NFL 2014: The World's Worst Tyrant

One of these years, I'm going to make good on my yearly promise to quit torturing myself with football. It was one thing when it was just the concussions. And the bullying. And the tax-payer funded stadiums (to replace stadiums not even old enough to buy cigarettes). And the exploitation of even non-players. And Dan Snyder. The whole Washington enterprise, really.

We now have Ray Rice and his subsequent milquetoast punishment. Though apparently the next time this happens, we'll see a more "severe" penalty because the NFL could not have foreseen that people would be upset by their terrible decision had to maintain a low bar when they punished Jim Irsay. And it's not even as though Rice is the only player with a history of spousal abuse; it's tempting to make some kind of connection between these guys' day jobs and how more than a few of them handle their personal lives. But we wouldn't want to be irresponsible. Meanwhile, Josh Gordon is done for the year for testing positive for pot (granted, he's now a repeat offender, but his first suspension was for the same length as Rice's, so yeah). Roger Goodell is the world's worst tyrant, in that he is terrible at being a tyrant. Except that the empire he runs is extraordinarily good at winning--and keeping--the hearts and minds of the country. Occupying powers the world over drool at what the NFL has managed so seemingly effortlessly. We continue to consume their tainted (but oh so delicious) product in spite of ourselves. It's easy to shove in our faces and vastly more difficult to digest, but humans are, at heart, short-term thinkers.

If you're not a football fan, the current state of affairs looks horrific. If you are, it's horrific and deeply depressing, with a tendency toward heartburn-inducing (the Bears have a great offense, parts of a decent defense, and a difficult schedule, ensuring that I won't be sleeping much between now and when they're officially knocked out of playoff contention. So, thanks in advance, guys). We can't keep this up forever, NFL. How about this: I'll watch one more season, then I'll quit cold turkey. No backsies.

So, as I said in my baseball post this year, I could afford to have a lot more fun with these picks. Because it really does not matter. At all. Even a little. And there's no penalty for being wrong. But it's too easy to make them all joke picks. I'm going to have to find some kind of balance as I do these going forward, but for now here are my kind-of-serious-but-who-cares-go-fuck-yourself picks for 2014:

• NFC North: Green Bay Detroit Minnes... fine, Green Bay
• NFC East: Philadelphia 
• NFC South: Carolina
• NFC West: Richard Sherman
• NFC Wild Cards: New Orleans, Chicago (who will not be allowed a starting defense in the playoffs, but will be allowed two starting offenses in an effort to finally exorcise Mike Ditka)
• AFC North: Cincinnati
• AFC East: Division is vacated because no one cares
• AFC South: Houston
• AFC West: Denver
• AFC Wild Cards: FC Bayern Munich, Indianapolis
• NFC Championship: Richard Sherman over Philadelphia
• AFC Championship: Denver over Indianapolis
• Super Bowl XLIX: Denver over Richard Sherman initially, but Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy beats them both in the long run