Week 10: Good Thing the Raiders Suck

Brethren: Dear Lord, I have never felt worse after a game the Carolina Panthers won by 11 points. So while John Fox can tell me that in the NFL, a win's a win's a win, beating a gawd-awful Oakland Raiders team 17-6 to move to 7-2 didn't inspire great confidence in me. The offense looked so out of synch and Jake looked so terrible that we needed a banner day from the defense to beat a 2-6 Raiders team.

Luckily, Peppers brought the noise and the funk, the secondary proved it's on its way to being the best the Panthers have ever had, and BeasTon and Davis were flying around the ball like they are wont to do.

So while it was a great performance from the Panthers D, it was against a terrible Raider offense that looked even more pathetic than Bill Simmons trying to do the first-person narratives Big Daddy Drew made famous. DeAngelo made good on his promise to never be run-down and his 140 yards were another great game on his way to 1,000-yard season. But Jeebus did Jake look terrible: a 12.3 QB rating, completing 0 passes in the second half, and connecting on 7 passes to his team while connecting on 4 with the other team.

At the end of the day though, it won't matter as long as Jake can bounce back -- and there are many a good game this season to make me believe Sunday was just an aberration. The Panthers are at a quiet 7-2, and flying just enough under the radar despite having the 3rd-best record in the NFL.

Nacho was at the game, and some more patented bulleted thoughts, desde:


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

- Sunday's game was quite a display of horrific offense, but there was something extraordinary that happened: in the second quarter, after DeAngelo's awesome long-distance touchdown gallop, I got the following text from my good friend Eugene, "Smash and dash according to urban dictionary: to have sex with a girl and then leave immediately...amazing." While appreciating the lesson in what the kids are saying these days, since I didn't have sound to the game at the bar, I wasn't clued in: apparently the FOX announcing team had nicknamed Panthers RBs Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams, "Smash and Dash," and used the phrase frequently during the game.

Now that's just awesome announcing. I can get behind any nicknames that also double as vernacular sex phrases. Who in the NFL is the Cleveland Steamer? Who's the Blumpkin? The Rusty Trombone? I need someone far cleverer than me to answer these questions.

I'm just glad the Panthers got the Smash and Dash -- a move quite frequently cheered on by me and my buddies and a running back tandem quite frequently cheered on by us as well.

- Ugh, that was such a gross game that you're only getting one patented bulleted thought. Let's beat Detroit next weekend, move on to 8-2, and see how we stack up for the last 6 weeks.

Nacho: The easiest way to break down the past week of my life is with the tried and true Good, Bad, Ugly rankings. Without further ado....

the Good: It breaks my heart into a million little pieces to think of the photos that could've accompanied this post. Like the one with me and Buzz "Shorty" Bizzinger. Or the historic meeting of Big Daddy Drew and the SportsBrethren. Or the countless Jowlers from Friday night (Brethren's got a cache of them and will be posting shortly.) Allah in Heaven, those photos would've been epic. My travels from LA to NYC to Oakland brought me such great joy.

Sports peppered themselves throughout my weekend walkabout: from the Varsity Letters presentation, and having the Godfather recognize me, despite my pedo-stache. To the glorious $15 all-you-can-drink brunch on Saturday morning. It was my first time visiting Brethren since he graduated college, and my first time the Big Apple sans parents. Suffice to say, we stayed up past our bed time. In Summation: the first three days of my trip were some of the happiest times of my life.

The Bad: During the four hours my car sat parked outside MacAfee Stadium in Oakland on Sunday thieves made off with my camera and my best friend's laptop. This put a rather large damper on the whole experience. Raider Nation was surprisingly not hostile; the weather was gorgeous, the stadium was adequate...But that town can burn to the fucking ground and I wouldn't shed two tears. It's filled with the worst scum of the world and for the record: None in our party was wearing visible Panthers apparel, at no point did we taunt or talk trash. We were as docile as hindu cows. We respected the fabled hatred and did nothing to call attention to ourselves, and still the Shithole That Is Oakland struck like a fiend in the night. I doubt I'll ever go to Oakland again, and it's probably for the best.

The Ugly:Anyone else watch that game? Oof. Watching Jake Delhomme pass would've made me physically ill, were it not for the power and the glory that is Jose Cuervo Margarita Shakers. Two per quarter is a healthy pace. It speaks volumes that when we all herded down to smoking section, and the usher for our section politely said "thanks for coming out" as if we were leaving for the day. We all realized when we returned to our seats that, indeed, most Raider fans leave at halftime. It was adorable in a really, really sad way.

Jake Delhomme can try and have another game as bad as that, but I doubt he'd live to see the post-game press conference. That was damn near unforgivable. As a wiser man than myself once said, "that's one."

Two last notes: it's nice to see Peppers step things up, albeit against Oakland, that's not terribly difficult to do. And lastly: there's a chance Duante Culpeper will be a smarter QB than Marques Tuiasosopo, so, y'know....be ready.

Onward now to another mockingly mighty foe: the winless Detroit Lions. I guarantee if we play like we did yesterday, they will beat us. C'mon Cats, lets not fuck this one up too bad.