5 Uncensored Thoughts From NFL Week 14

1. Teams that are in.
   • If the playoffs started tomorrow, here’s what we’d be looking at: Jets-Broncos, Chiefs-Colts, Vikings-Packers, Seahawks-Redskins. Byes:  Patriots, Bengals, Panthers, Cardinals.
   • Teams in the hunt: Steeler, Raiders, Bills, Texans, Jags, Dolphins, Bucs, Falcons, Eagles, Giants
   • Teams that are technically in the hunt but have no business being in the hunt: Raiders, Bills, Bucs and Falcons are all 6-7 and out of contention for their divisions. With all four current wildcard teams at 8-5 that means you would need a series of events to happen for any them to have a chance. I won’t even entertain that idea.
2. Teams that are out.
   • FINALLY, six teams are officially “mathematically out” of playoff contention: Titans, Browns, Chargers, Ravens, 49ers, and Lions. I love when teams are mathematically out because it calls for an end to the half hour segments on SportsCenter where they discuss what these teams need to do to turn it around.
   • I am more than happy to cross the rest of the teams out that the mathematicians are missing: Cowboys, Bears, Saints and Rams.
3. Injuries.
   • This season has been plagued with injuries.  It seems like every week we see another star go down ruining thousands of fantasy owners’ seasons. After 13 weeks of listening to my friends whine about their fallen players; I decided to look into the injuries a little further. I’m in your average fantasy football league of idiots who invest more time into fantasy football research than they do their day-jobs. And just like every other league of idiots when it’s their turn to draft they take the best available player and then rationalize their pick for the next three weeks. Needless to say, the first four rounds of my draft probably match just about everybody else’s. I went back to our picks to see if their whining about injuries was actually justified.
   • Of our first 40 picks, only 18 have played every game. Only four players drafted in the first round have played every game this season. Of the 40 picks, 15% of them have been ruled out for the rest of the season. That leaves us with over half of our first four round picks having not played in at least one game this season. Basically if you don’t have at least one of your top two guys out right now — you probably sucked so bad at drafting that you’re sitting in first place.
4. Backup quarterbacks that don’t want to play.
   • Stemming from that same idea of injuries, there are a number of backup quarterbacks who accidentally found themselves in starting roles this year. After seven hours of redzone this Sunday, it wasn’t hard to pick out the guys who can’t wait to get back on that bench and just collect their checks.
     • AJ McCarron AJ is the most recent addition to the list. When Andy Dalton went down this week against the Steelers, AJ was asked to take over for his AFC North leading Bengals. AJ was quoted saying something along the lines that his opportunity was basically like Tom Brady getting his starting job. I like your style AJ — set the bar as high as possible so you can underachieve by enough that you’ll be back on the bench in time for the ‘Bama- MSU game. Dalton also left us with another chilling post-game comment regarding his current injury status: “I hurt my thumb.”
     • Mallet, Hoyers, Yates The Texans controversy was the best of the year. Bill O’Brien wouldn’t commit to either of them and we got to watch it all play out on Hard Knocks. This is how it played out: Hoyer loses the battle of who has to start game one. He plays as bad as he can and gets benched – in comes a pissed-off Mallet. He pulls the best move of 2015 quarterbacks yet and simply doesn’t show up for the team’s charter flight for a game. Mallet gets cut. Back in is Hoyer. After taking five sacks to New England, Hoyer begins to “forget things” – cue concussion protocol and bring in Yates. Sit back and grab a beverage this Sunday to watch Yates find a way to get out of this new starting role as quickly as possible as he takes on the Colts.
     • Schuab, Clausen… Mallet? Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to start quarterback for the Ravens either; but these guys are making an art out of it. Flacco recently signed one of the NFL’s biggest contracts ever. No surprises when he decided to chalk this year up and went down early in the season. Aging veteran Matt Schuab must have been shocked when he got the nod.  And I would have loved to see the face of Jimmy Clausen after Schaub went down. Clausen played just well enough to not get fired but not well enough to stop the Ravens from signing Ryan Mallet. It will be interesting to watch Mallet put on a career performance knowing he won’t have to play in the post season and likely will be released this off season. Keep getting those checks, Ryan!
     • Matt Hasselback When Hasselback signed up to be understudy for emerging star Andrew Luck, I don’t think this season is what he had in mind. Luck went down earlier this year and in comes Grampa Hasselback. He played as well as anyone could expect him to do and appeared to have gotten the Colts out of a jam. Not quite. Complications with Luck have left Hasselback as the starter for consecutive weeks. At this point he sits out two plays after every sack, he’s only practicing on Thursdays, and when asked about how he feels you could see the “Well it feels like every bone in my body is broken” look in his eyes. Still, Pagano has told media that he expects Hasselback to be available this Sunday, poor guy.
     • Matt Cassel Matt sits with an exclusive group in my backup QB hall of fame (Think: Matt Flynn). He came in for terrific Tom Brady a while back and played well enough to earn a backup QB paycheck for the remainder of his career. Then Tony Romo breaks his clavicle (if it was anyone else we would just say collarbone but Romo is just the kind of guy who breaks his ‘clavicle’). In comes Cassel who was sure he would be able to piss the season away and get his old job back. He accidentally beat Washington in a week  13 toilet bowl game. Then he completes less than half his passes against Green Bay just to make sure he can get his ass back to the bench. Nope. Garrett says he’ll stand by Cassel in this coming week. Sorry, Matt.
     • Johnny Manziel What’s this guy gotta do to get benched? The off-field celebrity from Texas A&M was sent to the armpit of the North when he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns. Destined to get out of there Johnny repeatedly broke team policy and even entered rehab for a week or two.  Manziel started this year as the backup, then down goes McCown.  Manziel decides this would be a good opportunity to prove himself and hopefully get traded in the offseason, so he goes ahead and throws for 372 yards. Johnny realized he might of overdid it when the Cleveland faithful proclaim him their King. So what’s Johnny do? Get’s caught pouring alcohol all over himself on the bye week. Classic. As he goes back to the bench they bring in Austin Davis. Well you can bet Davis was getting swirlys in the bathroom after he lost to the Bengals 37-3 throwing Manziel back on the field to finish the season
     • Side note: It appears Blaine Gabbert and Brock Osweiler don’t understand that being a backup QB is the best job in sports.
5. The AFC South is pathetic.
   • Sure the NFC East is bad, but why isn’t the AFC South getting enough attention?  In the stronger AFC conference they will be sending a likely 7-9 or 8-8 team to the playoffs this year. The NFC East steals most of the national attention due to the big market cities and low caliber coaching performances but I’m telling you this conference puts that one to shame. Notoriously bad, usually the Colts are able to carry the conference and hide the fact of how bad it is from the general public. Not this year. Don’t believe me?  Here are the current starting quarterback of the division: Matt Hasselback, T.J. Yates, Marcus Mariota and Blake Bortles. Sound like the local prep schools wrestling team. As bad as it is, it appears the best team is actually the London Jaguars. As the season hits the home stretch, we might actually see the Jags and Texans play a week 17 game that has home field playoff implications.  I swear that line has never been written before in NFL history.

PHOTO: CLEVELAND, OH – NOVEMBER 30: Johnny Manziel #2 of the Cleveland Browns warms up prior to the game against the Baltimore Ravens at FirstEnergy Stadium on November 30, 2015 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)