Dumping Them Out: NFL Is Back
Welcome back to the first Dumping Them Out NFL Football Episode of the season. For the remainder of the NFL season, Dumping Them Out will be football focused. Unless I change my mind and feel like doing something different. I make the rules for this blog and I will do whatever I please.
I'll start out with my most controversial take of the season. A take that would have gotten me fired a few months ago, and is likely still heavily frowned upon at Barstool Sports. I have yet to place a bet on a college or NFL football game all year, and I think I like watching football better that way. Over half the time when I place a bet I end up sad. It prevents me from enjoying good games. Like if I take a heavy favorite at -7.5, and the game comes down to the wire, instead of just enjoying the potential upset I'm annoyed because I'm losing money. Obviously winning money makes it more fun, but at best that happens 40% of the time. Realistically, probably closer to 25% because I always take parlays. Yesterday I spent all day on my couch watching college football with no money on the line and I wasn't sad once. I just had a wholesome football watching experience. I'm going to do the same thing today. I'm inevitably going to make a bet at some point this year once I see a sure thing, But for now I'm very much enjoying my non-gambling experience.
Speaking of watching college football, I really hate the new running clock rule. The running clock has never annoyed me in the NFL, but there's something infuriating about it in college. Watching the clock tick down while the ref is in the middle of making a penalty call… It's like the ref is stealing football from us. Does that even happen in the NFL? Maybe I just haven't been paying attention, but I've never noticed the clock running during penalty calls until yesterday.
I just bought NFL Sunday Ticket + Redzone for the first time in my life and I don't know how to handle it. I'm a Colts fan, so I feel like I should be watching the Colts game. But it also seems like I should be watching RedZone so I can keep up on the whole league. I haven't found the sweet spot yet. However, as I type that out I'm realizing that the sweet spot is pretty obviously just buying another TV.
As a Colts fan, I was all aboard the "tank another season and get the #1 pick" train. I figured they aren't going to be shit this year either way, so hopefully they'll have a season like the Bears did last year where Justin Fields was promising, but they manage to suck enough to finish dead last. And I gotta be honest, that's about exactly how the Colts first game went. They looked good for a while, Anthony Richardson showed some promise, but in the end they just weren't good enough to win. I'm not actually going to cheer for the Colts to lose like that every game, because that's super lame. But at the same time… Anthony Richardson looked ok… and if he gets a top 3 pick next year?? Wouldn't be the worst thing.
Also I'm choosing to ignore the obvious concussion Anthony Richardson had at the end of the game. He seems fine. Brain health isn't that important anyways.
I need someone to provide me a list of players who are on new teams. For example, Miles Sanders is on the Carolina Panthers. I'm not convinced that information was ever made public until today. Jamaal Williams is on the Saints. Didn't know that one either. I just learned Darren Waller is on the Giants. I'm sure more serious NFL fans are all over that stuff. And I suppose I could just Google that stuff pretty easily. But those 3 players were news to me.
Returning kicks in football might be the scariest thing in sports. Just the fastest most athletic people in the world running full speed directly at one another. It's so dangerous that teams don't even let their best player do it. They try to find the fastest, shiftiest player who they can afford to suffer a life altering injury without affecting their franchise too much. Fuck that.
Moving on to the other kind of football. I saw a TikTok this morning that I can't stop thinking about.
People in other countries take black magic very seriously don't they? Nothing about that video made me think that was just a lighthearted superstition the goalie does every game. There was genuine concern on the face of the opposing player when he realized the goalie was using performance enhancing voodoo dolls. When he grabbed the voodoo doll, he ran full speed to the sideline to be rid of the black magic like it was life or death. And the black magic team was going cleats up to try and take him down. Like that little voodoo doll was worth permanently injuring someone over.
Apparently, as soon as they stole the black magic voodoo doll, the opposing team scored their first goal of the game. And if the TikTok comments are to be believed, there were a whole bunch of goals that should have been scored, but for "whatever reason" they couldn't put the ball in the net.
So do we need to start taking black magic seriously? Is Africa onto something? I need an NFL quarterback to start embracing black magic. I feel like Aaron Rodgers could be talked into that pretty easily.