Week 17: Our Inevitable March to 7-9

If the MJD can post a Smorgasbord on Wednesday, we can post our Week 17 thoughts on a Wednesday night.

SportsBrethren: Godspeed, Vinny.


Brethren: I believe I read something before Sunday's game that said if we won and finished 7-9, it would be the 6th time in the Carolina Panthers' 13 year history that we vanquished a season with that record.

Boom, bitches.

7-9. Pretty sweet fuckin record if you ask me. Think about all the sweet shit you get with a 7-9 record:

- A midrange first round draft pick, probably somewhere from #13 to 16. Pretty sure we can pick up a fast linebacker from Miami or an SEC school. Aaaaand we will.
- Just enough optimism to think about how, man, if two games had gone our way, we'd be sitting pretty in a wild card spot.
- The knowledge that the Panthers went 7-9 in John Fox's first year; we went to the Super Bowl the next year.

Like I said, boom, bitches. More general cogitations on Week 17, including Nacho's crazy antics and my patented bulleted thoughts:

Brethren (cont'd): My patented bulleted thoughts:

- This week, instead of the usual bar we attend, I instead went with two of my buddies who are twins at ESPNZone. That's right; it was the twins' birthdays and they had Mommy's credit card. High priced cheap beer and appetizers: fuck yea.

- The Panthers were on a tiny screen in the top left corner; in the sea of meaningless Week 17 games, ESPN in NYC considered ours to be one of the least deserving of a prime real estate TV. Sweet.

- Is our QB situation kinda figured out? With a season like this where Chris Weineke is starting games, a healthy Jake is certainly one of the top 10-15 starters out there. Young guns Matt Moore and Brett Basanez certainly can be serviceable in back-up roles. And after watching Colt Brennan shit the bed, if he's the best college has to offer, I'll stick with Jake, Doc Holliday, and BB Gunz.

- BB Gunz. Yea, I just made up a nickname for Brett Basanez. Canuck would be proud.

- Well besides the beauty of the 7-9 finish, there's not much memorable about this game. Tampa didn't really play their good players; when they did earlier this year, they dominated us. So I can't really conclude we're better than them. But like I said, time has proven that 7-9 fits the Panthers franchise just fine.

Nacho: First things last: how the fuck have we had commercial air travel for nigh over half a century, and there's still no "sick bays"? Ships have 'em, I'm pretty trains have 'em (if I remember Under Seige 2: Dark Territory correctly.) Hell, I bet stagecoaches had 'em. But we let some woman carrying some strain of Bavarian Bubonic Plague just sit there in seat 18D on the 8am cross-country flight from Charlotte to San Francisco. Just sit there and cough. A lot. And give me the plague. Thanks, dipshit industry.

Now, onto the Panthers. Despite me earlier feelings I'm ok with us barely missing the playoffs with a bunch of fourth stringers. I think we should give Foxy one more year with a healthy starting QB en route to a career year again, then see how interested Cowher is.

Julius, congratulations, you're the Antoine Walker of the NFL: you got paid, then took the year off. On the bright side, you won't have to spend a week in Hawaii this spring, unlike some people

Mr. Steve Smith, I have but one thing to say to you:



I look forward to a healthy team with fresher biscuit, in 2008. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to get healthy too.