The Big Game™1 is more than a week away, but it’s not too early for us to start breaking it down, especially since I can watch it now that the Packers aren’t in it.
It’s a very real thing that I refuse to watch Packers games, regular season or postseason, unless they are playing the Bears. I just don’t. I hate that team and their pretend owners, and I would just as soon they all fall into a grain bin. I know I miss some fun stuff like them blowing NFC title games because they can’t cover an onside kick or their coach can’t count to eight, but it’s just as much fun to enjoy those things after they happen, instead of having to sit through them in real-time.
So, while I didn’t watch Tom Brady turn back the clock in the first half of the NFC Championship game (or conversely watch him to try go throw the game in the second half), I did watch Aaron Rodgers’ typically surly postgame where he somehow made it seem like he thinks the Packers will trade him in the offseason. Nobody says “don’t make this about me” while shoveling as hard as possible with both hands to make everything about him as Rodgers.
We were all supposed to believe that the Buffalo Bills had ascended to the top of the AFC heap and that the Chiefs were ripe for a comeuppance, when in fact, the Chiefs were ready to just beat the hell out of Buffalo.
This is the first “home” Super Bowl, with Tampa Bay getting to play in Tampa, but it’s fitting considering there won’t be that many people allowed into the stadium. While the NBA, NHL and MLB turned their title series into neutral site events due to Covid, the NFL which always has a neutral site title game doesn’t have one this time. Well, mostly.
I don’t really know if the line reflects any home field for Tampa. It doesn’t seem like it, and shouldn’t. The Chiefs are -3 spread favorites against the Bucs, which, I guess would be six if the game were considered a home game for Tampa, and that seems too high, so the -3 feels like the line was set as though there’s no home field advantage other than being used to the big ship with actual cannons on it in one of the end zones.
Patrick Mahomes certainly didn’t play like a guy with turf toe on Sunday (thanks to the glorious invention of Percoset), or with a concussion for that matter (thanks to the glorious inconsistencies of the NFL concussion protocols) and with an extra week to heal up he should be in prime shape.
Meanwhile, Tom Brady will be even older than he was on Sunday, but he will likely have Antonio Brown back, and extra rest seems like a good thing for whatever it is that Rob Gronkowski does these days.
The quarterback carousel for the rest of the league has been spent spinning with the news that even before the Texans underwhelmed everyone with the hiring of their new coach David Culley (who?), that Deshaun Watson has demanded a trade.
He seems to want to go to Miami, where the Dolphins could give up Tua and the Texans old first round pick (fourth overall) plus some other stuff. The Texans could very well prefer trading Watson to the Jets for the second overall pick so they can take OSU quarterback Justin Fields.
If the Jets get Watson, that would free them up to trade Sam Darnold, and the Bears should be in that line waving their second round pick feverishly.
Where Lions’ QB Matthew Stafford ends up could really impact the Bears search for a QB, too. If he goes to the Niners, that would free the Bears up to waste a second or third (or knowing Ryan Pace, both) round pick for the dreamy (but very mediocre) Jimmy Garoppolo. Also if the Falcons trade for Stafford you would likely see them trade Matt Ryan to the Niners and that could trigger Jimmy G to the Bears.
I know that everyone thinks the Patriots will be first in line for Jimmy if he’s available (and he will be), but even though his salary gets more cap friendly in each successive season it’s still pretty high in 2021 for what the Pats can afford.
But we all know that the reality is that somehow the Bears will end up with Jared Goff when the music stops and we’ll all be amazed to see first hand that he’s basically a slightly less athletic Mitch Trubisky.
How fun.
Here are those annoying footnotes.
- Traditionally, the assholes in the NFL threaten to sue anyone but their approved corporate partners for calling the Super Bowl the Super Bowl, which is really the dumbest thing ever. The name isn’t that great to begin with, I mean Lamar Hunt named the fucking thing after his daughter’s Super Ball, so they’re literally threatening people to not use the real name of something that they stole themselves.