Morning Wood: Arrogance is a M*therF*cker. Sometimes.

I happened to be reading working on my daily fantasy basketball piece for Fanhouse last night (you didn’t know I wrote over at Fanhouse? I hadn’t mentioned that? Well you should certainly check it out.) and noticed that Ryan Wilson had posted a fascinating article based on information he pulled from the blog of the New York Daily News’ Ralph Vacchiano. Basically it boils down to the biggest jinxing of all time, at least that I’ve ever heard. It absolutely shatters the classic gambling “Now…if he can just make this extra point, we’ll cover,” line from our (former?) good friend, the Weasel, who dropped that nugget a few years back right before the Oklahoma kicker shanked what would have maxed out the 44.5 line in an opening weekend game.

Huge jinx. Cost our friends a lot of money. Some of them deserved it (or at least it was funny that they lost money assuming they weren’t around to hear about it) but the Weaz deserved the near death beating he got even more. Why? Because why the eff would you ever drop a jinx like that. Same goes for you, JJ, you cattle roping, Simpson bashing Texas lunatic. Why the hell would you send your players their tickets to the NFC Championship game a week in advance? Obviously you did it because you thought that Eli Manning was going to shit the bed. Away from New York, narsty sunburt Tex-necks screaming in his ear, Plax banged up and no Tiki to massage his groin temples when things started to go wrong. I suppose it was understandable that you assumed you would win. But to the point that you sent the players their tix ahead of time? In the words of Gob Bluth, “Come on!”

Now, arrogance isn’t always bad. Sometimes it’s funny. Regardless what you think of Philip Rivers–and it would appear that most of the country thinks he’s a pretty large bag of D–you, in the words of Dan Dierdorf, “do not intimidate him.” He’s a really nice guy. No, he is. We (not royal, meaning NCSU fans) had the pleasure of dealing with him for four years as he shattered nearly every ACC passing record en route to becoming easily arguably the best quarterback to ever come through the conference. But he’s still arrogant as mess. And will talk shit with anyone. Anytime, anywhere. And that certainly doesn’t exclude a bunch of people from Indiana that decide they’re going to boo a 13 year old wearing a Patriots jersey. You’re telling me they didn’t have that shit coming? Again, Come on! But I digress. Arrogance is important here because in this case, it makes you a hated winner. Jay Cutler? Not a winner. That’s why he went to Vandy. And the Broncos aren’t good. Eli Manning? Not a winner. He just happened to run into the jinx saw that is the Traveling Jeremo and Owens Brothers Circus (isn’t it ironic that Dallas is the “circus” team that just fell out of the playoffs, when usually all we talk about is how crazy New York is? And doesn’t it seem fitting that the Cowboys fall apart is being pinned on a quarterback who just won’t lay low when everyone thought it would be TO doing the damage?) and do his best to not lose. Or maybe he saw Phil win and freaked out.

Either way, it’s entirely possible that Phil won’t play again this season – we saw him mouth “It’s not good” to Peyton at midfield after the dubya. But that could just be in response to Marvin Harrison’s fumble, or maybe the fact that Norv wouldn’t let either LT or Phil back in the game. Let’s hope it’s the latter. And if Phil and LT and maybe even Gates can’t go against the Pats this week, there’s probably not a good chance they win. In fact, there’s probably not a good chance they win either way. But who gives a shit? Phil bucked up, threw up a monster game against the best quarterback in the NFL and helped Norvell Neckskin shake the “choker” label while San Diego fans stopped dreaming of Martyball. So here’s to you, Phil, you badass arrogant motherfucker. Go stomp some baby’s throat.

Tagged as: Eli Manning, Morning Wood, NFL, Phil Rivers