Sgt Awesome's Mid-season NFL Report

What a difference quality refereeing can make! We're half way through the 2012 NFL season and the picture is beginning to become a little more clear.

The NFC West maintains its defensive dominance with an average of less than 18 points against as a division (New England dropping 45 on the Rams in London this weekend included!) The San Francisco 49ers have proven mortal, yet will still walk away with the division comfortably on the strength of their #1 defense.

Likewise, the NFC South is a runaway with the Falcons as the last undefeated team in the league. The Saints despite being the 6th highest scoring team in the league, have managed only two wins which is unsurprising when you see that only the Bills and Titans have allowed more points per game. And while Josh Freeman occasionally teases Tampa Bay fans with hope, the same can not be said for Cam Newton who is following up his impressive rookie campaign with what can only be described as "poopy crappy poop."

The NFC North continues to be one of the most competitive divisions in the league, despite the Lions' Megatron putting up Starscream-like stats. The Vikings and Packers head in to Week 9 with five wins each on the backs of Adrian Peterson and Aaron Rodgers respectively while the Bears maintain the division lead riding a crazy hot defense.

The New York football Giants have created some breathing room for themselves, however with their two losses coming from within the division, and the pathetic maelstrom of ass that is the NFC East, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Cowboys or Eagles managing to force the division championship until Week 17. I still don't buy an RG3-led Redskins team accomplishing much this year with that horrible, horrible defense.

Surprise surprise, the AFC West is still a joke, though with the Broncos' only losses coming against the Texans, the Falcons and the Patriots, they should still clinch the division handily. Antonio Gates is still a fucking fantasy football nightmare and I just wish he would die in a fire retire.

Houston was given a taste of humble pie by the Packers in Week 6 and decided to pass it on to Baltimore in Week 7. I am drooling looking towards the Week 9 match up against the Bills where Adrian Foster should score me close to a billion fantasy points. Despite the Colts being above .500, I don't see them being able to grab a Wild Card spot this year without some significantly improved defense.

The Bengals, being the nice team they are, even allowed the Browns to get a win on them this year proving once again that gingers have no souls. The Ravens depleted defense should allow the Steelers to come back and take the AFC North, though I still give the Ravens an easy Wild Card spot.

The Patriots, dealing with significant injuries all over the field are still managing to lead the league in points scored, yards gained, turn over differential and rushing touchdowns. With two of their losses coming out of conference, they should still be contending for a first round bye come playoff time. The Jets, while able to lay some serious wood on the 49ers, remain a hot mess of New Jersey sewage and will be competing with the Bills all year for the AFC East bottom dweller award. The Dolphins' only bad loss was to the Texans and if they can go 5-4 on the 2nd half of the schedule I could see them sneaking into the playoffs at 9-7.

Horses And Bayonets And Context, Oh My!

It's nearing the end of the latest election cycle and until now I've been able to maintain my cool by letting my anger out 140 characters at a time, but today a bayonet finally broke this horse's back.

Politicians and partisan media hacks for months have been grabbing out of context soundbites and running wild with them and that is nothing new; my problem is that the pathetically uninformed voter then goes out and spews out false aural sewage as though it was stone writ upon Mount Sinai and they themselves were there to witness the burning bush. Are we all just that fucking stupid?

From Big Bird to women in binders and not optimal to horses and bayonets, the Presidential candidates have both been attacked continually for the words they've spoken, though almost never with the original context intact.

When Mitt Romney said he loved Big Bird, but would cut PBS, he was simply trying to put forth his fiscally conservative vision for America. He was not trying to say PBS or Big Bird are the devil. When Mitt said he was handed binders full of women, he didn't mean he was literally handed a harem of women inside a magic box that would burst out if he merely rubbed the book properly. CNN, MSNBC, and other left wingnuts grabbed at these "gaffs" and attempted to paint a picture to sway the uninformed idiot from voting for Romney.

Likewise, Fox and other right wingnuts completely ignored the question Jon Stewart asked just prior, and also the way in which the President spoke his answer during not-optimal-gate. Instead, they tried to portray Obama as an uncaring, callous Commander in Chief to whom the lives of the fine people serving this country are nothing more than statistics.

Finally in last night's debate on foreign policy, Obama called Mitt out on his remark about the Navy. He said and I quoth:


"You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916, well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed."


I won't go in to the fact that VP candidate Paul Ryan voted for the bill set to force the DOD budget cuts which Governor Romney attempted to blame President Obama for, instead I will simply focus on the context of the President's statement and how it is being completely ignored.

He was using the tool of analogy to explain that trying to compare uncontextualized numbers of ships in the Navy from a century ago to today is foolish. To spell it out for the slow: our military fields far less horses and bayonets today than compared to the military of 1916, yet we are still the premiere fighting force on this planet. Technology has advanced drastically since 1916 and simple numbers cannot be used alone to tell the story.

We've got more Naval power than the rest of the world combined. We've got more Air power than the rest of the world combined. We have so much technological superiority compared to today's enemies, that we don't need sheer numbers to maintain the status quo. It is intellectually insulting to think we need more ships than we had in 1916 to maintain our role as World Super Power. We've got flying fucking robots that can circumvent the world multiple times whilst dropping a whole fuck-ton of pain anyone we so deem as needing to feel it. Does this not count? Can we not shoot missiles or drop bombs over bodies of water?

Also, many people have decided that even though President Obama said fewer in his statement, what he really meant was none and that he was completely oblivious to our use of horses during the beginning of the Afghan War or that there are still a bayonet or two laying around that he is equally unaware of. This is fucking retarded. Do we not teach people how to comprehend analogies anymore or was my original premise correct in that everyone is a fucking moron, only able to parrot weakly the biased falsities given to them via the media.

It all leaves me frustrated and with only one, simple question that I will leave you with:

Sgt Awesome's 1st Quarter NFL Thoughts

With Week Four of the NFL season nearly in the bag, a few thoughts floating in my mind:

What is going on in the South? The question isn't who will win the divisions, but which team (Atlanta/Houston) will clinch their division first. Will we see a division clinched before Thanksgiving?? What a pathetic joke those divisions seem to be. With Peyton and Payton gone, the competitiveness of those divisions is completely gone. Sure, Carolina made Atlanta earn their latest win but really? No question in my mind who owns the NFC South.

Houston is good. Scary good. They are hands down the best team in the NFL right now and they're probably in the weakest division. Their Week 14 meeting with New England will likely determine the one and two seeds in the AFC.

Holy defense Batman! The NFC West as a whole allows 17.2 points per game; 15.3 if you take the hapless Rams out of the equation. Only one team (Houston) has allowed less points per game (14) than the top three teams in the NFC West. I still have San Fran as the favorite to win the division, but they've yet to play a divisional game.

The NFC East is a joke as usual. The Eagles gave up the ball 9 times in their first 3 games, they have scored zero special teams touchdowns, and yet by taking the ball away seven times they've somehow managed to get a 3-1 record while posting a -17 point differential. RG3 has made the Redskins a slightly less horrible team to watch, and the Cowboys and Giants are the typical up and down catastrophes that their seasons tend to epitomize.

And four games in, your Christian Ponder led Minnesota Vikings could potentially hold a two game lead on the division if Chicago loses tonight. I think last year's Week 17 game between the Packers and the Lions foreshadowed a falling off for both teams. There is only so long Aaron Rodgers can carry 52 people on his back before he starts to get tired and the Lions... they're just a pitiful mess.The Titans dropped 44 on them! I still see Green Bay winning the division, but maybe the Vikings sneak in and steal the Bears' preseason predicted Wild Card spot.

If Week 1 is any indication, Cincinnati will not be competing with the Ravens for the AFC North title this year. Pittsburgh will go .500 and with the great amount of parity in the NFL this year, Cleveland should lock up the #1 pick pretty early.

The AFC West still belongs to the Broncos and Peyton; their two losses coming against the top two teams in the NFL right now. Next week's game against the Patriots will show whether they are ready to be a legit AFC contender, or just another pathetic team that gets in to the playoffs because someone from the division has to.

The Patriots are the highest scoring offense in the league yet are only at .500 Their preseason "easiest" schedule looks a lot harder when you consider how talented the NFC West is defensively. Luckily, the AFC East is a division filled with bottom dwellers this year. The massive midseason Tebow explosion that will erupt from New Jersey this year will be fucking epic. EPIC!