Week 5. ARE YOU READY FOR SOME (postponed)
Here’s what I think: stop it now, for one month. ISOLATE EVERYONE. Use that time to rearrange the schedule. Reduce the schedule to 12 total games. Ensure that all the division games get played, then sprinkle the rest however you feel. Personally, the rest of the interconference games should be the first to go, even though that would take the Falcons off of my team’s schedule. Make each team get into a bubble, either in their city or in clumps of let’s say 4, and fucking enforce the rules. When the schedule starts, ensure that there are at least TWO bye weeks added. Add a one-week buffer in between the end of the season and the start of the playoffs. Would it solve everything? Probably not. But one month of isolation should potentially give time to let everyone get healthy, and then you’ll just have to take it one week at a time. Look, everyone’s schedules are going to be out of whack for the next couple of years or so. I love football, but I don’t particularly care when it happens. I’ll live. Have the Super Bowl in April, it won’t bother me.
Broncos-Patriots has been rescheduled to next weekend, and the Broncos’ Miami game that was scheduled is now off. SURPRISE BYE WEEK (insert air horn noise here)! Hey, maybe Drew Lock will be healthy enough to play by then. He was already pretty close. I hope so, especially if Cam is back. I mean, they have pretty much no shot, but it’d be nice to at least have our QB back. I like Brett “Mark—I mean Brett” Rypien, but I’ve seen enough third-string-caliber QB play over the last four years. I’m good. Also maybe there’s a chance we could have Noah Fant and A.J. Bouye back by then. Phillip Lindsay will be back, as he was already scheduled to play Monday.
I’m going to guess that the NFL will force the Titans to forfeit the Bills game. I think they should have to forfeit the Steelers game too. Yes, it would give the Steelers a bonus bye week, but that isn’t their fault. They did what they were supposed to.
Today my local early game on CBS is Raiders-Chiefs. The Chefs are the best team in the league. The Raiders are in that we’re-kinda-good-but-haven’t-figured-it-out-yet purgatory. I’d be shocked if the Chefs don’t win. Late game is Colts-Browns. I think that might be the only one I actually watch today, I think it’ll be fun. The Browns have more talent, but really I kind of lump these two together as far as how good I think they are. I’m going to pick the Browns because they’re at home. I think this might be an INT-fest, though. Only one game for us on Fox and it’s the Steagles. I think the Eagles are toast. Sunday Night is Vikings at Seahawks. Gross. Monday Night is back to being a single game, Chargers at Saints. Looks like it will stay in New Orleans now instead of being shifted to Indy because of Hurricane Delta. We’ve had so many storms they had to move on to the Greek alphabet. Is Chinese next, assuming we go through all of those? “Hurricane 台风 is headed right for Jacksonville.” And we’ll see about the purely theoretical Tuesday Night game between the Bills and Titans. If you were a Bills player, would you want to go anywhere near any of the Titans players right now? I wouldn’t.
The rest:
Cardinals at Jets - I hope the Jets lose every game. I will rescind that hope once they fire Adam Gase.
Bengals at Ravens - Probably the Ravens, but they’re not infallible.
Jaguars at Texans - I hope the Texans lose every game, if only so they get the first pick in the draft and trade it to anyone other than the Jets so that the Jets have no shot at Trevor Lawrence.
Rams at Teamies - Dwayne Haskins sort of sounds like this generation’s Ryan Leaf. I mean in work ethic, not necessarily magnitude of bust. The fact that Alex Smith can even be on a roster and healthy right now is awesome, even if he isn’t starting.
Panthers at Falcons - I think the Panthers are just uneven enough that the Falcons could get a win here today, but my heart knows the Falcons can’t help but screw it up somehow.
Dolphins at 49ers - It sounds like Jimmy Garoppolo is back, so I’d have to say Niners.
Giants at Cowboys - Ugh.
Lions and Packers are on a bye. With what’s going on in Wisconsin, I don’t think it will be too long before the Packers start having to deal with the COVID monster.
I probably won’t see much football today. I have to get a new lock for our mailbox because our mailboxes were broken into AGAIN on Friday. Fortunately we had nothing in there. I also need to get a lot of housework done and go through my budget for the next six months. Adulting sucks. Enjoy the games!