<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"FacebookPinterest\n\n Each week, Jeff Johnson and David Roth will be covering the NFL, the healthiest professional sports league in America. Only, not everything is as healthy as it seems. Today, Jeff and David plunge into the NFC.\n\n Hello. This is a column that might seem like a transcript from the radio show Car Talk. Except it's about football. And here we fix nothing, and we're also probably way less charming. But we're really good at criticizing organizations, fans, pizza magnates, announcers, and random governments without a lot of intelligence. Once teams start playing real games, we'll identify problems they're having, problems they might have in specific match-ups, problems that they will never overcome, and bad coaching couture decisions. For now, this preview will tell you everything you need to know about the 2011 NFC. And in a day or so, we'll spend 15,000 words talking about Rex Ryan.\n\n NFC West\n\n Jeff: Okay, I give up. The St. Louis Rams are a team I know nothing about, but they're supposed to be the cream of the West this season.\n\n David: I know that we are both football professionals, but I challenge you to name six guys on the Rams. I challenge you because I'm not sure I can do it.\n\n Jeff: Sam Bradford, Vince Ferragamo, umm, David Paymer?\n\n David: Sam Bradford, Steven Jackson, Danny Amendola, Deney Terrio, Henry Ellard.\n\n Jeff: The guy who will not quit driving drunk.\n\n David: Leonard Little. He's actually retired.\n\n Jeff: And, er, Chad Largent, Louis Freeh, Cadillac Williams, Pontiac Nelson, Yugo Heimstedt, one of the guys from Muse, I think.\n\n David: Brent Grunthouse, Murlin Standpipe-Henderson.\n\n Jeff: I know they have a no-nonsense coach.\n\n David: Exasperated substitute gym teacher Steve Spagnuolo. He has an engraved plaque in his office that says \"Quit horsing around, you guys.\" Seven wins will win this division, and I think St. Louis will be that lucky team. It's hard to know much about them, because they keep getting relegated to the CFL and then called back up. It would be good if we could trade the Rams for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats for a year. Just to break things up. The Canadians have to deal with Sabby Piscatelli and all those marked-down Marc Bulger jerseys flooding their bargain stores.\n\n Jeff: For some reason, I can see a really hard-looking rapper from Winnipeg in a BW promo photo wearing an out-of-date Marc Bulger jersey. Then when you listen to the music, it's awkwardly all about applying Henna to your genitals and your lover's genitals, and/or growing up the proud son of a steamfitter. Defiant. \"Excuse me, asshole. You don't know what this guy has been through.\"\n\n David: And why he dresses like Torry Holt.\n\n Jeff: He's moved a lot of stolen candy bars.\n\n David: Canadian candy bars. White chocolate with sad little shards of dried cherry in it. \"It's for my girlfriend.\" No it isn't.\n\n Jeff: His video has a cop on a Segway chasing him through a strip mall. In the end the guy was just returning some library books, so the cop got sizzled.\n\n David: This is really all we know about this division, isn't it?\n\n Jeff: I do remember watching that end-of-season game between the Rams and the Seahawks that lasted 19 hours. The one that vaulted the Seahawks into the playoffs on the heels of what seemed like 406 Charlie Whitehurst incompletions.\n\n David: To be fair, it was the first time that Whitehurst had played football, I think. During practices, he usually just throws a Nerf Turbo to the ball boys.\n\n Jeff: That's why it's puzzling about Sidney Rice signing with them. He had an awesome, \"prove-the-critics-wrong\" year in 2009. Then was hurt for most of 2010. What better way to establish that '09 wasn't a fluke then by joining the non-stop aerial attack that is the Seattle Seahawks, currently helmed by Tarvaris Jackson, the former Vikings QB who was benched the year Rice broke out? \"I am going to get paid to not get any significant stats.\"\n\n David: Pete Carroll's got the D-line reading Who Moved My Cheese? He hired Anthony Robbins to come into the locker room to karate chop some 2x4s and give a little talk about self-motivation. He has them believing. He's building a sweat lodge at the team's practice facility.\n\n Jeff: \"Guys, the sweat lodge is really for Will Ferrell, Slash, Duff, and the Foursquare guys when they're in town consulting, but you can watch.\"\n\n David: I feel like Mike Singletary should get to coach every team in this division for two games, just to make it fair. That said, the 49ers have some good players.\n\n Jeff: Possibly. Including Braylon Edwards. And Jim Harbaugh will make it 12 weeks before he completely runs out of patience.\n\n David: QB Alex Smith should really be in Congress, though, not playing quarterback.\n\n Jeff: Agreed. He looks like a guy who plays a ski instructor in a Lifetime movie who thaws out a scorned MILF.\n\n David: They keep drafting/signing dudes he can beat out, which I think is great. Colin Kaepernick sounds like and plays like an intern at the Cato Institute. And he's the most recent in a long line. In years past they've been like, \"Alex has pretty much outplayed this Troy fellow, and this other dude we found who was in the rodeo for a few years, more or less, and Steve Bono is still rusty. So I guess he's our guy.\"\n\n Jeff: Spiritually, I need for the 49ers to be somewhat dominant again. If only because if I were forced to live in an NFC West city, San Francisco would be at the top of the list. I know in Phoenix, Sheriff Joe Arpaio will be arresting Arizona Cardinals fans who can not prove they have health insurance at the gates.\n\n David: The Cardinals will stink. They'll miss Derek Anderson and his Kevin Costner-In-The-Bodyguard haircut.\n\n Jeff: The Arizona media was relentless. \"Derek. You guys lost, and yet, you were smiling. My first question, after I throw up, question your patriotism, and toss around some rumors about your mom binge-drinking while you were in utero, is: 'Can you ever improve?'\"\n\n \"At QB?\"\n\n \"Actually, at life.\"\n\n By the way, I am pronouncing it \"Kevin Kolllllllb\" all season long, in my head, since I don't ever imagine a time when it will come up in conversation. To me the Cardinals are like the Diamondbacks. They're 51-111. Now they're in the World Series. Now they lost 90 games. All in a matter of a few seasons. So, having said all of this, Todd Heap will catch a game winning TD against the Jets in the Super Bowl.\n\n Predictions\n\n Jeff: 1) 49ers 2) Seahawks 3) Rams 4) Cardinals\n\n David: 1) Rams 2) 49ers 3) Seahawks 4) Cardinals\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\n NFC East\n\n David: The Eagles.\n\n Jeff: The Eagles. \n\n David: They do look awfully good. They are also down a couple of important receivers, and their coach is a mayo-based organism. I don't know that this is going to matter.\n\n Jeff: I think it will. I am certain Andy Reid's favorite verb is \"glop\" and he mainly uses it when directing underlings to administer condiments to his foodstuff, and he's earned it. The Eagles have a ton of players, and Ronnie Brown is not that important to them, but I hope he helps. As an aside, I was rooting for Larry Johnson to make the Dolphins, but he didn't. Neither did Tiki Barber. That whole thing makes me question how/why/if I hate people everyone hates. Everyone dislikes Larry Johnson, but I think he's been reviled for so long, in a J.R. Rider sort of way, that I wanted him to succeed.\n\n David: The sooner Larry Johnson is out of the NFL, the sooner he can open that all-VIP nightclub he has been talking about starting in Kansas City. No one allowed in but LJ and his entourage. They sit there listening to Watch the Throne, and every few minutes LJ goes on a profane rant about haters and Brodie Croyle. On occasion, a woman is allowed in and he wings a champagne bottle at her.\n\n Jeff: Everyone loves that Tiki Barber's dreams are all shattered and he retired at the wrong time, and he's bad at everything, and, well...I am not ready to like him yet...No one has signed Terrell Owens.\n\n David: VH1 won't let Owens sign with a team. He has to host two more Rock of Love Reunion/Paternity Specials before he's out of his contract.\n\n Jeff: I don't think anyone in the East will get close to the Eagles unless Vick gets hurt. And then Vince Young will come in and claim that he didn't ask for this kind of pressure. The Cowboys will be better than the Giants this season. Which of course brings us to Igor Olshansky getting cut.\n\n David: Igor's Cover Letter: \"Many football fans remember me as the guy doing elaborate, Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation-style dances every time I stopped a player for a two-yard loss. But I am so much more than that. I am a man. I play the harpsichord and I am an excellent home baker and yes, I'm single.\"\n\n Jeff: \"I don't play for the scoreboard. I don't play for the clock. I don't play for my paychecks. Well, okay. Yes. Because those lead to the majestic Lexus sedan I drive over rain-slicked streets at night listening to Gorky Park, uncaging my lonesome heart. And rest of money goes to my female jeans company, also called Lonesome Heart. Good Russian mom jeans made from rare fabrics.\"\n\n\n\n Jeff: Sadly, Rex Ryan's twin bro Rob's new defense in Dallas doesn't include Igor. I normally pretend my motto is \"Live and let live,\" but if any man in the universe needs a haircut it is Rob Ryan. I also think the Cowboys could never succeed with a head coach, Wade Phillips, who looked like a depressed cloud from a children's book.\n\n David: The Redskins remain the Redskins.\n\n Jeff: I think with a QB controversy, people actually have to be sort of invested in the dueling QBs. With the Redskins, it's Grossman vs. Wait, Let Me Look Up Who The Guy Is. Oh, John Beck, who always seems like a year or two out of college, but really, dude is like 30.\n\n David: Everything you just wrote, all of it, pisses off Mike Shanahan even more.\n\n Predictions\n\n Jeff: 1) Eagles 2) Cowboys 3) Giants 4) Redskins\n\n David: Exactly the same.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\n NFC South\n\n Jeff: If you like hearing middle-aged white guys with no playing experience question whether or not a black QB has the tools to win in the NFL, or is simply \"really fast\" then you should tune into Panthers games, because I'm sure by the end of the season, there will be a lot of speculation from people like Donald Trump and Rick Santorum about Cam Newton.\n\n David: Roger Goodell should suspend Newton for a few games as part of his wildly popular Arbitrary Continuation of NCAA Suspension policies. Newton has been lousy in the preseason, but he is on the Panthers and, well, there it is.\n\n Jeff: They will not let him play his game! They're trying to make him play like Chris Simms. I saw Jake Delhomme play live once at Foreclosure Field and it was like watching Joe Theismann try to order a daiquiri in Latin. Since then they've been QB'ed by guys named Matt.\n\n David: And Jimmy Clausen, the kid from Notre Dame with the Jerky Captain of the Golf Team shtick. I think he's retired already and moved home, where he started a business making fun of poorer kids' shoes.\n\n Jeff: The biggest Panthers news is that a lot of their 30-something tight ends have been squeezing the pork out of each other. They just loaded up on tight ends and now they're all saving each other's lives.\n\n David: The first step in Jeremy Shockey's image-rehabilitation campaign, saving that one guy's life. He'll be taking over for Jerry Lewis on the Muscular Dystrophy telethon next year. Sevendust has already committed to play. And while I support Shockey's dedication to eradicating that terrible disease, it is lame that he took Dante Rosario's gig, who had one of my favorite NFL tight end names.\n\n Jeff: I think a good tight end name would be: Kevin Tire. That sounds like a guy who collects exotic WWI submarines and spends his off-season doing light underwater welding on them. It is his passion.\n\n David: Ted Blockiewicz. Owns a deli in suburban Pittsburgh that won't put lettuce or tomato on sandwiches.\n\n Jeff: He spent 7 years as a redshirt at Nevada Christian Fascist Academy and once helped Turkey quell a coup attempt.\n\n David: Rob Dadziewski.\n\n Jeff: He spent a month in prison for breaking a donkey's jaw. They were both drinking in a Saginaw bar.\n\n David: His father works in a refinery and won't wear any safety equipment. He petitioned the NCAA for four years for the right to play without a helmet. \"I've taken some politics courses here, and so I know that it is communism if you make me wear this helmet. I have already been elected to the House of Representatives.\"\n\n Jeff: \"I have a notion that God would like me to play with the helmet he gave me. The bone helmet.\"\n\n David: Igor Olshansky just started a band called Bone Helmet.\n\n Jeff: I know for a fact that Tampa Bay has not been on national TV since 1976. I think even when they were in the Super Bowl it was a radio-only deal. So I hear a lot about Josh Freeman, and then I see him throw a last-second TD on some highlight show, and then 7 months pass and I have no idea. All I know is that they will finish in third place behind the Saints, and the Falcons, who are coached by a guy named Mike who looks like he's well-endowed. Not sure why. It's in his face.\n\n Predictions\n\n Jeff: 1) Falcons 2) Saints 3) Buccaneers 4) Panthers\n\n David: 1) Saints 2) Falcons 3) Buccaneers 4) Panthers\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\n NFC North\n\n Jeff: How many times did the Bears cut Chester Taylor? I loved what he did in '09 on the Vikings (except for that Steelers game) catching screens and running 34 yards with them. In Chicago, they didn't use him. And their field is made of rotting, partially frozen whale flesh. What would you have done with Matt Forte, Marion Barber and Chester Taylor?\n\n David: Fuck Barber, Marry Forte, Kill Chet Taylor? Or... oh, you were asking something else. I guess Barber gets the strategic goal-line carries and is used in situations when you want a long-haired running back. Forte is used for the things you need a decent running back for. Taylor would be used as a sort of concierge. He could give haircuts and program remotes.\n\n Jeff: I think, having spent three weeks in Wisconsin, in addition to the first 71 years of my life, the real trend there is that nothing is cuisine unless it has been cooked in a mid-range American whiskey. Cooking in beer is a given. But people even eat Jack Daniels granola bars out there now. I don't know how this applies to the Packers, but I do know that if you offer someone ribs there\u2014even if it is the senior citizen wife of a dentist\u2014and they have not been spackled with Jim Beam, you might as well be giving her the finger.\n\n David: The Packers are very good. I also love that they're a triumph of socialism in a part of the state so conservative that James Sensenbrenner won't even stop for gas there. I also like that, even though they are the politest and most dairy-swollen of natural enemies, Packers fans and Vikings fans could conceivably bond in their shared distaste for Brett Favre at this point. For all the damage that guy did during his Refusing To Leave The Party years, Favre might yet succeed in bringing Packers and Vikings fans together in recognition that they are both human, that they have both suffered, and that they are both of Norwegian descent. It should go on Favre's Hall of Fame plaque.\n\n Jeff: I think the Vikings specialize in breaking QBs hearts, though. I still think Sage Rosenfels feels like he got cheated out of a starting gig there. And with McNabb, even, his vibe was, \"I am not coming unless I am THE QB,\" and the Vikings, having drafted Ponder, were just all clueless smiles, and were like, \"Yes, you are A QB.\" By the end of the season I think Gus Frerotte might have the starting job there.\n\n David: I also really like the Detroit Lions. I have always kind of liked them, going back to the Wayne Fontes Administration, and admired the consistency of their Drunk Uncle routine on Thanksgivings past. Everyone's trying to enjoy themselves, and Uncle Lions shows up, drinks most of a bottle of Canadian Club, starts an argument with someone about Hillary Clinton, and spends the rest of the evening issuing sullen, silent farts at the dinner table. This year's Lions are actually kind of good, though, and I think there's a non-zero chance they win 10 games or something. I don't think they're going to ruin Thanksgiving, at least. I'll leave that to Uncle Cowboys, who are going to do the usual thing where they show up late and brag about how all the Red Lobster franchises they own are doing.\n\n Jeff: I'd actually pick the Bears to win the North had they given Jay Cutler a receiver. Instead, they signed a guy that even the Cowboys had given up on. A man so obsessed with making rookies carry his bags, he has no interest in actually playing. Why won't the bears give Cutler any targets? They're like, well, we re-signed Todd Sauerbrun, and he's going to be your slot receiver.\n\n Predictions\n\n Jeff: 1) Packers 2) Bears 3) Lions 4) Vikings\n\n David: 1) Packers 2) Bears 3) Lions 4) Vikings\n\n Friday: The AFC\n\n Jeff Johnson whines almost hourly here, and misleads people here.\n\n David Roth co-writes the Wall Street Journal's Daily Fix blog, writes the sports column \"The Mercy Rule\" at Vice.com, and writes regularly for The Awl, among other places. He tweets here."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/physically-unable-to-perform-an-nfc-preview>