Week 13 Power Rankings, Pillow Fights, and Picks: 4-8 is good enough

I also don’t want to live in a world where a 4-8 team is a playoff contender.

I’m looking at you, Columbus, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Utah, Grand Rapids, and Colorado. Y’all are more inept at (indoor)(goofy) football than Sharon Stone is at displaying tact, or, for that matter, sanity. You suck more than the 21-day detox I’m starting tomorrow (shameless plug: keep up with that over here). You’re not even Zeppo Marx, you’re Gummo. Check in with us when you’ve won more than the 49ers did last season, mmmkay?

You know the drill: after the jump, ESPN’s Gary “Grampastein” Horton arbitrarily rates every team in the league, I’ll throw down a completely random and certifiably unreliable pick for your arena football betting needs, and a declaration of the worst matchupof the week (this week, it is glorious, even without the President’s daughters).

Arena Bowl XXII to feature Miss America; perhaps football

So far as we can tell, she’s no relation to kicker/lesbian schmoozer AJ Haglund, although she does have the shapley smooth legs of a punter

It’s official: Miss America 2008, Kirsten Haglund, will be a part of the Arena Bowl XXII festivities.

We’re getting early reports that to help spread her message about the danger of eating disorders, Haglund will consume a turduckenwith Commissioner Monstrosity/Easter Island Stone-Throwing Champ David Baker prior to kickoff.

The Rest of the Weekend In Review

Meanwhile, in Canada… It’s like we’re writing their headlines!

Speaking of the Rampage…

ARIZONA 52, Grand Rapids 48

We are legally obligated to call them “The Playoff-Guaranteed Arizona Rattlers,” so, The Playoff-Guaranteed Arizona Rattlers survived a scare from the Playoff-What-Are-You-Kidding-Us?-How-Stupid-Do-You-Think-We-Are? Grand Rapids Rampage, thus putting off the Rattlerpocylpse (please, feel free to steal that word) for at least one more week. [Sigh] Begrudgingly, we must mention the above-average late-game play of Jeff Smoker, who managed the crap out of the clock and converted the plays he needed to convert to beat the also-third-division Rampage. Horrifyingly, one of these teams - IF NOT BOTH OF THEM - will make the playoffs. Break up the American Conference, for they are a mighty juggernaut of quality football! James MacPherson was 13-26 for 270 and 6 parts unknown. Does that strike anyone else as weird? DID YOU KNOW: The Rattlers have now offered free playoff tickets to those of you that sign up for 2009 season tickets? Also you get a puppy? And a fluffy cloud to sleep on and a unicorn, and a sliver of the True Cross. This is the greatest front office ever. DID YOU ALSO KNOW: Grand Rapids could be next year’s Cleveland? By which I don’t mean they’ll pack up and move, but I mean they might enter the summer as a slimy, playoff-unbound pupa and emerge next spring as a scary butterfly with teeth, and we’ll spend next season going “WHERE’D THESE GUYS COME FROM?” I have complete misplaced faith in the transplanted-Georgia-Force-esque offense and whatnot. DID YOU ALSO ALSO KNOW: My metaphors are AWESOME?

Two more games to suffer through, but I’m not going to waste above-the-fold space on them.

Weekend in Review: The Only Consistent Thing is Inconsistency

Would you believe that this is the only current picture of this game I could find on the entire Internet? What the French, Toast?
Georgia 40, NEW ORLEANS 29

Every time I think about making Danny Wimprine the It’s Still Football Official Randomly Chosen Hero of 2008, the VooDoo decide to do things like avoid the end zone like it’s made of super-hot magma. A respectable-to-zesty NFL line of 26/48-244-3-0 doesn’t mean diddly indoors. Though, their continued effort to engage in lengthy touchdown passes to fullback James Lynch (5′ 11″ 276? Really? He looks three bills at least.) did provide me with no small amount of glee that was eclipsed only by Georgia’s “razzle dazzle” play that they “drew up in the dirt.” I quote directly from the mic’d commentary of Georgia’s
Jim Kubiak, on that one. It’s like they’re reading my thoughts. Georgia, finally showing the verve we EXPECTED at the BEGINNING of the year, went on a double-digit-to-zero (19-0 this time) run again to close out the game. DID YOU KNOW? New Orleans is tres not good on ESPN Deuce, chere. 0-3? DID YOU ALSO KNOW? Georgia’s quarterback The Scrappy Chris Griesen’s gains his power of being impervious to pain from ancient Aztec gold, as he is descended directly from an otherwise unremarkable conquistador.

Find the lies after the jump. Find the lines (and watch a little piece of my soul die) at the place where you bet on football.

Bwah?

Guh? Utah 51, Chicago 48?

P.S. That’s why you don’t cut your veteran all-star kicker 15 minutes into the season, idiot. It’s bad juju.

Week 12: Power Rankings, Picks, and Pillows - last year this had a picture of the Bush daughters

Chicago Rush TD pics, according to Google, do not carry the same weight as pictures of the twin daughters of the leader of the free world in lacy negligee

What’s that, you say? These ranks and previews are moot since a game has already been played this week? You’re saying last night Kansas City upset LALALALALA WE’RE NOT LISTENING! LALALALALALA STFU!

Waiting for you after the jump: A quick review of Gary “Not My Grampa” Horton’s AFL Power Rankings, arena football betting advice that’s almost guaranteed to make your individual credit crisis worse, and a Pillow Fight worthy of twenty-thousand Google hits.

The Utah Blaze - playoff contenders?

WR Aaron Boone stares into the sky, where The Limit is

If you told us last week that the Utah Blaze, then at 2-9, were still looking to the playoffs, that is, the 2008 playoffs, I’d tell you the Utah Blaze were aptly named. Apparently, Danny White has suffered brain hemorrhages from the certain-repeat smashings of his own skull against the arena wall in frustration over this season:

Having put together back-to-back wins after a miserable 0-9 start to the season, the Utah Blaze truly have — believe it or not — put themselves back into the Arena Football League’s playoff chase… after two wins in a row, Blaze coach Danny White and Co. sound confident things can be different this time around.

“Morale is good, and it gets better with each win,” said White.

…Utah, meanwhile, doesn’t even necessarily have to win all of its last five games to make the playoffs. White believes three more wins — for five total — could be enough.”

Aside from believing the Blaze will have a shot at the playoffs with three wins out of their next four (Chicago, Grand Rapids, LA, and Arizona), Coach White also believes in The Secret, Santa Claus, and the presence of WMDs in Iraq.

Wait, who are their last four games against? Maybe it won’t be enough for the playoffs, but 5-11 doesn’t actually seem out of the question. If White believes in The Secret, all he has to do is wish!

Weekend In Review: The Darkness Looms

The winner of the Rush’s alternate uniform debate: mostly black! The winner of this picture: the guy in the beige shirt who looks more bemused than excited. “I am obligated to raise my arms in triumph, but we’re so far ahead, that it’s almost a chore,” he seems to be saying. The winner of the game:

CHICAGO 72, Los Angeles 28

Well, the good news is, this didn’t distract from the Spurs/Hornets game, though Chicago nearly outscored the Hornets. And less-nearly outscored the Spurs. Chicago came off their bye week angry, apparently, and decided to lock up a first-round bye in convincing fashion, obliterating the maybe-frisky-in-previous-weeks Los Angeles Avengers. 4 defensive touchdowns made Ditka and the ISF staff positively giddy, though we were content to wait until this morning to see what the final score was. Russ Michna continues to make me look dumb for ever referring to him as “merely adequate,” as he barely broke a sweat in this one.

The rest of the week is after the jump:

They Got There First: Bon Jovi Doesn’t Mind Losing Money

Fanhouse has the recap of the 60 Minutes bio on Bon Jovi, where the subject of the Soul comes up. Apparently, he does it because he likes owning a sports team. That seems fair. [Fanhouse]

Matt D’Orazio Has an Intimate Relationship With the Camera

Before the weekend happens for real, I want to bring to public attention one of the other gems from Monday night’s broadcast. Matt D’Orazio knows where the camera is, and ladies, he knows that you’re on the other side of it. Oh, yes.