It wasn’t quite the dramatic collapse that made the first meeting between the Giants and the Cowboys so memorably hilarious, but Dallas failed to fall on enough giftwrapped New York fumbles that I barely minded. Romo’s swollen purple sausage fingers threatened to make a game of it in the second half, but Dallas did as Dallas does, which is derp so Dallas-y. The 4th and 1 attempt where the Cowboys rushed to the line to catch the Giants defense off guard only to get stuffed, leaving Romo to spring up pathetically screaming at the referees about the spot? Magnifique.

Amazing too was this, the most Romo of all things. Were there a dictionary that supported GIFs, that would be awesome if somewhat impractical. It’s a hoary cliche to suggest images belong with the definition to certain terms, but let me get all hoary cliche on you because this near desperation fumble ruled as a sack is Romo to all get-out.

[Watches on loop until I lose my job and have my power cut]

NBC felt it necessary to include a swatch of salsa music to coincide immediately with a Victor Cruz touchdown. It makes sense because Cruz whips out the salsa dance with each score and because NBC Sports’ stock in trade is being the worst whenever possible. That NBC had the music ready, not for a slow motion replay going into commercial, but the actual live dance, is a level of contempt for your audience I’m not capable of processing.

Laurent Robinson mocked the salsa following the Cowboys’ second score, but it apparently wasn’t impressive enough for NBC to package it with Savio Vega’s theme music.

Come-Get-Some, Atlanta will in the early game next Sunday. That and the Steelers-Tebow Time tilt will be the two games getting the KSK live blogification treatment in the Wild Card round, seeing as how I work Saturdays and have little other choice. Not that I really to be glued to my computer for the Bengals-Texans mess and the Saints’ inevitable blowout of the Lions.

We totally forgot to do a Meast & Least post for the Week 4 games, so allow us to correct that now. We’re pleased to announce that Tony Romo has once again won the Jeff George Memorial Least of the Week. He can put this one on the mantle next to his Week 1 Least, and as I write this a blitzing linebacker is approaching Romo’s blindside to knock the Week 2 Meast trophy out of his hands. After he retires, his most lasting legacy may be a collection of pictures of him lying on the ground in anguish.

Seriously, it’s HARD WORK to blow a 24-point second half lead. AT HOME. But three interceptions (two of them pick-sixes) will get the job done. As someone who drafted the Lions D in two fantasy leagues, I thank you, Tony Romo. Keep blowing games in memorable fashion. It’s incredibly fun to watch.

Your Meast from Week:

29-38 for 408 yards, 4 TDs and 1 INT; 9 rushes for 36 yards and 2 TDs. If he’s on your fantasy team, you won. If you played against him, you lost. He’s really fucking good.

In closing, we also realize that it’s Friday afternoon, so here are a couple of Cowboys cheerleaders photographed during Romo’s meltdown. They look almost as happy as I was!

We’ll see you Sunday!

Wooftastic derpfest, all around. Between Steelers-Colts and tonight’s game, this was a banner week for closely contested football of extremely poor quality in primetime. We are a nation in need of flex.

For our three hours of viewership, we were awarded with nine field goals, four turnovers and a touchdown pass in the flat to Tim Hightower that was still almost dropped. Oh, and an inexhaustible amount of Tony Romo fluffing. Yes, yes, the ESPN booth is packed to the gills with starf*ckers, so we shouldn’t be surprised. But the herculean lengths that Jaws went to to excuse Romo for every Cowboys mistake. He wouldn’t even try that hard to save his family from a burning building. Unless Romo accidentally started the fire and Jaws didn’t want Romo blamed for any fatalities. Possibly then.

Let’s use for an example, say, an underthrown ball in the end zone to Marty B. Marty is covered by a DB at least eight inches shorter than him. Rather than throw a jump ball, Romo tries to drill it in Bennett’s chest.

SPIN IT JAWS: “Martellus Bennett simply has to anticipate that his quarterback is suffering from a rib injury and is therefore unlikely to get the ball where it needs to be. Disappointing effort there by the tight end.”

AND THIS 30 SECONDS OF CRAZY STRAW QUAFFING FROM ROMO’S URETHRA WHEN THE COWBOYS TOOK THE LEAD! NOT ONE SOLITARY TOUCHDOWN SCORED! AND YET THIS! GAHHHHHHHH!

I will grant that not every mistake was on Romo. See? Fairness! Phil Costa is already being mishandled into an unmarked grave outside Cowboys Stadium. We will forever remember the best two-yard gain ever, however. Your legacy lives on, Costa.

Anyway, back to Romo and how odious he is. OH THE MATURITY! OUTWARDLY BLAMING HIS TEAMMATES ON NEAR PEYTON-ESQUE LEVELS! WAH WAH WAHHHHH!

If only you’d have had one more drive in you, Rexy. Or one fewer fumble. Either way, this will probably trigger a sequence of events that leads to John Beck starting miserably in a few weeks, because, as we know, nothing fun can stay.

Because I live in the podunk ville of New York City, Time Warner is the only cable option I have. DirecTV isn’t available to me, and TWC doesn’t even carry the NFL Network. Unless I go to a sports bar, I get stuck with a Jets-Giants doubleheader every Sunday. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had the fortune of experiencing the football-viewing Valhalla that is the RedZone Channel. I ache to watch the RedZone Channel; I walk through autumn feeling less than whole.

On Sunday, I spent most of the day — 11 a.m. on the West Coast until 8 p.m. on East Coast — on a flight from San Francisco to New York because it’s 2011 and BITCHES ARE STILL GETTING MARRIED DURING FOOTBALL SEASON. But it wasn’t so bad: I fly JetBlue, so I had the comforts of live TV — the delightful Pittsburgh-Baltimore ass-stomping on CBS, Philly at St. Louis on Fox, and even some Rugby World Cup on NBC for when both games were in commercials. I had no complaints.

Things slowed down in the afternoon: Giants-Redskins was the only game available, and I didn’t have a fantasy rooting interest on either team. Frankly, it sucked. Unless they’re fumbling and throwing picks, Rex Grossman and Eli Manning are boring in their mediocrity. But then, with ten minutes left in the 4th quarter, I noticed something: the guy across the aisle from me was watching Seahawks-49ers. I tapped him on the shoulder and asked him how he was getting a different game.

“RedZone Channel,” he said. My eyes went wide. “Scroll up into the 30s, it’s there instead of TV Land.”

Sure enough, it was right there on the channel usually earmarked for TV Land. I had watched almost FIVE HOURS of NFL games I didn’t necessarily want to watch when the RedZone Channel was mere clicks away. I was crestfallen. Heartbroken. Inconsolable. It was like I’d slept the entire flight and woken up at landing to realize that I’d been seated next to Kate Upton the entire time. DEVASTATING.

I’m not kidding when I say this is probably one of the top ten biggest regrets of my life. Fucking hell, JetBlue. Have your flight attendants announce that shit.

Your Meast of the Week is Terrell Suggs, who had three sacks and two forced fumbles in the Ravens’ unlubed raping of the Steelers. Other Meast candidates were Cam Newton, Sebastian Janikowski, Tedd Ginn, and Tom Brady, but they were disqualified for losing, being a kicker, playing the Seahawks, and being Tom Brady, respectively. Besides, making Suggs the Meast takes credit away from Ray Lewis, and we always enjoy that.

Your Least of the Week:

Tony Romo! Let’s go to the AP for this one:

Twice in the final 10 minutes Sunday night, all Romo had to do was throw the ball away, or simply fall down. Had he done the smart, safe thing on either play, the Dallas Cowboys likely would’ve come away with a stunning start to their season.

Instead, he fumbled 3 yards from the end zone and threw an interception that set up a field goal…

“I cost us a football game,” Romo said afterward.

Seriously, that’s impressive work. A lot of players — say, Roman Harper, Donovan McNabb, Bryant McFadden –need a full 60 minutes of shitty play to cost their team the game. Tony Romo can do it in less than ten. We don our commemorative 9/11 gloves to salute you, sir. NEVER FORGET.

Our very own Christmas Ape screencapped the finest image of Week 7: a broken and discarded Tony Romo, looking very much like a fallen GODDAM STAR.

As proven by the libelous imagery at With Leather, there’s a great deal of fun to be had with this picture. To the Photoshopmobile!

UPDATE! Grimey from LOL Jocks added this masterpiece:

SECOND UPDATE: Another one from Ape.

“No, Mr. Romo — I expect you to miss the playoffs.”

Yes. Yesssssss. Share with us the magic markers of unfathomable sadness. Don’t worry, Jon Kitna has a lot of sternly worded homilies to share with you about the hidden advantages of hardship.

Here are abandoned remains of your hero:

Stumbled on by a stray official wandering an emptied-out Cowboys Stadium. A once vibrant smile frozen in decaying flesh. This would be the opening shot of The Walking Dead in my version, just before Zombie Rom lunges into the refs’ neck.

Ha.

Haaaaaaaaaaaa.

Oh, you bandwagon assholes don’t care about baseball. That’s it – all my rooting interest is thrown behind that charming stoner Lincecum and his fat buddy Sandoval.

Oh, and Gruden can get stuffed for dubbing the Giants receiving corps “Jet Blue” then dimly explaining to the audience that, shucks, he was inspired by this random airline company that someone might have heard of. Double dickpunches to Tirico for boasting that JetBlue Tweeted a response to Jaws and Gruden to smartly take advantage of the stupid golden opportunity for free whoring.

Oh, you’re lucky your flights are cheap and you carry SundayTicket or this would convince me to pretend like I could consider more expensive flight options.

The alpaca message boards must be buzzing about this one.

Real Hollywood descended on Hollywood for Ugly People for the annual gala White House Media Compromising Their Own Objectivity For The Sake of a Cheap Status Affirmation Dinner. It’s a nice event to go to when people are trying to set bombs off in Times Square. Obama told Daily Show jokes. Egos were stroked. Everyone went away convinced of their own power.

More importantly, Tony Romo was caught in a photo with Zach Galifianakis, which is a wonderfully unexpected celebrity juxtaposition. I’m a little disappointed, as it looks like they are only between ONE FERN. Why must you ruin Zach’s bit, Tony?

“LET’S NOT FORGET ABOUT ME JAWS! CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW RED MY FACE IS?! WOULD YOU EVER GUESS, IN A MILLION YEARS, THAT I’D BE MORE RED THAN MAUREEN DOWD? Maureen Dowd! This is one zany broad. She wrote that book, “Are Men Necessary?” WHAT KIND OF THING IS THAT? I got a book title for you, sweetie. It’s called “Are Floppy Tits Necessary?” Every page just has the word yes over and over.

Oh shit. Do I have to apologize again?”

That game? Woof. Nick Folk’s huge choke was all for naught. Damn, damn, damn it all. The Cowboys get to stay alive and the Saints lose? If there’s any consolation, the Saints blemish will make the Colts choke all more memorable and enjoyable. Pressure’s on, fat humps.

“Did you win because the Saints are not for real? I don’t know. Did you win because you’re taking the next step as a quarterback? I don’t know. Will I tongue cayenne pepper out of your asshole? That I do know.”

Much to the consternation of their fiery Latino fan-base, the Dallas Cowboys have seen disparate results in their four games this season. Before practice yesterday, quarterback Tony Romo admitted that what many see as a dream job can be vexing at times:

“[T]he quarterback and coach get a lot of the blame and a lot of the credit — whether that is right or wrong. I love to talk to Troy [Aikman] and some of the other guys just to … try and improve and to help yourself,” said Romo. “The neat thing when I talk to them is, they didn’t all have — it wasn’t all lollipops and chocolates and fun times along the way. It was a lot of hard work and effort and people beating you down. You have to have a stronger belief in yourself than the disbelief of others.”

 
The good news for Romo and the Cowboys is that they play the Chiefs this weekend–so everything should be gummy bears and unicorns and glitter for Romo this weekend. But beware: looming ahead is a visit to the Molasses Swamp (a/k/a Philadelphia).

 
via Blue Star

Fantasy owners in possession of Felix Jones or either starting defense have to be licking their chomps and lubricating their fists at the prospect of the forthcoming points SPLOSION. And that must be the way because I will not stand for this game being anything but an overblown comedy of errors, where turnovers abound, Marty B is mic’d up and irate people in the overbooked Party Pass sections in the new Cowboys stadium turn to mob violence to exact revenge on the muckety-mucks who heap disdain upon them from their fancy “seats” with “views of the field”. But these raging Dallas untouchables don’t count on the cage dancers being heavily armed and trained by Mossad. Just when it can’t get more bizarre, out come the C.H.U.D.s.