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evdarcy · 3 years

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An Unusual Hero C5S1

Please remember, this is unedited and unfinished, but will hopefully fill in the holes that were left and answer some questions without leaving too many others. HOWEVER I will answer all and any questions if you want to leave me a comment.

Next update - Friday 23/04/2021

Luc watched the asphalt disappear as the road fell away beneath them. Each mile they drove from the City of Sin made him relax further into his seat.

It was madness. Everything was so far off the radar of reality it was hard to believe. It was like he was in one of his earlier action films, the dialogue had been just as bad, the explosives as severe, and the bad guys from an unidentifiable foreign nation, but there hadn’t been a prop gun in sight.

Maybe someone had slipped something into his drink while he’d been partying and this was all a dream. Yes, that was it, his drink had been spiked and this was a drug-induced nightmare.

He would wake up shortly and find Linda standing over him, would feel her hands on him either to try and arouse him or to hurt him—he couldn’t remember which was worse. Just knew he’d rather today be real than go through either of those scenarios again.

He knocked his head against the passenger window as he leaned against it and stared out at the passing landscape. God, he was a dick for thinking such a thing, but he just couldn’t go through another day in Linda’s presence.

He stared up at the sky as Sarah kept them on course to wherever the hell she was taking him. Yes, it was bonkers, but it was real. No drugs. No dreams. Everything he’d just experienced had really happened. Yet, strangely, he wasn’t as freaked out as he thought he should be. Instead, it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from him.

He was free. For the first time in twelve years he was free of Linda. He was free of his agent and his demands. Phil, God rest his soul, was no longer breathing down his neck, watching his every move and reporting back to either of them.

He took a deep breath and just stared out the window at the passing dessert and enjoyed the feeling of having nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one to report to.

He shouldn’t be enjoying this, shouldn’t be revelling in what he’d had to do to get out from under Linda’s thumb, but by God did it feel great to not be returning to her that night. That, for however long the Demon was out there, he didn’t have to go back to his wife.

He got lost in his selfish, happy musings, daydreaming of where he could go and what he could do, that he had no idea how long they’d been driving or how far they’d got when Sarah finally turned her attention to him.

‘You’re not going to say anything? Ask what the hell is going on or something? Hey!’ She snapped her fingers in front of his face to try and get his attention. He turned to her as she clicked off the radio, cutting Bon Jovi’s “Living on Prayer” off mid-chorus. When he raised his eyes to hers as she glanced between him and the road, she asked, ‘What day is it?’

‘Monday?’ He blinked at the question. Didn’t she know?

‘And your name?’

‘William Roberts.’

‘What?’ Her head snapped towards him for a moment before refocusing on the road.

‘Luc, Luc Truman,’ he quickly corrected, trying to stop himself from reacting. Where the hell had that come from? He hadn’t used that name in over fifteen years. ‘Sorry, your questions are similar to a scene we have coming up next series.’ He shifted in his seat as the the woman next to him narrowed her eyes for a second at his slip.

‘And who do you play on the show?’ she said the question slowly, as if she still didn’t believe him.

‘Why are you asking me such stupid questions?’

‘I’m checking you’re not going into shock. Character name. Now.’

‘Gabriel, the archangel. Charged by God to ensure that the sands of time fall properly and that Lucifer doesn’t succeed in changing the fate of the cosmos. Happy?’ He crossed his arms as he looked at her pointedly before turning back to the road.

The flicker of the white lines hypnotised him and allowed his mind to sink into nothingness. Perhaps, it would lull him to sleep and he’d be able to—

‘Umpf!’ His arm and chest exploded in pain. ‘What the fuck?’ he looked around as he rubbed at his bicep. Sarah was back to glancing between him and the road.

‘I said stay with me. You’re likely to go into shock after everything you’ve been through. We need to get you something sugary, something to keep you going. Tell me something. Keep talking to me.’

‘Fuck you,’ he told her instead. ‘I’m not going into shock, I’m just… processing what the hell happened! I mean, you blew up that car and tore a hole in the wall of the hotel!’

‘Yeah, and?’

He stared at her incredulously. ‘There were people in there, just enjoying themselves! They’d done nothing… They didn’t deserve that!’ He was shouting, which, given what he’d just witnessed this woman do, probably wasn’t the best of ideas.

He watched Sarah’s fingers tighten on the wheel, her knuckles turning white, as she listened to him. Her face flickered, only momentarily, with sadness and regret, before it smoothed back into a blank slate.

The heartless bitch.

‘We are more important,’ she replied with a shrug of her shoulder. If this was a film he’d say something witty, a one liner that would follow him throughout his career. He’d do something other than just stare at her with his mouth open, but this wasn’t a film and he couldn’t believe she’d just said that.

He was a freaking household name and while people fawned all over him, he didn’t believe himself to be above the public. Save for the fact he’d appeared in some movies and shows, he was no more special than Joe Average. He didn’t have any special skills, couldn’t perform an operation on someone, couldn’t work out the complex mathematical formulae for solving world hunger, or knew what was needed to send man into space. He was a pretty face in a sea of thousands of other attractive men. He’d merely caught a break.

Nothing. Special.

Who the hell did she think she was, the freaking Queen of England?

Wait.

Luc squinted at her, tilting his head slightly to try and see if she looked familiar that way. Was she one of those British royals? She didn’t look familiar so he didn’t think she was anyone news worthy. Not that he would know. He was forbidden from watching anything other than The Entertainment Buzz, the channels locked out by Linda and Lars. It was only through his co-stars that he heard about world events and they weren’t really the type to be watching CNN or even Fox News during their free time. Although Nick did watch a lot of ESPN.

‘Look,’ she said interrupting his thoughts before she softened her voice. ‘I get it; it’s shocking, it’s horrible, it honestly is! Do you really think I want to hurt or kill a bunch of innocent bystanders? No, no I don’t.’ She vigorously shook her head. ‘Trust me, enough people have been hurt by that son of a bitch, but you need to understand how invaluable we are right now.

‘We know what the Demon looks like.’ It was almost like she was pleading with him. ‘Don’t you understand? In the whole freaking world, we’re the only two people who have seen his face and lived to tell the tale.’

‘So what’s the plan? We go to the police or the FBI and turn ourselves over to them for WITSEC? Not being funny, but that’s going to be a little difficult for me! I’m kinda recognisable.’

‘Hell, no!’ she exclaimed as if it was the worst idea in the world. ‘We’d be dead before sunset. Don’t you get it? I had a team hand picked by the UK’s Prime Minister and the President of the United-fucking-States and one of them betrayed me. You don’t think that a precinct full of cops isn’t going to have at least half a dozen officers who can be bought or, worse, blackmailed?’

‘But—’

‘No.’

Luc felt the car accelerate as her mouth formed a tight line. With her eyes focused firmly on the road ahead, Luc knew there would be no discussing the matter.

The car’s tyres rolled beneath them, catching a pot hole or a bump in the road every so often, breaking up the whirling noise they made as they raced over the otherwise smooth surface.

Sarah tapped her nail against the steering wheel, a repetitive beat that held no rhythm. Her eyes stared ahead, focusing as she tried to keep their little car as inconspicuous as possible on the highway. Too slow or too fast and they’d be remembered by other drivers or noted on the traffic cameras.

Luc turned to stare out his own window, watching the desert flying by. He might be free of Linda and Lars, but he had to decide if this woman was simply going to be their replacement. Was she going to determine that she was more important than him in the long run.

‘Who are you?’ he finally asked, snapping under the silent tension.

She glanced his way out the corner of her eye, her finger silencing as she seemed to debate something. Finally, she let out a long bone-weary sigh. Her shoulders sagged and her hands relaxed on the wheel; it was almost as if all the fight had gone from her. She eased her foot off the accelerator and the car slowed slightly, much to his relief.

‘Elizabeth Sarah Whiston, but I go by Sarah.’ She held out her hand. ‘Long time fan.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ he said hesitantly as he took her proffered hand and carefully shook it. ‘And that makes you…?’

‘Dead.’

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Officially, Elizabeth Whiston is dead.’ She turned her gaze back to the road as she spoke. ‘She died twelve months and twenty-six days ago when the school she taught at was attacked by the man known only as The Demon. Five hundred and eighty-four souls were killed, and another fifty-one taken for his business.’ She actually used the air quotes, taking her hands off the wheel for a second. Luc had to stop himself from reaching out and grabbing hold of it.

‘Unfortunately, Sarah bled out on the floor of her stock-cupboard after heroically getting fifty-three students and two staff members to safety. Terribly sad.’

Wait. What?

This woman had saved a bunch of people, faced the Demon—not once, but twice—kicked ass and took no names, and she was a teacher?

A fucking teacher?

Of what? Kicking the shit out of things? Survival one-oh-one?

‘You’re a teacher?’

‘Was. Look,’ her voice was devoid of emotion and Luc, for some reason, knew that whatever she was about to tell him was all he was going to get from her. For now.

‘I survived the attack. I was shot and technically—technically—I did die. As they airlifted me to the hospital I flat-lined. They kept it quiet that they managed to revive me. They threw me in an army base for almost twelve months, trie- trained me’—she stumbled over her words slightly—‘in all sorts, while they figured out what to do with me.’

Luc wondered what exactly she’d been trained in. There was clear evidence of handling guns, hot wiring cars, and blowing shit up, but what else could she do?

Actually, he hoped he never found out. He had a feeling he’d only discover what was sure to be an extensive list of skills if they were ever in trouble, and that was something he really didn’t want. He’d seen enough from today to last him a lifetime.

‘I don’t get much time for world news,’ he lied, ashamed at the fact as he damn well should be. ‘So fill me in on this demon-guy.’

‘Seriously?’ She sighed and muttered something that sounded like Americans. ‘This demon-guy has been terrorising Europe for over half a decade. He sprung up out of nowhere. One day there was a report that a Sunday school class had disappeared from a chapel in Romania. We have no idea if that’s where he’s from. Personally, I don’t think it is, but then I’ve never been asked my opinion’—she seemed a little put out by that—‘despite the fact I’m the only one who’s not only seen his face, but talked to the wanker too.’

Oh, she was definitely pissed off about that. He decided to keep quiet, he didn’t want her directing that anger on to him, but he agreed with her. The guy’s accent hadn’t been quite right to his ear. Too clean and nondescript. Almost like when Casey did an American accent. It was too general, no regional variants, and his English had been too good for a second language speaker, even one who spoke it fluently.

‘So, where was I? Oh yeah, Sunday school. Then there were groups of friends who’d go out and never come home. Then in Hungary, a few months later, schools were hit. He aimed for the high schools, or their equivalent, took some of the kids that were under thirteen—or looked it—and killed almost all the rest.’

‘But why kids?’

‘I don’t know!’ she said, incredulously. ‘Why does anyone do anything horrible in this world? So, this went on across Europe: Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, etcetera. All the way until he got to the UK last year.’ Her fingers tightened on the wheel again. ‘We were pretty arrogant. As an island nation we thought we were secure, but Europe has a free movement agreement, passports aren’t checked across the mainland and those in the EU have the right to live and work anywhere within its boundaries…’

‘That sounds… How the hell do you check on people?’

Sarah shrugged. ‘We learnt our lesson. The moment my school was hit—the first and only in the UK—Prime Minister Edwards closed the borders. People were stuck in airports and docks. The Channel Tunnel trains were stopped midway through the tunnel, those going to France were pulled back to London, those coming to the UK were sent back to Paris.

‘Man did we upset the EU big time, but there was uproar across Britain; riots kicked off and the public forced through an emergency referendum to leave the block immediately and shut down the borders completely to any nation without VISAs and checks, and so on. We didn’t care about trade agreements, we wanted our kids safe.’

‘Sounds like chaos,’ Luc said shaking his head. How the hell hadn’t he heard about this? Surely someone on set would have been talking about it? Casey! Casey must have said something at some point… But he drew a blank.

‘That doesn’t begin to describe it. Those who were in the UK on holiday had to immediately report to their embassies. There were queues for miles in the capital as people scrambled to get to them, less they face being arrested when they got to the airport to go home. Honestly, how the hell did you not know about this?

‘Anyway,’ she continued without waiting for an answer. ‘Even those with British passports had to go through verification checks on re-entry. Every single child being escorted through a port—sea or air—is now questioned extensively. It pretty much killed the tourist industry across Britain, but we set a precedent.

‘Nations across Europe were segued by their country men to follow our example.’ Sarah indicated off the highway onto route 191 heading north. ‘They protested, picketed, and the French even marched on the Palace of Versailles while the President was addressing their Congress. People decided enough was enough and governments buckled under the pressure.

‘They rebuilt borders and put immigration checks back in place; the EU, EEA and the European Court of Justice, pretty much all collapsed as countries took back sovereignty. Since then the Demon has been quiet.’

Luc made to speak, but she pre-empted his question.

‘The US became worried that he might be planning a move to hit them next, hence why they began working with the UK and agreed to help secure me.’ She scoffed at that. ‘Thousands of kids taken over that time and they decide that I’m the key to the bastard’s downfall. I won’t bring any of them back, but I will damn well do what I can to ensure that I get justice for them all.’ Her knuckles turned white again, and Luc didn’t doubt that she spoke the truth, felt it right down to the core of her being.

‘I’m sorry,’ he offered.

‘But seriously,’ she said glancing at him. ‘How did you not know this?’

‘Probably because my agency handles my life. Between them and Linda, I’m lucky to take a shit without someone pencilling it into my diary. Watching world news events isn’t going to get me my next role or land me those extra zeros on my contract renewal from the Network.’

Sarah frowned at his comment, opening her mouth to say something before shutting it again and letting silence fall between them, for which Luc was grateful.

He contemplated what the woman next to him had been through, what she’d witnessed. She said she’d faced the evil son of a bitch that day, that she’d spoken to him. What had he said?

‘That’s why we’re important,’ he said a while later, breaking the heavy silence within the car. ‘Because we can bring The Demon down?’

She laughed bitterly. ‘Fuck no! If I can’t shoot the son of a bitch when he’s standing in front of me, I’m not going to be able to hunt his arse down and kill him.’

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, holding it between her teeth as she considered something. A million calculations seemed to fly through her eyes as she weighed every piece of information she had. Finally, she added, ‘We’re the distraction.’

Any questions, please drop them in the comments. Next update on Friday!

#AUH #fangirl #Unpublished #unedited

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flauntpage · 7 years

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Ranking Every NFL Team's Super Bowl Chances

With eight weeks of the 2017 NFL season in the books (we all know the Chiefs are beating the Broncos on Monday night so we can do this now), it's time to take stock of each team's Super Bowl chances. You're probably saying, "That's silly, because not all 32 teams have a chance at a Super Bowl."

You're right, but those teams are great for the purpose of making jokes.

Let's get right into it, because 32 is a lot of teams.

32. San Francisco 49ers (0-8) — lmao

31. Cleveland Browns (0-8) — lol

30. New York Giants (1-6) — OK, so maybe doing this with all 32 teams was a little ambitious. The good news is the New England Patriots are looking like the favorites to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, and everyone knows Tom Brady can't beat Eli Manning in a Super Bowl. The bad news is the only time we're seeing Odell Beckham in a Super Bowl is in that painful ad with the Silicon Valley guy who mixes up sports terminology at the press conference like a TOTAL NERD, lol learn sports, nerd!

29. Indianapolis Colts (2-6) — What if the reason Andrew Luck hasn't played this season is because he's undergoing surgery and treatment that will allow him to become Wolverine? The reports surrounding Luck's "injury" have been odd, with the story changing every couple weeks. Even his name—Luck—would be a cool X-Men name. The Colts will be a tough out in January if their quarterback can't be tackled by regular humans.

28. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-5) — When you combine a former Florida State quarterback with a former Jacksonville Jaguars offensive coordinator, you should just be happy to have the 28th-best team in the NFL.

27. Oakland Raiders (3-5) — Just move this stupid franchise to the moon already. In hindsight, a team coming off a breakout season signing a guy who had retired for a year just because he's from the area was an odd choice. And, I mean, Marshawn Lynch is clearly his own guy, so him running on the field to fight some dudes mid-game does, in hindsight, seem inevitable. We should have known the Raiders would screw this up.

26. New York Jets (3-5) — The way I see it, the Jets may have the best chance of winning the Super Bowl, because these are the Jets, and whatever they want to do, the opposite happens. Since they're trying to tank, finishing 9-7 and winning the Super Bowl has about an 80 percent chance of happening. They're the Cleveland Indians in Major League except Rachel Phelps was a much more sympathetic owner. Who wouldn't rather live in Miami than Cleveland?

25. Los Angeles Chargers (3-5) — Prove to me the Chargers weren't trying to lose to the Patriots on Sunday. When teams shave points, usually they try to hide it, but Philip Rivers fumbling with no contact and a guy running backward 15 yards to take a safety is a little too obvious. The Chargers don't want to win, so I won't raise the hopes of the 800 people in Los Angeles who care about them.

24. Chicago Bears (3-5) — Every team in the league has three wins, FYI. Mitch Trubisky completed 43 percent of his passes Sunday against the Saints, which shows why the Bears only allowed him to throw seven passes two weeks ago. An NFL quarterback completing 43 percent of passes against the Saints would be like an NBA player shooting 2-of-19 against a high school team. It's too bad someone like Deshaun Watson wasn't available at the draft when the Bears… [looks back at draft order] oh, whoops.

23. Cincinnati Bengals (3-4) — Say it out loud: "Andy Dalton, Super Bowl champion." Yeah, never gonna happen.

22. Arizona Cardinals (3-4) — If David Johnson returns in time, yeah, why not the Cardinals? He recently referred to the wrist as a "complicated limb," which tells me he's taking advantage of the painkillers. "Bro, ever think about wrists? They're like… complicated, man." If Carson Palmer is upright, weirder things have happened.

21. Washington Sports Franchise (3-4) — Bob Kraft is a buddy of Vlad Putin, but doesn't he feel miscast as owner of the sport's most hated franchise? Wouldn't Dan Snyder make more sense with the Patriots? Sadly, Snyder is an inept billionaire with a barely functioning franchise and a quarterback taking his money one mediocre year at a time. Washington's season died Sunday against Dallas, but take comfort in knowing the team will win just enough games so they won't be able to draft a franchise quarterback after Cousins leaves in the off-season.

20. Houston Texans (3-4) — Deshaun Watson might be the most talented rookie quarterback in modern NFL history, and you just know Bill O'Brien will screw it up. After his defense had shown for an entire half it was incapable of stopping the Seahawks on Sunday, he ran it three straight times, punted, and watched Russell Wilson deliver a near instantaneous death blow. When Watson wins a Super Bowl, it won't be with O'Brien clenching on the sideline in a big game.

19. Detroit Lions (3-4) — It's the Super Bowl. Lions down five. Fourth and goal. Two seconds remaining. Matthew Stafford rolls right, time expires, he throws and…Eric Ebron! Touchdown! No time left! The Lions have—hang on. Officials are gathering in the end zone. "Due to the pass being caught with no time left, the touchdown is only worth 4.5 points. Therefore, by rule, which was just invented before the play in secret in the league office, the game is over, Lions lose." The following day, the NFL will apologize for not allowing the Lions to kick the winning extra point but won't take the title away from the Patriots. I guess what I'm saying is, the Lions, no matter what, will find a way to not win the Super Bowl.

18. Denver Broncos (3-3) — You lose at home to the Giants by 13 points, I don't understand why you even show up for the rest of your games.

17. Baltimore Ravens (4-4) — The Ravens are the NFL's ideal picture of mediocrity. A quarterback that's just OK enough, a defense that'll do just enough to win a couple games, and boom, you're 8-8 at the end of the year. This will be the state of the Ravens for two decades as punishment for years of making us watch Ray Lewis dance.

16. Dallas Cowboys (4-3) — If Ezekiel Elliott's arbitrator is based in Texas and has him in fantasy football, sure, maybe he plays the whole season and the Cowboys can do it. There's no harder team to read, but if there's one thing I know about sports justice, it's that Elliott won't face any discipline until the 2021 season, when his suspension is reduced to three preseason games.

15. Tennessee Titans (4-3) — They have two very good running backs, a pretty good quarterback, a decent group of wide receivers, and a defense that's…clearly the weak link. But really, what makes the Titans different from last year's Falcons? Fine, Eric Decker isn't Julio Jones and Rishard Matthews isn't Mohammed Sanu, and…OK, fine, forget it. I almost talked myself into it.

14. Miami Dolphins (4-3) — How in the name of sweet baby Jesus has this team won more games than it has lost? I'm scrolling up from the bottom of the NFL standings as I write this, and when I saw the Dolphins here at 4-3, I did that blinking guy GIF everyone on Twitter loves. The Dolphins team on Ballers coached by Peter Berg and GM'd by Dulé Hill has a better chance of winning it all.

13. Jacksonville Jaguars (4-3) — Blake Bortles, you just won the Super Bowl, where are you going? "I'm going to Dorney Park!" No, Blake, the other amusement park. "I'm going to Busch Gardens!" No, man, forget it. If the Jags are going all the way, it's via their defense, but I think it's fun to imagine Bortles doing all he can to muck it up along the way, then lying to him that he's MVP just so you can get him to say into a cellphone camera, "I'm going to Six Flags Great Adventure!" That's viral content, my friends.

12. Green Bay Packers (4-3) — Nope. I'm sorry. The NFC North is too tough for the Packers to survive the rest of the regular season without Aaron Rodgers. What's truly torturous for fans is how many commercials that have Rodgers and injured Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Every commercial break, you're reminded that your favorite team's season is over because the best player was broken in two. There should be a rule that if an NFL guy is out for the year, he gets replaced by his backup in any national ad campaign. Brett Hundley gets all the State Farm ads the final nine weeks. Roger Lewis Jr. gets all the Verizon ads. Sorry, but it's now in the CBA.

11. Atlanta Falcons (4-3) — The Falcons' hangover isn't a 22-year-old's hangover, where you're slightly groggy the next day but you can still attend your CrossFit Sauna Expert Master class at 6 AM; this is a 39-year-old hangover where you Google "can you die from a hangover" from your bed at 7 PM the next day. I still think if the Falcons can make themselves puke one more time before the stretch run, the Falcons can get back to the Super Bowl.

10. Carolina Panthers (5-3) — If the Dolphins are the league's worst 4-3 team, the Panthers are the league's worst 5-3 team. Cam Newton has nine touchdowns and ten interceptions in eight games and the Panthers are headed toward the playoffs because football is a crapshoot like no other sport, and players don't matter, for we are all part of a human experiment known as life where chaos and randomness rule us despite our best efforts to seek control. Eat at Arby's.

9. Seattle Seahawks (5-2) — They can't run the ball and the defense is sort of old, but you have to respect the championship pedigree. You get the sense the Seahawks are that college graduate taking a year off to "find themselves" and they'll either be better off for the journey or they'll still have zero offensive line when it's over and won't be able to find a job in a saturated marketplace when they return home. I'm mixing metaphors there but you get my point. If Sunday showed us anything, it's that when Pete Carroll, a good coach, gets in a close game with a bad coach like Bill O'Brien, he'll find a way to win, and fortunately for Seattle there are more bad coaches than good coaches in the NFL.

8. New Orleans Saints (5-2) — The Saints are Steelers South. Only instead of defense, the Saints offense has looked incredible against mostly slop. They've won five straight against the Panthers, the Dolphins, the Lions, the Rodgers-less Packers, and the Bears. There's maybe one impressive win in there. Can you really count on the Saints to shut down a really good offense? Wait, does anyone have a good offense besides the Saints? My god, they are going 14-2, aren't they? This could happen.

7. Los Angeles Rams (5-2) — It's not going to happen, but the idea of a disheveled Jeff Fisher alone in a shack watching what is mostly the same roster he had last season continue to advance in the playoffs while he mutters "7-9…7-9" to himself is a fun image. Fisher will start a Buzzfeed account and start writing things like "16 Ways Millennials Are Ruining Jeff Fisher's Life" that will just be GIFs of Sean McVay.

6. Kansas City Chiefs (5-2) — Say hello to our best hope of beating the Patriots, which, oh well, maybe next year the Patriots won't get to the Super Bowl. Imagine a superhero movie with the worst possible villain, only instead of the Avengers or Batman, the villain has to defeat Paul Blart. That's the Chiefs. The only way the Chiefs win that matchup is if our world is a feel-good comedy and not film noir directed by Christopher Nolan. Based on recent evidence in this world, what do you think happens in a Chiefs-Patriots AFC title game? Yeah, me too.

5. Buffalo Bills (5-2) — Nothing would be funnier than the Bills beating the Patriots in the playoffs. It would be the greatest 1980s movie ever where the nerd finally gets the best of the bully. Tyrod Taylor dropping 40 on Tom Brady in Foxboro would be the Lucas/Karate Kid mashup Bill Simmons wishes he sold to a movie studio ten years ago. But this is reality, and what's more likely is LeSean McCoy tearing his ACL the Friday before the game and Rob Gronkowski somehow growing a foot taller at halftime and posting 300 yards in the second half.

4. Pittsburgh Steelers (6-2) — Yeah, the Steelers have the second-best defense, but they've compiled these numbers against the Browns, the Vikings, the Bears, the Ravens, the Jaguars, the Chiefs, the Bengals, and the Lions. Outside of the Chiefs, that's just pure dreck. But there's more dreck on the schedule, so the Steelers are practically a lock to make the playoffs, which seems nuts when you consider that two weeks ago when they lost to the Jaguars you wondered if Ben Roethlisberger would retire mid-season. This league stinks.

3. Minnesota Vikings (6-2) — No. This is a glitch in the Matrix. Instead of two cats, it's Case Keenum and Sam Bradford looking exactly the same in everything they do. The difference this year is the Packers are toast without Rodgers so the NFC North is there for the taking. It's not that Vikings are bad, but I don't want to listen to people talk about how good they are. They're basically a Netflix show.

2. Philadelphia Eagles (7-1) — It's pretty tough right now for a certain segment of the U.S. population—the Eagles and the Yankees are getting really good again at the same time. And both will be really good for a long time. It's heartbreaking. There's no reason the Eagles can't win a Super Bowl this year, other than the fact they are the Eagles and they always find a way to crap their pants. You can take the Andy Reid out of Philadelphia but you can't take the Philadelphia out of Andy Reid. Or something. Fuck the Eagles, man.

1. New England Patriots (6-2) — There's no better evidence that we are living in a computer simulation run by a vindictive sociopath than the existence of the Patriots. Their idiot quarterback is 100 years old but plays like he's 28. The team cheats but nobody cares. The coach writes love letters to Donald Trump. The Pats could have and perhaps should have lost their past four games but, of course, they won them all. This team has no business still being Super Bowl favorites but it's time we just accept that this is our reality until Morpheus finds us and frees our minds. Congrats to the Patriots on another Super Bowl win.

Ranking Every NFL Team's Super Bowl Chances published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 7 years

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Ranking Every NFL Team’s Super Bowl Chances

With eight weeks of the 2017 NFL season in the books (we all know the Chiefs are beating the Broncos on Monday night so we can do this now), it’s time to take stock of each team’s Super Bowl chances. You’re probably saying, “That’s silly, because not all 32 teams have a chance at a Super Bowl.”

You’re right, but those teams are great for the purpose of making jokes.

Let’s get right into it, because 32 is a lot of teams.

32. San Francisco 49ers (0-8) — lmao

31. Cleveland Browns (0-8) — lol

30. New York Giants (1-6) — OK, so maybe doing this with all 32 teams was a little ambitious. The good news is the New England Patriots are looking like the favorites to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, and everyone knows Tom Brady can’t beat Eli Manning in a Super Bowl. The bad news is the only time we’re seeing Odell Beckham in a Super Bowl is in that painful ad with the Silicon Valley guy who mixes up sports terminology at the press conference like a TOTAL NERD, lol learn sports, nerd!

29. Indianapolis Colts (2-6) — What if the reason Andrew Luck hasn’t played this season is because he’s undergoing surgery and treatment that will allow him to become Wolverine? The reports surrounding Luck’s “injury” have been odd, with the story changing every couple weeks. Even his name—Luck—would be a cool X-Men name. The Colts will be a tough out in January if their quarterback can’t be tackled by regular humans.

27. Oakland Raiders (3-5) — Just move this stupid franchise to the moon already. In hindsight, a team coming off a breakout season signing a guy who had retired for a year just because he’s from the area was an odd choice. And, I mean, Marshawn Lynch is clearly his own guy, so him running on the field to fight some dudes mid-game does, in hindsight, seem inevitable. We should have known the Raiders would screw this up.

26. New York Jets (3-5) — The way I see it, the Jets may have the best chance of winning the Super Bowl, because these are the Jets, and whatever they want to do, the opposite happens. Since they’re trying to tank, finishing 9-7 and winning the Super Bowl has about an 80 percent chance of happening. They’re the Cleveland Indians in Major League except Rachel Phelps was a much more sympathetic owner. Who wouldn’t rather live in Miami than Cleveland?

25. Los Angeles Chargers (3-5) — Prove to me the Chargers weren’t trying to lose to the Patriots on Sunday. When teams shave points, usually they try to hide it, but Philip Rivers fumbling with no contact and a guy running backward 15 yards to take a safety is a little too obvious. The Chargers don’t want to win, so I won’t raise the hopes of the 800 people in Los Angeles who care about them.

24. Chicago Bears (3-5) — Every team in the league has three wins, FYI. Mitch Trubisky completed 43 percent of his passes Sunday against the Saints, which shows why the Bears only allowed him to throw seven passes two weeks ago. An NFL quarterback completing 43 percent of passes against the Saints would be like an NBA player shooting 2-of-19 against a high school team. It’s too bad someone like Deshaun Watson wasn’t available at the draft when the Bears… [looks back at draft order] oh, whoops.

23. Cincinnati Bengals (3-4) — Say it out loud: “Andy Dalton, Super Bowl champion.” Yeah, never gonna happen.

22. Arizona Cardinals (3-4) — If David Johnson returns in time, yeah, why not the Cardinals? He recently referred to the wrist as a “complicated limb,” which tells me he’s taking advantage of the painkillers. “Bro, ever think about wrists? They’re like… complicated, man.” If Carson Palmer is upright, weirder things have happened.

21. Washington Sports Franchise (3-4) — Bob Kraft is a buddy of Vlad Putin, but doesn’t he feel miscast as owner of the sport’s most hated franchise? Wouldn’t Dan Snyder make more sense with the Patriots? Sadly, Snyder is an inept billionaire with a barely functioning franchise and a quarterback taking his money one mediocre year at a time. Washington’s season died Sunday against Dallas, but take comfort in knowing the team will win just enough games so they won’t be able to draft a franchise quarterback after Cousins leaves in the off-season.

20. Houston Texans (3-4) — Deshaun Watson might be the most talented rookie quarterback in modern NFL history, and you just know Bill O’Brien will screw it up. After his defense had shown for an entire half it was incapable of stopping the Seahawks on Sunday, he ran it three straight times, punted, and watched Russell Wilson deliver a near instantaneous death blow. When Watson wins a Super Bowl, it won’t be with O’Brien clenching on the sideline in a big game.

19. Detroit Lions (3-4) — It’s the Super Bowl. Lions down five. Fourth and goal. Two seconds remaining. Matthew Stafford rolls right, time expires, he throws and…Eric Ebron! Touchdown! No time left! The Lions have—hang on. Officials are gathering in the end zone. “Due to the pass being caught with no time left, the touchdown is only worth 4.5 points. Therefore, by rule, which was just invented before the play in secret in the league office, the game is over, Lions lose.” The following day, the NFL will apologize for not allowing the Lions to kick the winning extra point but won’t take the title away from the Patriots. I guess what I’m saying is, the Lions, no matter what, will find a way to not win the Super Bowl.

18. Denver Broncos (3-3) — You lose at home to the Giants by 13 points, I don’t understand why you even show up for the rest of your games.

17. Baltimore Ravens (4-4) — The Ravens are the NFL’s ideal picture of mediocrity. A quarterback that’s just OK enough, a defense that’ll do just enough to win a couple games, and boom, you’re 8-8 at the end of the year. This will be the state of the Ravens for two decades as punishment for years of making us watch Ray Lewis dance.

16. Dallas Cowboys (4-3) — If Ezekiel Elliott’s arbitrator is based in Texas and has him in fantasy football, sure, maybe he plays the whole season and the Cowboys can do it. There’s no harder team to read, but if there’s one thing I know about sports justice, it’s that Elliott won’t face any discipline until the 2021 season, when his suspension is reduced to three preseason games.

15. Tennessee Titans (4-3) — They have two very good running backs, a pretty good quarterback, a decent group of wide receivers, and a defense that’s…clearly the weak link. But really, what makes the Titans different from last year’s Falcons? Fine, Eric Decker isn’t Julio Jones and Rishard Matthews isn’t Mohammed Sanu, and…OK, fine, forget it. I almost talked myself into it.

14. Miami Dolphins (4-3) — How in the name of sweet baby Jesus has this team won more games than it has lost? I’m scrolling up from the bottom of the NFL standings as I write this, and when I saw the Dolphins here at 4-3, I did that blinking guy GIF everyone on Twitter loves. The Dolphins team on Ballers coached by Peter Berg and GM’d by Dulé Hill has a better chance of winning it all.

13. Jacksonville Jaguars (4-3) — Blake Bortles, you just won the Super Bowl, where are you going? “I’m going to Dorney Park!” No, Blake, the other amusement park. “I’m going to Busch Gardens!” No, man, forget it. If the Jags are going all the way, it’s via their defense, but I think it’s fun to imagine Bortles doing all he can to muck it up along the way, then lying to him that he’s MVP just so you can get him to say into a cellphone camera, “I’m going to Six Flags Great Adventure!” That’s viral content, my friends.

12. Green Bay Packers (4-3) — Nope. I’m sorry. The NFC North is too tough for the Packers to survive the rest of the regular season without Aaron Rodgers. What’s truly torturous for fans is how many commercials that have Rodgers and injured Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Every commercial break, you’re reminded that your favorite team’s season is over because the best player was broken in two. There should be a rule that if an NFL guy is out for the year, he gets replaced by his backup in any national ad campaign. Brett Hundley gets all the State Farm ads the final nine weeks. Roger Lewis Jr. gets all the Verizon ads. Sorry, but it’s now in the CBA.

11. Atlanta Falcons (4-3) — The Falcons’ hangover isn’t a 22-year-old’s hangover, where you’re slightly groggy the next day but you can still attend your CrossFit Sauna Expert Master class at 6 AM; this is a 39-year-old hangover where you Google “can you die from a hangover” from your bed at 7 PM the next day. I still think if the Falcons can make themselves puke one more time before the stretch run, the Falcons can get back to the Super Bowl.

10. Carolina Panthers (5-3) — If the Dolphins are the league’s worst 4-3 team, the Panthers are the league’s worst 5-3 team. Cam Newton has nine touchdowns and ten interceptions in eight games and the Panthers are headed toward the playoffs because football is a crapshoot like no other sport, and players don’t matter, for we are all part of a human experiment known as life where chaos and randomness rule us despite our best efforts to seek control. Eat at Arby’s.

9. Seattle Seahawks (5-2) — They can’t run the ball and the defense is sort of old, but you have to respect the championship pedigree. You get the sense the Seahawks are that college graduate taking a year off to “find themselves” and they’ll either be better off for the journey or they’ll still have zero offensive line when it’s over and won’t be able to find a job in a saturated marketplace when they return home. I’m mixing metaphors there but you get my point. If Sunday showed us anything, it’s that when Pete Carroll, a good coach, gets in a close game with a bad coach like Bill O’Brien, he’ll find a way to win, and fortunately for Seattle there are more bad coaches than good coaches in the NFL.

8. New Orleans Saints (5-2) — The Saints are Steelers South. Only instead of defense, the Saints offense has looked incredible against mostly slop. They’ve won five straight against the Panthers, the Dolphins, the Lions, the Rodgers-less Packers, and the Bears. There’s maybe one impressive win in there. Can you really count on the Saints to shut down a really good offense? Wait, does anyone have a good offense besides the Saints? My god, they are going 14-2, aren’t they? This could happen.

7. Los Angeles Rams (5-2) — It’s not going to happen, but the idea of a disheveled Jeff Fisher alone in a shack watching what is mostly the same roster he had last season continue to advance in the playoffs while he mutters “7-9…7-9” to himself is a fun image. Fisher will start a Buzzfeed account and start writing things like “16 Ways Millennials Are Ruining Jeff Fisher’s Life” that will just be GIFs of Sean McVay.

6. Kansas City Chiefs (5-2) — Say hello to our best hope of beating the Patriots, which, oh well, maybe next year the Patriots won’t get to the Super Bowl. Imagine a superhero movie with the worst possible villain, only instead of the Avengers or Batman, the villain has to defeat Paul Blart. That’s the Chiefs. The only way the Chiefs win that matchup is if our world is a feel-good comedy and not film noir directed by Christopher Nolan. Based on recent evidence in this world, what do you think happens in a Chiefs-Patriots AFC title game? Yeah, me too.

5. Buffalo Bills (5-2) — Nothing would be funnier than the Bills beating the Patriots in the playoffs. It would be the greatest 1980s movie ever where the nerd finally gets the best of the bully. Tyrod Taylor dropping 40 on Tom Brady in Foxboro would be the Lucas/Karate Kid mashup Bill Simmons wishes he sold to a movie studio ten years ago. But this is reality, and what’s more likely is LeSean McCoy tearing his ACL the Friday before the game and Rob Gronkowski somehow growing a foot taller at halftime and posting 300 yards in the second half.

4. Pittsburgh Steelers (6-2) — Yeah, the Steelers have the second-best defense, but they’ve compiled these numbers against the Browns, the Vikings, the Bears, the Ravens, the Jaguars, the Chiefs, the Bengals, and the Lions. Outside of the Chiefs, that’s just pure dreck. But there’s more dreck on the schedule, so the Steelers are practically a lock to make the playoffs, which seems nuts when you consider that two weeks ago when they lost to the Jaguars you wondered if Ben Roethlisberger would retire mid-season. This league stinks.

3. Minnesota Vikings (6-2) — No. This is a glitch in the Matrix. Instead of two cats, it’s Case Keenum and Sam Bradford looking exactly the same in everything they do. The difference this year is the Packers are toast without Rodgers so the NFC North is there for the taking. It’s not that Vikings are bad, but I don’t want to listen to people talk about how good they are. They’re basically a Netflix show.

2. Philadelphia Eagles (7-1) — It’s pretty tough right now for a certain segment of the U.S. population—the Eagles and the Yankees are getting really good again at the same time. And both will be really good for a long time. It’s heartbreaking. There’s no reason the Eagles can’t win a Super Bowl this year, other than the fact they are the Eagles and they always find a way to crap their pants. You can take the Andy Reid out of Philadelphia but you can’t take the Philadelphia out of Andy Reid. Or something. Fuck the Eagles, man.

1. New England Patriots (6-2) — There’s no better evidence that we are living in a computer simulation run by a vindictive sociopath than the existence of the Patriots. Their idiot quarterback is 100 years old but plays like he’s 28. The team cheats but nobody cares. The coach writes love letters to Donald Trump. The Pats could have and perhaps should have lost their past four games but, of course, they won them all. This team has no business still being Super Bowl favorites but it’s time we just accept that this is our reality until Morpheus finds us and frees our minds. Congrats to the Patriots on another Super Bowl win.

Ranking Every NFL Team’s Super Bowl Chances syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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flauntpage · 7 years

Text

Ranking Every NFL Team's Super Bowl Chances

You're right, but those teams are great for the purpose of making jokes.

Let's get right into it, because 32 is a lot of teams.

32. San Francisco 49ers (0-8) — lmao

31. Cleveland Browns (0-8) — lol

23. Cincinnati Bengals (3-4) — Say it out loud: "Andy Dalton, Super Bowl champion." Yeah, never gonna happen.

18. Denver Broncos (3-3) — You lose at home to the Giants by 13 points, I don't understand why you even show up for the rest of your games.

Ranking Every NFL Team's Super Bowl Chances published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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