The Definitive Dubsism/FOH Assessment of the Twelve NFL Play-Off Teams

by J-Dub and Eight Thirty Seven

The post-season is upon us. Gone are the pretenders; we are down to the “Dirty Dozen” NFL squads that could legitimately take home the Lombardi Trophy. Naturally, only one will do it, because that’s just the way it is. Now, if you are a fan of one these dozen, you probably already think your team can win. That’s we explore the possibilities of just that for every playoff team.

Hope is a lot of things.  It is universal, and now every team in the play-offs has it. However, hope is not strategy, which is precisely why for eleven of these teams, this post-season is only going to end in disappointment. That’s why we are here to help you understand why your team could win, but more than likely won’t.

To avoid any appearance of showing a likelihood of any particular team winning, we’ve listed them in alphabetical order. Besides,  this year in the NFL, even the good teams have a little suck in them.

1) Arizona Cardinals

Why They Can Win:

Much like Carolina, the Cardinals have a head coach who is light years ahead of the rest of the NFL. Specifically, this means instead of imitating or trying to accuse Bill Belichick, Bruce Arians has taken it upon himself to turn the Cardinals into what could be a perennial killing machine for the next decade. Carson Palmer isn’t going to play until he’s 43 years old, but they are going to milk that goat for every cent of the 45 million dollars they paid to prepare it for slaughter. Nearly a fifth of their starters made the Pro Bowl, and we’re sure none of them could give a rat fuck about making plans for that trip. This team is on a mission to win the Super Bowl, and everything other than that matters to them about as much what those twats on “The View” think matters to Vladimir Putin.

Why They Can’t Win:

After Carson Palmer got hurt last year, the Cardinals didn’t just go into a tailspin; they went full-on “Challenger.’ They got dropped in the first round by a team with a losing record, and mustered an offensive performance as weak as the French Army in 1940. Palmer is 36 years old and has had two knee surgeries, which means the Cardinals are one hit on a guy who’s been on the cover of Sports Illustrated walking on an underwater treadmill away from “Challenger II: This Time, It’s Everywhere.”

2) Carolina Panthers

Why They Can Win:

Not enough can be said about the job Ron Rivera has done with a team that made last year’s postseason with a losing record. He’s got the league MVP whom most writers thought would never succeed as a pocket passer, and not only is he getting the job done (albeit not in the flashiest manner), but his ability to run the ball is a key part of the Panthers’ success. In other words, he’s a bigger, stronger Randall Cunningham, which means he can actually climb the mountain rather than having his career end with a whimper in Baltimore.

Josh Norman went ape-shit on Odell Beckham because Norman is a bad-ass and is having a career year. Luke Keuchly got beat one play in the Atlanta game where he somehow ended up having to cover Julio Jones, but the rest of the year he’s been flawless. Collectively, the Panthers have had the perfect balance of offense and defense to succeed, and now that they don’t have the “undefeated” thing hanging over their head, they can focus on the goal of becoming Super Bowl champions.

Why They Can’t Win:

If they don’t win the Super Bowl, it will be because they got beat on the way there. Nobody in the AFC (more on that in a bit) can hang with this team. I know, any thing can happen in a one-game scenario, but if you had to lay your next house payment on Carolina versus anybody from the “Almost Football Conference,” tell me who you’ve got?

Toward the end of the season, teams started to figure out the Panthers on both ends. They almost lost to the Saints and the Giants, which should probably disqualify them from the Super Bowl altogether. But this is a league based on actual results, which is why anybody still thinks any team in the AFC is still relevant. The fact the Panthers did lose to a Falcons team they shut out 38-0 just two weeks prior gives everybody hope, but like we said, hope is not a strategy.

3) Cincinnati Bengals

Why They Can Win:

The Queen City Kitties have the NFL’s purest example of an offense that can beat you in many ways. They’ve got the best offensive line in the league, which leads the way for a pair of talented running backs. Not to mention, this has all happened under the tutelage of Marvin Lewis; a fact in and of itself which should have us all hoarding bottled water and canned goods.

If the Bengals can get healthy at the key positions they’ve lost, they are the most complete team in the league…on paper.

Why They Can’t Win:

There’s three things to think about here.

First, the Bengals are riding a back-up quarterback, and every straight guy in America would like to ride his wife. Being a back-up quarterback is about the bast life imaginable. You get to be in the NFL, you make more money than a brain surgeon, and since you are the back-up, you’ll still be able to walk when you’re 45. Add to that a wife so fucking hot she burns through asbestos tampons, and you are required to hate A.J. McCarron.

Think about it. When Jeff Hostetler won a Super Bowl as a back-up, he could have won a “Mr. Ed” look-alike contest. He couldn’t get a handie from a hooker hanging around the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I’m pretty sure when Jim Plunkett won as a back-up with the Raiders, he was married to a Motel 6 maid and a major part of their intimate relations consisted of a game they called “Pluck the Mole.”

Second, Mao Tse-Tung once referred to the United States as a “paper tiger.” What he meant by this is while the U.S. has a tremendous amount of military might, it will hamstring itself twiddling its thumbs over insignificant policy decisions. If the “Marvin Lewis” factor were international policy, that would be it. By the time this article is published, the Bengals might be down to Jennifer Marlowe from “WKRP” at quarterback. Marv won’t figure out that he doesn’t necessarily need to throw the ball to win; he’s got that killer running game. Stuff like this is why we can’t figure out why Messy Marvin is the second-longest tenured coach in the NFL behind Bill “Mr. Personality” Belichick. But he is, and that’s why the Bengals are the NFL’s “paper tigers.”

Third, and most frightening…we just made two references to hot chicks in a place where J-Dub actually finished 3rd in a “Miss Cincinnati” beauty pageant and he had only shaved one leg and part of his back.

4) Denver Broncos

Why They Can Win:

The AFC might as well stand for “Absolute Fucking Crap,” because there isn’t a single great team in this entire conference. It doesn’t require greatness to be at the top of the AFC heap; it merely means somebody has to be a better grade of crap. There really isn’t a better way to describe the Broncos.

Having said that, Denver’s defense isn’t crap. Denver’s defense has been making Denver omelets (Mmmmmm…omelets) out of opposing offenses all season. They rush the quarterback as well as anybody else in the league.

Why They Can’t Win:

The answer is contained in the following, sung to the tune of the “Nationwide” jingle: “Denver Broncos just fucked up.”

Gary Kubiak is trying in Denver to rebuild the offense with which he won a Super Bowl in Baltimore. A dominant, “ball-control” running game married to a six-foot-six rocket-armed quarterback who is just mobile enough to make the play-action game effective. In preparation for the play-offs, Kubiak just benched that quarterback for the quarterback of Christmas past.

We could very easily cite the first year Peyton Manning came to Denver, where he blew the divisional playoff game at the hands of the eventual Super Bowl champion Ravens in two overtimes. Or we could really get nasty and talk about how Ol’ Horseface got smoked by the Seahawks 43-8 in what has to have been one of the most embarrassing Super Bowl performances since Tony Eason forgot what the color red looked like in January 1985. And if we wanted to go even further than that, we could talk about how they lost yet another divisional playoff game at home to the team who hired the guy who Manning’s old franchise had hired to take his job.

But instead of doing that, we’ll point out that when it comes to the play-offs, the Broncos always choke harder than a Kansas runaway making her first bukkake video. That begs the question: who made this decision?

To know that, all you have to do is look to the press box to the captain of the ship. There you will see John Elway, resplendent with a handle of scotch, a paisley tie, and the incisors of a Clydesdale making damn sure that some “Jethro Clampett” look-alike named “Brock” ain’t winning in his first shot when it took Horsey-teeth 13 years to do it himself.

5) Green Bay Packers

Why They Can Win:

Yeah, right.

Why They Won’t Win:

Because this isn’t five years ago.

The Packers are just like another team in this tournament.  We’ll name the common flaws, and you tell us the team we are talking about.

• Team has a Hall-of-Fame quarterback and almost nothing else
• Team started hot, then fell apart
• Team fell apart due to a host of crippling injuries
• Team was playing a lot of “B” and “C” list talent even before the injuries
• Team has an offensive line is so beat up it’s practically married to Ray Rice
• Team can’t run the ball
• Team can’t control the line of scrimmage
• Team can’t play defense

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to the Green Bay Patriots Packers.

Face it. The Packers are fucked. Put them up against a top team and see what happens.  Remember when Arizona came to Lambeau, took the Packers lunch money and dunked Aaron Rodgers head in the toilet while they did it?  No amount of playoff experience could possibly outweigh the all the negatives here; there’s just too many of them, and they are in critical spots.

The only major difference between the New England Packers Patriots and Green Bay in this play-off tournament is home games. Rodgers won’t have his fan base of drunken morons to “Lambeau Leap” into, but the Packers can’t score anyway. The Packers are an exploding septic tank full of used tampons and fried chicken grease. we can’t wait to see them eat a dick the second the playoffs start.  Now that the Colts are dust,  we need somebody to hate, and you have officially won that honor, Green Bay.

6) Houston Texans

Why They Can Win:

A year ago, a tiny football team from Leicester was mired in the middle of the English Championship, and today, that team is at the top of the Premier League. If a tiny club like Leicester can make to the top of the top English league, then anything is possible.

Why They Can’t Win:

Wait…what? That’s not the right kind of football? Well shit. That was the only argument we could come up with, so we guess that means they are fucked.

Seriously, regardless of what you think of the Texans, there’s no denying that J.J.Watt is that once-in-a-generation defensive lineman who can single-handedly can take over a game, like Alan Page or Reggie White before him.  But he really all Houston has.

Houston isn’t exactly thick on either side of the line of scrimmage, (insert quarterback here)’s stats aren’t even impressive in high-school football in Texas, and we’re pretty sure their leading rusher is actually the black guy from “Walker, Texas Ranger.”

The point here is that beside the star power of J.J. Watt, the Texans roster features a lot of low-wattage bulbs. DeAndre Hopkins is very solid, although he has more drops than a Texas rainstorm and he fucks up routine routes more often than Peyton Manning angrily drunk-dials Al Jazeera these days. If they are going to win the four straight games winning a Super Bowl requires, at some point the Texans will have to score more than 13 points.

If you like the odds of that happening any time soon, would you be interested in the odds of J-Dub becoming the next King of England. He drinks tea, likes soccer, and is probably secretly gay.  Aren’t those the qualifications?

7) Kansas City Chiefs

Why They Can Win:

The Chiefs are hot…we’re talking “Linda Cohn tongue-kissing Erin Andrews” hot.  As J-Dub and JFI pointed out, at 1-5, they could have very easily been stamped “left for dead.” Instead, they rallied around Alex Smith and Andy Reid (yeah, we can’t believe we just wrote that either), and are playing the best football of anybody since Halloween. Know any other 10-0 teams in that stretch?

Besides, the deeper the Chiefs go into the play-offs, the more chances J-Dub has to use his “Andy Reid Big Boy” graphic. He fucking loves that thing. Meehan swears J-Dub is going to name his first lap-band after it.

Why They Can’t Win:

To suggest that the Kansas City Chiefs are an offensive powerhouse would be like saying the South won the Civil War in a landslide. Like the Broncos, this team relies on a defense that dishes out more punishment than the East German Stasi. Not only is that a function of having a defense vaguely reminiscent of the Red Army rolling through Prague in 1968, but the Chiefs offense looks like the post-op ward on MASH. And not when that show was good, either. We’re talking when “Hot Lips” had that weird platinum hair and looked she had more face-lifts than Joan Rivers / Kenny Rogers sex tape (good luck escaping that visual….you’re welcome).

Winning a Super Bowl without a “franchise quarterback” is possible, but so is listening to an entire Miley Cyrus CD without puncturing your own eardrums with a shish-kebab skewer. That’s why you’ll probably see Eddie Money and Molly Hatchet opening up for Miley Cyrus on a tour with a name like “This Cooch Gon’ Stank” before you’ll see Alex Smith hoist the Lombardi Trophy as a Chief. Not to mention, even if Kansas City gets to the Super Bowl, there’s always Andy “Not Exactly Reliable in January” Reid’s proclivity for fucking things up faster than Donald Trump’s barber.

8) Minnesota Vikings

Why They Can Win:

Don’t look now, but it seems as if the Vikings might finally be emerging from the half-decade hibernation known as the post-Favre era. Teddy Bridgewater went down to Party City and got himself an NFL quarterback costume. The clock hasn’t hit midnight yet, as this was the year the Vikings took that next step. They’ve continued to show promise since then.

Why They Can’t Win:

Because they are the Vikings. Sure they show promise now, but for promise to become potential to become results takes time. That time isn’t now. For the Vikings to win now, it will require Teddy Bridgewater not to make a single bad decision in four straight games. The odds of that happening are about equal to a big-titted girl getting a drug-free drink from Bill Cosby.

Then there’s the matter of Adrian Peterson. He can make those 80-yard touchdown drives agonizing for most defenses. He can also turn those into 3-and-out drives with as well.

9) New England Patriots

Why They Can Win:

Two words: Tom Fucking Brady. Yeah, we know that’s three words, but the average Patriots’ fan can’t count that high anyway. Face it, Brady is the definition of that smarmy fuckwad of a guy everybody outside of greater Boston hates with the intensity of  Chipotle-fueled intestinal distress, but the fact is he single-handedly changes the standard conventions of NFL football.  As we all know, the New England Patriots are no stranger to the Super Bowl. They’ve been to the big game six out of the last fifteen years, and they’ve won four of them. Tom Brady is still playing killer football, and his age isn’t slowing him down (although injuries are) as the gap widens in what’s left of the Brady/Manning discussion with every passing day.

Why They Can’t Win:

Jesus may have walked across the water once…but it was once. There’s a limited number of miracles that can be pulled off, and even St. Thomas A-Brady-ius is running out of his. The fact the Pats a 2-4 in their last six games tells you that. The fact the Patriots offensive line is made of lunch meat is another tell. If the Patriots season were a craps game, they’ve got a low point and they’ve tossed about 11 straight passes. But “snake eyes” is coming…sooner rather than later.

No Patriot fan wants to admit this, but there’s no real excuse for losing to the Eagles and the Dolphins. The Patriots were the only play-off team the Eagles beat, and the Eagles also lost to the fucking Dolphins. The Eagles lost TWICE to a quarterback who forgot to spike the ball before halftime. Three days after they got knocked out of the play-offs, they canned chip Kelly, who might have been most incompetent person working in the NFL outside of Robert Kraft’s sobriety coach.

There are bucketfuls of kids in the Philippines who are considering child prostitution as a legitimate career option because they can’t live with the guilt that comes with stitching Eagles jerseys. The Patriots’ vulnerability exposed in that loss will linger throughout the play-offs because it’s pretty obvious there is larger issues in New England beyond just injuries or “having a bad game.”

Doubt that? Tell us another play-off team that gave up 300 passing yards to Ryan Tannehill. Case closed.

10) Pittsburgh Steelers

Why They Can Win:

Pittsburgh has a shit-load of upside, but they also have “Stymie” Tomlin. We’ll come back to that since this is the “they can win” segment.

Ben Roethlisberger is a future Hall-of-Famer, Antonio Brown presents the king of all match-up problems for opposing secondaries, and if the Steelers can mount a successful running game, they suddenly become one of the toughest “outs” in the AFC.  They play in what may be the toughest division in and twice they came very close to beating the best team in it.

Why They Can’t Win:

The Steelers have shown a lot of heart at times, but as a football they are  team they are undisciplined on a “Rex Ryan” level, which is kind of what you might expect from a team run by a guy who wants to play “tough guy.” Mike Tomlin wants to make sure you know he doesn’t take any shit from anyone, and ooooooooohhhh…we are all so impressed by that.

If you want a guy to have your back in a bar fight, Tomlin’s your guy. If you want a guy to make the correct play call in a crucial game situation, you might have better luck with Lily Tomlin. Look at how she handled the whole “dead body” situation in “9 to 5.”  She didn’t panic, checked off on plays when she saw the plan wasn’t going to work, and above all, she found a way to make Jane Fonda useful.

Besides, wasn’t “Stymie” Tomlin supposed to be a defensive guy? Don’t look now, but the Steelers defense isn’t exactly what we’ve come to expect from a Steelers team lately; they gave up 39 points to the Seahawks and 35 to the Raiders at home.

11) Seattle Seahawks

Why They Can Win:

Right now, Seattle looks better than Katherine Webb (a.k.a Mrs. A.J. McCarron) wrestling Jennifer Marlowe in a kiddie pool full of Wesson Oil.  They’ve been to the last two Super Bowls, and if it weren’t for Pete Carrol and Darell Bevell coming down with a 24-hour case of “Coughlin-itis” they would won have won both.  Russell Wilson looks more comfortable in the pocket than Donald Trump slumbering peacefully on a battleship-sized pile of cash.  Their secondary is back to full speed again, Tyler Lockett was a hell of a first-round draft steal, and the rest of their receiving corps is in top notch form.  Even with Marshawn Lynch being hurt, they have still been steam-rolling nearly everything in front of them..

Why They Can’t Win:

There’s one disturbing fact about the Seahawks that we just can’t ignore: They were swept by the St. Louis Lambs.   The juggernaut that is the Seahawks become the SeaHacks the minute they face Jeff “Porn-stache” Fisher.  It’s almost as the combination of mustache, mullet, and the aroma of Busch Light are Seattle’s kryptonite.

There’s also one key element that will be missing from any Seahawks’ playoff game: they won’t be in Seattle. For once, they are going to have to earn road victories, and won’t have the 12th man with them as Seahawks fans are hardly known for traveling well.  Not to mention, the recent performance against the Lambs leads us to believe that the Seahawks can easily revert back to there pre-week five condition, which makes them the epitome of untrustable.

12) Washington Redskins

Why They Can Win:

Washington has been able to turn what was supposed to be a garbage season into one where they ended up winning their division and hosting a play-off game. Forget they won the worst division in the league not called the AFC South. Forget they did this with at least three different quarterbacks. What turned out to be the worst division in football. Since their 2-4 start, they’ve been a 7-3 football team, and two of those losses were at Carolina and the pre-dumpster fire Patriots.

Either way, there’s no real doubting the seminal moment for the Redskins was when head coach Jay Gruden stood up to owner Dan Snyder convinced him Robert Griffin III’s knees are made from wet cardboard softened by the tears of Redskin fans everywhere.

Why They Can’t Win:

Two words: Kirk Cousins. If you think this guy is going to continue to kill it and become the next Tom Brady, your medication is not working and you’d be better off drinking the same floor wax as  J-Dub.   Because it’s just the way it works, the fact the Redskins and their mediocre record are going to end up hosting a playoff game.  That means the Redskins could easily get to the next round.

That’s when we will find out how Cousins use of catchphrases and barking at the camera like an old-school pro wrestler flies.  Yelling shit into the camera like “You like that” may have worked for guys like “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Dusty Rhodes, but both those motherfuckers are fertilizer now.  This is the NFL, not the WWE, which means this a real game played by some real bad-ass guys.  We can guarantee you if there was any truth to that Bounty-gate scandal in New Orleans, then there sure-as-shit would be reward for somebody shattering “Captain Kirk’s” femur on national television.

Conclusion:

The NFL has succeeded is putting a crap product on the field and getting us to suck it down harder than if we were getting out taints tickled with a feather while being waterboarded.  We’re sheep; we’ll be watching these play-off because we’re Americans, and that’s what we do. In the same vein, somebody has to win this thing; just rest assured we know it won’t be your team.