PATRIOTS AT COLTS
Here's what is not going to happen on Sunday night--a Colts victory. It kills me to write this (but not really, since I detest Colts QB Peyton "the Smush-Face Kid" Manning) because the Patriots are pretty boring, and they all play like guys who can't wait to retire so they can start coaching or just bossing their kids (and their kids' friends) around.Except, of course, for RB Corey Dillon, who always looks like he has just been asked by the whole world if he'd kindly take a powder while they took turns sexually molesting his dog. He can't wait to retire, because every second he is on the field means more time that he's been done an injustice and disrespected by all the refs and the other team. Still, he's a prince compared to Jeremy Shockey. But Shockey is not playing any more, because his team is filled with morons with bad lawyers. Shockey's off-season exercise regiment consists of trying to impregnate many of the community fire hydrants in Enid, Oklahoma, and scowling at anyone who'll dare tell him to refasten his bib overalls.As for Patriots fans? They don't deserve a win. They're me-too turds, who've played their whole lives "close-to-the-vest," championing risk-averse entertainment like Buffalo Tom or Letters to Cleo. But now that their squad has won three of the last five Super Bowls, they walk around like they had a role in it all. It's not hard spotting them. Look for the guy at the bar in the soft cotton Patagonia hiking jacket wearing a distressed baseball cap, nursing a Sam Adams, talking about his law school payments, his mortgage, and his med-student wife's excellent cooking. Then look again four hours later as he's drunkenly weeping into his cellphone, "Beth!!!!!!!" Their highest aspiration is either to litigate a case where someone poorer than them loses the rest of their money, or turn on the TV one night and see a little of themselves in a character in a David E. Kelley drama. Wait, that was only the white-collar fans I was talking about. The rest of them just want to fuck Johnny Damon's ex-wife, then get her to maybe buy them a convertible.Insults aside, at the end of the day, the Patriots own the Colts, who pride themselves on the same kind of unassuming, efficient, anti-star work ethic the Pats have--Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne look like they'd be more comfortable crunching numbers in middle management for Circuit City--but the Colts have less parts. Sure, they held the Ravens to six points last week, but Danny DeVito and Rhea Pearlman could have held the Ravens to six fucking points last week. And while there's been a little turbulence in the last couple of years, Patriots coach Bill Belichick is 7-3 against the Colts, and we are too far into the playoffs for his team to fold.With that shitty, cut-up Oscar Madison sweatshirt, a reluctance to hug former co-workers, a son who got busted for weed, and a quasi-mistress down in New Jersey named Sharon, Belichick is officially entering the "troubled genius" phase of his career, but unlike Prince or Brian Wilson, his "work" isn't getting shittier as he gets more cryptic. He's in the fucking AFC championship, and his specialty is finding the weakness you're too scared to admit your team has, exploiting the shit out of it, then mumbling during the press conference. His Achilles' heel? He's friends with Jon Bon Jovi. I guess it could be worse. He could try to localize things by palling around with those Aerosmith shitbags.None of the above commentary matters, anyway. While Peyton Manning is ugly, he's still a great, improvisational, brilliant quarterback. But he is hexed. He will not get to the Super Bowl.Patriots 27-Colts 21.
JEFF JOHNSON
Here's what is not going to happen on Sunday night--a Colts victory. It kills me to write this (but not really, since I detest Colts QB Peyton "the Smush-Face Kid" Manning) because the Patriots are pretty boring, and they all play like guys who can't wait to retire so they can start coaching or just bossing their kids (and their kids' friends) around.Except, of course, for RB Corey Dillon, who always looks like he has just been asked by the whole world if he'd kindly take a powder while they took turns sexually molesting his dog. He can't wait to retire, because every second he is on the field means more time that he's been done an injustice and disrespected by all the refs and the other team. Still, he's a prince compared to Jeremy Shockey. But Shockey is not playing any more, because his team is filled with morons with bad lawyers. Shockey's off-season exercise regiment consists of trying to impregnate many of the community fire hydrants in Enid, Oklahoma, and scowling at anyone who'll dare tell him to refasten his bib overalls.
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