My arrival was delayed until right at kickoff this week, which is not my usual modus operandi. I like to get in at around noon or so, enjoy a little bit of NFL Countdown, and give the waitresses a chance to have me all to themselves for a while. But I did a little traveling this weekend for my big brother’s birthday, so I got in right at 1 o’clock, have gotten about 7 hours of combined sleep over the last 48, have already spent about 4 hours in a car today, and will spend the next 7 or 8 sitting in this bar, and I may set some records today for physical inactivity. I also have this Deadspin thing happening today, so I have no idea how this is going to go.

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Once again, Crazy Fish Guy’s at our table. Of course, he was there before I was, again pulling the “I’ll leave when your friends get here” bit, and then staying all fucking day. My man AJ is sitting over at the bar while CFG sits here just taking up space. It’s really not cute anymore. I bet he goes home and tells the wife about how he was hanging out at the bar with his new friends, while I am honestly thinking about spitting in his Mountain Dew.

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Tom Brady gets his from behind, sliding along the cold Buffalo turf on his stomach. I bet that hit tore out his belly-button ring.

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Early on, the Steelers are just running through the vaunted Bears defense. I hesitate to make any judgments after just a couple of possessions, but you know, I don’t think this year’s version of the Steelers offense would’ve posed much of a threat to the ’85 Bears defense. I don’t see any Richard Dents or Mike Singletarys out there. I mean no disespect, but I think anyone making those comparisons has to be sniffing a whole lot of glue.

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JP Losman’s made some pretty decent throws in the Buffalo/New England game. Danks is talking about him with Crazy Fish Guy, but I’d be almost willing to bet that CFG has never before heard the name “JP Losman.” Either that, or he calls him “JT Wiseman” or something.

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I was hoping to get an update on the Raiders fan waitress girl this week, but I don’t think she’s here. I’ve been wondering for a week what she did, or if she got fired. I kinda feel bad for her, because I say absolutely terrible things about her here every week, and she’s probably a perfectly nice person, but still, I can’t help but believe she was fired for having sex with a line cook on top of the fryer because she liked the way it felt when her ass was burned.

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I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.

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The waitress we do have today, however, is the one from Week 6 with the phenomenal ass. I want it to be my pillow.

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Danks describes Losman as “too eccentric in the pocket.” I’m sure he misspoke and meant either “excitable” or perhaps “erratic,” but I like the idea of a guy being too eccentric on the pocket. Too many guys out there drop back and start designing flowery wallpaper patterns and doing interpretive dance to techno Yanni remixes.

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You know how sometimes when a teammate is congratulating another teammate, it can look like he’s doing it in an aggressive and unfriendly fashion? Maybe you hit a guy in the shoulder and say, “That’s how we do it, boy,” or something like that… but I don’t think punters get that. Panthers punter Jason Baker made a TD-saving tackle, and a teammate got in his face, grabbed his shoulder and shook him (presumably) in congratulations, and Baker just cowered in fear. Poor guy may need years of therapy to get over that one.

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I don’t know if it’s a clip from today’s pregame show that I missed, or what, but CBS shows a shot of Shannon Sharpe wearing a tie that a 7-year-old might wear to Sunday School. It is light blue, striped, and the knot is roughly half the size of his substantial head.

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Here’s a fun factoid from CBS: The distance from the Steelers locker room to the sideline is 60 feet. The distance from the visiting team’s locker room to their sideline is 762 feet. Pretty clever, Heinz Field architects. Next year, they should add a moat that is filled with alligators and bitter Pittsburgh housewives.

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At a 4th-and-1 around midfield, the Browns line up as if they’re going for it, but they’re clearly not snapping the ball. They just want the Bengals to jump offsides. And they do. That so rarely works. If a team falls for that, how am I supposed to take them seriously as a Super Bowl contender?

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Danks’ girlfriend had a birthday party this weekend (Happy 12th, Meghann), and Danks, as some kind of a favor to her, wore a Joey Porter jersey, with a sign taped over it that said, “I’m a Patriots fan, but I’m whipped” or something to that effect. That is so very sad. I hope that Meghann gives him his balls back for Christmas.

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Just past halftime, the score of the Indy/Jacksonville game is 20-3 Indy. This looks like another classic “Now Shut the Fuck Up” game for the Colts. They just sit back, let people talk, let the other team think it might really be their week, and then they come out and punch them in the mouths, leaving no doubt as to who the better team is. It’s impressive.

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The Bears continue to be unimpressive in their efforts at Heinz Field, which is getting snowier, uglier, and muddier. The nice thing about the playing surface at Heinz is that you can play four quarters of football on it, and then host a mud-wrestling tournament on it immediately afterwards. It really is a poor playing surface. They need to get the high school teams and the high-school caliber college teams like Pitt that play there to go somewhere else.

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As the Patriots continue to destroy the Bills, CBS is zooming in on the center/quarterback snap exchange, which ends up just being a high-definition close-up of Tom Brady’s ass. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but Danks had to get up and go to the bathroom immediately afterwards.

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Overly Exuberant Dolphins fan from last week is here, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but the Chargers play the Dolphins this week. Both he and Crazy Fish Guy might get their asses whooped.

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The Steelers polish off their victory over the Bears, who just weren’t very good today. I don’t know if they’re overrated because they get to play the Bears, Packers, and Vikings twice each, or if they just had a bad day, but… I’m leaning towards the first option. There is no team in the NFC who I can look at and say, “Yes, I am positive that this is a very good football team.” Seattle’s the closest, but I’m not even sure about them.

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I don’t get Jeremy Shockey fans… Even if you like the Giants, I think you should respect yourself enough to wear a Shockey jersey. I’m not saying you have to hate him. If he played for my team, I’d just regard him as a necessary evil and try to pretend he’s someone else. But the guys with the Shockey jerseys? That’s a group of people I’ll just never have anything in common with.

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The Cardinals pick off a Mark Brunell pass that was headed for the endzone. AJ looks over at me and says, “Gimme one,” hoping to hear my Cardinals “Caw!” which apparently makes him happy. Unbeknownst to me, the waitress with the phenomenal ass has stopped at the table at that very moment and is about to say something to me just as I scream “Caw!” right in her face. I think I scared the hell out of her.

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Oh, man… I don’t even know if I should share this with you. I’m struggling with the decision right now. I’m thinking, I’m thinking… Gimme a second.

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Fuck it. Crazy Fish Guy has a post-it note in front of him, where he’s written down “18 + 9 =27.”

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I feel terrible for telling you that. Maybe he’s just doodling. Maybe he’s… I dunno. Maybe he’s making flash cards for his kid’s upcoming math test or something. I’m… I don’t know what to tell you.

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Some dude in the stands in the Chargers/Dolphins game has a Seau jersey that’s half Chargers jersey and half Dolphins jersey, both cut in half and then sewn together. Unless you’re Junior Seau’s mother or something, that’s so lame. Basically, this guy has ruined two jerseys to make one jersey that he can only wear when the Dolphins play the Chargers and Seau is on the field, which will probably never happen again. And even if it does, the guy will still look stupid.

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And the Cardinals intercept the Redskins deep inside the redzone again. This is awesome. Come on, Birds.

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By the way, the bar is full of Eagles, Giants, Cowboys, and Redskins fans now. Excluding the Raiders (and possibly the Jets), you cannot find a group of fans any more obnoxious than any of those four right there. It’s a pretty brutal atmosphere in here right now. Someone’s going to get date-raped.

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Speaking of the Eagles, they are somehow tied with the Giants at the half. I guess today is “Make an NFC Contender Look Like a Bitch” Day. We’re supposed to take the Giants seriously, and they can’t dominate the Eagles, who are playing without every decent player on their roster?

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Also at the half, the Dolphins have just 8 rushing yards against the Chargers. The Bolts lead just 7-3, though. I am uncomfortable with that. I don’t believe the Chargers are looking ahead to the Indianapolis game, because that just doesn’t make sense to me. Every game is a must-win. I do believe, though, that the Bolts have been playing must-win games for about a month and a half now, and after five straight wins, a letdown is bound to happen at some point. But the Dolphins aren’t the kind of team you can do that against.

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I love this highlight of Kyle Boller taking the snap, attempting to drop back, falling down, picking himself up in time, scrambling to his left to avoid the rush, and then frantically throwing into double coverage for an easy INT. That pretty much sums up the career of Kyle Boller to this point.

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Darren Sproles coughs up a fumble on a kickoff return, and the Fish have recovered. Crazy Fish Guy starts cheering, and I start to hate Crazy Fish Guy. He gets up and gives a high five to Overly Exuberant Dolphins fan, and if you like him so much, Crazy Fish Guy, who don’t you go sit with him at his fucking table?

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I’m not sure how it came up, but my buddy Chris apparently believes that the Chargers are losing because God is unhappy with me about something. Or perhaps, multiple things. He’s got a lot of reasons, which run the gamut from lying to murder to adultery to the fact that I don’t like Home Alone to having impure thoughts about waitresses. Personally, I think the Chargers are just having a terrible game, but if we want to turn this into a personal intervention for all of my sins, I guess we can do that.

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Phil Simms, and I’m not sure this has happened before, says something useful. Trent Green told him that on situations where the Chiefs need a big 3rd down pick-up, he’s going to stretch the field from side to side, and throw to the guy being covered by Anthony Henry, because he just isn’t tall enough. And that is precisely what he’s doing.

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I’m not sure how this came up, either, but Chris and Danks are discussing when they learned their multiplication tables. I don’t know if it’s just some random topic that came up, or if they’re doing it on purpose to antagonize Crazy Fish Guy, who apparently struggles with basic addition. I think he’s crying now.

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Drew Brees hits Eric Parker for what should be a key 1st down on a 3rd and long, but Parker, in an attempt to gain more yardage, steps backwards and now it’s 4th and 1. There are 4 and a half minutes left, and we only need one score. I’m extremely confident that our defense can get a stop. Punting is the way to go here.

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Marty disagrees. He goes for it, and through a spot that I’m not sure was all that great, Lorenzo Neal picks it up. A couple of plays later, however, Drew Brees will drop back, be hit from behind, and fumble. Ouch. Not even the Nextel commercial can cheer me up now.

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Fuck.

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And now I positively need Dallas to beat Kansas City, or I see myself taking a long nap in a running car parked in a sealed-up garage sometime in the near future.

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Meanwhile, the Eagles have also tied the score late against the Giants. Danks is calling that this one will end in a tie when Jay Feely misses several FG attempts in overtime and the Eagles fail to even get past their own 50-yard-line.

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Drew Bledsoe hits someone named Dan Campbell in the endzone for a 1-yard TD to give the Cowboys the lead. Immediately afterwards, the cameras capture Gunther Cunningham on the sidelines, screaming at another assistant, “What the hell are you doing?” I can’t be sure, Gunther, but I think he was laughing at your yellow duck-hunting glasses. PULL!

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Meanwhile, there’s someone behind me who’s screaming at nearly every play in every game. I don’t know who it is, or who he’s rooting for, but I think he’s just fascinated by the way his voice sounds when he screams. And he keeps yelling, “Everything’s turning up clay!” I have no idea what the fuck that means.

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Jay Feely has a 36-yard attempt in overtime, and if he misses this one, he should run off the field, get in his car and drive to Canada. Don’t shower, don’t talk to the media, don’t even take your helmet or your spikes off, just get the hell out of there, or someone will kill you.

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Thankfully, he buries it. Not that I wanted the Giants to win, but I really didn’t want Jay Feely’s life to be in danger… either from a prematurely celebrating Jeremy Shockey, an overzealous Giants fan from Jersey who thinks he’s a Soprano, or from a suicide attempt.