This past weekend was a glorious weekend. New players were inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. All weekend, the inductees (and their families) had fun, were honored, and interviewed relentlessly. The weekend wrapped up with the Hall of Fame game. This is also the 50th anniversary of the former AFL (American Football League). Long ago and far away (50 years, actually) there were two leagues. Not two divisions, two LEAGUES. This league ultimately gave us, the football worshiping public, the Cowboys (formerly Texans), Patriots (formerly Boston Patriots), Bills, Oilers (um, shit. I don’t know how to classify that, read on), Dolphins, Jets, Bengals, Broncos, Chiefs, Chargers, and the Raiders.
A quick word about the Oilers. The Oilers started life as the Houston Oilers. When the merger happened, they stayed. No biggie. The Cowboys-Oilers game was always a nice little rivalry. It was great. Then some…some fucker decided that Houston didn’t need a team anymore and they got moved to fucking Tennessee–TENNESSEE for fucks sake–and were renamed the TENNEESEE fucking Oilers. Oilers fans cried. Many of them disavowed any knowledge of this team, this usurper of names. Still others maintained their loyalties. As fas as I was concerned, they were dead to me (I didn’t give two shits about football then, but still didn’t like the situation). This Tennessee Oilers shit lasted from 97-99 and they were renamed the Titans in 1999. Ugh. So now, Houston ain’t got no team, Dallas still their Redskins (and, really, anyone else who crossed them) rivalry, but it wasn’t the same. Finally, the NFL said “We need more money. Make more teams to make fans buy tickets and buy more overpriced shit!” And thus began the expansion team creation. 1995 brought us the Panthers and the Jaguars, 1996 the Ravens (Actually, they were really the Browns who had their franchise suspended until 1999), 1999…um, the Browns, then finally, in <b>2002</> Houston gets a team going (it took about 4 years from “hey, there’s a chance you can have a team again” to “ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOOOOTBAAAAAWWWWLLLLLL!”). The goddamn Texans. Texans. What kind of shitty name is that? The logo is a stylized bull with a star for an eye. It. Sucks. People BEGGED to get the Oilers name back. But it couldn’t be done. Bud Adams, the guy who moved the Oilers, still owned the name. Pigfucker.
Now, why have two leagues? Makes no sense right? The AFL came about because, I shit you not, some dude got pissed because he couldn’t buy the Chicago Cardinals (from birds to bears, huh?) and move them to Dallas. Fucking rich people, I swear. It only existed from 1960 to 1969, but in that time, they had begun attracting bigger talent than the currently established NFL. Not wanting that shit to keep happening, a merger was proposed. Now, instead of the AFL and the NFL (there was one superbowl between the two in 1969), we have the NFC (National Football Conference) vs the AFC (American football conference)….What? THAT SHIT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE EITHER! Anyway, that’s what we have now. 32 teams. 16 in each conference. Each conference divided into 4 divisions (north, south , east, west) with 4 teams in each. Whew.
What made the weekend a glorious one? It’s the start of pro football season. Not the real, records count, start. It’s only preseason. But I don’t care. It means there are games, I get to see them, and someday soon–SOMEDAY–it won’t be 100 fucking degrees outside. The game last night was Bills vs Titans…no wait. Those are oil derricks! It was what they called a “legacy game”. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the AFL, the Bills and the Titans played with their original colors and logos. Aww, ain’t that sweet. And so were T.O.’s two catches. They only put him in for one series and he did his job. Just like he always does, drama or no. The Cowboys done fucked up by letting him go. You know what wasn’t sweet? Vince Young’s performance. I said it on twitter last night, and I’ll say it here: He’s done in Tennessee. Done. He was fighting for the backup qb spot. He ain’t getting it. The rookie who flubbed a pass has a MUCH better shot than Vince. He doesn’t want it. At all. He’s a good player, still young enough to start over somewhere else. He fucked up last year, made some huge mistakes on and off the field, but I cannot put all of the blame on him. I (and a shitload of others) blame U.T. Yeah, I said it. The University of Texas. It’s no secret that I cannot fucking stand the longhorns (it’s the rabid fans that turn me off). Yeah, great, Saint Vince took them to the “promised land” a couple of years ago, so he should be perfect for the NFL, right. Oh how very wrong you are. From all that I’ve read and have been told by die hard longhorn fans (I mean, these fuckers bleed burnt orange), U.T. did a shitty job of developing him. In fact, they didn’t do shit because THEY DIDN’T KNOW HOW. They let him do his thing because that’s what worked at the time. Which is WRONG! That poor bastard got into the real world and just broke down. He didn’t learn jack shit about being a quarterback. He didn’t learn how to lead. U.T. did that to him. He also didn’t learn how not to talk shit about your players (Especially when EVERYONE ELSE HAS MORE EXPERIENCE THAN YOU!) and how not to be such a fucking pussy when you get booed for fucking up. Everyone contributed to that. It’s like he’s never been told that he wasn’t the best. Ever. Fans will fuck you long and hard, they don’t give a shit that you have feelings, you’re paid big money to do a job and not fuck up, that’s all we care about. He has to learn to handle that shit. And if he hadn’t thrown his teammates under the bus, he might have had some kind of support. But no. He was a dick, an idiot, and now he’s paying the price. I’m saying it right now: Tennessee will cut Vince loose this season. You know what, I will even go so far as to say that if things continue the way they are now, Vince will not make it to October in Tennessee.
Now, who’s ready for some FOOOOOTTTTTBBBBBBAAAAWWWWLLLLLLLL??
