Carl Weathers, master thespian and former Oakland Raider, watches every NFL game from his man cave to compile his weekly Power Rankings exclusively for Heckler readers. Mr. Weathers, despite playing only eight NFL games, was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1980.
10 – Pittsburgh Steelers The Steel City Stormtroopers Stomped the Chiefs 20-12 in their blast furnace, setting up an AFC North championship bout with Cincy next week. Le’Veon The Bell-dozer led the black and gold bad asses with 63 rush yards and a TD.
9 – Arizona Cardinals Coach/cut man Bruce Arians should have thrown in the white towel before kickoff, this Battle Royale title bout for the NFC West was over when Seattle tied their cleats. The plucky “next man up” Phoenicians become “next man to be run over by a vicious Seahawk” in a 35-6 Cardinal mashing that had PETA up in arms. Back-back-up Ryan Lindley threw for 216 yards and one INT.
8 – Indianapolis Colts I’m going to put as much effort into this write-up as the Colts put into their 42-7 loss to Dallas. It was a bad Luck day for Andrew as his ass got benched after throwing for only 109 yards and 2 picks.
7 – Dallas Cowboys It was another Dez-zling display of dominance in Big “D” as ‘Boys romped to the NFC East belt, KO’ing Colts 42-7. Dez Bryant caught 1 of 4 TD strikes from Tony Romo as Dallas destroyed their well-earned December divers rep (well, at least for a year!).
6 – Detroit Lions Detroit enjoyed their victory trip to the win-dy city, edging the feisty Bears 20-14. It was another Suh-per day for the league’s #1 “D” (Ndamukong tattooed Jimmy Clausen twice) but the motor city kitties need to overhaul their offensive engine if they hope to cut the cheese next week in Lambeau. Calvin Johnson did hit 103 yards for the game and passed 1,000 for the season.
5 – Denver Broncos Santa Peyton Manning was in the Christmas Spirit on Monday Night! He had interception presents for all the good little boys and girls on the Bengals “D,” footballs for all and for all a good night (a 37-28 Bengal primetime pasting)! The Denver ground game never got going, Peyton threw 4 picks and Cincy ran over the Orange Slush for 207 yards.
4 – New England Patriots In another divisional donnybrook, the Pats nipped G-G-G-Gino & The Jets 17-16. Tom “Rocket Man” Brady was held under 200 pass yards by Gotham’s Gang Green but he did hit Gronk for his FDA-recommended daily allowance of one (1) touchdown pass.
3 – Green Bay Packers Bay almost a don’t Watch, the Pack slogged through the Bucs 20-3. Ailing Aaron Rodgers proved he’s more than a pretty TV pitch man as he battled a gimpy leg to throw for 318 yards and 2 TDs.
2 – Seattle Seahawks How the (NFC) West was won: 2 parts Russell Wilson (this week’s Master of Disaster with 339 pass yards/88 rush yards/3 total TDs), 1 part Beast Mode (Marshawn Lynch purified the Cards “D” with an 8.5 on the Richter Scale 79-yard earthquake TD run) and 1 part Anaconda defense (Legion of Boom squeezed the life out of Arizona, holding them to 216 total yards in a 35-6 rout).
1 – Oakland Raiders Oooooo, Marv Levy and I had some friendly trash talk goin’ during this game between our two schools! I’ll score it a split decision, my boys won the game 26-24 but Marv can drop some smack talk that would curdle gasoline, I’ll give him the decision there. Rookie of the Decade Derek Carr threw for 2 scores and Charles “Don’t Knock on” Woodson picked off his 60th career pass. Here we go!
Program note – The December 28th edition of the untelevised NFL pregame show starring myself and Marv Levy (henceforth to be known as Marv-turday Night Live) we explore the options to the spit bucket NFC South. Send them to North Korea? Demote them to the Big 12? We don’t wanna see no losing record paper champs in the playoffs!
Musical guest: Foo Fighters
