NFL's most disappointing teams

We're past the halfway mark of the season and we know that the Saints are good and the Browns could win their remaining games and STILL be the worst team to ever play tackle football.

But sports blogs don't care about good teams. The media -- or in this case, a blog -- likes champions or complete, utter fuckups...like the Browns. It's not very fun to talk about how the Saints' defense is vastly improved or Adrian Peterson could run for a 150-yard touchdown because he's THAT good. We want losers, underachievers and misery.

While the Browns are mind-fuckingly fucking awful, we all knew that they'd be mind-fuckingly fucking awful. Others who have already thrown in the towel in 2009 weren't expecting such bad things.

Some teams that come to mind:

-Buffalo (3-6)
-Washington (3-6)
-Tennessee (3-6)
-Seattle (3-6)
-Chicago (4-5)
-Baltimore (5-4; two wins are over the Browns which don't count. Another is over the Chiefs which also doesn't count. So the Ravens are actually 2-4).

Somehow we feel that Chicago might be the most disappointing of all. The Bears were 9-7 last season, just missed the playoffs and did all of this with Kyle Orton and Rex Grossman at QB who don't count as real people. So they go out and get Jay Cutler who's good for throwing some touchdowns, nearly as many interceptions and being equally cocky doing both.

The Ravens, AFC Championship game contestants last season, have only two wins that matter (San Diego and Denver) and are in danger of missing the playoffs in the brutal AFC. The upcoming schedule doesn't help: Indy, two with the Steelers, Chicago and at Green Bay. They lose three of those and they'd be in real trouble.

Your most disappointing teams? Do tell in the comments...

Jason Snelling scored a touchdown yesterday. We know that because of NFL RedZone, the coolest thing to happen to the NFL since the forward pass

We just ordered the Comcast sports package which is AWESOME! Five bucks a month for NFL Network, Big 10 Network, CBS College, a bunch of regional FSN channels, some other, less awesome channels and the newly-launched NFL RedZone, the coolest thing to happen to the NFL since the forward pass (which we told you in the headline but merits a second mention BECAUSE IT'S SO AWESOME!).

As the network's slogan says, viewers see "every touchdown from every game," hence the Jason Snelling touchdown from the Falcons-Panthers game. Scott Hanson, the network's host, acts as a facilitator, monitoring every game throughout the day and tapping in to the broadcast of the game -- or games. "Let's go double-box!" was about every third phrase out of Hanson's mouth -- with the most important play or drive.

There are no commercials and only highlights when every live game is at commercial. We probably saw less than five huddles all day; the network will take you to a different game after an incomplete pass, challenge, etc.

Our only knock on this football-viewing bonanza is that you miss the context of most games. You don't see many third-down plays, turnovers or long-yardage plays (like kick returns) since they aren't anticipated as being of interest.

But we're going to watch this every Sunday and never miss a touchdown ever again.

Also: The "network" airs for seven hours a week, from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. on Sunday. We find that incredibly cool.

The Madden Curse now applies to real companies with real people who once had real jobs

We all know about the Madden Curse and how it turns a once healthy player into someone as brittle as a toothpick structure. Look at Shaun Alexander. He hurts his foot and seemingly forgets how to move more than two steps without falling down.

But once a running joke and eerie string of coincidences has started affecting real people. EA Sports is taking all sorts of financial hits.

Electronic Arts said Monday that it lost $391 million in its fiscal second quarter and will lay off 1,500 people.

EA's loss widened from last year's $310 million in red ink. But on an adjusted basis, EA earned $19 million compared with a loss of $20 million last year. Revenue was down 12% to $788 million.

People losing jobs is not funny. Real shit, man.

What is funny: Michael Vick, Ray Lewis, Donovan McNabb, Vince Young, Brett Favre and Troy Polamalu. You get the drift.

[The Hollywood Reporter via Ben Maller]

The train wreck that is the Washington Redskins

Very funny sign! Good work, 'Skins fans! Too bad this got you kicked out of the stadium because Dan Snyder is now controlling free speech.

Still, is Snyder the one to blame? He throws money at problems and makes some costly signings, yet are you complaining about Albert Haynesworth, D.C.? Think Zorn might be the right scapegoat in this situation.

There is talent on this team. Sorta. More than a lot of the better teams in this league. Yet the Redskins, along with the Raiders, are the most hopeless organization in football.

But clever fans. Yeah, bring out the paper bags next home game! Though the sign police might make you switch to plastic...

[Mr. Irrelevant via Busted Coverage]

Alex Smith is good? Young Alex Smith is good?

Young Alex Smith was a nice punching bag for our jokes to land as this site launched in late 2005. He was the big-money guy who played like a guy, well, who couldn't hold onto the football very well.

Humor turned into sympathy as the guy could never really latch on. Hard to feel bad for a guy worth nearly $50 million, but the guy tried hard, failed, got hurt, continued to fail and then became a backup to Shaun Hill who is recognizable in about 4% of the country.

Is the Alex Smith we saw in Sunday's 24-21 loss to Houston the one that was worthy of a top pick? Pretty early to tell. Don Banks' snap judgment might say so. Not sure about his clock management, though.

We're relatively excited that Vernon Davis and Michael Crabtree -- two draft picks, unlike Smith, we were totally stoked about on Draft Day -- are becoming significant pieces of the passing game. (That probably constitutes a snap judgment on the Crabtree front).

Not so excited that the Niners have lost two in a row (and haven't won in three weeks). And at Indy next week. Eesh.

Ronnie Brown, with a hotel, is gonna cost you a pretty penny

Fantastic work by The Pigskin Doctors to come up with this amazing Monopoly Board of running backs by committee.

We've always been a huge fan of the yellow-green corner, though the Ravens'-Cowboys' tandem ain't gonna cut it.

Can always win on the railroads, too. The New England Patriots are always winners...

Bottom line: build, build, build. Even Jerome Harrison with a hotel will fuck you.

[Via Hot Clicks]

Briefly

I've put my finger on those Broncos uniforms: it looks like the University of Alabama football helmet, the late 80s San Diego Padres and zebras had one too many tequila shots. (And then had a threesome).

Meanwhile the Broncos remain undefeated and the NFL's most successful surprise. The Titans, at 0-6, would be at the other end of that spectrum.

Just when you think you've got things figured out, the Raiders look like a professional football team

Head in hands: Philly loses to the lowly Raiders

The thing in professional sports, we guess, that just doesn't happen in the college game are these tremendous surprises. Perhaps it's because of parity and salary caps and the fact that there are only a handful of teams in the league. But in college football, for example, you wouldn't see the most hapless team in the league beat a top-15 team.

In the NFL, though, anything goes. There are some truly awful teams that go out on a weekly basis and embarrass themselves and their fanbases.

But then shit like this happens. The pathetic Raiders just put it together for one day and beat a team that is far superior in every aspect of the game. It's the true definition of "upset," sure. When a one-win team beats a one-loss team in Week 6, it doesn't even seem like much. But the Raiders are AWFUL! Like never-win-another-game-ever awful. Then the defense kicks in, they get a big play and somehow score more points after 60 minutes than the other team. Shocking. Raiders lose by 21 next week...

The 10 Worst NFL Teams

We already noted how 2009 has some of the most awful-est, worst-est teams ever in the NFL. Parity has come and gone and now you have about 20 decent teams and the 10 others you get healthy on.

10. Buffalo (1-4)


Think: if Leodis McKelvin holds onto the ball, the Bills are, somehow, 7-0 and have already clinched a first-round bye.

9. Carolina (1-3)


All losses are against possible playoff teams, yet the Panthers' sole win is against the Redskins who just lost to the New York Yankees.

8. Tennessee (0-5)


Likely to be 0-6 after traveling to Foxborough, but three of the losses have come against Jets, Colts and Steelers. Wonder if Jeff Fisher will shave the mustache to "shake things up."

7. Detroit (1-4)


They're competitive. More than you can say about some of the two-win teams. But they're the Lions. Bad things find this team. Matthew Stafford will get a self-inflicted knee injury next week that will take 10 years to rehab.

6. Washington (2-3)


The 'Skins are perhaps the worst 2-3 team -- which could easily be 3-3 after next week's home game against the Chiefs -- ever. They haven't played a team with a win at the time! Close wins over Tampa and St. Louis aren't gonna cut it. The worst organization not named the Raiders.

5. Tampa Bay (0-5)


The Bucs can't catch a break. They're absolutely dreadful, yet could go winless and still NOT get the first pick in the 2010 Draft.

4. Cleveland (.5-3)


A 6-3 win over Buffalo doesn't constitute a full victory. Not another winnable game until Nov. 22 (at Detroit). The real question becomes: Sam Bradford or Colt McCoy?

3. Kansas City (0-5)


Jared Allen could really be helping that defense right about now... But, hey, the Chiefs get Oakland again in about a month.

2. St. Louis (0-5)


On the bright side, the Rams held the Redskins to just nine points. Defense wins championships.

1. Oakland (1-4)


How can you say the Raiders are worse than the Chiefs? Call us prophetic, but Oakland might never win a game ever again. EVER. AGAIN. Horrible management, a coach who may or may not have threatened to kill another coach, and a QB who might be the biggest bust ever. This is like watching a combination of an awful high-school team and a train wreck.

Oh, here comes Michael Crabtree to make us want him again

Michael Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker could meet with 49ers brass as soon as today to discuss contract talks.

A Monday afternoon posting on ESPN.com indicated Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker are on their way to San Francisco to "renew contract talks" with the 49ers.

See? The blockquote means it's not just sloppy reporting by an Internet site.

Most likely Crabtree and Parker will be on one side of the table, the 49ers executives will be on the other and they'll look deep into each other's eyes without saying as much as hello.

Crabtree: I want number six money.
49ers: We'll give you five years, $20 million with 16 mil guaranteed.
Crabtree: (whispers to agent) No.
49ers: Ok.
[5 minutes pass without talking]
Crabtree: How 'bout number seven money?
49ers: Thanks for coming by, Mike.

Of course there is a slight chance that the Niners will cave because Isaac Bruce and Arnaz Battle aren't exactly cutting it. If Crabtree does get his No. 6 money and completely foils the NFL's whole "slotting" system, the league will probably implode and Wal-Mart will somehow be to blame.

Really?!

No, no, no.

I used to like your candy bar, but I don't anymore because that ad campaign is all sorts of wrong. I'm a Milky Way guy from here on out.

Are there usually this many teams that just absolutely suck?

Every year you have a team sorta like the 2008 Detroit Lions: just incapable of doing anything right.

It's much like that comedy-of-errors high-school football team. The team that has no shot of winning a game months before the season even starts; the same team that celebrates not getting shutout; the team that looks more forward to orange slices after the game than tackling the other team.

But this NFL landscape -- parity?! What parity?! -- sees many of those same teams where anything they do well is purely by chance.

You can look at the winless teams through four weeks, yet that doesn't even come close to telling the story.

Kansas City, St. Louis, Tennessee, Tampa, Carolina and Cleveland haven't won. All but the Titans are just awful, awful teams right now.

Add in one-win Oakland and Detroit and you have eight teams that are going to be battling VERY hard for the top pick and the rights to (likely) Sam Bradford.

We honestly can't remember when there were soooo many atrocious teams. Like very, very bad. Seriously, scheduling aside, we could have multiple winless and one-win teams this season. The Browns and Raiders could battle to a 0-0 tie on Dec. 27. Tampa and Carolina on Oct. 18 could be epic as in "epic fail."

Feel bad for the top players in the 2010 draft. They are going to be playing for losers among losers for the foreseeable future.

We expect our friends at The Hater Nation to have a field day with this soon.

Traitor, Iscariot, asshole...It's Packers-Vikings week

Minnesota and the Miracle Vikings host the Packers this week. Not as exciting as Nov. 1 will be when Favre returns to Green Bay, but you know some Packers defenders are gonna go for Favre's knees this week.

Niners fans sure want that to be the case after he put the finishing touches on a horrible weekend in Bay Area sports. You lucky sonuvabitch.

For the Cheeseheads that make the trek to Vikingville, they'll be decked out in some of the shirts above and the others that The Angry T found.

Will Favre eventually retire a Packer? He's got to. But after this charade, he might not be welcomed back.

Hey, ya know, Joe Posnanski has a point

SI's Joe Posnanski and of the cleverly named blog, Joe Posnanski, one of the more tortured sports fans in the public spectrum, writes in his latest column that while it sounds hyperbolic, Eric Mangini might be the worst coaching hire ever. And he sure as hell has an argument.

I'm actually starting to believe that Mangini really was the worst head coach hire in 25 years. Remember:

1. Mangini had just been fired in New York, where he had done a terrible job. He had a losing record. His team had collapsed down the stretch, he had alienated his players, he was a pain in the neck to deal with. Point is: He'd already PROVEN how much damage he could do as a coach.

2. He came right out of the school of Bill Belichick ... and that didn't work THE FIRST TIME in Cleveland. It seems to me that Cleveland is a working-class town and Browns fans want a working-class coach -- not some pompous know-it-all who doesn't feel like he should have to explain to the commoners what he's doing.

3. What had he ever done to convince anyone he could be a head coach in the first place? Why, because he was a defensive coordinator for the Patriots under Belichick for one season? The Browns had JUST HIRED Romeo Crennel, who was ALSO defensive coordinator under Belichick. Attention Cleveland Browns owners, here's a good hint: BILL BELICHICK IS HIS OWN DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR.

4. Basically the first thing Mangini did -- first thing -- was have them tear down a mural of great Cleveland Browns players on the wall in the Browns offices. Now, there are differing opinions about what really happened, whose fault it really was, does it all matter, etc. You know what? The Cleveland Browns have never been to a Super Bowl. Never. Not one. But Browns fans still have a whole lot of pride. Browns fans grow up on a glorious history. If you allow something stupid like that to happen on your watch ... just a horrendous hire.

Other bad hires that were compared to Mangini include: Art Shell, Bobby Petrino, Jim Zorn, Steve Spurrier, Raheem Morris, Tom Cable, Rich Kotite (RICH KOTITE!), Scott Linehan and Marty Mornhinweg. Posnanski rebuts all of those pretty factually.

We'd love to throw Norv Turner (hired by anyone) into that hat. He's turned the most talented team in the league into a perennial playoff bust. The Niners hiring Dennis Erickson was also pretty bad.

Worse NFL hire ever? Your arguments in the comments, please.

Well this was inevitable...

Can't believe it took us this long to find a fan wearing a Wayne Chrebet jersey. Jeez...the guy was practically a legend...

Some one drew a dick on Leodic McKelvin's lawn

Scary when professional athletes' homes are the subject of vandalism and draws into question privacy issues as well as the line between a fan and a fucking idiot.

After Buffalo's fucking terrible loss Monday to those assholes from Boston, in which McKelvin couldn't hold onto the football, some one thought he should be reminded of it by defacing his lawn.

An artist's rendering is below:


Instead the vandal drew a penis and not a spaceship.

In South America you get killed for something like this. So some graffiti ain't exactly life-threatening, but it does draw into question the privacy of the players and all that bullshit that you can read on a website that is more politically correct.

Drawing penises is funny, as evident in Superbad, so maybe the vandal was Jonah Hill or some one else fascinated with drawing dicks. Regardless, McKelvin's privacy was violated, he needs to protect his family and he needs to learn how to fucking accept a touchback.

Worse Week-1 loss: Bengals or Bills?

The first game of the season has the potential to be the best day of the year for bad teams: It is likely the only time they won't have a losing record.

So for the Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills, two teams not expected to be competitive in 2009, Week 1 had the potential to be so uplifting that it could've altered the fate of their seasons. Both had commanding leads in the waning minutes. A 1-0 record within reach.

Then...disaster.

First this:



Then this:



BOTH. SEASONS. ARE. OVER.

That's probably a given. Those are unfathomable losses. But which is worse?

The Case for Cincinnati: The Bengals had a one-point lead with .28 seconds left after scoring a go-ahead touchdown and had Denver backed up inside the 15. And then they gave up one of the flukiest plays we've seen in a long while, which essentially ended the game. Cincinnati didn't even get a real shot to counter Denver's score.

The Case for Buffalo: They had the preseason Super Bowl favorite all-but beat. Up 24-13 with 5:32 to go, all the Bills had to do was not fuck things up. Then they fucked things up. After giving up a late score, Leodis McKelvin fielded the ensuing kickoff, didn't kneel it despite receiving the kick on his back foot in the end zone, then fought for extra yards which resulted in a fumble. The Pats recovered and did what the Pats do when they recover fumbles with about a minute left: They scored the fucking touchdown and won the game.

We don't have a good answer on this. Cincinnati's loss is clearly worse, but Denver is supposed to be worse than they are, so really, they should've had the game wrapped up earlier. Buffalo had a win on the road against the best team in football and gave the game away.

Help us decide, football fans. Your pick in the comments.

Reason 2,193 why Gus Johnson is fucking awesome

Really not a good way to start the season for Cincy. That kinda sucks. And the Bengals were going to be very bad anyway, so this isn't good. The Bengals could be the '08 Lions. This is not good at all. Why doesn't this happen to New England? We suppose the answer to that would be that the Pats would be leading by more than a point at home against the lowly Broncos. But, eesh, what a horrible way to lose. LOVE Johnson's call, though.

TBP Fantasy Smackdown

Well folks, the NFL season is finally upon us and as luck would have it Zach and myself, contributor JMC, are already matched up in our fantasy league for Week 1. Zach already whined about his team, and now we get to see the first team he'll lose to. Take a look at the matchup and make your predictions in the comments. Full disclosure: I had the 1st pick (and hence, the 20th), while Zach had the 5th and 16th, and so on.

A shot at jail by strangling Tila Tequila

We're not quite sure who Tila Tequila is and why she does what she does, but Shawne Merriman probably shouldn't be banging her (she probably has an entire village of insects down there, bro) and he probably shouldn't have tried to strangle her despite her being fucking obnoxious.

She's not even really hot. She weighs like 89 pounds, so there could be advantages to that. She's the type you could probably bang upside down against a palm tree while a family of four watched. But, wait, what? WHO THE FUCK IS TILA TEQUILA? It shows she had a lot of friends on MySpace. We have like 140 friends on Twitter. And we want nothing to do with Merriman and his assault-hawk.