The Flynn Supremacy

Is there a quarterback controversy suddenly brewing in Green Bay? My sources tell me no NO, but I tell me YES, and the locker room divide that this could cause may very well derail Green Bay’s hopes of a second straight Super Bowl run.

 I’m upset about the Lions’ loss today, not because of the game itself, but because I didn’t get to watch any of it. The biggest downside to being an oxymoronical blogger with a life is that I have to be traveling during the entirety of what sounded like a highly entertaining game of pigskin on the final day of the regular season. With 3 ½ hours of downtime in Chicago before a final flight to Denver, I should have at least been able to catch the final 8 minutes of the DTLs…but no. Upon arrival at O’Hare International, the only games in sight were the Atlanta Falcons and the Timmys. I’m pretty sure this happened either because of sour grapes by the Bears fans in the vicinity, or due to a budgeting flaw by the O’Hare Planning Committee that allocated too much money toward building large replica dinosaur skeletons and not enough money toward adding a few more television channels. Or at the very least, they could have used the extra dough to build an underground doomsday shelter for the world leaders once the apocalypse happens, like at the Denver Airport. This was exactly the type of game that was just purely fun to watch too. Both teams had essentially already clinched what they wanted to clinch (Lions could have gained one more playoff seed), and they were all just out there tossing the skin around and having a good time. No, the football part isn’t what bothered me.

 If Jason Bourne, in his first sniff of the field all season, can come in and throw more TDs than even Aaron Rog could dream of, you just tip your cap and say, “at least now we don’t have to play you guys again until the NFC Championship.” Stafford had a few picks, but still racked up over 500 yards and 5 TDs through the air. When even your biggest detractor goes on record to text, “at the end of the day, who am I to question a dude throwin for 40 TD and 15 int?”, it’s a safe bet that your first real job after college is off to a good start (41 TD and 16 picks are Staff’s final regular season numbers). Calvin the Amazing Great continues to astound, coming within 58 yards of Cloyce Box’s single game receiving record, with 11 catches, 244 yards, and another TD.

 A few other thoughts to wrap up what was a fine Honolulu Bromothymol regular season:

-My mom gave me a new iPhone for Christmas, which I’m very grateful for. However, I think the ESPN Gamecast app must be faulty, as it reported to me that Jason Hanson missed a chipshot 39-yard field goal today. Surely, such a travesty could not have occurred, not to the Best in the Business.

-I haven’t been able to sneak in this small piece of trivia in any of my other posts, so with the regular season drawing to a close, I suppose now is as good of a time as any: Over the course of the season, I’ve noticed that DTLs linebacker Bobby Carpenter looks a lot like infamous werewolf/Death Eater pledge Fenrir Greyback of the Harry Potter series (Compare and contrast, Bobby and Fenrir). Actually, that brings me to another point from the Harry Potter series that has troubled me somewhat through the years. Of the two known werewolves mentioned in the books, both have uncannily wolfish names. There is Fenrir Greyback, whose first name is derived from a famous wolf in Norse mythology (Fenrirsulfr), and surname happens to be a common attribute of wolves. Then you have Remus Lupin, the Remus likely taken from the founding father of Rome who was raised by wolves, the Lupin meaning “wolf-like” in Latin. Now, if Lupin and Greyback had been werewolves from birth, I would understand their being named as such, but as both became werewolves sometime in their childhoods (lycanthropy being a random condition that only afflicts the unlucky few who are bitten), either a) it was simply destined from birth that Greyback and Lupin would eventually become werewolves, or b) J.K. Rowling was using some clever wordplay that appears tacky in retrospect. Anyway, this is a discussion topic for an entirely different blog, I don’t know what I was thinking.

- As I write this, Atlanta is beating whatever piss the Buccaneers have left out of them, with a 42-7 halftime lead. This means that the DTLs will almost certainly be the #6 seed in the NFC Playoffs unless some Houston Oilering of epic proportions happens in the second half. This also means a return to the Superdome against the Saints for a rematch of the Sunday Night abomination that happened a month ago. Let’s hope the Dome is kind to the state of Michigan in the near future, as both the DTLs and the Maize and Bromothymol Wolverines will travel there for huge games this week. I’ve heard that it’s wrong to make bargains with your God, but if I could only have one, I’d take a Lions win over a Michigan one any day of the week, including the Sabbath.

- The Lions’ 45-41 loss to Green Bay in today’s shoot out makes their path out of the first round a little more difficult (a win today and they’d have the pleasure of beating either the shaky Giants or the shakier Cowboys in the Wild Card game)*Update: Giants it is. The upside is that the path to the NFC Championship game is actually a little easier as the #6 seed. Win the Wild Card game as the 6, and instead of playing the Packers on the frozen tundra in round 2, they would instead play a pleasant-weather game in San Francisco. I know that a team must be extremely good to go 13-3 in the NFL, but the thing about the 49ers is that they just don’t seem that good. Beating the Saints will be very difficult, but if the boys somehow pull it off, I would be quite confident about getting a win at San Francisco the next week. Bet Schwartz would have a great handshake in store for Harbaugh after that one! My recommendation would be “the tickler”, a move in which you use the middle finger to give an uncomfortable tickle to the victim’s lower palm during the shake.
*Correction: It has been brought to my attention that the NFL does not used a fixed playoff system. The #1 seed gets matched up with the lowest remaining seed in the Divisional round, so if the Lions beat New Orleans, they will play Green Bay in their next game regardless.

 I’ll be working next weekend, so with any luck, the football gods will be kind and give a late kickoff for the DTLs game. I’ll be back sometime during the week with some more playoff fever, and until then, I’ll leave you with a hearty DE-TROIT LIONS! DE-TROIT LIONS! DE-TROIT LIONS! DE-TROIT LIONS!!!!