AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA BALTIMORE GATORADE BATHS FOR ALL HARF HARF HARF HARF HARF

/hater

This game broke Twitter and for good reason. It was truly awesome. Flacco outplayed Brady and still lost. The ultimate Troll Genius move. Ray Lewis played like dogsh*t and got owned by Nate Solder all game. Lee Evans dropped a game-winning touchdown in the end zone. Bernard Pollard hurt Gronk, even if he couldn’t take him out entirely. Bill Belichick make a host of terrible decisions but still came away with a victory. Best of all, Billy Vanderjagt Cuntwhiff earned my undying love for always.

Flacco may have played above to the lowly expectations he placed on himself, at least after a dormant first quarter, but he missed Torrey Smith on two deep throws. On another where he connected deep with the benefit of blown coverage, he underthrew Smith badly enough to prevent what would have been a touchdown if the pass hit anywhere close to in stride. Then there’s another red zone possession where Vonta Leach could have walked in for a TD but Flacco opted to not check down for the first time in his life and failed. Just something to keep in mind when hear about how Flacco “should” have come away with a win.

The Colts have lost their first playoff game the past two seasons. The Ravens have won the most road playoff games this decades. Indianapolis is 4-0 all-time at home against the Ravens and 1-0 against them in the postseason. Baltimore has the kind of run-heavy offense that, if the team gets the lead, can control the tempo of the game. On the other hand, Joe Flacco is hurt. Even if he were healthy, it’s highly unlikely he could outplay Pey-Pey. And he’ll have to play well regardless.

That intro, laden with irrelevant historical stats and flimsy analysis, is my way of avoiding discussing how ambivalent I am about watching two teams I hate playing with elimination on the line. Just get ready to mock whoever fails.

Hey, someone has to win. Let’s see how much I care.

Just die! Everyone die! In the most grisly way possible. Even you, David Tyree. You outlived your usefulness once you signed with Baltimore. Who am I kidding, we were done with you two years ago.

If you find yourself confronted with an NFL postseason without a rooting interest and unmoved by Don Cheadle soliloquies, you must draw from the well of that most powerful of human emotions. Ok, well, lust probably won’t do here. But the second most powerful, hate, will serve as a fine proxy. This is one in a series of posts filled with bile, spleen, vitriol and all-around nastiness toward all the teams involved with the sordid roundelay we know as the NFL Playoffs.

This man is Cecilius Calvert, or Lord Baltimore, for whom a failed city of destitute crackheads and tacky white trash asswipes is named. He was the first proprietor of the Maryland colony, though he was also supposed to get all of the Eastern Shore too. It was already taken. He blamed the refs.

I’ve already laid out dozens of reasons why I hate the Ravens, their players, their fans, their city, their inferiority complex, their fucktarded purple camo, the places their white fans live (not the city), and everything else even loosely associated with them. I could cite dozens more, but I think you get the gist. Ape no rikey.

I don’t expect you to share all these feelings. What I do think merits universal scorn is that they’re the most sniveling, caterwauling, whiniest bunch of ref-blaming losers ever to infest a football stadium. According to their fans, the Ravens have never just lost. They’re ALWAYS screwed somehow. And it’s not just that they want to nitpick calls. No, that wouldn’t be quite obnoxious enough. They’re the fucking Glenn Beck birthers of the NFL universe. They actually think there’s A CONSPIRACY and that the league IS OUT TO GET THEM!

Let’s take a gander at their season:

Week 1: Ravens win. Fuckheads cheer.

Week 2: Ravens win again. Everything cool.

Week 3: Ravens start 3-0. Pumping themselves up for a Super Bowl run.

Week 4: Ravens lose because Mark Clayton sucks dick and drops an easy pass on 4th down inside the Pats 5.

But, far too tough to merely accept defeat, their players blame it on ticky tack roughing calls on Tom Brady. Ratbird fans excrete shit like this:

“The NFL plays favorites. It’s as simple as that. So many penalty and challenge calls are subjective enough that the officiating crew can literally win or lose almost any given game.

The Pats and Steelers are the largest beneficiaries of this charade, as the league will do whatever it takes to give these teams the chance to win big games. The Ravens, conversely, are not one of the NFL’s darlings. In fact, the Ravens have gotten enough objectionable calls and ex-awful-coach-turned-awful-color-commentator Brian Billick made enough noise about said calls that a vicious cycle exists in regards to officiating in Ravens games.”

Week 5: Bengals beat the Ravens in Baltimore on a last-minute TD drive. Ravens fans lose their shit pinning it on the officials.

Week 6: Even before the game starts, these shitheads are carrying on about the fucking officiating. Ravens lose to Vikings. More bitching ensues.

Week 7: Bye week. Time to rest the tear ducts.

Week 8: Baltimore can haz victoree? Guess who’s all sunshine and lucky crack pipes now?

Week 9: Ravens get thoroughly dominated the entire game in Paul Brown Stadium. They were lucky to lose only 17-7. Of course, Ochocinco pulls an obvious ref bribing joke on the sidelines, which is enough to set a million fucking conspiracy theories in motion.

Week 10: Ravens win. More people get AIDS but no one cries.

Week 11: The Fat Humps beat the Ravens in Baltimore. There’s actually not that much ref whining after this game, surprisingly. Possibly because an official illegally gave John Harbaugh an extra challenge. THAT’S NOT HOW THE CONSPIRACY WORKS!

Week 12: Ravens need overtime to beat a third string QB making his first career start after one day of practice with the first team offense. But they almost won in regulation when the officials (again, wrongly) allowed a Baltimore offensive player to advance a teammate’s fumble, which put them in range for a potential game-winning kick. The subsequent Billy Cundiff field goal falls just short. But, hey, two straight weeks of referee errors in your favor! Suffice it to say, no bitching.

Week 13: You’d think after two straight weeks of getting bad calls in your favor, you’d shut the fuck up about refs. Nope. Green Bay dominates Baltimore, but not without Derrick Mason calling the officiating “ridiculous” (he is not fined for this comment – CONSPIRACY? HELLO?) and Ravens fans generally shitting purple bricks about the yellow flags.

Week 14: Ravens win. Sweet serenity.

Week 15: Ravens win again. It’s so oh quiet.

Week 16: Ravens lose in Pittsburgh. I think you know what’s coming.

Week 17: Ravens win and advance to the playoffs. No whining, right? Eh, not so fast.

Seriously, you weepy Bawlmer fucks, just grow a pair. Accept one goddamn loss as that: a loss. I will salute you if you are able to do this just once. Face it: your team isn’t that good. You haven’t been cheated by anyone. 9-7 is just about right where the Ravens should be. Ray Rice is great. Haloti Ngata is great. Ed Reed, even if he can’t tackle in the open field, is great. That’s about it. Your defense left with Rex Ryan and Joe Flacco is mediocre. And he still lives at home at with parents. Fucking dork.

The Ravens announced earlier this week that they’ll be passing out tens of thousands of rally towels at M&T Bank Stadium prior to Sunday night’s blood feud with the Steelers. Being that they’re made by Under Armour, you know they’ll have that special illegal immigrant craftsmanship.

This tactic is far from new; teams do this all the time when the Steelers visit for nationally televised games. Can’t let those TV cameras pick up a home crowd flecked with twirly yellow spots! The Broncos tried to shake up the tradition a few weeks back with orange pom-poms, which was, uh, an interesting approach. Anyway, it’s just particularly hilarious to see it from the Ravens, whose fans, despite failing to grasp the crushing irony of doing so while dressed in white trash fabulous purple camo pants, rant unremittingly about how stupid Terrible Towels are. And it’s true – towels as sports fan accessories are dumb. I freely admit that. BUT NOW YOU TWIRL THEM TOO! Welcome to the club, you unoriginal Old Bay bumf*cks.

As for the game, Troy Polamalu is still out. Terrell Suggs probably won’t play. Who knows what condition Roethlisberger will be in. Neither team has played particularly well the last month. Should be quite the marquee event. I got a media credential from The Sporting News to cover this game, meaning most likely I’ll be watching it from the press box at M&T Bank, which will probably not be all that great, given that whole “no cheering in the press box” thing. And they won’t let me toss live grenades into sections of dicksmacks who take their whining about the refs to such an outrageous extent that they actually show up at the stadium dressed as blind officials. The joys of access!

But man oh man, do I want to be there to glory in Ravens fan misery and referee blaming should Pittsburgh win. I can’t tell you how much it burns me that I missed it last year. Because there’s nothing more amusing than the contrast between the typical fake hard-ass pregame Ravens fan spiel of “WE’RE GONNA FUCKIN’ TEAR BIG JEN WORTHLESSBERGER’S RAPIST HEAD OFF AND GET HIS DECAPITATED CORPSE TO SHIT IN MIKE TOMLIN’S PRETTY GAY MOUTH RAWR HARM CITY BABY” and the predictable postgame keening of “Waaaaaahhhhh! We only lost ’cause of the refs! Just like the Patriots game! And the first Bengals game! And, fuggit, every game we’ve ever lost! The Rooneys paid off the entire crew! This game is rigged! Bandwagon fans! Bandwagon fans! Any fan who hasn’t spent 14 grueling years rooting for their team is a bandwagon fan!”

And even if the Ravens prevail, I get a new towel to torch. Win-win!

I cry for this couple’s future children. Hell, I weep for all of us. Thank goodness we’re all gonna be wiped clean from the Earth in 2012. Because, really, once you see a bald, schlubby white groom do the spastic Ray Lewis “dance” to greet friends and family with his Flacco jersey adorned bride at their wedding reception, you know there’s no reason for us to wasting God’s splendors.

Besides a shocking paucity of purple camo, I did notice that this is a crowd appreciative of mediocrity (guess they have to be), as you can spot two people in Mark Clayton jerseys and another in a Sam Koch. No Kyle Boller for the estranged in-law everyone hates?

Careful about watching past the two-minute mark. It gets a little tender. [stifles tear]

Poor young saps. They never had a chance. At least once they get divorced, you know they’ll just blame the refs.

[Thanks to reader Alex for the tip]

It makes you wonder how Flacco didn’t make this post.

The Browns are hanging with the Ravens through the first quarter, even if that isn’t likely to continue. Making Bawlmer burn their entire complement of first half timeouts in eight minutes will probably be the top Cleveland accomplishment of the evening, not that the Ravens will really need them. Mike Tirico did sneak in a Bert Flacco reference, however, which can’t begin to atone for Gruden dubbing (before even kickoff, mind you) Jarret Johnson “The Anvil,” Terrell Suggs “Clubber Lang” and Ray Lewis “The Master of Disaster” but then with this booth you take anything worthwhile you can get.

UPDATE: Upon further review, I suppose Tirico is saying “Birk-Flacco”. That’s what I get for thinking anyone in this booth could say something halfway interesting.

It’s that time of year again, when we’re so devoid of content that, rather than spending time gushing over Jeff George’s Uncle Rico-esque comeback tape, we run through our predictably inaccurate prognostications for the upcoming year, division by division. Up next, it’s the AFC North, where you’re either running over pedestrians while drunk, getting slapped with rape allegations, ratting out your friends to escape murder charges, or playing for the Bengals and doing all of the above.

The things you’ll stoop to when Vinny Testaverde still has the best statistical season as a quarterback in your franchise’s history.

BALTIMORE RAVENS

Five Fast Facts About the Ravens:

Terrell Suggs is now the highest paid linebacker in the NFL, proving once again that the life of a bounty hunter can be a lucrative and glamorous one.

Vegas Over/Under for 2009: 8.5 wins

Verdict: OVER

History suggests that the Ravens fall on their knives during odd-numbered years, but these assholes should be good enough to have a winning record in 2009, even if Mark Clayton is their no. 1 receiver going into the season. That is, UNLESS THE REFS COST THEM EVERY GAME! CONSPIRACY! CONSPIRACY! CONSPIRACY!

Very considerate of the Bungles to come up with a word to describe their shitty style of play

CINCINNATI BENGALS

Five Fast Facts About the Bengals:

Cedric Benson couldn’t cut it on a UFL team, so the Bengals will have to do.

Vegas Over/Under For 2009: 6 wins

Verdict: PUSH

People seem to think they’ll be better this year. After all, Denzel gave Ocho a stern talking-to. How could that not work?

CLEVELAND BROWNS

Shaun Smith may not be related to Steve Smith, but they enjoy punching the same people.

Vegas Over/Under for 2009: 7 wins

Verdict: UNDER

The Browns, expected contenders in 2008, spent the whole year underachieving and then just not caring towards the end. Stands to reason they would have a chance to rebound the next year, but Eric Mangini has already done everything he can to alienate the team he’s inheriting. Credit Josh McDaniels and Brad Childress for taking all the coach-induced team implosion focus off him this offseason.

The Pussy Monsta-Pussy Ravager two-pack.

PICKSBURGH STILLERS

Five Fast Facts About the Steelers:

The “Sixburgh” stuff was barely tolerable and I love this team, but the “Stairway to Seven” slogans are gonna have me committing intra-fanbase bookkake left and right.

Vegas Over/Under for 2009: 10.5 wins

Verdict: OVER

They went 12-4 with a more difficult schedule last year and all they lost was Bryant McFadden, Larry Foote and Nate Washington, who’ve all been sufficiently replaced. They also don’t have the worst punter in the world anymore with Spatula returning. Barring a huge spate of injuries, they should be good for 11+ wins. Everyone will talk about what a huge distraction the civil suit is going to be. Notice that with no criminal complaint filed and ESPN finally having reported on it, the story is pretty much already gone from the news this week. There’s no police investigation to report on, hence nothing driving the story. Plus, (The) Ben has the preseason to get used to defenders and opposing fans yelling stupid shit like “RAPISTBERGER!” at him. Not to say it can’t be a distraction, but it doesn’t look to be a huge one when any trial wouldn’t take place until this time next year.

]]> http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2009/07/ksk-2009-nfl-prekkake-afc-north.html/feed 37 http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2009/06/15823.html http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2009/06/15823.html#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:30:21 +0000 Christmas Ape http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/?p=15823 SOON THEY’LL ELECT A UNIBROW TO BE MAYOR. The Bawlmer Orioles Beisbol Club selected Mike Flacco, the younger brother of one Joe Flacco, in the 31st round of the MLB Draft. Before you know it, all Jersey inhabitants will be called upon to save Baltimore sports. However, upon further inspection, Mike doesn’t seem to have as prominent a unibrow as his older brother, but he did play for a baseball team that borrowed the Buzzsaw logo. FIX YO BIRD ALLEGIANCE!

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