Oh, man. This is one awful slate of 4PM games. And we just had two five-star matchups in the 1PM slot. I hate it when the schedule is poorly balanced like this. Anyhoo, here we go with your late games:

Philly at Oakland: I have three Eagles starting in this game, and that still feels like an inadequate amount. I’d start Freddie Mitchell against the Raiders if he were still on the roster. Only Eagle not worth starting? Michael Vick. Because his presence on the Eagles is pointless, you see.

Arizona at Seattle: Uff vs. Leitch. Ufford spent four days in Vegas this week. FOUR DAYS. No one stays who in Vegas for longer than two days is ever pleased they did.

Tennessee at New England: I dropped Fred Taylor right before he put up 100 and touch the other week. Now he’s having surgery. PAYBACK’S A BITCH, FRED.

Bills at Jets: I was invited to attend this game. The forecast for the New York area today is 40’s and rain. I think staying home to bake blondies was a wise decision. Oh, blondies. You have my heart.

NY Giants at New Orleans A match-up of undefeateds and a possible NFC Championship game preview. The Saints have been impressive on both sides of the ball this season, while the Giants have generally feasted on inferior competion. However, I am of the “show-and-prove” school of thought. The Giants are the proven commodity here until the Saints knock them off. Asked about his first professional game in the city where he grew up, Eli Manning said “This is the building where Daddy used to play. Why does it smell like pee-pee?”

Baltimore at Minnesota After starting 3-0, the Ravens will be hard pressed to avoid their third straight loss. Meanwhile, Vikes WR Bernard Berrian briefly tweeted a picture of a nekkid lady in the shower. Unfortunately for us, he yanked it shortly thereafter, explaining that it was posted by mistake. Sarah Spain recreates the picture in question on her blog, although not in the manner you might hope :( I bet it was just like “Catholic High School Girls in Trouble” (nsfw, duh).

Houston at Cincinnati The Bengals’ home sellout streak reaches 47 games today, thanks in no small part to Chad Ochocinco and his corporate friends at Motorola. The Texans disappointing 2-3 start owes largely to an abysmal running game. If you don’t believe me, just ask the guy in your fantasy league that drafted Steve Slaton. Protip: avoid drafting midgets in early rounds.

Detroit at Green Bay After some picked Green Bay to make it to the Super Bowl this season, they’ve stumbled to a 2-2 start, largely due to a anemic offensive line. Fortunately for the Pack, they had last week off and will face push-overs such as the Lions, Browns and Buccaneers over the next four games. Matthew Stafford won’t be playing today. So if you were considering whether to start him… your season is already FUBAR and you should probably just drink heavily.

Cleveland at Pittsburgh Steelers RB Rashard Mendenhall will start today despite having the flu all week. Normally this would be cause for concern, but they’re playing the doo-doo Browns. Pittsburgh could start Rocky Bleier and they would still win. NFL Network showed`Big Ben arriving at Heinz Stadium today wearing a Bob Marley tshirt. “HARF HARF, Ben liked dog movie.”

Carolina at Tampa Bay While today’s slate of early games represent a considerable improvement over last week, the bottom of the schedule it still pretty dreadful. See e.g. ….

Kansas City at Washington “This pot is so good right now.”- Chris Cooley, on NFL Network, showing off the pottery wheel and artwork he keeps in his garage. Apparently, the Redskins tight end is really into making vases and what have you. Mr. & Mrs. Cooley aren’t the most inhibited couple so I was half-expecting to see their version of “Ghost”. No dice.

St. Louis at Jacksonville The Jags were violated by the Seahawks 41-0 last week. Look for them to take their frustrations out on St. Louis. One of the best burns in football history was back in the 90s when then-49er Ken Norton, Jr. referred to their hapless division rival as “the same ol’ sorry ass Rams”. That tag stuck for quite a while before fading from memory as the “The Greatest Show on Turf” rose to prominence. But now we have our SOSA Rams back. Long live the Same Ol’ Sorry Ass Rams!

Enjoy the games. Drew will be around later for the 4pm tilt.

[ Images via and via. ]

The Colts are back on prime time television for the third time this season, and thank god, because I was beginning to forget what Peyton Manning looks like. Tonight’s match up isn’t exactly the gem it was supposed to be when the schedule came out, but it can’t be much worse than the average Week 5 game. Jesus, even the close afternoon games made me want to drink bleach.

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Cleveland Browns fan John Thompson, better known by his nom de fatass “Big Dawg”, has apparently reached a settlement with “Madden NFL” manufacturer Electronic Arts. Thompson, the living embodiment of every negative Cleveland stereotype, sued EA over its use of his likeness (i.e. husky man in a dog mask) in their video games. Congratulations, sir, hopefully the settlement will cover your fines, legal fees and court costs in your OTHER legal matter. [makes "drinky, drinky motion ] If you have a few minutes, you owe it to yourself to cruise the comments in that cleveland.com article. [Thanks to miamidiesel for the link.]

Now a look at a god-awful crop of early games…

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“Geezus hell, son. What is the name of f-ckall is that thing your face?
You didn’t let my boy Sanchez take you down Tiajuanee way didja?”

A clash of undefeateds headline an otherwise ho-hum slate of late afternoon games. There is a glorious silver lining, but I’m saving that for the end of the post. First, a look at the match-ups:
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Sorry Bob, coffee is for closers and Gatorade is for players.

I’m taking a break from calling all Las Vegas area hospitals in a search for a presumably suicidal Unsilent Majority to bring you the SNF open thread. Tonight the Colts are making their first trip to Arizona since 1990 (Jeff George! Timm Rosenbach!).
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Since I have kids, I usually get up at 7AM every day these days, if not earlier. That means I gotta wait SIX GODDAMN HOURS BEFORE any real football is played.

/door flies open

/smug Californian brags about being able to watch the games at 10AM, then having the night free to sip white wine on the veranda

/smug Californian disappears up own large intestine

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It cost a billion dollars. It will stand for centuries. It will inspire children to grow into succesful adults. It will cure your erectile dysfunction. It will make you a sandwich while you watch reruns of Night Court.

NBC wasn’t satisfied with their preseason mouth-party for the Cowboy’s new stadium, so we get round two tonight. What the networks haven’t figured out yet is that no one outside of fans of Latin America’s team gives a rat’s ass about a new stadium. So prepare yourself for the onslaught of useless information about Jerral Jones’ monument to his own ego. (”Y’know Al, this stadium has enough square footage to hold 4.5 trillion extra-wide magenta neckties. That’s enough to keep Keyshawn Johnson looking like a foppish prick until the sun collapses into a singularity.”)

A crowd of over 100,000 is expected tonight, however most of them will be so far away that the echos of the cheers aren’t expected to reach the field until sometime Tuesday morning. That’s not to say that Dallas won’t enjoy a home-field advantage, as Eli Manning is known to be distracted by shiny objects.

Feel free to put all of your insightful observations in the comments below. Unless, of course, you’d rather spend the evening preparing baked goods.

BOOM! You were NOT expecting to see Nightmare Roethlisberger, were you?

To answer your collective question: No, there is no live-blog tonight. We’re all drinking in bars and celebrating the beginning of Buffalo wing season. In fact, if you look in the right Steelers bar in D.C., you’ll be able to find KSK quorum (KSKworum?).

But consider this your open thread to bitch about the song used for the intro, the announcers, the commercials, the refereeing, the retarded-looking fans in the stands, and/or the complete lack of cheerleaders. Thanks, Pittsburgh. Way to not have attractive women.

Tonight marks the debut of VH1’s The T.O. Show, which promises to offer a more intimate look at Terrell Owens with the help of his co-stars Monique Jackson and Kita Williams. The two publicists share the unenviable task of trying to humanize the NFL’s preeminent diva as he searches for love, happiness, and a place to live in the vast wasteland that is Buffalo.

As much as I want to dismiss the show as more tripe from an obnoxious personality and an unwatchable network I maintain a slight sliver of hope that this could be worthwhile. How long it takes them to quash that hope is anyone’s guess.

Consider this an open-thread to discuss the episode. I’ll post my running commentary in the morning, assuming I don’t swallow a bottle of hydrocodone to numb my disappointment.

In other TO news, guess who has a new cereal? That’s right, now you can start your day with a big bowl of TO’s (”Flesh-Eating Bacteria In Every Box!”), the most generic Buffalo Bill endorsed cereal since Flutie Flakes!

Other programming note of interest: Tonight is the season finale of Spike TV’s 4th and Long hosted by Michael Irvin. I’d make a joke about being all excited to find which player will win the honor of being cut by the Cowboys after the second day of training camp, but Ufford beat me to it.