This week’s agenda: mailbag, picks, Petty. As always, these are actual emails from actual readers.
Q: Remember when I made your mailbag two weeks ago about how great it was to be a Jets fan this season? I should have known they’d strive to be mediocre and miss out on a stud QB in a loaded 2018 draft. WHAT WAS I THINKING???
— Marc, Madison, Wisc.
BS: Only Jets fans could be salty about being one game out of first place. Have you watched the Patriots this season? They’re a couple of Nick Folk shanks and one crazy comeback away from being 1–4. They have a 40-year-old quarterback. They have a head coach old enough that he’s quietly reached the “Fuck it, I’m putting two of my kids on my coaching staff” stage of his life. They barely have enough linebackers. Their most reliable third-down target is gone. Their best short-yardage threat plays for the Eagles. Their star tight end can’t play five straight games without going back to the shop for repairs. And put it this way — if you told me they were propping up Matt Patricia’s comatose body during games, covering his face with a bushy beard and using him as a decoy so Belichick’s kids could try running the defense, I’d be surprised, but I wouldn’t be SHOCKED.
How can Jets fans complain about anything when there’s finally some light at the end of the AFC East tunnel?! The Pats are old and vulnerable! (Not really — I’m just trying to make Marc feel better.) Regardless, I think it’s time to update our Most Bitter NFL Fan Base Rankings through four weeks.
1. St. Louis
A recent football widow should always earn the top spot of any “Most Bitter” conversation, but St. Louis’s “We suffered through 11 straight crappy years, then our out-of-state owner doinked us and moved our franchise without giving us a real chance to save it, and now that same team has blossomed into a contender with a potential gem of a head coach, two likable stars, and maybe even a franchise QB” situation feels particularly punishing.
2. San Diego
Would you rather have your NFL franchise die and move 2,000 miles away … or just break up with you, move out with no real plan in place, then settle 75 miles away so they can crash in someone’s tiny apartment that’s always filled with their roommate’s friends every weekend? Stan Kroenke bolted St. Louis to build the biggest and best football stadium in the league’s second-biggest market. The Chargers bolted because … they’re idiots? Because they planned everything horribly? Because their plan to extort San Diego for a new stadium bombed so badly that the entire city told them to screw off? What’s funnier than Dumbass Dean Spanos slumming it in some 27,000-seat stadium that’s filled with the other team’s fans every weekend? There’s no way San Diego is more bitter than St. Louis. The L.A. Chargers have been a black comedy, but they’re still a comedy.
3. Minnesota
Never won a Super Bowl; just had yet another promising season derailed by injuries; watched their best Viking of the past 15 years tarnished by a child abuse scandal; might have to watch the Packers play in February’s Super Bowl in (gulp) Minnesota. BUT at least they have a team.
4. Cleveland
Since 1999, the old Browns have won two Super Bowls in Baltimore while the new Browns have made roughly 450 major decisions … and somehow, at least 438 of them were dead wrong. The Browns might not win 100 games total in TWENTY years. Right now, they’re 88–204 (regular season) and 0–1 (playoffs). They haven’t won a playoff game since Bill Belichick’s Browns defeated the Patriots in 1994, back when Jaromir Jagr was hitting his prime, Brandon and Dylan were fighting over Kelly, and barely anyone knew what email was yet. If you could compare the best-case scenario for Browns fans to any movie, it wouldn’t be Draft Day or Major League, it would be one of those Lifetime movies where a kidnapping victim is locked in the same basement for 20 years before they figured out how to escape. BUT at least they have the Indians and Cavs.
5. New York Jets
Again, there’s light at the end of the AFC East tunnel. And even if they did pass on Deshaun Watson in April, they took safety Jamal Adams instead — and guess what. He’s fantastic. Seriously. (Wincing.) You saw right through me. I haven’t watched more than three minutes of the Jets this season. But everyone SAYS Jamal Adams is fantastic. J-E-T-S … JETS JETS JETS!
6. Cincinnati
The best thing about Cincy’s bitter NFL fan base résumé is that everyone always forgets to throw them on these lists. They’re like the Browns with worse PR.
7. Buffalo
A feel-good 3–1 start? Sean McDermott shaping up to be the first good Bills coach since Marv Levy? Some light at the end of the AFC East tunnel? Awwww … this is so adorable! Buffalo, we barely recognize you! I’d say that organically falling out of the top six in a “Most Bitter NFL Fan Base” power poll is easily Buffalo’s second-greatest football moment of the past 12 years. Here’s the first:
Q: There’s an alternate universe where Trump is running the Bills into the ground instead of this country, right? They would play at Trump Field and celebrities would grace his golden-gilded suite and kiss his orange, billion-dollar ass. He’d badmouth Robert Kraft and Tom Brady via Twitter after every loss. He’d be Al Davis with a bad haircut and without ANY of the accomplishments (so basically Mark Davis).
— Ruben Silva
BS: We were so damned close.
Buffalo Bill Trump would have been a terrifying hybrid of Mark Davis, late-2000s Donald Sterling, early-’80s Ted Stepien, and vintage crazy George Steinbrenner. Remember when Steinbrenner spent the late ’70s and most of the ’80s repeatedly firing Billy Martin (four times!), feuding with reporters, obstructing the press, ripping his players, getting sued by an umpire he defamed, trading prized prospects for aging stars and even paying a lowlife to dig up dirt on Yankees star Dave Winfield (and getting caught!)? Trump might have crammed those lowlights into the same season.
Well, Trump would have insulted his own players, mocked any disgruntled Bills fans, undermined his coaches, tweeted insane things at all hours, ripped through GMs like razors, complained about the city of Buffalo (“Too small! Too cold! FREEZING!”), attacked other NFL owners, vehemently agreed with every indefensible Roger Goodell decision, refused to accept any blame, and left Bills fans in constant fear that he’d move them somewhere else. And he would have deflected their losing record just like he deflects his role in Atlantic City’s near bankruptcy or everything that’s gone wrong these past nine months.
But when you examine Trump under that sports owner prism, his feeble attempt at an American presidency makes more sense, right? We’ve seen this act before!
Check out this list of memorable Steinbrenner quotes. Trump easily would have said half of them.
Check out this recap of the bitter Steinbrenner-Winfield feud, which carries the subhead, “Bringing their feud to a head, George Steinbrenner sought to discredit, to humiliate, and to destroy Dave Winfield.”
Had Trump owned the Bills, he would have quickly become Steinbrenner 2.0. But you can’t totally say Buffalo fans lucked out because … well … you know …
Q: What about this parlay? Washington +400 to win the NFC East and Houston +140 to win the AFC South fetches +1200.
— Derek Lady
BS: What about the Skins and Rams (+325) fetching 20–1 if they both win their divisions? What about the Texans, Skins, Rams and Steelers (-500) fetching 60–1 odds???
I see a wide-open season shaping up like the one nine years ago, when Bernard Karmell Pollard assassinated Brady’s ACL eight minutes into Week 1 and turned 2008 into a free-for-all. In 2008, we didn’t have any great teams, just a bunch of good ones. Ben Roethlisberger, Jake Delhomme, Eli Manning, and Kerry Collins (!!!) were the quarterbacks of our 1-seeds and 2-seeds. Six AFC teams finished with 11–13 wins. We had an 8–8 division champ and a 9–7 division champ. We had an ample bottom: eight teams finished with 11 losses or more; two had 14 losses; and the Lions finished 0–16. In the playoffs, three of the four highest seeds lost at home in Round 2. In the Super Bowl, 9–7 Arizona was eked out of stealing the title by a phenomenal Roethlisberger–Santonio Holmes throw-and-catch.
Doesn’t 2017 feel like that? A bunch of good teams but no great ones … unless you want to fall for Andy Reid and Alex Smith. A middle class swollen with underachievers and smoke-and-mirrors teams. And eight hopeless losers drowning at the bottom. (Check out Week 4’s DVOA rankings — the dropoff from no. 24 to 25-through-32 is jarring.) So yeah, if there’s ever a gambling season to take long-shot Super Bowl swings and roll the dice with those goofy Rams-Skins division parlays, it’s 2017.
Q: All hail Sir Blake Bortles!!
— Barry Regan
BS: I love this so much. If we can have Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Billy Connolly and Sir Patrick Stewart, we can’t have Sir Blake Bortles? In America, Bortles is the overmatched dude preventing the Jaguars from ever finishing better than 7–9. In London, he’s Aaron Rodgers.
— Bortles in London: 3 wins, 0 losses, 8 TDs, 1 pick, 1 game-winning TD
— Bortles in America: 10 wins, 36 losses, 68 TDs, 53 picks
It’s the second-best reason that Shad Khan should move the Jaguars to London, trailing only the fact that they’re currently playing in Jacksonville. If Shad moves the Jags to London, he’s immediately acquiring a franchise QB — Sir Blake Bortles.
Q: How sweet is it watching the NFL Network’s doc on the Greatest Show on Turf when Kurt Warner says “tonight a dynasty is born” right before Super Bowl XXXVI starts? He’s not wrong.
— Fritts, Connecticut
BS: Haven’t St. Louis fans suffered enough in this mailbag? Come on! (And yes — I love that scene. Keep it low.)
Q: After listening to you discuss what’s wrong with Cam Newton on your podcast and reading about your love for Rocky III, I feel compelled to point out the following: Cam = Rocky; Von Miller = Clubber Lang; Derek Anderson = Apollo Creed; Adrian (I am hoping it’s Christian McCaffrey). I envision Christian challenging Cam on the sideline and Cam admitting that for the first time in his life he is afraid, if only because it leads to Cam and Derek Anderson participating in an awkward race/dance/hug/celebration on a beach in N.C.
— Keland from the DMV
BS: You forgot the scene when Rocky acted like a sexist toward a reporter and the internet jumped on him for 24 hours until he issued a half-hearted apology. I think that was a deleted scene.
Q: Sitting in class reading your mailbag and broke out laughing when I found out you were masquerading as Bill Simmons (when you are truly KD). It is an abomination that “You Can Call Me Al” has not been featured as the weird ’80s music video of the week. Four minutes and 35 seconds of Chevy Chase towering over Paul Simon wondering if Chevy’s a giant or Paul’s a little person?!? What’s better than that?
— Thomas Hughes
BS: Nah, we can do better for the Weirdest ’80s Video Pantheon. Needs to be something on par with Loverboy and “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Something that screams, “How much cocaine did they do back then?” and “Did they have the same basic laws that we have now?” You know, something like …
Q: Just found out that a video for Benny Mardones’s “Into the Night” exists. The song is creepy already. The video is exponentially more so. Does Chris Hansen involuntarily shudder every time it is played?
— Chris Leonardi
BS: And there it is! Let’s break it down…
0:00–0:25 — When did music videos start with a 25-second one-camera shot of a creepy guy quickly walking down a sidewalk while smoking a butt? In 1980, that’s when.
0:25–0:49 — A bearded guy answers the door and tells us, “She’s just 16 years old … leave her alone, they say,” followed by the door slamming and our hero turning to address the camera with, “Separated by fools, who don’t know what love is … yet.” We are off to a FRIGHTENING start.
0:50–1:10 — Just wondering: If you had a 16-year-old daughter, would you call the police if a creepy guy stood outside her window and sang as the chorus of his love song, “But I want you to knowwwwww … if I could fly … I’d pick you up … I’d take you into the night … and show you a love … like you’ve never seen … ever seeeeeeeeen …” Wait, you WOULD be alarmed? I’m still on the fence.
1:11–1:45 — Let’s work a pay phone and a stalkerish phone call into this thing.
1:46–2:15 — They’re still on the phone. She’s not talking. He just sang, “I would wait till the end … time for you … and do it again … it’s true.”
2:15–2:46: The chorus again. We just banged out 91 straight seconds of the same camera shot of a weird guy stalking a teenager on a pay phone. This video cost $12,000 but the budget looked like this:
DIRECTOR (1): $500
EDITOR: $300
CAMERAMAN: $250
MAKEUP ARTIST: $100
SPECIAL EFFECTS: $500
LOCATION FEES: $0
COCAINE: $10,350
2:46 — He just climbed through the window as she’s backing up. RUN! RUN FOR THE DOOR! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON???
3:05 — He talked her into kneeling on the floor with him. Good news … it’s a magic carpet! It’s green-screen time! Get ready for an alternate universe where adult males can run away with 16-year-old girls.
3:25 — Incredible cameo by the Statue of Liberty. I forgot to mention, they’re soaring through New York City’s skyline on an Oriental rug.
3:43: Now they’re making out as he wails the chorus in the background. Creepy guy won her over. Call the police. Call them right now.
Q: Can you stop putting so many videos in your Friday mailbag? I can’t watch them when I’m reading in class.
— Chris, Kingston, Ontario
BS: My bad.
Q: Would you ever go into a store called Jame’s, a Van Nuys tobacco shop that boasts of its “walk-in” humidor?
I think I heard Precious’s screams from across the street while taking this photo. I didn’t dare take it from in front of the store for fear of being dragged into the ’70s-era van and spending my remaining days being starved and skinned alive.
— Josh, Los Angeles
BS: On our Silence of the Lambs podcast (for The Rewatchables), I theorized that the name “Jame” had been ruined for eternity by Jame Gumb, a.k.a. Buffalo Bill, a.k.a. Precious’s Dad, a.k.a. The Put The Lotion In The Basket Guy. Nope. It’s fine to be Jame as long as you own a tobacco shop in the unofficial porn capital of the world. (Also, I think we have the next Silence of the Lambs sequel.)
Q: Isn’t it obvious for the Chargers that to attain any relevance in L.A., their best shot is to target the L.A. hipster/cool kid market?
— Ash K, Sydney
BS: The Chargers have only one move that isn’t “Convince Dumbass Dean to sell the team.” Here’s the move: Dumbass Dean needs to sell 12 to 15 percent of the team to an all-star coalition of Hollywood stars, beloved L.A. figures, iconic L.A. athletes, heavy hitters and headline-making influencers. And make the group DIVERSE. Let’s say he sold 5 percent of the team to Dr. Dre and 5 percent to Magic Johnson, then sold smaller stakes to the likes of Larry David, Leo DiCaprio, Jason Blum, Kris Jenner, Kobe Bryant, Megan Ellison, Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Kimmel, Oprah Winfrey, Conan O’Brien, Snoop Dogg, Sam Jackson, Shonda Rhimes, and … wait for it … future Lakers star LEBRON JAMES.
Guess what. It would work! The Dodgers shed the stink of the Frank McCourt era pretty quickly because of Magic and only because of Magic. The Chargers need to make a similar splash. Bring in some star power. And if Spanos is too cheap to do that, here’s plan B: the new director of marketing, LaVar Ball.
Q: Now that the Knicks are officially in Tankapalooza mode with the Carmelo trade, what nickname can we give it? Digging a Ditch for Doncic?
— Luke, Brisbane, Australia
BS: I’m leaning toward either “Ass-kicked for Doncic” or “Puka for Luka.” But I’m always ready to be bowled over by a better suggestion.
Q: I think you should add a new category to The Rewatchables: “Would Danny Trejo make this movie better or worse?”
— Thanks, Andrew Heap
BS: Done. Speaking of The Rewatchables, we’re doing a live Rewatchables podcast about Face/Off at Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles on October 18. It’s like looking in a mirror only … not.
Q: The Titans are 2–2 in the highly-winnable AFC South. With Mariota potentially out for an extended period of time, the Titans signed Brandon Weeden over Colin Kaepernick. Congratulations, Titans fans, your owner cares more about racism than winning football games!
— Evan, Washington, D.C.
BS: I was never a giant believer in Kaepernick’s blackballing until Week 3, when the “You never want your backup QB to be an ongoing distraction” argument fell apart after Marvin Lewis’s Bengals actually needed a distraction (and still avoided him). But Baltimore’s refusal to sign him in August definitely looks fishier after Joe Flacco’s performance in two discouraging losses. Maybe 2014–2016 Kaepernick was a mediocre-at-best QB, but 2017 Flacco lumbers around like a mummy and misses wide-open receivers twice a quarter. In his past 14 games, he’s produced 19 touchdowns, 17 picks and a paltry 6.33 yards per pass attempt. In 2017, only DeShone Kizer and Brian Hoyer have a lower QBR than Flacco’s Weeden-esque 25.9. Oh, and Flacco might be hiding a major back injury. Other than that, everything’s fine.
You know what’s a distraction? When your QB can’t complete a throw and takes dumb sacks. It’s so much more distracting than a higher-than-usual number of reporters surrounding the locker of your backup QB. Anyway, Tennessee’s recent behavior guarantees that Kaepernick will be suing the NFL for something like $200 million soon. Why not? What is he waiting for? Consider …
• Tennessee worked out Weeden (career: 6–19), Matt Barkley (1–5), T.J. Yates (4–3) and Matt McGloin (1–6) over Kaepernick (28–30, 4–2 in playoffs). Titans coach Mike Mularkey explained that the Titans went with Weeden because of his familiarity with their offense, not because of his familiarity throwing incompletions and interceptions.
• Weeden isn’t just four years older than Kaepernick and 20 times more hopeless, he’s probably been ridiculed by more football fans than any other QB this decade. I once tweeted that the four most chilling words in sports were “Here comes Brandon Weeden …” To be fair, I did NOT know about Weeden’s familiarity with Tennessee’s 2017 offense.
• In 2013, Colin Kaepernick played in the Super Bowl. Also in 2013, Cleveland.com asked Browns fans to vote on which QB from Cleveland’s immediate (and tortured) past they’d rather have starting than Weeden. Tim Couch won the poll. Colt McCoy, Jeff Garcia, Kelly Holcomb, Thad Lewis and Derek Anderson rounded out the top six. And “I’ll Stick With Brandon Weeden” finished seventh, narrowly beating out Trent Dilfer and Brady Quinn.
When the Titans are picking Brandon Weeden but not even bothering to work you out? You’re probably being blackballed. It’s lawyer time, Colin Kaepernick.
Q: Happy belated birthday Bill, just thought you should know that you’re now a bit older than Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future.
— Tim, L.A./Boston
BS: I’m also the same age as Tom Brady in 2025 when he’s gunning for his ninth Super Bowl ring. PLIABILITY EXERCISES, OVER-HYDRATION, FISH, CHICKEN, SOBRIETY, VEGETABLES AND SLEEP, BABY!
Q: After listening to you talk at length about Tiger Woods’s schlong with House on the B.S. Podcast, it got me wondering if maybe his big pecker isn’t the reason for his back issues. It’s pretty common knowledge that women who have large breasts can have related back issues, so why can’t a big, heavy wang be weighing Tiger down? I think Tiger has his own Tyson zone … would a story revealing a career-ending sex- or schlong-related back injury really be that surprising at this point?
— Rosie, Seattle
BS: Yup, these are my readers.
Let’s tackle Week 5 picks under the following prism: It’s the last weekend before everyone realizes that (a) the Rams are legitimately good, (b) Sir Blake Bortles stinks in America, (c) Detroit needs to be taken seriously and (d) the Jets, Cards, Niners, Bears, Dolphins, Colts and Browns are doing abominably in DVOA for a reason.
Hence, we’re going $550 to win $500 on two lines that are going to seem ridiculously low three weeks from now …
RAMS (PK) over Seahawks
LIONS (-3) over Panthers
And $550 to win $500 on a 6-point teaser just to say we bet against Carson Palmer AND Blake Bortles on the road …
TEASE: STEELERS (-8.5 over Jaguars) and EAGLES (-6.5 over Cards)
… Steelers drop to -2, Eagles drop to -0.5, BOTH teams have to cover.
One last note before we go …
I spent a decent chunk of the ’80s trekking back and forth between Connecticut (where my mother lived) and Boston (where my father lived). Once I landed my driver’s license in high school, I didn’t need Amtrak’s help anymore. For those longer drives, I really loved concert albums. They always made me feel like other people were in the car with me.
There was definitely a mystique about concerts back then — we consumed music through albums and videos, or if the singer or band passed through our town for a show. We couldn’t watch them on YouTube or call up hundreds of their songs with a couple of clicks. And the primitive technology made everything harder. If you liked four songs on a two-sided cassette, you had to fast-forward or flip the tape until you found the ones you liked. Greatest Hits albums and concert albums were always the safest bets. You didn’t want to do too much work.
The only bummer: Not that many artists made concert albums. Fleetwood Mac didn’t have a good one. Neither did the Police. (It goes without saying but we had waaaaaaaaay fewer quality musical choices in 1986.) I ended up beating the following concert tapes into the ground …
Bob Seger, Nine Tonight
U2, Under a Blood Red Sky
Bruce Springsteen, Live 1975–1985
Billy Joel, Songs in the Attic
Simon & Garfunkel, The Concert in Central Park
The Doobie Brothers, Farewell Tour
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Pack up the Plantation: Live!
They all became my friends. Bono screaming “This is Red Rocks!” Garfunkel muttering “I’m so in the mood.” Michael McDonald introducing Patrick Simmons as “on lead guitar, lead vocals, and probably on drugs!” Seger euphorically shouting out “Dee-troit!” I loved Springsteen’s long story during “Growin’ Up” when he explains why he left home to become a musician, only his parents didn’t understand, but fortunately they were in the audience last night (“hey ma!”), and even though one of them wanted a lawyer and one of them wanted a doctor, “Tonight, you’re gonna have to settle for rock and roll.” And every time, the crowd lost its collective shit. Hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Petty’s album carved out a special place for three reasons. First, it kicked off with one of the all-time murderers’ rows: “So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star,” “Needles and Pins,” “The Waiting,” “Breakdown,” “American Girl.” Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Fast-forward to the end of the A-side, flip the tape and suddenly “Refugee” was leading the B-side. What a phenomenal 30 minutes. I never got tired of it. But “Breakdown” was the MVP.
There’s Petty ripping off the opening guitar solo in his distinctive style before giving us a nasally, “It’s all right if you love me …”
But something about the crowd’s energy intrigues him. He clams up and lets them carry the next three lines.
It’s all right if you don’t
I’m not afraid of you running away honey
I get the feeling you won’t
They cheer because why wouldn’t they? Petty let them sing a couple of lines! The second verse starts … and wait … Petty still isn’t singing. He wants them to keep going. They blow the next two lines, then rally for the rest.
Something inside you is feeling like I do
We’ve said all there is to sayyyy
Now they know. He’s letting them go the whole way. They’re ready.
Bayyy-by!
BREAKDOWN … go ahead and give it to me
Breakdown … honey take me through the night …
(BREAK-DOWWWWWN)
Breakdown, I’m standin’ here can’t you see
Breakdown, it’s all right …
It’s all right
It’s all right
Hrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
They’re doing everything short of pouring champagne on each other. They even nailed the two-part harmony in the middle of the chorus. It’s a moment. It’s absolutely a moment. Those Petty fans couldn’t believe their hero gave them his song. Wherever I happened to be driving, I always felt like I was right there with them. I never knew that Petty probably pulled this trick in every city, or that 30 years later, I’d be able to watch a different performance of it (and it’s almost as good). I thought Petty came up with that idea that night. That’s what I wanted to believe.
You guys seem like you want to sing … go ’head.
Over the years, I probably played that performance for every friend I had. I loved it so much. After the crowd stops congratulating itself, Petty waits a good 10 seconds before deadpanning, “You’re gonna put me out of a job.” Harrrrrrrrraaaaaaaah. It’s great because Tom Petty was great, even when he was standing on stage with a dumb smile as everyone else belted out his lyrics. I never got tired of hanging out with him. Rest in peace, Tom Petty.
Last Week: 3–1, +950
Season: 8–5, +1055
