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"FacebookPinterest\n\n Welcome to the Ball Baron, where we break down the finer points of Sunday's NFL action.\n\n UGLIEST LOSS: Your preseason expectations.\n\n The incredible thing about preseason NFL predictions is that, when they're relatively uniform, they can begin to feel like fact. Take the Bills, for instance. It was assumed that, since the Bills have a soft schedule and a decent roster on paper, they were clearly the #2 team in the AFC East behind the Patriots. It was also widely assumed (by me!) that the Jets were on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Then Buffalo came into the Meadowlands yesterday and received a curb-stomping so thorough that it rendered all of those seemingly concrete assumptions worthless in a matter of minutes.\n\n This happened all across the NFL in Week 1, as it does every year. After Week 1, we now know the Jets are, like, PISSED. We now know the Bills are still bereft at quarterback, and if you don't have a quarterback, you don't have anything. We now know the Cowboys have two nasty corners who will let Wolfman Rob Ryan call the defense he wants to call, which may actually make them good enough to get to the playoffs and collapse in hilarious fashion. And we now know that RG3 is a god.\n\n In just a single week, all of your expectations for the upcoming season are shredded and then reconstructed into something entirely new. What seemed idiotic just days ago\u2014the Skins could win the NFC East!\u2014now seems perfectly reasonable today. And so we'll spend this week building up a new narrative for how this season will play out, only to have it ripped down once more after Week 2 has its way with us. That's part of what makes the NFL fun. In baseball and basketball, these shifts happen gradually because the games are played every night. In football, they happen suddenly. So HOORAY for prognostication whiplash.\n\n SELF-LOATHING FANBASE OF THE WEEK: Eagles.\n\n Holy shit, that was awful. Watching the Eagles is like staying at a job that you've wanted to quit for five years. The Eagles are where joy goes to die.\n\n TEBOW OF THE WEEK: RG3.\n\n Every week brings a new NFL story to hype past reason and this week, it's RGThreever. I live in the DC area and the preseason hype for Robert Griffin III was so insane that you would never know this town had a baseball team running away with its division. The Nationals just made the unprecedented move of shutting down their ace pitcher right before the playoffs and I don't think anyone here gives a shit because RG3 RG3 RG3 RETURN TO GLOREEEEE HTTR! Even if you don't listen to sports talk radio, people here will bind and gag you today and FORCE you to listen to it, to absorb as much orgasmic praise for RG3 as you possibly can until your loins burst into flames. I don't even have the radio on right now and I can still hear Tony Kornheiser already braying about him. \"Are you guys not STUNNED at how Robert Griffin played yesterday? I mean, is that not SHOCKING?\" Whatever raging erection ESPN has for Tim Tebow, it's not even close to the full engorgement RG3 has induced in suburban Maryland and Virginia. Soon it shall eclipse the entire national landscape.\n\n ANTI-TEBOW OF THE WEEK: Russell Wilson.\n\n Just as we must overhype things, we must also quickly disown things that previously excited us. This week, we leave Russell Wilson hype for dead on the side of the road. The man had four chances, two pass interference flags, and a goddamn FOURTH timeout to beat the Cardinals. And he couldn't do it. I expected more out of a third round pick making his first NFL start. RG3 would have punched that ball in on the zeroeth down, dammit! Russell Wilson is now dead to America.\n\n GIF OF THE DAY: Trent Richardson blowin' up Kurt Coleman\n\n You know, if this had been a defender putting the exact same hit on a receiver, everyone would have shit a brick. OMG SO VIOLENT! Can we keep watching football knowing that poor wideouts are subject to such punishments? Is all this ethical? What about the children? But because it's a running back dishing out the punishment, it's somehow more acceptable. That running back was clearly acting in self-defense! Hits like this are proof that offensive players and defensive players are usually equals in terms of intent. Trent Richardson is no daisy.\n\n FIVE IDIOTIC, EMPTY PLATITUDES FOR HERM EDWARDS\n\n\"The Jets know how to get physical with you.\"\"Greg Schiano has those players tuned in to what he's saying.\"\"Beating degenerative neck tissue, to me, is perhaps Peyton Manning's most impressive victory of all.\"\"Apart from almost destroying the Cardinals season, I thought the replacement refs did a perfectly adequate job.\"\"Let's not take Tom Brady for granted.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/the-ball-baron-one-week-of-football-destroys-everything>