Bears vs Cardinals: 9-20-2015

Des: Welcome to another edition of the Chicago Bears football pre-game show. The Bears face off against the Cardinals after a loss that enabled the Monsters of the Midway to experience less shame. We’re not quite up to “pride” yet. Will the Bears continue their glacial rebuilding with Robbie Gould’s mighty leg, a defense that can keep opponents under 20 points, and a coach who can keep Cutler down to one game-changing interception per outing? Or will today’s game provide late morning entertainment to the home team fans watching their local heroes battle it out while enjoying a senior citizens’ discount at the Golden Corral buffet?

To answer these and similar questions is our panel of experts: Concord Wainwright Peabody, Captain Silas Charles “the Floronic Man” Red-beard, Modre- the trans-Western guru, the Prissy Minion, Doctor Sally McChesty, Ellie Mae MacGillicutty, and scorpion bowl casualty, Drunky McDumbAss.

Redbeard: ARRRH, mateys! Before I unscroll me Treasure Map to the Super Bowl, I have to ask: Why “the Floronic Man” Redbeard? Usually I ignore the obscure cultural references ye pointlessly tack onto me name, but this be a new low, even for you: Why would my nickname be the least popular supervillain of the least popular DC Comics—let’s call him a “character”, the word “super-hero” doesn’t really fit--Swamp Thing?

Des: That question answers itself, doesn’t it?

Redbeard: No.

Des: Okay, then.

Des: Redbeard, don’t you have some sort of map you were going to tell us about?

Redbeard: Yes, with the latitudes and the longitudes and the what have you. Also sexy drawings of mermaids with enlarged….ahhhhhh…, uh, I mean, ARRRRHHHH!!!

Here be Captain Redbeard’s Treasure Map to the Super-Bowl!!! In the AFC, I foresee the Bills, Bengals, Texans, and Chiefs celebrating divisional championships, whilst the Patriots and Broncos enter the playoffs as wild cards. In the NFC, I envision that the Lions, Eagles, Saints, and Cardinals will dominate their divisions. The Cowboys and Packers will be tainted with the dishonor of entering as wild cards. Tremble with fear as I reveal this startling denouement to the 2015 football season: The Bengals will defeat the Cardinals in the first Super Bowl between two teams who enter with a 7-9 record, whilst the Falcons, with a 13-3 record, won’t even make the playoffs.

Des: Captain, unlike every stock market advice show on CNBC, I have to point out your multitude of errors. Last year, the Cowboys were your only successful pick in the NFC and the Steelers were the only team keeping you from a shutout in the AFC. And your Super Bowl picks? The 49ers were 8-8 and Jim Harbaugh is coaching Michigan, while the Chiefs were only slightly more respectable with a 9-7 record.

Redbeard: Des, ye lugubrious lackey of a land-lubber! I defy ye to find a better sports prognosticator than the “Salty Sea-Dog of Sports.” And I mean I literally defy ye! As in, “If ye touch a key stroke to look this up on Google, I will cut off both your hands with me steely blade and use them on me scary sports Ouija board to pick next week’s winners!”

Des: “Lugubrious?” Are you sure you didn’t mean “glug, glug, glug-ree-us?” By which I mean “Time now for Drunky McDumbAss.” What’s happening out there in Tailgate Land? Or County Jail?

Drunky: Har-de-har-fuck you, Des! I’m doing neither. At this very moment, I’m about to shoot about a dozen or so commercials as the “before” guy for every drug addiction center in the country. USA! USA!

Des: Concord Peabody. What are your thoughts?

Concord: Well, Des, the order of operations that sorts out what teams win and what obsessive-compulsive mathematical card-counting jerk beats me every year in what some call a “Fantasy Football League”, but for me is nothing but an endless nightmare of heartbreak and bankruptcy, uh, would tend to tell you that the Bears should lose, but for me, who picks teams with my heart and therefore creates a pot of gold for gamblers with some sort of reality-based strategy, I say: Bears win: 45-7!

Des: Wow. That’s really bringing you down to Des-boy McGillicutty and Drunky McDumbAss level as the panelists with the most depressing existence. Modre. This year’s retooling of your character has you commenting on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Give it to me, please.

Modre: “He who most loudly denies reality defines reality.” That is either Donald Trump’s campaign slogan or the worst Depeche Mode song ever.

Des: Prissy Minion. Go.

Prissy Minion: Des, your football blog is about more than x’s and o’s, which, when I say it, takes on a totally different meaning. But I digress. No, whenever I read your posts, I hear this wondrous tapestry of ones and zeros crackling over a 1970s phone modem at my public library that I accidently pick up when I’m trying to call my time travelling Uber Taxi only to find Drunky McDumbAss trying to make a few extra bucks in between drive-thru liquor stores.

Des: Prissy, when you make these extended valentines to me, do you just listen to NPR for 90 consecutive hours to extract its pure essence and then scrawl it on a post card?

Prissy Minion: (Taps his nose)

Des: That’s a nice scene from The Trojan Women on the front side of the post card.

Des: Ellie Mae McGillicutty. What southern fried wisdom do you have for us today?

Ellie Mae: Des, I’m tired of your mockery of the sons and daughters of the south. Haven’t you learned anything from famed cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who admonished Charlie Hebdo for “punching down”? Always punch up, Des!

Des: Like Doonesbury in the early 1970s, with Boopsie Boopstein and Rufus “Thor” Jackson?

Des: Speaking of stereotypical eye candy, here’s Sally McChesty. Would you finish this off for us?

Sally: With extreme pleasure, Desikowski. Are there two “r’s” in “harassment”?

Des: It depends on whether you pronounce it “ha-rass-ment” or “hair-rus-ment.”