If you woke up every morning knowing that you were the best player on the worst team in the NFL, how would that make you feel? Would you be honored to carry such an important load for such a shitty team, or would you scowl and talk shit and do everything in your power to get thrown off the team and, hopefully, taken into a better situation? Would you make the proverbial lemonade, or would you bitch and moan and remain thirsty?

Such is the dilemma facing St. Louis Rams running back Steven Jackson this season. Mr. Jackson is a bad motherfucker in almost every way one can be so: he’s athletic, he’s strong, he runs angry, he’s enormous, he’s fast, and better yet, he can both catch the ball out of the backfield and run between the tackles. There is no hyperbole involved in saying that the man can do it all. Unfortunately for him, he does so for the worst team in the league.

The. Worst. Team. No question about it.

There are a lot of terrible teams in what is shaping up to be a particularly putrid season for the league’s bottom tier. Have you had the displeasure of being forced to watch Kansas City, Cleveland, Oakland, Tampa Bay, or Tennessee this year? Carolina, Washington, Buffalo, Jacksonville, or Detroit? Terrible.

Each of those teams, however, would beat the hell out of St. Louis (and a couple of them have). The Rams’ defense is terrible and just traded its best linebacker for draft picks; their quarterbacks are either prematurely old and useless (Marc Bulger) or, well, Kyle Boller; Donnie Avery is a promising wide receiver, but he can’t stay healthy and/or consistent. This team is unconscionably bad, especially considering how good they were seven years ago.

The Greatest Show on Turf? Two Super Bowls at the turn of the century? Hall of Famers at QB, RB, and both starting wideout positions? A frisky, playmaking defense? Do you remember any of this?

After a dominant college career at Oregon State, Mr. Jackson landed with the Rams as Marshall Faulk was running out of gas. His situation seemed ideal, and he ready to carry the torch for a new era of Rams football.

Rams’ management never threw him a bone, though, expecting his presence and greatness to be enough. The situation steadily devolved, and though Jackson has topped 1000 yards each year he’s been the starter in St. Louis (every year since 2005), the most games his team has won in a season is 8 (a year in which they started 4-1) and the Rams have not made the playoffs.

In light of this half-decade of disgusting football, one couldn’t hold it against Jackson if he did everything in his power to get thrown off the team, a la Kansas City’s Larry Johnson and this week’s strongly-worded tweet regarding his head coach’s experience, a move that puts Johnson on an emotional level with twelve-year-old girls and nerdy comic book guys.

But Jackson has taken the high road, aware that he gets paid an ungodly sum to play a game and it’s his job to show up and compete, regardless of how the team is doing. Jackson finished week 7 with 635 yards, well on his way to another 1000-yard season. The Rams have only been close in 2 of 7 games this year, but Jackson keeps plugging along, this past week putting up 134 yards on the ground despite his team getting spanked 42-6 by the Colts.

Steven Jackson is deserving of our pity, but he probably wouldn’t accept it. He just keeps chugging along, running people over, no doubt hoping for a day when competent teammates show up but content to do his best in the meantime. If he played for the Vikings, he’d be at least as good as Adrian Peterson, if not better. But instead he plays for the Rams, out of St. Louis, and he’s Steven Jackson, the only thing worth watching in St. Louis. And this has been the case for far too long.

***

Rare is it that you get to see your favorite team play at its absolute peak. Rarer still is getting to see that moment happen in a game on which personal bragging rights are at stake. Rarer than both of these is to see that peak achieved with such perfection that you yourself cannot believe anything you are seeing.

Such was the situation Sunday afternoon as I watched my beloved Cincinnati Bengals dominate with extreme, dode-lashing prejudice the Chicago Bears. The final score read 45-10, but the game was barely that close. The Bengals didn’t punt until there were 39 seconds left in the game. Running back (and former Bear) Cedric Benson rushed for 189 yards, quarterback Carson Palmer passed for five touchdowns, receiver Chad Ochocinco had as quiet of a 118-yard, two touchdown days as a man can have, the defense forced four turnovers, and, aside from Chicago’s Devin Hester compiling a nice day, so totally shut down the Bears’ offense that Chicago coach Lovie Smith could only say afterward, “Nothing went right today. They knocked us around. We are better than that…they were ready…we’ll learn from this game.”

Smith might learn what the unemployment line looks like on account of this game, but besides that, if I were him, I’d burn all game film and do everything I could to forget this ever happened.

If I were Bengals coach Marvin Lewis, on the other hand, I would give each player a copy of this tape to serve as a constant reminder of what these Bengals are capable of, the talent at their disposal, and what Cincinnati can accomplish if everyone shows up ready to play. The Bears aren’t the greatest team in the league, but they aren’t slouches, either. This was a complete victory for the Bengals over a team that, prior to this game, felt pretty good about itself.

The fact that several of my friends are from the Chicago area, love their Bears, bleed orange and blue, and kept the shit-talk going at a decent clip in the run-up to the game completed the circuit, brought light to darkness, placed the experience of watching this particular Bengals’ game in the pantheon of greatest viewing experiences of my entire life.

My team hit its stride, blasted a competent opponent, and served notice to the league as a whole that no, this is not a fluke. The Bengals are a team to be reckoned with, and heading into their week 8 bye they look as dangerous as any team in the AFC.

Of course, this could all flame out with a couple stinkers in November. Until those stinkers happen, however, and God willing they won’t, I’m going to enjoy the fuck out of these next couple weeks.

And talk a lot of shit in the process, if anybody cares to hear it.

***

Have you noticed how NFL commentators are almost sick of talking about Peyton Manning? The Colts are beating the shit out of pretty much everyone they play anymore, and analysts give the requisite “Peyton Manning is currently playing the quarterback position as good as it can be played” comments, but they don’t take a lot of joy in it.

This is not Tom Brady, 2007. There have not been a slew of five touchdown games. Manning is not on pace for any records. But his lowest-rated game this season came in week 1, a tougher-than-it-should-have-been victory over Jacksonville, during which he achieved a 94.3 rating. Every other game he’s been rated over 107. Quarterback ranking can be a dubious statistic, but one thing it measures fairly accurately is how well a QB performs overall at his position (for instance, Mark Sanchez has thus far achieved a 61.5 average rating, Jay Cutler an 82.9, JaMarcus Russell a 47.2, Tom Brady a 99.9). Manning’s average is 114, the best in the league so far.

But this surprises no one. Announcers can’t possibly hype Peyton Manning’s performance beyond what the numbers bear out because, quite simply, he is playing quarterback as good as anyone we’ve ever seen, 2007 Tom Brady included. He runs every aspect of his team, may as well be the head coach, mascot, player personnel director, all of it.

The Colts are Peyton’s team. Every quarterback – scratch that, every person – should be lucky enough to wake up one day in a situation so perfectly catered to an individual skill set as Peyton Manning finds himself in with the Colts. It’s kind of frightening.

And each time the Colts dominate an opponent, the media has one less thing to talk about until the playoffs. Two weeks ago I was worried the media would kill us with talk of the Mannings, but since I wrote that, there has been a fair amount of quiet on the Manning front.

Again, for as long as it lasts, I plan to enjoy this moment.

***

Brief side note regarding passer rating:

Peyton is #1 and dominating in a special way. Any idea who #2 is?

That would be one Aaron Rodgers, starting QB of the Green Bay Packers. Rodgers is averaging just over a 110 rating so far this season. As we head into Round 2 of Favre-apalooza, this time featuring Mr. Favre coming to Lambeau for the first time since retiring, coming back, and being sold down the river in favor of the young Mr. Rodgers, it is important to note what the media is almost guaranteed not to mention: that the Packers made the right decision backing the younger, more athletic, apparently more complete and capable Aaron Rodgers over the more accomplished Brett Favre.

Sure, Favre owns all the records and “just has fun out there,” or whatever, but this Rodgers kid can play. If the Packers O-line can get him any time against this Vikings defensive line (last time, they sacked him 8 times), it could be a long day for Mr. Favre’s team, one replete with him walking off the field in disgust without shaking anybody’s hands as the karma police circle the wagons and prepare to deal with the situation.

Or anyway, we can hope for as much.

***

And, last but not least, the Satire on the Rocks Plea for Sanity…

Dear Carolina Panthers,

It is hard to say goodbye to yesterday, isn’t it?

You should take those memories of the golden years of the Jake Delhomme era to be your sunshine after the rain, but it’s high time you realized this dude is a disaster, deteriorating before our eyes, shaken psychically, blowing plays he always made with ease in the past, pissing off Steve Smith and wasting the final years of Mighty Mouse’s prime, and beyond this giving your fans no hope that this season has any chance of getting better.

Is starting Matt Moore going to change that? Probably not. If Josh McCown were healthy, he’d already be the starter, but without him, your choices are Moore or A.J. Feeley, a guy who freely admitted last week that he doesn’t understand the offense and would at best be able only to “manage the game.” The expensive contract extension you handed Delhomme this offseason, on the heels of his embarrassing, season-destroying five-interception game against the Cardinals at home in the second round of the playoffs last year, further complicates things.

Delhomme has 15 turnovers compared to four touchdown passes so far this season. He’s the 32^nd rated passer in a 32-team league (worse, in fact, than 0-6, about-to-be-benched Titans’ quarterback Kerry Collins). Smith is 33^rd in receiving yards, behind such luminaries as Mike Wallace, Zach Miller, and Brent Celek. Worst of all, though, this unfortunate attachment to Delhomme is sapping your team of the one thing that should make it better than most others: that potent, game-changing running game.

DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart have combined for 734 rushing yards so far this season. Williams ranks 11^th in the league with 461 yards. They are getting yards, but those yards should be more plentiful. Last week against Buffalo, one of the worst run defenses in the league, Delhomme threw the ball 44 times while Williams only rushed it 16 and Stewart 7. Delhomme went for 325 yards, but he also threw 3 picks against no touchdowns, destroying Panther momentum every time. And it’s not as though you were getting blown out by an explosive offense and had no choice but to throw: we’re talking about the Bills here, a team led by Ryan Fitzpatrick. This one should have been easy: run the ball, play defense, go home with a win.

Instead, it drove some nails a little further into Jake Delhomme the Starting Quarterback’s coffin. Cut the cord, Carolina. If you refuse to bench him, at the very least stop trying to make him win you games. It’s obvious he’s not that guy anymore. Go deep a couple times, but pound those running backs. By now we have irrefutable evidence that Delhomme is not the guy he used to be. That he’s regressed. That the good old days, in fact, are over.

You don’t know where this road is going to lead. All you know is where you’ve been with Delhomme (a Super Bowl, as much success as your franchise has ever seen), and what you’ve been through together. No doubt you thought you’d get to see forever, but, it’s official now, forever’s gone away.

It’s very hard to say goodbye to yesterday, Carolina, but that’s something you are going to have to do if you want any chance of success over the second-half of this season.

Until next week,

The Minds Behind Satire on the Rocks

(Editor’s note: that’s going to do it for this week, kids. Going out of town to celebrate the nuptials of an old friend. We’ll be back next Monday and, one figures, incredibly emotional and at least halfway drunk each day until then. Adieu.)