Ha ha, shredding. Oh dearie, those skateboard jokes. So rad.

The “Joe Flacco feeling unappreciated for being mediocre” meme got major traction this week, helped along by Ed Reed telling the media that Flacco doesn’t do good quarterback stuff. This led to more passive-aggression and surly woes-are-me by the Ravens quarterback.

“I like his style. I mean, kind of. Even though I bet he wouldn’t even notice if I did like him. Whatever. Screw that guy. I don’t care.” – Jay Cutler

Flacco got somewhat of a pass for doing nothing besides convert two-yard scoring drives against the Texans because Houston’s defense is good (elite QBs shouldn’t be expected to excel against GOOD defenses) but now Big Bert has put a huge target on himself. The Ravens have to win and Flacco has to appear impressive in the process or else more Dilfer LOLs at his expense. Easterbrook says the only thing worse than a look-at-me glory boy is a wannabe look-at-me glory boy.

Flacco’s bitchy tongue-and-cheek comments this week about the Ravens winning despite his mediocre play was awfully prophetic. Being bailed out by one-handed catches by Lee Evans and Anquan Boldin saved him from an unbroken 60 minutes of ineptitude. Nevertheless, T.J. Yates proved somehow to be the lesser. What did the Ravens do to win today except have fumbles bounce their way? They played some good centerfield on Yates INTs, perhaps.

Even leastiest was Jacoby Jones, who basically gave the Ravens the win with a fumble on his punt return attempt in the first quarter that set Baltimore up for an easy score. Jones fared almost as bad on subsequent returns, running sideway and not gaining any yards despite having 10 yards of open space.

Dare I say I actually feel for Wade Phillips? Florence Tubbingale earned it today, so toss the man a 20-piece bucket already.

Fake mustaches are the equivalent of breast implants for Baltimore women.

Not sure what Reedfense is, but my guess is that it’s not so much a word as it is a cry for help. Whatever it is, it probably won’t be around next week when the Ravens travel to Foxboro. That’s a shame. But I’m sure slow-ass Ray Lewis can cover Gronkowski and Hernandez just as well.

Just curious – after all the seemingly benign stuff we’ve seen flagged this year, how is running 30 yards to the stands after an INT not excessive celebration?

The Ravens are days away from hosting a home playoff game for the first time in five years and who do they have to thank for it? Ray Rice? Terrell Suggs? Haloti Ngata? Ed Reed? Yes, mainly those guys. But also Joe Flacco, who has quietly become a downright capable NFL starter most of the time. Though he’s on the verge of becoming a very noisy capable NFL starter with delusions of grandeur. Nevertheless, in Flacco’s mind, being just about adequate is something deserving of high praise and recognition lest a QB be forced to unleash a great media-scolding through huffy press conference passive aggression.

“If you look at the teams that won, yeah you can look at the quarterbacks but that’s just because you guys, ESPN, everybody wants to pump them up as being the best quarterback that year. It’s really going to come down to what team is the best,” Flacco said. “I’m sure if we win, I’ll have nothing to do with why we won according to you guys. It is what it is. We’re going to do our best to try to win it and it doesn’t really matter what the reason is.”

REEEEEERRRR! Another tragedy of Tebow-slurping: it leads the other quarterbacks in the bottom half of the league in completion percentage and passer rating to believe they should get their due.

“I don’t care if people look at it that way. I don’t necessarily see it that way,” Flacco said. “You guys want everybody to be Aaron Rodgers and be Tom Brady, but you guys do realize, those guys’ [teams] don’t run the ball?

HAVE YOU EVEN SEEN RODGERS’ HANDOFF MECHANICS!? LAUGHABLE! LOOK AT THAT AWKWARD CHECKDOWN!

“If we try to do that, the criticism that we’d take around here would be ridiculous. We could win eight games like that and we could lose one and you guys would be like, ‘Oh man, what are you guys doing?’ This is what you guys said you wanted and if you lose one game, oh my God. You guys got to remember that. You guys want an elite quarterback. You have to stop complaining when we go out there and throw the ball 60 times a game.’”

No, Joe, that criticism would be incredibly valid. For you see, Ray Rice is a top-five running back. Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers are top-five quarterbacks. When the Patriots and Packers execute pass-heavy offenses, they are playing to their strength, just as the Ravens are when they lock Cam Cameron in a tool shed and actually stick with running the ball. Remember that Monday night loss to Jacksonville when Ray Rice only got eight carries and Flacco got 38 pass attempts? I do. It was hilarious.

I’ll grant that Flacco is decent enough to be a winner in the postseason and if the Ravens are actually to win the Super Bowl, ol’ Bert will have probably had to drop a bomb or two to Torrey Smith. But that’s not happening unless the running game is also working well in tandem. Jeebus, you finally get a QB to move out of his parents house, and he wants to world to hand him a big old medal.

That was a decidedly ugly game, but from a schadenfreude standpoint, it was a masterstroke in the hatestroking arts. If you only watched the actual game, from kickoff to final whistle, it was probably really, truly agonizing. MJD fumbled three times. At the midpoint of the third quarter, Joe Flacco was 6/16 for eight yards. EIGHT YARDS! Jack Del Rio made the worst challenge ever when he threw the flag on a Flacco pass out of the end zone during which Flacco’s plant foot was near the back line of the end zone, but he very obviously didn’t touch it. Like, not even close. And the game was at home, so Del Rio had ample available replays to show him that the foot was nowhere close. AND HE STILL CHALLENGED IT, LIKE A DEFIANT GUNSHOT AT A CLOUD HOPING TO STRIKE GOD! Worst. Challenge. Ever. I know that sounds like knee-jerk typical blog bullsh*t hyperbole, but I sat in the dark with that statement for five minutes and I know it to be true. I know we mock Andy Reid and Lovie Smith for that sort of thing, but Del Rio just changed the game, son.

That said, if you happened to watch the hour leading up to kickoff, when the ESPN team made the Ravens out to be the bastard stab child of the ’85 Bears and the ’99 Rams, this was a wondrous, possibly life-affirming thing. “JOE FLACCO IS AN ELITE PASSER! I CAN LIVE WITH A VERSION OF MYSELF WHO SAYS THESE THINGS ON AIR TO MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AND PASSES THEM OFF AS MY EARNEST OPINION! YEAH, IT SUCKS TO FEEL THIS WAY BUT YOU SHOULD SEE HOW THE BRISTOL INTERNS THROW THEMSELVES AT ME!”

Joe Flacco completed a pass to himself. Remember when Brad Johnson threw a TD pass to himself with the Vikings in ’97? This was not like that.

Who knows? Maybe the Ravens will blame the refs. Their official Twitter feed is already on it.

In this one, people actually root for the asteroid to hit Earth.

Terrell Suggs termed the third meeting between the Steelers and Ravens “Armageddon.” He also said it will be the de facto AFC championship, because whoever emerged the victor in this game is supposedly virtually assured to defeat whoever wins between the Jets and the Patriots (let’s not mince words – the Patriots). So it’s pretty obvious Terrell Suggs is a tardwit mouthbreather, not to mention one who is quite fond of letting T-shirts do the trash talking for him.

Pfft. Birds don’t have five fingers, let alone a thumb. FIX YO ANATOMICALLY INCORRECT PROFANITY!

Ray Rice was apparently experiencing flu-like symptoms and spewing vomit-like substances into his toilet-like device on Friday. He’s going to play anyway, which is good, because this wouldn’t be much of a game if captain checkdown Bert Flacco didn’t have his target of choice coming out of the backfield. Rice had 52 rushing yards in two games against Pittsburgh this season. Without 26 more, you just know they’d be toast.

Ben Roethlisberger has won his last six starts against the Ravens and Pittsburgh is 2-0 in the playoffs against Bawlmer. Those stats obviously don’t mean much for today’s game, but if The Ben takes another from the Ratbirds, it just means another year of Ravens fans’ tear-laden masturbating to Bart Scott’s hit from 2006. That Scott left the team two years ago only makes the still-constant chest-beating about it all the more morbidly hilarious, like most things about Charm City.

When your franchise’s last postseason victory came against the Houston Oilers, you’ve been going through quite a bit of football frustration the last generation or so. And so it is with the Chiefs, whose last win in playoffs came following the 1993 season.

With reports that offensive coordinator Charlie Weis has already mentally checked out augurs bad things for KC’s chances of victory and the possibility of seeing more screaming matches with Todd Haley. Then again, given that Joe Flacco has the lowest postseason passer rating of any active quarterback with multiple starts in the playoffs, they may not have to put up 30+ to come away with a win over Bawlmer.

The Ravens almost caught a huge break with Dwayne Bowe being questionable most of the week with an illness, but the receiver was removed from the injury report on Saturday, indicating that he’s ready to go. Luckily, the Chiefs only, for whatever cockamamie reason, accept players from two-parent homes so there no doubt plenty of players capable of suggesting the white people cold cure of Sprite and chicken noodle soup.

Some folks will wonder why we’re not starting the live blog earlier in the evening to accommodate the rescheduled and relocated Giants-Vikings game. To them, I say, “I am sorry. We are not made of live blog.” So it’s just the later, actually nationally televised game that we’re focusing on tonight. But feel free to use this as an open thread for Ford Field roof implode-a-polooza.

Not that we’re sticklers for order or anything, but trying to live blog two games at once will make it an even more jumbled, incoherent mess than our live blogs already are. That said, if Brett Favre does play and suffers a catastrophic injury UPDATE: NO GUNSLINGING TONIGHT!, there’s no reason people shouldn’t make an exultant note of it.

As for Ravens-Texans… uh…don’t Matt Schaub and Joe Flacco look like really fugly siblings? Flacco got the better of the hair genes, both on the head and the brow, while Schaub is generally just a better quarterback. Fair trade, I guess. In more indulgent matters, Ufford and I are going against each other in fantasy playoffs. I’m up 17 with the Ratbird defense (best available on the waiver wire this week) while he’s starting Boldin. With him against the extremely porous Texans defense, I feel no comfort whatsoever.

OF COURSE, the first Thursday night game of the year (at least of those broadcast on NFL Network) would be a better match-up than any primetime game from the previous week. For a contest between two teams considered Super Bowl contenders, there’s been remarkably little hype about this game. Maybe that’s because most media know considerable swaths of the country still don’t get NFLN. And though I will never mind having football on more days of the week, I acknowledge that Thursday NFL games might still be weird and unexpected for the more casual, bullshit fans.

I think this game provides pretty compelling storylines, actually. The suspense of who Le’Ron McClain spits on next has consumed my thoughts for days. I bet he does it Tony Gonzalez somehow, and Gonzo freaks out because he detects traces of meat products in his saliva. That crazy macrobiotic vegan!

Via The Baltimore Sun, Peter King’s most prized formerly decent metropolitan daily, comes the news that Joe Flacco dressed as The Situation for the team’s charity Halloween event earlier this week. PURPLE CAMO TEEEE SHIRT TIMMEEEE! The costume makes sense because Flacco is from Jersey and also because they’re both hideous guys who spend a lot of time working out.

“CABS IS HERE! CABS IS HERE! WHO’S READY TO GET IT IN? WE STAY SMOOSHING ON THIS END ZONE! AY YO A-BOLD, STREAKS TO THE HOUSE, MY DUDE! DON’T FORGET TO PUSH OFF. THESE DBs CAN’T STAY WITH YOU UP IN THIS CLUB! YOU GOTSTA BEAT THEM BACK!”

It’s that time of year when we make bad predictions about the upcoming season and bad jokes, all in the same post. Next up: the AFC North, the festering den of iniquity that is home to murderers, rapists, abusers, drunk drivers, drunk kickers, drug addicts, tardwit reality show wide receivers and worst of all, the Cleveland Browns.

It was then that the Beagle Boys kniferaped Magica De Spell and dropped her from the back of a moving truck.

BALTIMORE RAVENS

via.

Key Additions: Anquan Boldin, Donte Stallworth, Walt Harris, Shayne Graham, Marc Bulger

Key Departures: Kelley Washington, Samari Rolle, Adam Terry

Known Miscreants: Ray Lewis (murder snitching on friends to plea bargain down to obstruction of justice charge), Donte Stallworth (reigning Death Race 2000 champion), Fabian Washington (domestic assault), Terrell Suggs (woman bleaching), Willis McGahee (Antonio Cromartie syndrome)

Five Fast Facts About The Ravens:

- Sergio Kindle’s fall and resulting injury earlier in training camp was blamed on his narcolepsy. Ravens fans were aware that referees could induce that in people.
- The enduring lesson of Donte Stallworth’s vehicular homicide: if you act halfway remorseful, the public and the media will completely forgive you. Or, in the case of Leonard Little, you can not give a shit and the public and the media will mostly ignore it.
- WERE YOU AWARE?: Of the 19 active quarterbacks with more than one start in the playoffs, Joe Flacco has by far the worst postseason passer rating (in five starts, he has 1 TD and 6 INTs for a rating of 46.5). The next highest is Mark Brunell (11 appearances, 66.3 rating) who still has a rating nearly 20 point higher. Also ahead on the list: Rex Grossman, Michael Vick, Chad Pennington and Ravens back-up Marc Bulger (so that’s why they got him). BUT HEY JOE COOL IS THE PIZZA HUT OF MARYLAND SPOKESBROW FOR THE SECOND YEAR RUNNING!

- Ray Rice’s father was killed by a drive-by shooting when the running back was only a year old. His uncle helped to raise him until he was killed by a drunk driver in 1998. Man, Ray Rice must have such great admiration for his teammates.
- Haloti Ngata gave Terrence Cody the nickname “cheeseburger” during training camp. As they say, you are what you eat 39 of in any given sitting.

Over/Under For 2010: 10 wins

Verdict: OVER

Their secondary isn’t good even when it’s healthy, and it’s definitely not healthy right now. Nevertheless, the Ravens are pretty stacked everywhere else. Granted, Joe Flacco can’t play for shit in big games, but then that won’t come into play until they reach the playoffs, which shouldn’t be much of a problem for the Ratbirds this year. Though it is amusing that, after losing close games last year because of a lack of clutch kicking, that they would consider Shayne “The Ginger Nate Kaeding” Graham a possible answer.

CINCINNATI BENGALS

Key Additions: Terrell Owens, Pacman Jones, Mike Nugent, Antonio Bryant, Matt Jones

Key Departures: Laveranues Coles, Shayne Graham

Known Miscreants: Pacman Jones (womb raiding), Matt Jones (being a cocaine cowboy, Rey Maualuga (DUI with underage girls in the car – the best kind!), Cedric Benson (waitress assault), Tank Johnson (munitions hoarding)

Five Fast Facts About The Bengals:
- Experts say the emergence of Bernard Scott is expected provide some relief to Cedric Benson’s huge share of carries this season. No word on how much of Benson’s arrest commitments he’ll be taking on.
- Pacman say hey da HughesNet bitch stop paradin yo fine azz round my TV. You older, but not too old that Pacman don slip it in dat USB slot. That stand for pUSsyBitch. Pacman not carin if that don make sense. YOU NO STOP HE SHINE.

- The anemic quarterbacking done by J.T. O’Sullivan in the ante-season will not be a blot on his escutcheon. If anything, coaches appreciate his efforts to ease pressure on Good Sir Palmer that his station could be imperiled by a son of Eyre.
- Bengals fans two years ago bought up billboards threatening to “protest” the team until Mike Brown hired a GM that wasn’t himself. Brown responded by… doing nothing. Of course, the team started winning anyway, so the fairweather Cincy folk forgot all about it. Which is pretty much how all fan protests go.
- Let’s hope Maurice Purify isn’t taking his last name as a life mission, or he has quite a task ahead of him with the Bengals.

Over/Under For 2010: 7.5 wins

Verdict: OVER

The Bengals played like dogshit down the stretch in 2009, mostly as a result of a inability to pass the ball. To resolve that issue, they did the usual Bengal thing and picked up a bunch of inexpensive retreads that no one else wanted: T.O., Matt Jones and Antonio Bryant. T.O. should be a decent improvement over Laveranues Coles, who was generally useless last season. First-round pick Jermaine Gresham has looked pretty good in preseason, so maybe he’ll be a good receiving option at tight end this year. Nevertheless, the pass blocking is still horrid and the team still has f*cknuts Bob Bratkowski calling plays. And Carson Palmer has shown that he isn’t good enough to compensate for those for those deficiencies. Again, the defense and the running game will have to carry this team, except now they play with a 1st place schedule and the Bengals will be hard-pressed to sweep both the Ravens and Steelers again this season. They won’t finish under .500, but they’re not going back to the playoffs either.

CLEVELAND BROWNS

Sensing the obvious, the Browns didn’t even bother to print Jake Delhomme jerseys. Ever resourceful Cleveland fans adapt. via.

Key Additions: Jake Delhomme, Bobby Engram, Benjamin Watson, Seneca Wallace, Scott Fujita, Sheldon Brown, Colt McCoy

Key Departures: Brady Quinn, Derek Anderson, Donte Stallworth, Jamal Lewis, Kamerion Wimbley

Known Miscreants: Shaun Rogers (airline firearm supply), Brandon McDonald (future T.O. rapist), Colt McCoy (too wholesome), Joe Thomas (fishing without a license)

Five Fast Facts About The Browns:
- Shaun Rogers tried to rehab his image after bringing a loaded gun onto an airplane by ratting out a drunk driver to the police. Mario Reyes appreciates the timing, asshole.
- As referenced above, corner Brandon McDonald threatened over Twitter that he and the Browns secondary are going to “run a train” on Terrell Owens. Usually not a fan of prison rape, T.O.’s talks with his Bengals teammates have convinced him otherwise.
- DAWWWWWWWWW WHERE’D STEVE SMITH GO?

- Joshua Cribbs spent his wife’s birthday at a Playboy Golf event, then took her to Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles for dinner. This automatically puts him in the top 4 percentile of NFL player husbands.
- In a recent interview with GQ, Scott Fujita referred to former teammate Garrett Hartley as a “fat punk kicker.” Asked for a response, Hartley said he refused to lower himself to those Jap tactics.

Over/Under For 2010: 5.5 wins

Verdict: UNDER

I was briefly tempted to be generous and give them the over, but then I peeked at Cleveland’s schedule. After two winnable games against the Bucs and Chiefs, they have to run this seven-game gauntlet: @Ravens, Bengals, Falcons, @Steelers (this will most likely be the game Roethlisberger returns), Saints, Patriots, Jets. I seriously doubt that the Browns are going to win any of those games, meaning Cleveland will likely be 2-7 or 1-8 after nine games. Most likely, that means it’s “let’s give Colt McCoy a shot” time, with a trip to Miami, and rematches with the Bengals, Ravens and Steelers remaining. So yeah, sorry, no six wins for you guys.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS

via.

Key Additions: Bryant McFadden, Larry Foote, Antwaan Randle El, anyone else who may have played for the team in the last 10 years, Flozell Adams

Key Departures: Santonio Holmes, Willie Parker, Deshea Townsend

Known Miscreants: Ben Roethlisberger (alleged bathroom bad touch), Jeff Reed (bathroom bad touch on towel dispenser), James Harrison (domestic assault)

Five Fast Facts About The Steelers:

- Threatened by the arrival of Flozell Adams, Hines Ward has been forced to slash the prices on his cheap shots.
- Dennis Dixon would be getting a chance to start during Ben Roethlisberger’s suspension, but instead the team is purposefully stifling his development because they don’t want to risk him showing up the quarterback that they tried to trade before the draft. Luckily, I am first person to formulate this not-at-all retarded theory for why Byron Leftwich will likely start Week 1.
/checks PFT
SHIT!!!!!!!
- Mike Wallace has some large vaginas to fill with the departure of Santonio Holmes.
- Even if it’s a year late, Troy Polamalu appreciates that the Madden Curse has finally caught up with Larry Fitzgerald.
- Despite the fact that he was injured months ago and will miss the entire 2010 season, Limas Sweed will still find a way to cost the Steelers a win this year. Mark my words.

Over/Under For 2010: 9 wins

Verdict: PUSH

After the offseason that just transpired, there’s absolutely no outcome to this season that would surprise me. On one hand, the Steelers tend to do better when expectations aren’t astronomically high, and they have Troy Polamalu, Aaron Smith and Bryant McFadden (starting in place of shitty ass Purple Jesus-stompee William Gay) back on what should be a damn good defense. On the other hand, their most talented receiver was traded away for nothing (DON’T SLEEP ON MIKE WALLACE MOTHERFUCKAS!), they have goddamn slow-footed cheap-shotting penalty magnet Flozell Adams starting at right tackle and who knows how Roethlisberger is going to respond once he’s reinstated. With all that in mind, I’ll keep the homerism at bay and keep it at a push.