NFL MMVI

Great, though the game itself no longer matters. The owners are more concerned with stadium naming rights. The powers that be have just climbed over each other to tell outgoing commissioner Paul Tagliabue how great he is and how much he advanced the game. He did not. He advanced the league revenue. The game has deteriorated. Teams are no longer teams; they are annual collections of athletic mercenaries.

The businesses coat tailing the NFL don’t care so much about the game, either. On Tuesday, August 22, 2006, (just over two weeks before the start of the NFL season) the headline for the Sports Illustrated’s web site’s NFL page was “Game Time”—a headline about Madden NFL 07 video game being released. The headline on the main Sports Illustrated site was “The King of the Running Backs?”—a story about whom to choose first in your fantasy football draft.

Gosh, I’m tired of reading about fantasy football. Actually, I don’t read about fantasy football. I’m just bombarded with articles and predictions about fantasy football. Gosh, I’m tired of not reading about fantasy football. Here’s all you need to know about fantasy football: the players whom you will want for your fantasy football team this year.

Clinton Portis: This guy dresses up in costumes for press conferences. In the antiseptic NFL-stands-for-No-Fun-League era, you have to enjoy this kind of thing while it lasts.

Chad Johnson: Chad once sent the defensive backs of his next opponent some Pepto-Bismol. His team lost the game, but, golly, that was fun to hear.

Hines Ward: he’s from South Korea. How many other NFL players can make that claim?

Nate Kaeding: I’m Nate Kaeding on this.

Of course, it doesn’t end with the fantasy league draft. You know how that scroll on the bottom of the television screen tells us scores from other games? And sometimes the scores are interrupted by meaningless bits of information like Jac F. Taylor 4 rush 28 yds. That’s fantasy football’s fault. There is no other reason anyone would care Jacksonville’s Fred Taylor ran four times for 28 yards. It’s not so bad in the third quarter of the early games, but when it’s late in the fourth quarter of the late games, we don’t have that time to waste. Unless, of course, you have internet access. BUT, if you’re going to assume everyone has internet access, why are you cluttering the screen with any of that nonsense anyway?

Enough about Fantasy Football. Let’s talk about who will lose how many games this season.

Last year, I started a new trend in football prognostication. Instead of predicting the division champions and Super Bowl champions, I predicted the division cellar-dwellers and the team to be awarded the first overall draft pick. (If I’m going to be wrong, I’d like to be wrong in a unique way.) I was correct on 4 of them (included 1 which tied for last place). Two of predicted cellar-dwellers ended up in the playoffs. Oops. My predicted first overall draft pick team ended up in slot 12. Oops, again. By the way, I say I started this venue of football prognostication so that, when I run for President in 2008, the Swift Boaters (by whatever name they’re go by in 2008) will run ads saying I claimed to have invented the NFL draft.

So far, the lot for 2007 NFL draft doesn’t appear too great--cool name-wise. For the 2006 draft, we had AJ Hawk, Kader Drame, Dartangon Shack, Banks Floodman, Carlton Brewster, etc. For the 2007 draft, we have Victor DeGrate, Dallas Sartz, Marcus Mark (I like that name!), and that Joe Person from Navy among others as seniors. If only there were a Loser DeBum to match up with Victor DeGrate. I don’t know what underclassmen will declare for the draft. I got the information on seniors from Sports Illustrated’s NCAA division I-A team preview pages. We’ll see what seniors I missed and what underclassman show up, but it’s not looking too bright. I will say it’s unfortunate North Texas and Northern Illinois don’t play this year. I’d like to see the Philip Graves --Doug Free match up.

As a disclaimer: of those 2006 draft names I mentioned, only AJ Hawk is on an NFL active roster at the publication of this essay.

So forget and prognostication regarding Super Bowl XLI. Here are my Cellar Dweller predictions for this season.

AFC East: New York Jets
AFC North: Baltimore Ravens
AFC South: Houston Texans
AFC West: Kansas City

NFC East: Washington
NFC North: Green Bay Packers
NFC South: New Orleans Saints
NFC West: Arizona Cardinals

Team “On the Clock (TM)” for NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting LXXII: Green Bay Packers

See you April 28, 2007 in New York!

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© 2006, Mark Wentz