[Castle Failskull]

[A procession of kazoo players enter from a hallway, followed by a regal figure]

Fail Lion: My brothers! Today we mourn a great loss from our Royal Court of Fail. News comes from the field that Sir Buzzsaw has entered into the Nation of the Super Bowl dwellers.

Saint Jester: Impossible!

The Brown Knight: It cannot be so! [Throws empty beer bottle]

Fail Lion: Do not let your emotions sway your thoughts. Today is truly a sad one, but we will muddle on, as we always do.

Saint Jester: But what of his post?

Fail Lion: That is the very matter upon which we must ruminate this day. Sir Buzzsaw served this court admirably for generations as a specialist in matters of irrelevancy and fan apathy.

Jaguar serf: Well I don’t care much for my team. In fact, I only wear this cranial adornment because I found it in the parking lot.

The Brown Knight: Yes! The Jaguar! His people care little of the fortunes of their flag.

Fail Lion: But can the Jaguar be trusted? Remember, now, it was his squadron that came close twice in its formative years to fleeing our ranks.

Texan knave: TEXANS! NUMBER ONE!

Saint Jester: Yes, but who among us has not had a brush with near-success? It was just two years ago that I nearly trod onto those Super Bowl grounds.

Texan knave: WE BEAT THE COWBOYS ONCE! TEXANS! NUMBER ONE!

Fail Lion: Yours is a fair point, jester. Let it be so. Approach, serf.

Are you ready to ignore the shifting fortunes of your team? Only to adopt them should be make the promised land?

Jaguar serf: Sure. I guess. Me and Matt Jones are gonna score good drugs no matter what.

Fail Lion: Then I shall decree it. I dub thee, Sir Jaguar. Noble paladin of fan apathy.

Sir Jaguar: [Takes toke] Super.

[Kazoos play]

It’s a battle for Lake Erie supremacy, dredging duties and wasted playoff berths as two surprising teams string their respective long-suffering fanbases along just a little longer. Who gets led down the garden path a little further to impending disappointment? Who bemoans fate louder? But more importantly, WHO YA GOT?

Marvin Lewis: Goddamit Deltha O’Neal! What is this I hear about your Rott attacking a woman and her daughter?

O’Neal: They was asking for it. Literally, they said “please, doggie, bite us viciously in our ass and legs,” at least that’s what the canine psychic said Dogtha O’Kee-ill said they said to him. Anyway, I wasn’t even arrested, coach.

Lewis: It don’t matter. I don’t need any headlines like this. The more these things crop up, the more heat I get. Mike Brown has already made it apparent that he’s cool with me missing the playoffs, so long as I don’t need to have anymore sit-downs with the Rog about player discipline. So we’re spending the rest of the week learning about comportment and etiquette. We’re off to the Skyline School for Wayward Bengals.

O’Neal: But coach, we haven’t finished preparing for the Browns.

Lewis: You let me worry about that. I’m not getting shitcanned on account of your antics.

Lewis: Okay, I want you guys to have a well-mannered, professional game out there. I want you to stay the fuck away from that Jamal Lewis guy. He’s gonna steer you wrong, get you into that bad shit. Under no circumstances are you to interact with him.

Michael Myers: Aren’t we gonna need to tackle him though?

Lewis: The fuck I just stay? Keep away from the muthafucka.

/Jamal Lewis runs for a 43-yard touchdown.

Caleb Miller: Coach! I was gonna tackle Jamal, but he was trying to offer me a good price on an ounce of rock, so I let him go right on by.

Lewis: You did the right thing. That’s some fine work, son.

/Braylon Edwards catches a 60-yard touchdown pass.

Leon Hall: Coach, man, dawg, we gotta do something. We’re gonna lose to the goddamn Browns. You know embarassing this is?

Lewis: Don’t try to lecture me on defense. I was a defensive coach for the Steelers, Ravens and Redskins when they all had top-ranked units. Didn’t you go to Michigan? You should know about embarassing losses. App State, right?

Hall: Uh, that was this year’s team. I entered the draft following last season.

Lewis: Well, Detroit’s in Michigan, right? Still the murder capital of the country, isn’t it? But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Leon?

Hall: But there are hundreds of unsolved murders in Detroit!

Lewis: You just don’t know when to keep your mouth shut, do you, Leon Hall?

/Kellen Winslow scores on a 73-yard pass and doesn’t even bother to run half the way.

Defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan: Marvin, I don’t know about this idea to let at-risk youth design our defensive schemes.

Lewis: And why the fuck not? We need something to burnish our image with the community.

Bresnahan: Well, for starters, on this first play, we got one defensive lineman lined up, eight people covering Joe Jurevicius and two guys selling bootleg CDs on the 30-yard line.

Lewis: They got the new Talib?

Bresnahan: What?

Lewis: Nothing.

…

Forget it. Just follow the kid’s plays, would ya?

/Derek Anderson throws another eight TDs.

Lewis: Contract extension, here I come.

Tails never fails, motherfucker.

So Cleveland “won” the coin toss today. Actually, the Bucs lost it. The Bucs GM called heads. What the fuck is heads? And why did HE get to call the fucking coin? Shouldn’t there be some arbitrary method to figure out who gets to call the coin?

Anyway, we’re done for another week. We may have a surprise for you coming up after the weekend, but we won’t jinx it. Your cheerleader today is Christy, seen here playing quarterback. I hear she’s also a great tight end.

See you next week.