NUFCED by wikkidpissah

BAD DAY

We’ve all had one of those irredeemably awful days which can only be compared to quicksand. When you know you’re in trouble right away, but any effort to extract yourself only hastens your demise. When the only peace-of-mind comes in surrender to the concept of drowning in mud. When one-to-all of the following occur: your last two hours of sleep are spent playing dream tag with the alarm clock; you mistakenly think you hit the snooze and finally relax into sleep just in time to ruin any chance of being on time the entire morning; your frank & beans are seared like ahi tuna by the wife’s perfectly timed flush-flash; the kids detonate your clarity of thought with the depth & variety of their needs before you even get started; your relatively easy commute (compared to LA, DC, NY) is ruined over & over by the total ignorance of the average motorist to the concept of flow; your job reminds you in all its special ways that you’ll not be free unto death; your terminal case of the stares causes a woman you can’t abide to think you like her & then one you DO like to be totally creeped out; the return commute is worse than the morning’s because everyone is ordering food out, kids home & spouses around on their celphones; your market stop finds you sandwiched in line between a chatty fossilhead with coupons and a tattooed endomorph anxious to imbibe the pre-mixed Jack Daniels beverage he’s holding; the marital argument you are as powerless to understand as to stop; the videotape you made to watch tonight turns out to be of the wrong channel or already taped over; the before-bed sandwich representing the day’s last chance for a comforting moment is ruined by the glass of expired milk; no means no; the bedtime whirring in your head slows just enough to let you drop off when the mate treats you to a footfreeze, sleepshudder or sheetgrab.

A lot of bad days were had in Sunday’s NFL action. Let’s have a look:

NYG 36 WASH 0
Halloween Special: The ghost of Wellington Mara flushed Jimmy Hoffa out of the Meadowlands’ endzone & haunted the Redskins into one of the worst performances a team-on-a-roll has ever had, winning them the Bad Day Sweepstakes. The invocation of the softball rule could have saved all but Giants’ fans 3Q of misery. Know-it-all Special: See how much better things go when Tiki gets 1st call, Tom?

CHI 19 DET 13
Bad day: Jeff Garcia was pounded like a teenage pud all game long – can’t hold the ending against him in light of that...Wikkid's MOTO (Master of the Obvious) statement of the day: Chicago defense kicks ass & takes names...Prediction: Lions win NFC Morris, going 6-2 (if JG stays healthy) the rest of their Bear-free way, while offensive inconsistency limits Chicago to a .500 2nd half.

DAL 34 AZ 13
Bad day: Julius Jones - goes from favorite son to roadblock-to-success in eight days, through no fault of his own. He don’t deserve it - da Boyz’ road-grading O-line was as responsible for MBarber’s brilliant game as the rookie’s mad talent. Hell, JJArrington coulda run through them holes. Bad evaluation: been guaranteeing you kids that, for good or ill, Big Denny would give the job back to Warner this week due to a preseason signing promise. Either Green’s honor or my observational skills takes a hit.

STL 24 JAX 21
Bad day: my fantasy lineups. When I left the house this morning to drive up to Santa Fe for the games & a Halloween party, Fred Taylor was predicted to be out. Congratulating myself for my canny acquisition of Greg Jones for several teams, I plugged him into my many bye-depleted lineups. So, what’s damn near the 1st highlight of the day? Fragile Fred running for a 777-yd. TD, of course! I was probably the FFB forums earliest advocate of Kevin Curtis but benched him this week due to the combination of Latin pop sensation Ricky Martin at QB and the NFL’s top pass defense. So what’s the next goddam highlight, 43 seconds after Fred? Curtis catching an 888-yd TD pass! *LALALA* Mama said there’d be days like this. There’d be days like this, my mama said. *LALALA*

HOU 19 CLE 16
Bad day: Matt Leinart – his decision not to spend ’05 by the Bay brings him closer to lake-effect interceptions every day. Worse day: Texans’ offensive coordinator, even in victory. Much to my hosts’ chagrin but eventual amusement, I would punch this game up from the eightcast whenever Houston had the ball & predict virtually every play they ran. Reminded me of when I & a buddy got tossed out of a club years ago for guessing a blues band’s awful lyrics and singing them (or comic alternatives) ahead of schedule.

CIN 21 GB 14
Bad day: The Legend – I’ll say it again, this is fast becoming the most embarrassing end to a HOF career since my beloved Say Hey Kid stumbled around Shea Stadium in ’73. Attn: Wellington Mara’s Ghost– since, in life, you always did what was best for the league, please haunt Favre’s opposing defenses the rest of the way that he may recover some dignity. Except on MNF, that is – Madden’s hummerizing homages are sickening enough already. Almost as bad a day: Bengals’ game-planning. You’ve been figured out, boys. If you can’t put away a bad team that is offering up the ball like a communion host, you got no continuity. Work on that.

CAR 38 MIN 13
Bad day: (tie) Fred Smoot & Chris Chambers. “Huh?!” you may ask. “I understand Smoot - he yakked the shutdown smak on Smitty, then let him run-up 200+. But Chambers?!” Yes, I know – he plays for neither Minny nor Carolina, but he lost his title as Weirdest Guy To Lead His Team In Rushing. Tied with MeMo for the Viking rushing lead was 93yo CPep fill-in Brad Freakin’ Johnson. BOO!!!

OAK 34 TEN 25
Bad day: Jerry Porter fantasy owners. Not only did they prolly have him on the bench for this performance but, now, they’ll play him like five weeks in a row without seeing its equal from JP. It’s all in the nature of the species described in the Audubon Guide as the Yellow-Breasted Hoperaiser. As I’ve often said to those who inquire about my own wasted potential, “can’t dash hopes ‘til you’ve raised them”. Runnerup: THenry – congratulations, your return from cronicitis turned THE Chrissy Brown into a gutsy performer.

SD 28 KC 20
Bad day: observances. I’m sure Dick Vermeil would have liked to celebrate his 417th birthday & Trent Green honor his father’s passing with better performances than this. There was never a doubt who’d win this one and it was only even close cuz Schottsie defied human reason by running LT2 but EIGHT times in the 1st three quarters. Runnerup: anyone who has to cover Gates when he’s feelin it.

MIA 21 NO 6
Bad day: the state of Louisiana...AGAIN. The Saints celebrated the return to their long-suffering fan base with their worst performance of ’05 (yes, I remember the GB game). The perplexing-unto-infuriating gamecalling of prodigal genius Lou Saban kept this within grasp were only the Haslett eleven to stop pissing into the wind. But NOOOOOOOOO!!! Come to think of it, the best result of hurricane season could be the loss of this feckless franchise to San Antone & points beyond.

SF 15 TB 10
Bad day: competence. 25 of the 30 mind-numbing possessions in this game lasted less than two minutes. Chris Simms looked as lost as Ken Dorsey (pretty horrible considering the differences in defenses) and, without some nifty improvisations by Joey Galloway, would have looked as lost as Alex Smith. Scary bad. Scaaarrrry, scaaarrry bad.

DEN 49 PHIL 21
Bad day: Andy Reid’s mental health. It is said that insanity is the repetition of a behavior with the expectation of differing results. Lessee – I think I’ll offer no semblance of a running game when even drunken hotdog vendors know that my quarterback can’t throw deep without searing pain (if at all) and expect to succeed. Yeah, that’s it! That’s the ticket!! Were it not for Shanny’s taste for allowing comebacks to everyone short of Pia Zadora and the unbelievable courage of DMac (though I’m starting to wonder if the greater courage wouldn’t be to step aside for a while) this would have been as ugly as a lower-abdominal distension. Runnerup: expectation. How does a defense allow like eight yards to the best RB in the NFL, then allow 8,000,000,013 yards to the Broncos’ two-headed monster? BOO!!!

NE 21 BUF 16
Bad day: Those for whom NFL Sunday action is incomplete without my entire coverage of each game. I’m going out, won’t see the game, not gonna pretend I did & don’t expect to return home in a condition to do more than fill in the score & hit the “publish” button. Trick or treat!

And that’s that. I’ll be dressing for Halloween as Creekie’s chance of getting some in his 17th year. That means I’ll be invisible. BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!