The Battle For The NFL's Most Hideous Division: NFC East or AFC South

Last weekend turned out to be a bonanza for the NFL's two lousiest divisions, the NFC East and AFC South. Not only did each division finish the day with a perfectly acceptable 2-2 record, they combined for three out-of-division wins, headlined by the Colts beating the heretofore undefeated Broncos. Mediocrity never looked so deceptively not-mediocre!

Don't buy into the hype, friends: these two divisions are still the NFL's best answer to a stubborn hangover or severe sinus headache. The NFC East is headed by the 5-4 Giants, who climbed above .500 with a win over a pathetic Buccaneers squad. New York's defense is so decimated by injuries that Jason Pierre-Paul—the freshly flipper-handed fireworks aficionado—needed to play 71 percent of their defensive snaps in his first game back from the accident which cost him approximately 2.56 fingers. The only other team in that division without a losing record are the 4-4 Eagles, a.k.a the Chip Kelly Death Cult.

And that's it. The AFC South-leading Colts, despite their annual "We beat Peyton Manning and so appear to be a contender for a week or so" event, are 4-5 and have been outscored by 27 points this season, only one fewer than the last-place Titans (-28). .. and that was before they lost Andrew Luck to a lacerated kidney. At a point in the season in which most teams have played eight games, the NFC East and AFC South boast the only two squads to lose six in a row in the Titans and Cowboys. These divisions are wretched and un-fun from top to bottom, and the only real difference is in how they conspire to waste our time. To paraphrase Tolstoy, all good divisions are alike; each crappy division is crappy in its own way.

With nary a contender to be found among these eight clubs, the most interesting question remaining is which division is the bigger waste of time. Is it the NFC East, with its egalitarian in-your-face brand of suckitude; or is it the more courtly and understated crappiness of the AFC South? Since these divisions do not play each other this season, a complex scientific formula is needed to determine which is least deserving of your attention. Its criteria are as follows.

Competitiveness

The entire football-watching world tuned in Sunday night to watch Sam Bradford toss a game-winning overtime TD to knock off the Cowboys after Matt Cassell tied the game in the closing seconds of regulation. Sounds exciting, especially if you ignore the "Sam Bradford" and "Matt Cassell" parts. In truth, it was the kind of slop we've all come to expect from an NFC East contest: evenly-matched mediocrity standing in for compelling football.

Still, it's better than what the AFC South provides, which is eternal Indy domination. The Colts can botch nine out of every ten drafts, surround their No. 1 overall pick QB with geriatrics and bouncers hired off the street, and still win the division until the end of time. This division is the NFL's equivalent of one of those former Soviet bloc soccer leagues. BATE Borisov can win the Belarusian Premier League for 10 straight years, but it doesn't mean a damn thing when they travel abroad to face the likes of FC Barcelona.

Loser: AFC South

Overexposure

No contest here. The Colts may get more than their fair share of national TV games, and the Jaguars may have cornered the 9 a.m. football junkies/lower-functioning alcoholics demographic through their London games, but nobody plays more unwarranted and unwanted games in front of a captive nationwide audience than the NFC East. East coast bias, indeed.

Losers: NFC East

Dopey-Looking Quarterbacks

Sam Bradford is really making an impressive charge to get his name up there with the big boys in this category:

— Mike Tunison (@xmasape)November 9, 2015

But make no mistake, friends: this is a battle between Andrew Luck and Eli Manning. Luck took his derp face game to the next level when he added his playoff neck beard…

…but nobody beats Eli. Ever.

The man is a legend. Every boy who has been told by an authority figure to "wipe that stupid look off your face" looks to Eli for inspiration. If he can win two Super Bowls looking like that, anything is possible.

Losers (but, really, winners): NFC East

Lame TV Pitchmen

Eli Manning has been in dozens of commercials, but he gets credit for being the only NFL Manning not to get roped in by Papa John. Hell, even Archie has appeared with that ketchup-and-cardboard-peddling doofus. And Tony Romo gets major credit for bravely dressing up like Gargamel from "The Smurfs" in his DirecTV spot.

No, the real loser here is Texans lineman J.J. Watt, for any commercial he's ever been in.

I feel not only dumber, but somehow much more politically conservative, after watching this ad.

Losers: AFC South

A-Hole Owners

Nowhere are the stylistic differences between these two divisions more evident than in the owner's suite. Texans owner Bob McNair is the epitome of the rich bigot owner, donating $10,000 to help defeat Houston's anti-discriminatory HERO ballot initiative. Colts owner Jim Irsay is certainly more flashy, what with his habit of driving around Indiana in a Camaro with paper bag of oxy in the glove compartment and a bitchin' samurai sword in the trunk. But, like his father packing up the team to leave Baltimore, Irsay's digressions tend to disappear quickly into the night.

Boy, is that not the case in the NFC East. The ongoing tug-of-war between Washington owner Daniel Snyder and Dallas' venerable Jerry Jones for the title of most embarrassing owner simply refuses to let up. Both have been in the headlines of late, with Snyder's lawyers doing their best to prove in a court of law that their team name is no more offensive than the copyrighted term "CAPITALISM SUCKS DONKEY BALLS" while Jones continues to draw fire for his inexcusable support of woman-beating nightmare shitlord Greg Hardy.

Losers: NFC East

Insults to History

The Jaguars—otherwise known as "England's team"—played host to the Buffalo Bills on October 25, 2015. That date might not be special to Americans, but it marked the 600th anniversary of a pivotal moment in English history, the Battle of Agincourt. On that legendary morning in 1415, King Henry V personally led an undermanned English army against a vastly superior French force, winning the most improbable and decisive battle of the Hundred Years War. More than a century later, the battle inspired William Shakespeare to write Henry V.

And how did the NFL honor the legacy of Agincourt? By sending over the Jaguars and Bills! They might as well have reenacted the battle with a few dozen drunken orangutans. I doubt the Bard had the Jags in mind when he wrote his famous St. Crispin's Day speech:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That saw Blake Bortles play upon Saint Crispin's day.

As for the Washington football club's most celebrated tie to the past, let's consult the 1898 edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary for a historical context on the term "redskin":

A North American Indian; —often contemptuous.

Losers: NFC East

There you have it, folks. The AFC South might technically be the crappier division, but the NFC East is the one that should probably go play over in the corner by themselves where no one else has to see them.