!!!!!???????
  I dunno. I can’t explain it. The only thing I can imagine is that winning one for Von was an extremely good motivator, and winning early battles went a long way to winning the war. Not sure it’s anything sustainable, but I’m gonna enjoy the hell out of knowing that the Cowboys still haven’t beat my team since my first birthday.
  
• Falcons over Saints
  I’m not saying that prediction Saints games is my superpower, but I did get bitten by a radioactive Archie Manning last month…
  
• Jags over Bills apparently????
  We should have known that Josh Allen vs Josh Allen would result in a rift in spacetime. It’s not often that my #1 ranked team loses to my #32 ranked team, so there’s some rethinking to do here.
  
• Browns over Bengals
  Is there a stronger addition-by-subtraction factor in the NFL than Odell Beckham Jr.? I honestly believe that the Browns are significantly, permanently better off instantly by virtue of his being gone.
  
• Patriots over Panthers
  [Sam Darnold seeing ghosts joke here]
  
• Giants over Raiders
  At some point, the avalanche of scandals has got to get to the Raiders, right? Is this the beginning of that? Was cutting their underperforming first-round sophomore cornerback for being an idiot the final straw?
  
• Dolphins over the glorified college football program that is the Texans
  I’m not the only one who thought the return of Tyrod Taylor would spark Houston to a win over an almost equally-dysfunctional Miami team, but turns out that Taylor plus 5 takeaways was still not sufficient to even make the Texans competitive.
  
• Ravens over Vikings in the most clandestine OT
  These teams lead the league in weird endings, so of course this is how it went down. It’s what they deserve for combining for 0 vaccinated starting QBs. The Vikings also have Dalvin Cook involved in some complex mutual-domestic-abuse situation and an unnamed player in the hospital with COVID. If Mike Zimmer is the one fired for all this, I’m not sure that’s quite fair.
  
• Chargers over Eagles
  I thought it would be by a wider margin but kudos on the Chargers for balling out and winning despite being worse at run defense than my quidditch team during our 1-14 first season.
  
• Chefs over Jordan Love’s Packers
  Possibly the first time the Chiefs have had a morally justified victory.
  
• Colt McCoy’s Cards over 49ers
  The Cardinals have done a lot this season, but winning with McCoy instead of Kyler Murray is what’s impressed me the most so far.
  
• Titans over Rams
  Over the course of about 5 days the Titans completely pivoted from the most run-based team in the league to a team that doesn’t need even a sniff of run game to beat a true super bowl contender on the road, so…
  
• Steelers/Refs over Bears
  Ugh. It’s shit like this that keeps me from being able to like the Steelers, even if they hadn’t been led by the avatar of patriarchal violence and unaccountability for my whole life.