now that's a festival

Instafest calculates what I listen to on Spotify and created this little poster. Fun! 

Buble and Vince Guaraldi Trio is because they have the best Christmas music. 

Imagine Dragons is my kids. Taylor Swift is my wife. But I do like the idea of Taylor on the smallest stage on a Tuesday.

MAHOMES IS INEVITABLE: Birthday Win over Chargers

When the Chargers scored with 1:46 left, they put up a graphic. 

Chargers expected win percentage: 74%
Chiefs expected win percentage: 26%

I laughed. Do they know who the Chiefs quarterback is? My concern was not whether Patrick Lavon Mahomes was going to go down the field and score. The only concern was would they leave the Chargers too much time. 

Remember when Chargers were so excited to beat the Chiefs in the regular season that they printed t-shirts? LOL. 

Mahomes and Kelce were fired up after that score. I hope somebody was mic'd up. 

Winning my birthday game is always the #1 regular season I want to win. Thank you, Patrick. Excellent birthday present. Best QB in the league does it again. 

Mahomes to Kelce for 3 TDs. The Hat Trick for Patrick. 

Nike World Cup Adverts

1998. This is the one that started it all for me. The '98 World Cup cemented my love for the event and this commercial was a decent chunk of where that love came from.

 

2010. The storytelling in here is so great. Possibly the best one.

   

 2014. My least favorite of the four on this page, but still worth including.  

 2022. A fun installment for sure.

There are others, but these are the ones that stuck with me.

Great Football Day

The title of this post should be Josh Allen Choke Artist. While that is true, there was so many good things that happened today, I'll be generous. 

First up, the Chiefs. 

In the start of every season you see all these stats about how ridiculous Mahomes is in September. Then today they start the November/December stats:

So the only month where defenses have a chance is October, got it. 

Today Chiefs win easy. Mahomes already the MVP frontrunner puts up 331 and 4 tds. They're the only AFC team with only 2 losses. But that's not all that happened today:

The Raiders lost to the Colts coached by someone with no coaching experience. Now 2-7. Just win baby.

The Broncos lost to the Titans. Let's ride to 3-6. (Russell Wilson put a QBR today of 22.3.)

The Chargers lost in primetime. Preseason favorites, regular season frauds. 

And the Bills got the inspired double choke by one of the best choke artists in the league. After your defense bails you out with a goal line stand, you fumble in the end zone AND throw a pick in the end zone. Truly chef's kiss. 

The Kansas City Chiefs are alone in first place in the AFC. 

The Buffalo Bills are currently in 3rd place in the AFC East. 

Sometimes deleted tweets are the best tweets.

Here's your updated standings. 

And here's the overall league standings:

The first two are my Calcutta teams and the third is the Chiefs. That Vikings win over Buffalo was doubly sweet.

World Cup 2022: Who I'm Rooting For

Tier One

USA

I'm a US Soccer fan first and foremost. In things like Olympic Basketball, it's not really fun to root for USA because it's typically a forgone conclusion. But in Olympic Curling or the World Cup? Yes, it is absolutely fun to compete with the best on an international stage. 

Tier Two

Spain

Belgium

Croatia

Serbia

Ecuador

Tunisia

Qatar

These are my Calcutta teams for this year. So I'm absolutely rooting for my teams to bring me a title that only comes around every four years. 

Tier Three

I did my 23 and Me and my ancestry results give me in this order:

Germany

Poland

Sweden

Denmark

England

The only team that didn't qualify from this list is Sweden, so there's four more countries I'm rooting for. 

My three favorite countries I've visited are Italy, Jamaica and Argentina. Of these, only Argentina qualified. 

So including Argentina that's 13 out of 32 countries that I have a reason to root for. 

Of course, I think Brazil is going to win. If that happens it would prove me right, but it would mostly sting that I didn't have the balls to bid them up all the way.

Knockout Round Update: My original 13 is down to 6.

USA

Spain

Croatia

Poland

England

Argentina

World Cup Big Board

I didn't want England because they always choke.

I didn't want France because it's hard to repeat. 

The only time Argentina did well in the WC was 2014 when it was in Brazil. Messi is 8 years older (now 35) so despite my affinity for them, I didn't think they had the best odds of winning it all. 

So I had Brazil in the Top Tier by themselves. 

I had Argentina, Spain, Belgium and Netherlands in the next tier with Netherlands being the best value pick. 

My next tier was Germany, Portugal and Denmark. 

My bottom tier was Croatia, Uruguay and Senegal. 

- - -

My plan was get Brazil no matter what. Then get the Netherlands. Then see how it shakes out trying to get as much of the other teams I had marked. 

I went up to $11.50 on Brazil but thought if I went up to $12 that I would only be able to get one other decent team. So I let Kirat have Brazil at $11.61. 

Instead I was able to get Spain and Belgium for just over what Kirat paid for Brazil. But then when it was time to get Netherlands, I went up to $6.70—my max at the time—even though they were supposed to be a value pick, and Matt still outbid me.

- - -

Happy to get Spain and Belgium, but the only other team that I had marked that I ended up getting was Croatia. 

- - -

Mark spent most of his money on the two teams I didn't want. But they'll still get to the quarterfinals. France could lose in the title game, I thought they would go for more. 

Kirat is top heavy but comparing rosters, probably has the best 1st team and the best 2nd team. Kirat did well. But we'll have to see.

The Mahomes for MVP Game

Coming into Sunday Night Football, there was a logjam of 5 and 6 win teams. Buffalo lost so the 1-seed is back in play, but there are 9 teams with 5 wins. Meaning that if the Chiefs lost, they could suddenly be thinking about just making the playoffs. 

In short, this was a big one.

After taking a 9-0 lead against a team with no passer, things seemed pretty great. Until King Henry made it 14-9 in the blink of an eye and the Chiefs started to stall. 

The Titans were doubling Kelce and getting pressure on Pat. Receivers are dropping passes. Butker is missing kicks. Mahomes is getting sacked. And then there's the inaccurate pass that Kelce tried to reach for it and it became a tip drill—interception. 

There's 10 minutes left and the Chiefs are down 8. They take over on their own 7. 

They pick up a few first downs but then take a sack on 2nd and 10. It's 3rd and 17. 

Wait. Hold everything. Where have I seen this before?

Oh yeah: 

Yesterday it was two less points but two more yards to go. Roughly the same spot on the field. And the time. It was 7:13 in both games. 

(Yesterday it was a running clock. SNF was fading back from graphics so at 7:13 the shot wasn't in focus yet, but it was 7:13 in both games.)

This is the point yesterday and in Super Bowl LIV that Mahomes put the team on his back and said we're not losing this game.

He made the biggest plays of regulation with his feet. And then in Overtime on 3rd and inches does this:

Here's your updated standings:

Bills and Chiefs are only teams with 2 losses in the AFC. Bills have tiebreakers over Chiefs, Chiefs have tiebreaker over Titans. 

Allen and Hurts still have strong MVP cases and there's more than half the season left to decide things, but I'll tell you this with 100% confidence: there is no other player in the league I'd rather have than Mahomes.

Tuesday Update: New Vegas odds for MVP have Mahomes, then Hurts, then Allen as a top 3. Tua is 4th but a tier below. Tyreek is 10th, the highest non-QB.

AFC West Shitpost

There will be some out there who say, "You know, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl and have at least 10 more years of Patrick Mahomes, they've won the division six years in a row and are about to make it seven...don't you think you're above all this (gestures to shitposting)?

No. I don't think I am. 

Let's start with the Oakland Raiders.

Their mantra is Just Win Baby but at the end of September they were the only 0-3 team in the league. They're currently 2-5 and 0-4 on the road. 

They made a big move giving up a first and second round pick to get Davante Adams. There was all this hype that Adams was going to reunite with his college QB David Derek Carr and it was going to be offensive fireworks. More like offensive to anybody who likes scoring. 

The 2-5 Saints shutout the Raiders last week. Come for the beautiful scoreline, stay for the delusional fan.

Fair enough guy. I won't come to the parade. 

By the way, do they have a parade for missing the playoffs?

True Story: The Raiders lost Super Bowl 37 and haven't won a playoff game since. 20 years.

- - -

Real quick, we can touch on the Chargers, sort of a palate cleanser. 

People at The Ringer are desperate to put Herbert on the same level as Mahomes and Allen. Let's check the tape:

This year the Chargers are 4-3 but have a division worst -25 plus/minus. 

Brian Robinson got shot and made it back on the field before Keenan Allen. 

Wake me up when Herbert wins a playoff game.

- - -

And then we get to the Denver Broncos. 

This team signed Russell Wilson to a five-year, $245 Million contract two months ago. This shit aged like yogurt. 

Hilarious that he's bad on the field and getting mocked by everyone for being corny off the field. I've never seen current NFL players mocking someone like they are now. 

All being lead by the guru Nathaniel Hackett. 

What's hilarious is I didn't ever believe in Russell Wilson being a tier one QB, but he did bring me a lot of joy when the Seahawks beat the Broncos in the Super Bowl. And now he's bad on the Broncos, and a financial casualty, and corny as shit. It's the best of both worlds.