Dangersquirrel vs the NFL

It’s the time of year where we start actually getting results! With several clinching scenarios on the table, none of them played out, and we could still end up with any combination of the eligible teams in the postseason. Several teams, however, were eliminated, all by one of my teams! (Got the 4-team sweep, a Golden Week)! With the exception of the Giants, every team still in the running seems like they have a path, if long for some, to at least the 7 seed. This is the new NFL, folks.

• Vikings hang on vs Steelers
  I really don’t think either of them is going to the playoffs.
  
• Browns beat Ravens, possibly for the season
  Not only is there now a complete logjam at the top of the AFC North, but Lamar Jackson is not hobbled at best. Intrigue.
  
• Titans shut out Losers
  The Jaguars have the vibe of a team coming to the end of a multi-year contentious power struggle, but they packed it all into one year. Incredible.
  
• Chiefs punish Raiders
  Most of the league-wide hatred of the Raiders is racist, but they don’t help their cause when they flex on the logo of a team that hung 40 on them already this season and that they knew would likely do it again. This was the rare Scorigami that is also a NFL Title Belt matchup.
  
• New Orleans Kamara over Jets
  I also won my fantasy matchup. Missed the playoffs though. Thanks, Mahomes.
  
• Cowboys over WaWas
  This was probably the last gasp of the NFC East At Large in their battle against the Cowboys. They lost pretty bad so here we are.
  
• Falcons over Panthers
  Next week there is a game between the Jaguars and Jets, the first one of the season where neither team has a change of postseason play. That will be less anonymous than this.
  
• Seahawks over Already-Dead Texans
  If Seattle wins out all it will amount to is trollingJets fans. So, worth it.
  
• Broncos do good by DT
  I cried. Still, doesn’t mean much.
  
• Chargers over Giants
  Scary.
  
• 49ers over Bengals in OT
  If you ever wished there was a match between the 7 seeds from both conferences, this is it.
  
• Buccaneers over Bills in OT
  Don’t talk to me.
  
• Packers still own Bears
  As soon as I started hating Rodgers he started playing like an MVP.
  
• Rams split Cards
  Again, intrigue!

Chaos!!! Predictable chaos!!!

• Cowboys over Saints 😦
  Dark days indeed. The Saints have tried 3 different QBs this season and none of them do the trick. Big credit to Drew Brees who spent a HoF career listening to people say that you could plug anyone into Sean Payton’s offense and they’d put up 5,000 yards every season.
  
• Buccaneers over Falcons
  Gross.
  
• Cardinals over Bears
  Kyler Murray was out for like a month. The Cardinals dropped one game and went right back to it when he got back. I don’t think there’s a more well-rounded team in the league, somewhat inexplicably.
  
• Chargers over Bengals
  Sometimes I wish this season would just calm down a little. The first season than I would love to have be fewer weeks is instead a week longer? Unfair.
  
• Lions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Or should I say, Wions!!!!!!!!!!
  They won! Hilarious! Against the Vikings, which is even more hilarious! And now the Broncos get to play the 1-10-1 Lions, meaning we have to win because that’ll make them 1-11-1. Somehow the Lions are not mathematically eliminated yet? I don’t understand how that could possibly be but apparently the Texans are the only team out of this thing.
  
• Dolphins over Giants
  Someone write an essay determining what happened between the last loss in the Dolphins’ 5-game losing streak, and now.
  
• Eagles still undefeated by Jets
  12-0 all time, 3-0 since I started watching football. That’s comedy.
  
• Colts shut out Texans
  I had Indy’s defense in the game where they made Houston bench Tyrod Taylor for Davis Mills, and I squandered it by being shit at every single other position.
  
• Washingtons over Loss Vegases
  Bubble teams playing games with 2-point margins is the backbone of the league.
  
• Rams over Jags
  Some games should just get cancelled. Like a flex game but it’s flexed into oblivion instead of ESPN.
  
• Steelers over Ravens
  The whole world is questioning John Harbaugh’s decision to go for the winning 2-point conversion. Why do we only accept that move when it’s a Plucky Upstart coach? It was the right move, and the throw was there if anyone bothered to block.
  
• Seahawks over Niners
  And death and taxes. Please never stop being batshit, Seahawks.
  
• 😦
  I knew we were gonna lose to the Chiefs but this was so painful. Held mahomes to his worst passer rating ever, and still wasn’t even competitive. This game needed to be a referendum on the season, and this result should honestly mean the end of the Fangio era.
  
• Lake Effect Wind is a Patriots Fan For Some Reason
  The only thing that could spoil a game so entertainingly destroyed by the weather that Bill Belichick erases the forward pass from history is the Pats taking over the AFC 1 seed spot.

One of the stated goals of expanding both the playoff field and the regular season schedule was to have more time with every team being technically viable. Well, the NFL got its wish, as we are a week past Thanksgiving and somehow every fanbase can still talk themselves into their team as a Super Bowl winner. Not sure how that’s possible for the Lions — I think their razor-thin path to the 7 seed involves at least one tie — but even their 0-10-1 record doesn’t eliminate them. Maybe that’s nice, but I kinda think some fanbases might prefer to be put out of their misery, and I don’t think knowing it’s totally possible I could see a Broncos playoff game is worth knowing that the playoffs will likely feature less and less parity. Just my opinion.

• Bears over Lions
  Lions thanksgiving games are so cursed.
  
• Raiders over Cowboys in THX OT
  Hilarious.
  
• Bills over Saints
  Both my Saints and my fantasy team need Alvin Kamara back pretty bad.
  
• Buccaneers come back over Colts
  I guess it was overachieving for the Colts to be in the lead in the first place, but I can’t believe they choked it away knowing the whole league was rooting for them.
  
• Giants over FailEagles
  Division games are a hell of a drug.
  
• Falcons over Jaguars
  Exactly the kind of game that I would prefer not to have any implications whatsoever.
  
• Jets over Texans
  This one too.
  
• Dolphins over Panthers
  And this, really. Cam… Just.. Yikes…
  
• Bengals kick the shit out of Steelers
  Also hilarious.
  
• Patriots over Titans
  The Titans have broken the record for most players used in a season, and I think that’s an incredible record to break. About half of Tennessee has been part of the 2021 Titans.
  
• Broncos over Chargers!!!!
  We have some kind of mojo over the Chargers. This will be aberrant.
  
• Packers over Rams
  Oof Stafford.
  
• 49ers over Vikings
  Oof Cousins.
  
• Nobody wins Ravens/Browns
  BIG OOF LAMAR AND BAKER.
  
• Washington over Chaos over Seahawks
  Nothing says Seahawks quite like tying the game before halftime by giving up a terrible touchdown but blocking the extra point and returning it for 2, then failing to score again until the final minute only to fail the 2-point conversion, then recovering the onside kick only to have it called back for an inconsequential procedural foul.

Remember how Indigenous people invented football and now we don’t give them credit and we’re only just now scratching the surface of ceasing to use them as an aesthetic and one of the biggest days on the NFL calendar is when Americans gather around to spread racist settler myths about how we came to live on their land?

• Pats shut out Falcons
  Everyone else is out here barking about the “28 – 3 = 25” garbage while I’m just mad the Perna Curse doesn’t work against the Patriots (typical).
  
• Vikings reverse-Gary-Anderson the Packers
  That’s what it’s called when they actually make the kick. I’d love to say karma came for Rodgers by giving him a loss in his best personal game of the season, but that would mean karma rewarded Kirk Cousins and we cannot have that.
  
• Eagles run roughshod over the Saints
  I think it’s time to take the Eagles seriously as a playoff contender, and to remember the reasons why the Broncos drafted Paxton Lynch, other than that John Elway can’t evaluate QB talent for shit.
  
• Niners beat the crap out of the Jags
  And they almost looked like a real NFL team over the last month, too. Shame.
  
• Colts destroy Bills
  Jonathan Taylor is just a fun player to watch! Derrick Henry was supposed to do the 2k thing again, but I think it’s likely Taylor and a lot of other running backs also came into the 17-game season thinking they could make it happen. The Bills are falling apart still.
  
• Dolphins over Jets
  Joe Flacco is starting professional football games in the year of out lort two thousand and twenty-one.
  
• Bag of bones formerly known as the Browns over Lions
  The Lions are a comedy of errors this season, and that includes following up a tie in Pittsburgh with a loss by only 3 to a Cleveland team fielding one of the most injured playing QBs since Phil Rivers. It helped the Browns’ case that Detroit had to start a CPU-generated guy because Goff was out. Just gross football, folks.
  
• Ravens sans Lamar Jackson over Bears sans Justin Fields
  I guess Jackson was sick? And Fields got hurt right quick. So it was Tyler Huntley vs Andy Dalton, and it went about how you would expect.
  
• Texans beat Titans because nothing makes sense or means anything at all
  I mean… Sometimes it really is an Any Given Sunday kind of a league. (That movie sucks BTW and is basically about how shitty the NFL is, which should mean it’s good but it’s also Oliver Stone so of course it’s not).
  
• Washingtons over Carolinas
  I was right to assume that Ron Rivera would have more insight into how to defeat Cam Newton than vice versa.
  
• Bengals over Raiders
  Raiders completely fall apart challenge 2k21
  
• Cardinals over Seahawks
  Russell Wilson says his finger is fine and not the reason he is playing more like how we would all expect Colt McCoy to play. This man clearly doesn’t know how his own hand works. It may be cursed, giving McCoy Wilson’s powers until the curse is reversed. Much to think about.
  
• Chiefs over Cowboys
  lol
  
• Chargers over Steelers
  A SNF game not short on drama at all. At least not in the 4th quarter. While I was at work, so I had to watch on my phone behind the counter keeping an eye out for my boss. He probably wouldn’t;t care anyway.
  
• Buccaneers over Giants
  This is the game that gets a Giants coach fired? And the coach fired is Jason Garrett??? Okay…