The NFL's Worst Teams: The Sad Sack Seven, Wade Was Whacked Edition

Usually a third or more NFL coaches meet the reaper each year. 

It's a bloody business, with impatient owners and bloody-minded fans immersed in a "what did you do for me now" mindset. 

Chuck Noll, not that free agency would allow him the time, would never have been able to develop the '70s Steelers.

Tom Landry would have been totaled before he had time to cultivate those Cowboys.

Someone always has to get whacked first. And it was Wade Phillips that was whacked.

Wade's end was not Sonny Corleone in the phone booth; no, he went out more like mild Bobby Bacala.

Old baffled Wade could not believe a bunch of millionaires could give so little effort for their money.

Wade's down. Batter up?

1] [Tie] Detroit Lions [2-7] @ Buffalo Bills [1-8]

Nothing like the lackluster Lions and the bumbling Bills in a cold November rain, or muting Thursday Joe Theismann, to make one appreciate watching NFL games with a remote.

Fans at the games must've had to mute their minds, or drink a dozen drafts, to blunt the horror.

2] Carolina Panthers [1-8]

The Panthers have a new promotion this week.

One lucky fan this week will get to play quarterback for the Carolina Panthers this week.

Another lucky fan might get a shot at running back too!

Any Panther fans want to coach this week's action? It could be you!

From the ticket scan to the sideline to the signal caller!

Why not? We can't be any worse!

3] Houston Texans [4-5]

It takes Texas-sized dedication to develop a pass defense this dreadful.

The Texans' pass defense might be the worst of all time, and that's something they can tell their grandkids about.

Usually Gary Kubiak's Texans start so terribly that the playoffs are eliminated in time for a late season rally, but this year the collapse might come mid-season.

Kubiak, it seems, has adapted.

4] Dallas Cowboys [2-7]

Just because they whipped whiny-looking Eli Manning and exposed Percy Fewell's pass defense as a fraud doesn't mean Dallas jumps off this list.

Why would a spoiled group of underachieving whiners with a ruined season get a pass from anything?

Why do their overrated wideouts celebrate like they just whipped Red Miller's Orange Crush to win a ring, when all they did was catch a pass, for a million dollars or so, on a 2-7 team?

The Cowboys are a sick team, and Jerry Jones might be the cancer, not the cure.

5] Cincinnati Bengals [2-7]

Speaking of team cancers, never catch a case of the Browns.

It does not kill you outright, but it slowly strangles a city for decades.

The Brown family is like a vile leech stuck on Ohio and the NFL, draining them joyless and dry each and every year.

6] The NFC West

So ugly, so sad, so parity-ridden bad that the Seattle Seahawks might win the division.

Twenty-five years ago the West had the Eric Dickerson Los Angeles Rams and the Bill Walsh/Joe Montana 49ers running rampant in it.

Even the 1985 Saints with head coaches Wade and Bum Phillips and a suddenly shot Earl Campbell leading them might have won this weak West.

Well, maybe not—Wade got some seriously bad mojo working.

7] [Tie] Minnesota Vikings [3-6]

One is getting the scary feeling that hot Chilly might just shoot somebody soon.

Washington Redskins [4-5]

There is something comforting in knowing that every season Danny Snyder will do something moronic to sabotage his team for several years. 

The Schadenfreude Skins...it has a ring to it.

Terrible Coach of the Week

Though Wade was whacked, his Cowboy shade lingered like a ghost rider in the sky above Dallas.

How could one man's absence make a team three or four touchdowns better? 

The Cowboys are surely a bunch of overpaid prima donnas who decided to pout instead of play for Phillips, but still, was Wade such a swing? 

Addition by subtraction, some say, but a swing like this is nothing short of amazing.

Terrible Moose and Goose Observation of the Week

Angelina Jolie once said Brad Pitt's job was to stand there and look pretty, which is mostly what a sideline reporter, or a Jolie love toy, does.

Which brings us to the question of who let the Goose out?

Goose, never bringing the pretty, dropped one of his usual deep gameday observations when, with about seven minutes left in the fourth quarter, after the Bears scored and went up by 14 on the Chillious Vikings, he observed:

"Moose, that score sorta put some pressure on the Vikings." 

Really? 

Down by 14 on the road in the final seven minutes of a game?

Is that why Goose gets the big bucks picking those minute things out we miss?

Moose, for his part, mostly ignored him as he mused and sermonized on whatever football topics, beside the game generally, materialized in his brain.

Terrible Man to be in a Fox Foxhole

When the lights went out in Gotham, the viewer could almost sense the fear building in announcer Joe Buck.

While babbling about the blackness, Buck even wondered what would happen if the phones did not work.

Poor Buck, who sounded like he went wee wee while seeking out a hiding place somewhere behind Pam Oliver, seemed to think he was going to have to battle the Baseball Furies from The Warriors to escape like a scared Snake Plissken from New York.

Eventually the endless night dissipated, after five minutes or so, and Buck, finally safe, reminisced about his journey into darkness like he had just survived the Stalingrad Campaign.

Terrible Talk Talk Talk Talking Heads of the Week

Can Fox possibly introduce any more useless booth babble?

During one key drive of the Cowboy-Giant game, Fox had Buck pondering his blackout survival, Pam Oliver transmitting from the sidelines about the transformer problems, Jimmy Johnson's disembodied head floating on screen babbling about Calvin Johnson, Troy Aikman pondering Wade Phillips' discipline issues and the NFL puppet, Mike Pereira, parroting something like "The ref is right! The ref is right! The ref is right!" in the background.

Somewhere in the background, beyond the buzz, a game was unfolding.   

Terrible Term of the Week

Gunslinger, gunslinger, gunslinger—must every quarterback who can wobble a ball 25 yards downfield be a gunslinger?

And must every television talking head mumble or, like Mike Irvin, mangle the mantra?

Most gunslingers ended up shot dead, and most gunslingers did most of their bloody work in situations tilted heavily towards their advantage or in situations where demon liquor tilted their minds towards madness. 

That aside, if gunslingers it must be, when does Brett Favre meet his linebacker Jack McCall or defensive end Charlie Ford?

But that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard
Has laid poor Jesse in his grave.