Football rules everything. It’s a 12 month per year sport. It’s a lifestyle. Fandom is hardcore to the point of toxic. Cities wear their football teams as a badge of honor. The proliferation of sports talk radio is built on the back of professional sports, and in the year 2021, sports is built on the back of the NFL.
I say all that as a lazy narrative device for the rest of the article, which is: WEIRD NFL TRADES!
There should be no limit to what and who the NFL is allowed to trade. Nothing is off-limits. Here are some trades I’d love to see before the NFL trade deadline, along with my picks for my five favorite lines this week.
Miami Dolphins (+13.5) at Buffalo Bills
Trade: The Miami Dolphins trade Tua Tagovaiola to the Texans for Deshaun Watson
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST MAKE THIS TRADE. I’M SICK OF THIS STUPID HE SAID/SHE SAID GAME BEING PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVELY PLAYED THROUGH THE MEDIA.
It isn’t even about the trade, anymore. It’s about the outcome of Watson with the NFL in terms of suspension that matters. We are beyond any well-reasoned take. Just do the trade and let the chips fall. I’m sick of hearing about it.
Bet: I don’t tend to like to bet any team giving that many points at home, but I also don’t think the Dolphins are any good, and I think the Bills are out to punish someone. I’m taking the Bills giving two touchdowns at home.
Tennessee Titans (+1.5) at Indianapolis Colts
Trade: Tennessee Titans trade the Kid Rock American Bad Ass Bar and Grill and every other godforsaken celebrity bar in Nashville to Detroit for T.J. Hockenson
I remember being younger and loving to road trip down to Nashville. Hole in the wall bars, live music playing country music… like we knew it to be as real. Cheap beer. Good barbecue. BYOB strip clubs.
Now every idiot whose management agency decided they could monetize their celebrity is buying up and murdering the personality of the city. That beautiful scene had to die to Luke Bryan could have a bar. Want a drink while also thinking about a river that nobody is quite sure exists? Well Alan Jackson has a bar there, too. Jason Aldean, who looks like Uncle Kracker got slightly gussied up, has one. Do you hate everything about quality music? The good news, Florida Georgia Line has a bar to show what poor taste you have in public. The list goes on.
Every celebrity who has opened a bar has talked about wanting to bring something new and exciting to the community. Wanna know who would love something new and exciting? Detroit! If these faux country music singing cultural glory holes really want to bring something new and exciting to the community, then take it to an entire town whose economy is based on whether Kid Rock released a new album, and if Eminem made a reference to a marketable item in a song two decades ago.
Bet: Both teams are getting some helium because someone has to win the AFC South, but it looks like AJ Brown is finally getting into the groove that fantasy owners were hoping from him and Derrick Henry is still a world-beater. I’m going to take the Titans’ money line.
Los Angeles Rams (-14.5) at Houston Texans
Trade: Texans trade Brandin Cooks and Zach Cunningham to the Saints for a 7th round pick and 1.2 million Bibles
This one is pretty self-explanatory. The Houston Texans have the dumbest front office in the NFL. Having players is secondary to them having the most spiritual team in the league. New Orleans doesn’t have time for religion. They are currently a playoff team in the NFC’s mediocrity typhoon. The Saints are somehow extracting value out of Jameis Winston. They need to strike while the iron is hot.
There is every chance in the world that there is a shipping container somewhere in New Orleans proper that is full of bibles that F.E.M.A. left behind after Hurricane Katrina. Current Texans’ head honcho Jack Easterby, who it should be noted is one of the worst football executives in NFL history, would love nothing more than to shoot bibles at the crowd out of a cross-shaped cannon. [Editor’s Rendition of what this might look like.]
Bet: If Tyrod Taylor plays, I’ll take the Texans getting two touchdowns at home. If whatever a “Davis Mills” is ends up starting, then I’m taking the Rams giving two touchdowns on the road.
Cincinnati Bengals (-10.5) at New York Jets
Trade: Bengals trade Skyline Chili and a 2023 third-round draft pick to Chicago Bears for Top Chef winner Joe Flamm and DE Robert Quinn.
The Bengals can stand to reinforce their pass rush and Robert Quinn has had a resurgent season prior to going on the Covid 19 list last week. The Bengals can fit him in under their salary cap without much restructuring. The Bears need any draft capital they can get their hands on as their current (but hopefully not future) general manager treats them like a 7-year-old with baseball cards.
The big trade is in the other assets. Skyline Chili is trash. The people who has ever said that it is good are the same type of people who plan a vacation to California around going to an In-N-Out Burger. Skyline Chili is what should be fed to prisoners on death row to remind them of the horrible things they did to get there in the first place. “Oh, our chili is made different. It’s a secret recipe.” The secret ingredients are cinnamon and crippling economic sadness, you flyover state rubes.
Chicago has the ability to take an abomination onto its eating palette. We are the reason Malort still exists, after all. If we can put up with that liquid death, we can survive the liquid death that will be evacuating our bodies roughly 6.4 hours after eating hillbilly spaghetti.
And plus, Chicago already has an iconic skyline. Do you know who doesn’t have a memorable skyline? Cincinnati “Our only claims to fame are Pete Rose’s haircut and Boomer Esiason,” Ohio.
Along with Quinn, the city of Cincinnati will receive Top Chef winner Joe Flamm. Before winning the lauded cooking show, he worked at the Michelin Starred Spiaggia. After winning, he opened Rosemary, which is spectacular and sure to find its way to a lot of “Best of” lists at the end of the year. With his services at your disposal, you can give him an entire city block with which to give him a bunch of restaurants to open to help make people forget that your claim to fame is “violent diarrhea chili on noodles.”
Bet: I’m taking the Jets at home (+10.5) against the spread. The Bengals will win the game, but it seems like after big weeks for opposite reasons last week, both teams are going to regress slightly towards the mean.
Dallas Cowboys (-1.5) at Minnesota Vikings
Trade: Dallas trades the city of Austin and Michael Gallup to the Packers for a Fourth-Round Draft Pick and eight tons of cheese
Michael Gallup is returning from injury for the Cowboys and is increasingly finding himself phased out of the Cowboys offense that has excelled with stars Amari Cooper and CeeDee Lamb, along with Cedrick Wilson and Dalton Schultz picking up any slack.
The Packers have been a revolving door behind Davante Adams and could use a known entity to be the number two receiver ahead of noted Texans hater Randall Cobb and Equiminious “I’m not looking up his name to see if it’s spelled right, he hasn’t earned that, yet” St. Brown. The city of Green Bay would also get something out of this: culture.
Green Bay, Wisconsin’s idea of culture is mixing mozzarella with Colby jack. Tacos with ground beef and lettuce are about as ethnic as any of them have ever gotten. The last time they have seen a live performance of anything was when Jeff Foxworthy was still touring in the ’90s. Their idea of meeting a celebrity is taking a picture with a cardboard cutout of Don Johnson from Nash Bridges. Their most exciting stories involve the time they saw a Packers’ UDFA fullback at the Feed ‘N’ Seed.
Austin doesn’t really mix with the state of Texas. Most of the state of Texas would already like to pretend that the city doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, there is nothing even remotely interesting in Wisconsin above Madison, so the city of Austin would be a welcome addition to the meth-addicted snowmobile enthusiasts that occupy the northern half of the state.
Bet: I’m taking the Cowboys at an alternate line of (-3.5) which is currently sitting at +120.
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