Drew Magary's Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday during the NFL season. Email Drew here.


We’ll start with the obvious, which is that #Ballghazi is an idiotic (but thoroughly enjoyable) scandal that is of microscopic import to the NFL and of even smaller import to the world at large, and it is already dying a proper death. We are very good at manufacturing scandals out of nothing here in America. You only need a few key ingredients:

A gap in the news cycle. A worthy target; someone people already dislike. (Like Don Imus! Remember the Imus thing? That happened because Fuck Don Imus.) The lingering presumption that the target has done SOMETHING wrong at some point in life, so you may as well nail them for this. A story with a great deal of unknowable information in it… holes that I can fill using MY IMAGINATION. Sex and/or racism and/or and/or violence and/or balls.

Given how little we have to work with in this instance (air pressure, a ball boy going into a bathroom, a potential rules violation that had virtually no effect on the final outcome), this may be our crowning achievement in collective truthering. We got more than a week out of this lemon. It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for the Patriots. Maybe you would even like to root for them on Sunday, as a matter of principle, or because Bill Belichick was so cute talking about stuffed monkeys.


So I’m here to re-emphasize the obvious: do not root for the Patriots. Fuck the Patriots. Fuck them to hell.

As bad as the Ballghazi truthers are, I assure you that Boston sports fans remain a thousand times worse by comparison. Consider everything they get if the Patriots win on Sunday:

A fourth ring.

A fourth title for Brady, tying him with Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw and making him arguably the greatest quarterback of all time. (He probably already is; pretty impressive given that he had to suffer the hardship of having three older sisters

A fourth title for Belichick, making him the greatest coach of all time. (He definitely already is.)

A hand-written, publicly distributed apology by Roger Goodell to Robert Kraft, written on a scroll by a professional calligrapher.

Exclusive yearlong rights to the word “Dynasty,” which is one of the most annoying fucking words in sports. “Hey, this team won a lot of titles. ARE THEY A DYNASTY?!” That word is the collective equivalent of “Elite”. It doesn’t mean a fucking thing. If you win four titles in 15 years, you are really good, and that should be good enough. You shouldn’t need extra validation in the form of linguistic titles.

I don’t want Pats fans to have any of that. And I definitely don’t want them to cloak four Super Bowl titles in their unique brand of triumphant self-loathing. These assholes already have three rings, and they STILL want your pity for having to root for the Pats back when they were old and shitty. Look at the endless, terrible schlongread about Brady from the New York Times this week:

Their teams were mostly bad, their owner was an embarrassment, their stadium a dump. Yet the Patriots always retained a lovable haplessness about them… Since then, the Patriots have achieved the highest winning percentage in American professional sports, ahead of even the N.B.A.’s San Antonio Spurs. Admittedly, it felt slightly unnatural — un-Patriot-like — to identify with what became such a ruthless and efficient machine.


Shut up. OH THIS WINNING IS STILL SO WEIRD AND STRANGE TO ME BECAUSE WE HAD IT SO BAD BEFORE BRADY ARRIVED. No. Sorry. Your ascension to dynasty status cancels out any past miseries. You don’t get to have both. That’s not how sports works. Every title is not a chance for you to tell me the story of your sports life. You did not spring from humble beginnings, you moody fucks.

Ballghazi has given Patriots fans everything they could possibly want. They get a chance at winning a fourth championship and all the bragging rights that entails, but they still get to BITCH. They can bitch that they don’t get to fully enjoy their newfound largesse because people will think they cheated. They can bitch about being the victims of a witch hunt. They can bitch about HATERZZZ trying to bring them down because other fans are just BUTTHURT that Boston gets to be Titledouche, USA. They can bitch that this scandal will tarnish all of their bar arguments. They can bitch and bitch and bitch and bitch because Boston fans love nothing more than to use sports as a way of airing their endless grievances.


And they’ll never stop. They could win 10 titles in a row in all four sports and I promise you… the flood of pissing and moaning would never cease. I know the Seahawks have their own unappealing qualities (Macklemore), but I promise you: if Seattle wins, it’s for the best. I would prefer to live in a future universe where Brady and Belichick have lost three Super Bowls and inspire 5,000 “tarnished legacy” takes.

That said, it’s time to pick this fucker. Let’s get into your Super Bowl Jamboroo, kids.


The Games

All games in the Jamboroo are evaluated for sheer watchability on a scale of 1 to 5 Throwgasms. And during the playoffs, I PICK the games, because that’s such a risky, BRAVE way of putting yourself out there.


Five Throwgasms

Patriots (-1) 26, Seahawks 7: I’m sure Simmons will post a 9,000-word screed tomorrow talking about how the Pats will be IN FACKIN’ EFF YOU MODE THIS IS JUST LIKE WHEN REESE WITHAHSPOON WON AN OSKAH BECAUSE SHE WAS PISSED AT RYAN PHILLIPPE! He’ll probably also make up some horseshit stats about Teams In Eff You Mode Playing In Authentic Games and then treat it as gospel. But I’m picking the Patriots mostly because (WARNING: bad football analysis ahead) the Seahawks have dogshit wideouts, and they have to run a shitload early in games (with a combination of Lynch and Russell Wilson on scrambles) to free those wideouts up so they can eventually connect on a deep ball down the field. When they can’t hit any of those deep passes, they lose. My guess is that New England loads up to stuff Lynch, and their corners hold, and then they win, and then I throw up into a mop bucket.


This is the ending the NFL has been building up to all year. This batshit crazy season probably deserves to end with Goodell standing on a dais, with everyone booing the fuck out of him, handing the Lombardi Trophy over to his BDSM top, Kraft. It deserves to have Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth yammering on from a fucking prepared script about what a nice moment this is for both men AFTER SO MUCH TURMOIL. It deserves one final unwatchable blowout presided over by the NBC production team. It deserves announcers using the word “vindicated” for a billionaire. I’m gonna buy a new television before this game specifically so that I can break the one I already have when I see all this go down. It’s gonna be fucking terrible. I couldn’t be more excited to watch. Onto the random crap:

• I still can’t get over the fact that Goodell berated employees for being overpaid. What boss does this? I’ve worked in offices and I don’t think I’ve ever had a boss openly talk about people making too much money. That only happens in call centers. “Hey, Bob! How’s it going today? By the way, you make too much money.” That’s a deeply fucked-up boss move.


• You think the NFL is being ruined by officials? Go to a third-grade girls basketball game sometime. I watched my kid play in one last weekend and there was a five-second violation every… well, every five seconds. They don’t even allow double-teaming or full-court defense in elementary school basketball, which is too bad because I bet you could DESTROY the other team with a solid press. They must have stopped the game a hundred times in the span of half an hour.

I remember what it’s like to be a kid and have the ref blow a whistle on you, too. You feel like you got pantsed in front of everyone else. The ref blows his whistle, and everyone stops, and you look around all confused like, “What? What happened? I thought we had a nice thing going on here.” And then the ref tells you that you fucked up (Me?), and why you fucked up (That’s a rule?), and then you’re psyched out for the rest of the game. It ain’t easy being a kid.


• No matter who wins, you’re gonna hear a lot of “Us against the world” rhetoric. That phrase needs to be retired from sports forever and ever and ever. The world doesn’t give a shit. Most of the world is just trying to fucking eat. Some farmer in Burundi isn’t gonna be like, “The Pats won? Well, they showed me!” The cliché should be “It’s us against some of the world, mostly North America, and even then people are actually still quite nice when you see them in person.”

• Everyone gets more spam right around the Super Bowl. Here is the worst PR spam email that I got:

Montell Jordan’s 1995 hit “This Is How We Do It” will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. Montell teamed up with Pepsi and Buffalo Wild Wings to put on a special performance of the song for fans who were able to show that they were most “Hyped For Halftime” in anticipation of the Pepsi Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show with Katy Perry. The lucky fans were given a surprise performance at their local Buffalo Wild Wings in Oakdale, Minnesota.


I don’t know who I pity more: Montell Jordan, or the poor fuckers in that Buffalo Wild Wings who were just trying to enjoy a Garden Crasher Slammer when a bunch of assholes from Pepsi stormed in and forced them to listen to an impromptu Montell Jordan concert. I wanna meet the brand manager who was like, “Hey, you know who suburban Minnesotans really love? The ‘This Is How We Do It’ guy.”

• One of the reasons that Ballghazi turned into a bigass thing is that the sport of football itself has become so complicated (needlessly so at times), that talking about the actual game itself can be awkward and annoying for the casual observer. Like, if I’m at a party, and I’m talking about the NFL with another dude, and that asshole starts droning on about passing trees like he’s fucking Ron Jaworski, I’m running to the other side of the room to talk inflated balls with a local soccer mom. That’s a much more enjoyable conversation. I’d rather hang out with the people who aren’t pretending to know everything.


• I was watching the NFC title game at my mom’s house and we ordered pizza for the game and my mom is the kind of mom who insists on putting the pizza into the oven after it has arrived, so that it’s extra hot when we sit down to eat. This is a pointless extra step in the pizza-eating process and I hate it. Fuck the oven. Pizza tastes a thousand times better right out of the box. When I have a pizza party, I’m not even gonna have plates. Everyone gets a box. The pizza won’t even be hot. It’ll be lukewarm, so you can cram down seven slices at once. That’s the best way to eat pizza.

• American Sniper has made 50 zillion dollars at the box office so far, which has led to the inevitable cottage industry of thinkpieces about why the movie’s popularity is so problematic. But I think the main reason the movie did so well—apart from the fact that it’s suspenseful and well-acted—is the fact that it had kickass ads. I mean, you saw the trailer, right?

That’s a fucking great trailer. You won’t see one ad during the Super Bowl that’s better than that trailer. I had to watch the movie just to see if he shot the kid or not. DON’T SPOIL IT FOR ANYONE!


• I watched five minutes of the Pro Bowl the other night and Mike Tirico took a moment to praise Phoenix for being such a pleasant host city to the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl. This happens every Super Bowl, even in garbage cities like Jacksonville. The city exhausts all its resources and money to let the NFL set up shop and block main traffic arteries with inflatable Lombardi Trophies, and in return the NFL pats the host city on the head and is like, “Hey, good job making us feel comfortable while we fuck your town over!” If anything, the NFL should apologize to every host city. The NFL is like a bad playdate where the guest kid throws all the toys on the floor and then walks out.

• Speaking of playdates, I have a five-year-old and whenever the five-year-old has a playdate, there comes a point where he just straight up ignores his friend and starts doing his own thing. And I’ll be like, “Dude, you have to play with this other kid. You invited his ass here.” But he won’t! He’ll go into a whole other room while the poor bastard is stuck downstairs, all alone. And then I gotta play with THAT kid so he doesn’t feel bad. We clearly need a minimum age for playdates. Like, maybe around age twenty-three. Then you can have a friend over. You’re ready.


• You thought that an Arizona Super Bowl would negate any cold weather Super Bowl takes? YOU WERE WRONG, amigo. Say hello to Steve Politi, who took a moment this week to chide the NFL for hosting a Super Bowl last year in cold weather when it could have, in an alternate universe where that game takes place this year, been hit by a huge blizzard:

Try to imagine the hysteria with a"crippling and potentially historic blizzard" on the way. Try to imagine Goodell, already reeling from the fallout from how he handled the Ray Rice suspension, dealing with 30 inches of snow or more just days before his big game.


Yes, try to imagine it, and then… Well, I guess we’re just imagining it. Not much action to be taken after that, really. I salute the commenter on that link whose only reply was, “What if my Aunt had male genitalia?”

• A few months ago, I had to buy a mattress for my kid’s bedroom. So I went to the depressing mattress store, suffered through dealing with the salesman (mattress salesmen are like car salesmen but more desperate), and then picked out some mattress to take home. And when the mattress was ready to pick up, I was so loath to deal with the salesman again that I turned down his request to tie the mattress to the roof of my car. I was like, “I’ll handle it! I’m a big strong man grrrrrrrr.” So I threw the mattress on the roof of the car and just randomly started wrapping string around it and tying it down wherever I could. I don’t even know how to tie a simple slip knot, really. I’d make a terrible sailor.


Once I was satisfied with my handiwork, I started driving home. Within a mile, another dude pulled up beside me and gestured for me to roll down my window.

“It’s slipping off the back!”

I pulled onto a side street and, sure as shit, half the fucking thing was hanging off the back of the car. One more bump in the road and the thing would have slid off, causing an 18-car pileup behind me and putting me in legal settlement hell from now until eternity. I am haunted by visions of my death mattress wiping out half the city of Rockville. Never let me tie anything to anything. I should formally suspended from all knot-tying for life. I apologize to my victims in another dimension who were struck by an errant Sealy Posturepedic. You didn’t deserve that, or a blizzard Super Bowl.


Two weeks ago: 2-0 (1-1 vs. the spread) Total for playoffs and CFB: 6-8 vs. spread

Pregame Song That Makes Me Want To Run Through A Goddamn Brick Wall

“Muezli,” by Slo Burn. From David:

My nomination for pregame song is "Muezli" by Slo Burn, which was John Garcia's post-Kyuss group. Since you are a QOTSA hippie as well, I figured you would dig it.


Indeed I do. By the way, I checked the lyrics and this song is NOT about German breakfast cereals. Kinda disappointing, frankly. The song still kicks ass, though.

Drew’s Chili Recipe

I don’t think I’ve made chili since the last Super Bowl, so I have an even firmer chili boner than usual this year. Once in a while, I dream about entering a chili cookoff in one of the fatty states (like Iowa or something), but I know exactly what would happen. I would make my little pot of chili, and then I’d find myself surrounded by nutjob foodies and rednecks with tricked-out oil tankers made for churning spiced pig parts, and they’d all be WAYYYYYYY too competitive about chili, and bust out all kinds of intimidating cooking techniques and ingredients. And then I would lose and grow to HATE chili, and all that the competitive chili-cooking world stands for. That’s what would happen. I’m in this for the chili, man. I ain’t no Glory Boy.


Anyway, I post this recipe in the Jamboroo every time the Super Bowl comes around. It’s meant strictly as a base chili recipe. You can add or subtract to it any way you please (I think I’m gonna try dropping a whole piece of chuck roast into it this year to see what happens). Just make sure you cook extra chili, so that you have leftover chili to put on hot dogs, spaghetti, nachos, omelets, cereal, etc. By the end of next week, I’ll have had chili eighteen different ways and my old lady will want me killed for fart-smogging. I can’t wait.

FOR THE CHILI (Make 8-10 servings, I guess):

2 one-lb. packs ground beef or chicken (make sure it’s the fatty percentage, like 80/20.)


1 onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 shallot, chopped (ANNUAL NOTE: Shallots are the food that make restaurant food taste like restaurant food.)


1 jalapeno, chopped

1 large can crushed tomatoes

1 can red kidney beans, drained

1 can corn, drained

1 can beer

1 can chicken broth

1 tsp liquid smoke

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp fennel seed

2 tbsp cumin (add more at end if necessary)

2 tbsp chili powder (add more at end if necessary)

1/4 cup white vinegar

Salt & Pepper to taste

Ashes from a joint (optional)

Lotta Frank's Hot Sauce

2 glugs olive oil

FOR THE SIDES: Shredded cheese

Tortilla chips

Sour cream

Frank's hot sauce

1 bunch scallions, chopped

Beer

Put a big pot on the stove on medium. Pour in the oil. When it's hot, toss in the onions, garlic, jalapeno, and shallots and stir them around until soft. Toss in the ground meat. Salt and pepper the ground meat in the pot. Sautee the meat until it's good and brown. Add the tomatoes, beans, corn, beer, broth, liquid smoke, sugar, cumin, chili powder, fennel seed, joint ashes, vinegar, and Frank's. Bring it to a simmer. Half cover the pot and leave it on low medium heat for 3-4 hours, stirring occasionally and always tasting. The liquid in the pot should reduce into a nice, thick stew. Add water if you feel like it needs more time. Dip in a chip to see if the chili sticks to it. If it does, it's ready to serve.


Gregg Easterbrook Is A Haughty Dipshit


Were you hoping to check out the 2008 Shia LeBeouf movie Eagle Eye this weekend? Of course you were. We all were. WELL GREGGGGGG HAS SOME DISAPPOINTING NEWS FOR YOU.

The 2008 Shia LaBeouf action flick "Eagle Eye" combined two TMQ betes noires: bottomless pits and single switches that destroy things.


It’s almost comforting to know that this opinion would have been useless even if Gregg Easterbrook had conceived of it six years ago. His preening idiocy is on a time release. Very excited for him to bitch about the inconsistencies of Blackhat in 2021. Hackers don’t look like that!

The physics of bottomless pits are never spelled out. How is one built? Where does the stuff go? Why don't bottomless pits have guard rails?


BECAUSE IT’S FICTION YOU CAN DO ANYTHING IN FICTION THAT IS WHY IT’S FUN. You’d think a guy who believes Jesus floated up to heaven would have more appreciation for dramatic license.

Deflategate caught on quickly, but TMQ is weary of "-gate," perhaps because there have been so many. Your columnist will call the scandal PSIcheated.


That’s a fucking shitty name and no one will use it.

I don't think the reaction to PSIcheated is about Belichick. It's about the assumption that people reach positions of power and privilege — in sports, business, government, school, Wall Street — by cheating, and most are never caught.


That’s a quality Friedman-esque observation right there. Now, let me tell you what we talk about when we talk about Ballghazi as a way of talking about police corruption ***FARRRTTTTTTTTT***

By the way, this isn’t even close to the dumbest thing Gregg wrote this week. Here now is his most egregious crime against humanity at large:

Yours truly watched the tape of the fourth-and-1 decisions and was struck by this: All four times Aaron Rodgers trotted off passively, not arguing to go for it. Can anyone believe Brett Favre in this situation would have trotted off passively? This may be emblematic of the difference between the modern analytics-based, emotionally cool approach to sports and old-fashioned passion for athletic battle.


(finds park bench)

(gets running start)

(runs headfirst into park bench)

I just… What’s the point? Really? What’s the point of sports if it’s gonna cause people to think like this? HEY EVERYONE, STATS ARE MAKING US INTO PUSSIES. The Packers clearly never should have let Favre go.

The ultrahip Idina Menzel…

Oh, the disgust. Look this HIP singer, that people LIKE. Repulsive. By next year, she’ll be busking outside Peter Pan terminals, I say!

…will sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl, while John Legend performs "America the Beautiful." TMQ will save time by repeating in advance my annual complaint that only the first stanzas of the latter are sung at public events, not the deeper and more complex later lyrics.


And I will repeat my annual explanation that no one wants to hear a nine-minute version of the anthem before finally getting to watch a goddamn football game. I bet Favre would have sung all 60 verses! I bet this ULTRAHIP chanteuse doesn't even know the extra verses exist!

Emmitt Smith's Lock Of The Week!


“For the Super Bone, I like the Saddles Socks (+1) to beat New Angle Land! Bank-to-bank Super Bones for Saddle! You know, I’m getting tired of this whole Deflamegame scoundrel. Everyone is arguing about Deflamegame. What is there to argue about? YOU CANNOT DEFLAME THE FOOTBALL. I don’t need any fancy charts about air treasure to know that! THIS IS NOT ABOUT AIR TREASURE. They deflamed those footballs. And I don’t care if Bill Ballchip did it, or Tom Bradley did it, or the bongboy did it! IT’S CHEETAHING! Whether it’s ten pouches per squid inch or twelve grounds per spare itch, they had an unfair abandage! SUSPENDER THEM ALL.”

2014 Emmitt Smith record: 9-13

This Week In Terrifying Animal News

Hey, thinking of going diving in the Sea of Cortez sometime soon? DO NOT DO THIS. Turns out the bloodthirsty humboldt squid may grab you and drag you down to a watery grave. From reader Brendan:

This write-up about it is designed to horrify so it's a bit overly dramatic but it did the job well.


Let’s take a look at this writeup and see if Brendan’s on point here…

The attack of a humboldt takes place in less than a second. The two powerful tentacles snake out in a flash, snagging the victim and pulling it into the teeth-lined arms. Once it has engulfed its victim in its arms, the humboldt pulls its prey to a powerful chitinous beak located at the center of its arm Imagine the beak of a parrot, but many times larger, and with the cutting power of hydraulic scissors, which “can easily cause dramatic lacerations to human flesh,” as Wikipedia dryly notes.


Okay so he’s on point. Turns out the Humboldt squid is a Sarlacc pit that can swim. Sounds fun. Never swim anywhere, man.

Coach Who Deserves To Die A Slow, Painful Death

Mike McCarthy, who should send Bill Belichick flowers for overshadowing his own war crimes against the game of football two weeks ago. Two field goals from the goddamn one-yard line. He’s ruined forever. He could win three more titles and Packer fans would still remember him as the guy who pussed out at the one. That shit sticks with you.


Fire This Asshole!

Is there anything more exciting than a coach losing his job? All year long, we'll keep track of which coaches will almost certainly get fired at year's end or sooner. And now, your potential 2014 chopping block:

Rex Ryan – FIRED!

Marc Trestman – FIRED!

Mike Smith – FIRED!

Jim Harbaugh – PARTED WAYS!

Dennis Allen - FIRED!!

Doug Marrone – FLED!

John Fox - SCHOTTENFIRED!

Ken Whisenhunt

Jay Gruden

Joe Philbin******

Ron Rivera

Tom Coughlin

Lovie Smith

Roger Goodell

Gus Bradley

(*potential midseason firing)

I can’t believe the Broncos cleared out their entire staff just to bring in Gary Kubiak and his economy-size jar of pomade. “Hey, our old coach was a shitty game manager. LET’S BRING IN A DIFFERENT SHITTY GAME MANAGER.” They may as well have kept Fox. By the end of this hiring cycle, only the Jets and Falcons will have hired relatively fresh talent (Jim Tomsula doesn’t count because he looks like a muffler salesman). The rest? Shitass retreads. I guess Marc Trestman scared the entire league out of venturing far from the standard hiring pool.


Great Moments In Poop History

Reader Andrew sends in this story I call THE LAST POOP SCOUT:

I used to spend my summers working at boy scout camp. One summer, our camp was forced to close due to a natural disaster, so a bunch of us got transferred to another camp. During our first week there, one of the younger staff visibly pissed his pants at the evening colors (flag-lowering) ceremony. He received $30 from his fellow 15-year olds for his efforts. After dinner, all members of our 18+ staff return to our cabin and of course the pants-pissing incident comes up. The opinions are basically unanimous; "kid's a dumbass," "i'd never do that," stuff like that. One guy, Tony, respectfully disagrees: "Yeah, but he made 30 bucks. I'd do anything for money. Hell, for 20 bucks, I'll lick the shit from your asshole." We all have a laugh, yeah right, ok Tony. But then Andy (not me), who up to this point has remained quiet on the matter, speaks up. "Ok Tony. I've got 20 right here (pulls out cash). Let's do it." Tony immediately backs off. "Whoa, I don't think so." But then someone else chimes in "I'll put in 10," and all of a sudden everyone in the cabin is reaching for their wallets. Within a couple minutes we've collected somewhere between 85 and 100 dollars and Tony has agreed to a bet on whether or not he will lick shit. We all step out onto the porch. It's raining, hard, so we all huddle under the small roof. Andy, dining hall plate in hand, forges ahead into the woods. A few minutes pass before he returns, still holding the plate, but now carefully balancing a single, perfectly formed brown log on it. Thanks to the rain, it is literally a big steaming shit. Andy hands off the plate, and Tony finds himself face to face with this turd. He gives it a long look. "Alright," he says, and gets a little closer, then retreats quickly. Again he gets close, a little closer than the last time, and again he hesitates. We are cheering and booing, like we’re watching our team on a power play where they get off a ton of shots but none go in. Finally, Tony gets really brave and sticks out his tongue. Ever so slowly, he gets his taste buds within half an inch of the poop. He stays there for 5 seconds or so, until he abruptly turns his head away and says, "I can't do it!" Why not? "This stuff smells like shit." I guess what I'm trying to say is Tony, if you're reading this, you still owe me my ten bucks.


Gametime Snack Of The Week

Wings! Always wings for the Super Bowl. The best wings I ever ate were at last year’s Super Bowl. I was walking in the freezing cold to this Bud Light boondoggle on the far West Side of Manhattan when I crossed by a ramen joint that was offering a Super Bowl special. You got a bowl of ramen, six wings, and a beer… all for, like, twelve bucks. That was all I needed to see. I went in and they handed me this plate of six deep fried wings with some chili sauce for dipping. I was all alone. No kids to deal with. No need to talk to anyone. Just me and a plate of fried goodness. God, eating alone is just the best sometimes. I don’t even remember the name of the restaurant. I bet I couldn’t find it again if I tried. It probably doesn’t even exist anymore. The wings were unreal.


Gametime Cheap Beer Of The Week


Hunter Beer! Hey, that can looks familiar. An anonymous reader explains…

Ever lived in a dry Muslim country of 160 million people packed into an area the size of Iowa? Ever craved a Fosters but desired far less quality? Fear not: crack open a cold Hunter beer (unlikely due to sweltering heat and power outages)! Yes, from the booze, hop, and barley-free land of Bangladesh comes a beer so crappy it rips off a beer renowned for its extra large cans of swill, replaces it with what I assume is feral Bangladeshi cat piss, and puts it in a smaller can made of old aluminum foil. I miss it terribly.

Hunter’s! It’s Bangladeshi for Australian for beer! I MUST HAVE IT. I wonder what other Bangladeshi knockoff beers are available on the open market: Brudweiser, Tiller’s, Moors Lite, Blue Sun, etc. I’d drink them all. No regrets.


Robert Evans's MVP Watch!


Time to start thinking about this season's candidates for the NFL's MVP award. Every week, legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans will join us to give us his assessment. Take it away, Mr. Evans.

“Baby, my final MVP pick is still JJ WATT OF THE TEXANS! Lotta talk about that sniper picture in Hollywood this week, and I couldn’t be happier for my dear old friend, CLINT EASTWOOD! Dirty Harry himself! Old? YOU BET! Crazy? HOLY SHIT THE MAN SCARES EVERYONE WHO MEETS HIM. The one time I invited Clint over to Woodland, he didn’t touch any of the food or hookers or coke or hookers or free bowls of cash or hookers or stacks of municipal treasury bonds or signed JFK portraits or hookers at all! Instead, he went right up to my fireplace and pointed up at an old Winchester rifle that had been given to me by none other than Emilio Zapata! (I saved his life once! Long story, but it ends with him getting laid!)


“'That your rifle?’ Clint asks. Well, of course it was! Shiny? YOU BET. Loaded? OH I ALWAYS KEEP GUNS LOADED. More fun that way. So Clint grabs the rifle and starts talking to it. ‘Well Louise, what do we think?’ he asked it, aiming the gun at every person in the house, ‘Can we trust them?’ Everyone got real quiet. HE LOOKED LIKE HE WAS GONNA KILL US ALL! ‘Yeah, they’re okay, Louise. But there’s one bad one, yeah… And I think it’s right over… HERE.’ BOOM! He fired the rifle right at a banana! Everyone screamed! Nicholson dropped his coke mirror! It was chaos! Then he walked over and picked up the smoking banana and handed it to me, and I saw the banana was brown and rotten.”

“’Took care of that one for ya,’ he said, and then he strolled out! I never saw him again! Last time I ever have the help buy bananas. Holy shit!”


Sunday Afternoon Movie Of The Week For Raiders Fans

Nightcrawler. If you’re gonna see one Michael Mann knockoff movie this winter, make it the one that Mann didn’t direct himself. By the way, the climactic scene of this movie will have you shitting your pants. There are totally people like Lou Bloom out there. I bet that one dude who dated Britney for a bit has broken into houses to film dead bodies.


Gratuitous Simpsons Quote

“Oh, man. I have to go to the bathroom. Why did I have all that beer and coffee and watermelon?”


Enjoy the Super Bowl, everyone. Final Jamboroo of the season next week.

Drew Magary writes for Deadspin. He's also a correspondent for GQ. Follow him on Twitter @drewmagary and email him at drew@deadspin.com. You can also buy Drew's book, Someone Could Get Hurt, through his homepage.


Image by Patriots fan Jim Cooke.