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.

Keyshawn and the ESPN crew won’t be able to ruin this moment until next season

Joe Flacco finally posted a halfway competent outing in a playoff game. It helps when the opposition neglects to cover the entire middle of the field. Nevertheless, good on you, Unibrow. Glad you were able to build confidence early with crisp intentional groundings to the sideline net.

And someone tell Ray Rice that it’s only worthwhile to steal LaToeInjury’s touchdown celebration if you’re playing his team and taunting him. Otherwise you’re just a rank BITERRRRRRR.

And now Kansas City closes in on two full decades without a playoff win and the shame of trying to determine what exactly this rotund creature should be called and, moreover, how to appease it before it consumes us all.

Meanwhile the Jets and Ravens advance to play teams with an overwhelming recent history of ownage against them. Hope you’re ready for the hate to overfloweth this week.

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.

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!

The two most hyped teams that aren’t the Packers coming into this season now face off with… I’d say bragging rights on the line, but both of these teams talk massive loads of shit whether they’re actually winning or not. So let’s just say they’re playing to vindicate all the talk we’ve heard about them the last few months.

The Jets, of course, found themselves embroiled in a few scandals this week, one involving an illicit West Coast training exercise that an anonymous team (DEFINITELY NOT THE PATRIOTS) reported to the league and the another in which a TV Azteca reporter said she was sexually harassed by Jets players when she visited a team practice over the weekend. Normally, that might be something to be condemned, but the New York Post said it was all really quite sexy.

And I don’t really have a neat way to segue into this, but reader Adam sent us this nice Suggs bleaching Photoshop and I’d probably be remiss not to include it.

The late game tonight pits the Chiefs against Marmalard and his new non-LaToeInjury running back. It seems like the Chargers play in the late Monday night game on opening week every year, but upon further review it’s only been the last two seasons. Another joke my feeble mind is playing on me. The live blog crew will presumably be covering that one as well, provided they don’t get black out drunk first, naturally.

The Wall Street Journal takes a moment away from cranking out my pointillism portrait to remind us that the Cleveland Browns of Baltimore were almost named the Baltimore Marauders, which rolls off the tongue similarly enough to “murderers” to just maybe work. But, alas, the team took the name of a scavenger bird that figured heavily in a famous short story poem written by an author who had little connection to Baltimore other than the fact that he was buried in it. Unless, of course, they took their name from that WCW wrestler, which, while quizzical, but would explain a lot of the sulking of the fanbase. Or Raven Symone, who, like Ray Lewis, started out as a charming little girl, but then killed some folks (I’m assuming. She does work for Disney) and gained way too much weight.

/Charm City looks okay when you’re driving past it on 95
//that’s a lie; it still looks wretched
///has no use for Baltimore other than to make tasteless jokes about Chinasaurus