Bill Simmons Does an AFC Power Poll

Bill Simmons is very rude. He posts his columns at the end of the week to where I have to generally wait until Monday to start writing about his columns. This week he has posted an AFC power poll on Thursday and an NFC power poll on Friday. There was no chance I could get to this before Week 1 of the NFL season. I wish he were a little more thoughtful towards those who want to criticize him on a blog.

So Bill has made up an AFC power poll. Of course he does it in the most idiotastic way possible, in that he doesn't do an entire NFL power poll, but a power poll for each conference so the teams aren't ranked in chronological order. Also, Bill wants to remind us he loves Patriots football, or at least he will until the Patriots stop making the playoffs and he becomes an NFL widow.

For the surprisingly cheap price of $765 million, the NFL put the first installment of the concussion fiasco in its rearview mirror — allowing us to feel slightly better about retired players who died prematurely or live impaired lives, pretend the NFL isn't this generation's version of the cigarette industry, and try to think about something other than "THOSE GUYS KNEW" every time somebody mentions Paul Tagliabue, Roger Goodell or anyone who owned a team in the 1990s or 2000s.

Kind of a rough comparison of the NFL to the cigarette industry. Both are inherently dangerous, but I'm not sure it should require any type of scientific research to know football is a dangerous sport. It's a group of guys hitting each other with their bodies. That's just not safe. Perhaps the same goes for inhaling smoke into your lungs. Also, I feel sympathy for the retired players who died prematurely or live impaired lives but I don't feel bad for enjoying the sport of football. Sorry.

I love following the NFL, love the Super Bowl, love the Patriots, love picking games, love gambling on the games, love being in fantasy leagues, love the fact that there are 40 years of memories in my brain right now, love Monday Night Football, love the playoffs, and, over everything else, love those 17 Sundays from September through December. It's a ritual. They are 17 of my favorite days every year. I can't give them up just because the league happens to be owned and operated by a bunch of greedy, manipulative hypocrites.

Well enough of this "Bill writes like a sports fan again" shit, let's allow Bill to show us just how incredibly creative and intelligent he is by trying to be the funniest, most clever guy in the room.

Anyway, here's the plan for Thursday and Friday: a two-part NFL Power Poll featuring the AFC today (including a Ravens-Broncos pick) and the NFC tomorrow (including the rest of the Week 1 picks). Without further ado …

Whatever, it's how Bill wants to do his power poll, but if you are ranking teams it generally makes more sense to rank all of the teams together in one column so the #14 team isn't posted on Thursday and the #13 team posted on Friday.

THE ROD MARINELLI DIVISION

Couldn't Bill at least name the divisions after current head coaches? Just try to be a little more modern. The Ron Rivera Division is dying to be used.

It's bad enough to blow a few high picks — it's another thing to throw away your first round for an entire decade. That's the no. 1 reason why the Raiders are your runaway favorites for Drowney for Clowney.

Can we put a moratorium on creating names for the act of tanking to land a player in the draft, whether it be the NBA, NHL, MLB, or NFL Draft? Drowney for Clowney isn't a very good name and these names only fit when there is an actual word for tanking that rhymes with the player's name.

I can't wait for the "Tanking for Towns" phrase that will be given to NBA teams who lose to land Karl Towns in the 2015 NBA Draft.

Other reasons include the Terrelle Pryor era, the Matt Flynn error, a 2013 payroll made up of 38 percent "dead money," an almost unprecedented lack of blue-chip talent, bad mojo from their expiring stadium lease,

The Raiders have enough issues without you making up another one that doesn't make sense and isn't real, as if you are trying to be Gregg Easterbrook.

31. New York Jets 
Had my West Coast fantasy auction on Tuesday night. More than 100 players were called out before we had our first Jet — Chris Ivory — followed by someone asking, "Was that the first Jet?" then everyone laughing when we realized that,

You and your friends sound like you are a fucking hoot. I imagine the scene actually went like this with everyone laughing together (At the 1:04 minute mark and if you haven't viewed this scene from Anchorman, it got cut and is on "Wake Up Ron Burgundy" and would have been one of the 10 funniest scenes in the original movie). Anyway, this is how I imagine Bill and his friends laughing...

yes, it was the first Jet, followed by a second round of laughter when Ivory went for seven bucks. J … E … T … S … JETS JETS JETS!!!!

The opinion of Bill and Bill's friends is indicative of Chris Ivory's true value. Bill and his friends set the price for what every NFL player is worth in a fantasy league.

When the Bizarro Heidi Bowl between the Jets and Raiders happens in Jersey on December 8, CBS should dangle Clowney above the field like a WWE Money in the Bank suitcase.

No, they probably should not do this.

30. Buffalo Bills
There's a case to be made here, but you'd probably need a few drinks in you.

This is the point where Bill writes a footnote to remind us of three things:

1. He went to Vegas.

2. He got drunk.

3. He doesn't like the Bills as much as he did on his podcast.

Or, you'd need to be doing a hungover podcast in Vegas while working on five hours' sleep. That was me last week. Yes, I have changed my mind on the Bills since last week's three-part podcast. The Bears, too. I'm not gonna apologize, either.

Don't apologize, but also don't start talking about how you knew the Bears and Bills were going to have a good year and later claim you should have stuck to your first instinct. You were wrong and don't get credit for changing your mind.

Then Bill relates an email from a Bills fan who is whining about his team's existence in the world and all of the problems that relate to the team. If there was one part of Bill's legacy at ESPN I could wipe away (and there are quite a few) it may be the fact he seemed to start the whole "Listing all the things wrong with my favorite team and whining about how bad is it to be a fan of Team X" trend he seemed to have started. We all whine about our teams at some point, but don't whine only in the effort to gain sympathy. It's unbecoming.

29. Jacksonville Jaguars
I mean … how are three 2013 teams worse than the team saying the words "Let's take one more season to figure out what we have with Blaine Gabbert"?

I don't know. You are the one ranking these teams, not me. Stop acting as if what you are writing is stone cold fact and not simply your opinion. There may not be three worse teams than the Jaguars, but you are giving your opinion there is, but it's not a fact, and you could change the order these teams are ranked prior to publishing this column.

Translation: Get ready for another round of blacked-out Chargers home games within a 150-mile radius of San Diego. I'm ready to start making up fake Philip Rivers trades for you, Chargers fans. Just give me the green light. Say the word.

Because anyone who reads Bill's column is too damn stupid to think of fake Philip Rivers trades themselves so naturally only Bill is smart enough to think of fake Philip Rivers trades. What's really bad is there are probably thousands of Bill's Simmonsites that will eagerly await Bill's attempt at fake Philip Rivers trades as they refresh their computer screen 100 times per hour on a Friday afternoon hoping for a column from their idol.

Here, I'll do the fake trade for Bill. It's not hard.

Philip Rivers to Jacksonville for a 2nd round pick and Justin Blackmon.

Philip Rivers to New York Jets for a 1st round pick.

Philip Rivers to Tennessee for a 3rd round pick and 4th round pick.

These trades may all suck, but it doesn't take a genius to think of a Philip Rivers trade.

27. Tennessee Titans
Four weeks: That's the over/under for Ryan Fitzpatrick stealing the starting job from a struggling Jake Locker, playing well for two games, getting Titans fans excited, getting scooped up in your fantasy league, and then falling apart faster than Season 2 of Homeland. 

It's a pop culture reference! Bill understands Season 2 of "Homeland" wasn't very good and then used this understanding to make a reference to a future event in sports. Unparalleled!

Hold on, we're about to make history … 

26. Miami Dolphins
That's right, our SEVEN WORST TEAMS come from the American Football Conference. 

If there is a person who has read a Bill Simmons column and for some inexplicable reason can't understand why he is so irritating, point them to these two sentences. These power rankings are Bill's opinion, but he is talking about "making history" because the seven worst teams (in all caps those words are written because it is so fucking historic) come from the AFC. It's Bill's opinion. All of this is Bill's opinion. There's no history being made and there is no way a reader can believe "making history" is tongue-in-cheek because Bill considers his own opinion to be fact. This is a guy who wants to be the VP of Common Sense for a professional sports team and has openly campaigned for two NBA GM jobs. He really, really values his own opinion.

In Miami's case, GM Jeff Ireland can't stop making splashy moves that anger the salary cap gods and don't seem to have any recognizable human logic behind them.

There are no football gods. They are just a bunch of random coincidences thrown together like a leaf floating in the breeze (camera slowly pans away as I sit on a bench looking at the sky as the "Forrest Gump Suite" plays in the background).

Just know that "We gotta do something to get the fans talking!" is almost always the sports-management equivalent of "We gotta get into a land war in Asia!"

Do I love all the Dolphins moves? No, but they are defensible. The idea of giving Ryan Tannehill receives other than Brian Hartline and Devone Bess to throw the football too isn't a bad idea. Sure, they spent a lot on Mike Wallace, but Tannehill needs weapons in the passing game. I can defend the offensive moves the Dolphins made (well, other than having Jonathan Martin at left tackle...yikes), so I don't know about criticizing the Dolphins for trying to improve the offense around Tannehill.

Important note: Even if the AFC has the seven worst teams, that doesn't mean those teams will have the seven worst records — since every AFC team plays 12 AFC games and four NFC games, the sheer math makes it impossible.

Okay, I think I get it, but I feel like this is Bill Simmons wiggling his way out of stating the AFC has the seven worst teams in the NFL. He loves to play both sides of the fence and I won't forget this.

I don't care how it plays out, as long as Tennessee doesn't somehow stumble into 10 wins, a no. 6 seed and a Round 1 matchup in New England. Even the remote possibility of "Gregg Williams," "Bernard Karmell Pollard" and "Tom Brady" landing in the same sentence is my second-most frightening moment of 2013,

That sound you hear is Bill running this joke into the ground as hard as possible.

19. Pittsburgh Steelers
Ten years of Roethlisberger! He's thrown for 3,600 yards only twice. He's thrown more than 21 touchdowns only three times. And yet, he's probably headed for 45,000 yards and the Hall of Fame. The highlights: two Super Bowls, one of the great throws of all time (to win the Super Bowl against Arizona), and the championship belt as this generation's "I can't believe he got that third down, we had him sacked five times" QB (which he'll be handing off John Cena–style to Russell Wilson soon).

But if Terry Bradshaw makes it to the Hall of Fame then Ben Roethlisberger has to make it as well. On a different note, I'm not a professional wrestling fan, so I find these wrestling references to be really, really irritating. I also like how Bill has cherry-picked the statistics for Roethlisberger. Doesn't 3,600 yards and 21 touchdown as a cut-off seem a bit arbitrary? It is arbitrary because Roethlisberger has been injured, but he has thrown for 235 yards per game during his career, which is good for 17th all-time. Yes, most of the names on that list are modern players, but Roethlisberger's injuries have held his numbers down a little bit.

Meanwhile, here's a fun e-mail from Matt in Annapolis, Maryland: "I got a theory on NFL head coaches. The easier you can imagine a head coach doing the Pacino 'Inches Speech' from Any Given Sunday, the better the Head Coach.

I've got a theory about this theory. It's fucking stupid.

My top five coaches in no order who could nail that speech is Belichick, Coughlin, both Harbaugh brothers, and Shanahan. It's no coincidence that those coaches are considered to be among the best in the NFL. 

This is the mental midgetry that occurs within Bill's diehard fan base. This guy writes in saying he has a theory that the easier he can imagine a head coach doing a speech from "Any Given Sunday" then the better that coach is. Then this guy gives his Top 5 coaches who he can most easily think of giving this speech and LO AND BEHOLD these are the best coaches in the NFL who can imagine making these speeches. How amazing that the reader's own opinion supports the hypothesis that he has floated?

These are Bill's readers who want to write like him. They do write just like Bill. This guy floats a theory and then uses his own damn opinion to support that his theory is correct. He's essentially citing his own opinion as why his theory is correct. Bill has done this same thing through most of his time at ESPN and Grantland.

"I'm correct because I agree with myself!"

It's shocking to me some of Bill's fans know how to breathe on their own or able to live their day-to-day lives without accidentally walking into traffic.

Number 32 is Jason Garrett. How would you rank the NFL coaches from best to worst in being able to deliver the 'Inches Speech'?"

"Please justify my existence by agreeing with me that my theory is correct because I agree with myself."

Matt, you may have stumbled upon something magical here.

"Welcome to my inner circle, where you only need your own opinion as verification that your theories are correct."

I think nine coaches could deliver that speech: the five you mentioned along with Mike Tomlin, Sean Payton, Pete Carroll and Chuck Pagano. And let's be honest — even if he's going to be cohosting Inside the NFL in 10 weeks or less, Rex Ryan could absolutely belt out that speech, maybe even while rubbing someone's feet. I don't have a feel for the new coaches yet, but of our incumbents, Garrett, Mike Smith and Gary Kubiak would be the worst — telling group of names, right? —

But...but...Bill, you may not entirely understand this theory. Rex Ryan isn't one of the best coaches in the NFL and Mike Smith and Gary Kubiak are two of the better coaches. So I don't know, it all seems like an opinion to me, but if you can't see Mike Smith or Gary Kubiak belting out this speech then maybe the theory is shit. Also, there's no way in hell I can see Bill Belichick giving that speech from "Any Given Sunday." But whatever, I won't allow myself to be dragged down into this abyss of idiocy any further.

16. Indianapolis Colts
The case for regression: year after Chuck Strong; less luck in close games; schedule not as cream-puffish; a Vick Ballard–Ahmad Bradshaw running back combo;

A Bradshaw-Ballard combination wouldn't be bad if Bradshaw stays healthy. These two combined for 432 carries and 1829 yards last year. That's 27 carries and 114.3 yards per game, which would have put the Colts 17th in the NFL in rushing just based on these two running backs' stats alone.

a variety of free-agent signings that left everyone lukewarm;

And we all know from experience that the better free agent signings a team makes the better that team's chances of winning the Super Bowl. If the free agent signings don't make a splash then that team can't be successful.

Also, Luck has become weirdly underrated compared to the more ballyhooed Kaepernick–Griffin–Wilson trio. In my West Coast fantasy auction, Kaepernick went for 20 bucks, Griffin went for 13, Wilson went for eight, and Luck went for six. 

Fantasy drafts do not reflect reality. This is Bill Simmons at his worst. Because Bill and his friends underrated Andrew Luck then Andrew Luck must be wildly underrated by everyone. After all, Bill and his friends reflect what society as a whole must think. Not that Bill has a high opinion of himself or anything.

Less than two years ago, we were joking about "Suck for Luck" and not batting an eyelash when Indy dumped Peyton Manning to take Luck over Griffin.

Seriously, "we" weren't doing this. "You" aren't "we."

When in doubt, lean toward regression history. I guess. I look forward to flip-flopping my opinion on the 2013 Colts another 20 times.

But when the Colts do regress you can bet Bill will link this column and tell us that he predicted it would happen.

The stakes for Cleveland's new brain trust, as pointed out by a Cincinnati reader named Clark: "Since 1999, the Browns have more staph infection lawsuits against them (2) than playoff appearances (1)." In other words, what's the rush?

The Patriots have had more players arrested for murder than Super Bowl victories since 2005. Fun with numbers!

And that's what the Browns are offering them this season: Instead of panicking and trying to win right away with one of those goofy Carson Palmer–type trades, they're building around their lines, their defense, their running game, the Dawg Pound and a relentless series of 13-10 games. (UNDER!) It's a marathon, not a sprint. I fully approve, and please don't think this opinion was tainted by the fact that Browns GM Mike Lombardi came on my podcast at least 320 times since 2008.

Oh don't worry, Bill. I know your opinion is tainted by the fact you like Mike Lombardi. This is how the media works. They don't bash their friends.

(Here's how you know I'm in the bag for the Browns: We're 2,300 words into this column and I haven't made a joke yet about the new Dream Team … that's right, Norv Turner and Brandon Weeden.

Bill isn't in the bag for the Browns, he's in the bag for a friend of his who is willing to appear on his podcast. Come on, Bill not making fun of a 30 year old quarterback and Norv Turner? There's no way Bill wouldn't make fun of this combination if one of Bill's friends didn't run the team. Bill has no idea who Rob Chudzinski is, but rest assured, he's the type of guy who has three quality running backs when he is an Offensive Coordinator and ensures the quarterback leads the team in rushing yards.

I really do think the Browns can squeeze out 9-7.

No you don't. You like Mike Lombardi and are blinded by this fact.

In my 2012 season preview, you might remember me creating a stat called "WARM" ("Wins Above Raheem Morris") to capture those season-to-season bumps teams get just by upgrading their head coach position. I cited San Francisco going from Mike Singletary to Jim Harbaugh (plus-7 WARM), then said 2012's best WARM bets were Tampa going from Morris to Greg Schiano (final result: plus-3 WARM) and Indy replacing Jim Caldwell's mannequin with Chuck Pagano (final result: plus-9 WARM).

Another example of just how much Bill thinks of his own opinion. It's not a statistic if the statistical analysis behind it only consists of your opinion. Bill truly thinks his creation of a number using his opinion is a statistic. It's not a stat. It's Bill guessing how many wins a new head coach will have compared to how many wins the old head coach had the previous year.

And by the way, you don't have to be a cross between Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells to be a historically good WARM guy. Here are the seven best WARM seasons ever, according to four and a half minutes of furious Googling:

Tony Sparano, 2008 Dolphins: plus-10 … replaced Cam Cameron.
Chuck Pagano, 2012 Colts: plus-9 … replaced Jim Caldwell.
Al Davis, 1963 Raiders: plus-9 … replaced Bill Conkright and Marty Feldman.
Roy Andrews, 1929 Giants: plus-8.5 … replaced Earl Potteiger.
Bill Parcells, 1997 Jets: plus-8 … replaced Rich Kotite.
Ted Marchibroda, 1975 Colts: plus-8 … replaced Howard Schnellenberger and Joe Thomas.
Ted Marchibroda, 1992 Colts: plus-8 … replaced Ron Meyer and Rick Venturi.

Right, but it's not a statistic since it can't be measured before the season begins by anything but guessing. There is no analysis required prior to the season other than simply guessing how many wins a head coach will improve a team's record from the previous season. I could say Gus Bradley will have the highest WARM this season with a +10, but it's just my opinion. As usual has muddied the situation to make himself seem smarter. Bill has found a more difficult way of saying "which new head coach most improved a team's record from one season to the next?" in an effort to make it seem like he is being more creative than he really is.

Also, notice how Bill says "you don't have to be a cross between Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells" to make this list. Who is on the list? Bill Parcells. So you don't have to be a cross between Lombardi and Parcells, but it could help if you are Bill Parcells.

On the bright side … points! LOTS OF THEM! They're running a perfect version of everyone's favorite 3-WR Madden offense with deep threat Demaryius Thomas stretching the field, Welker as the slot guy, Eric Decker zipping to open spots and Pick-Any-Back catching delayed screens out of the backfield. That offense always works best in video games when you have an insanely accurate QB, right? Throw in the no-huddle and it's mildly terrifying. I see a slew of 38-34 games in their future.

This very well could happen. Of course John Fox also realizes his offense will score points so as long as the defense makes the opposing team work hard to score then the Broncos could avoid these 38-34-type games.

They also have Joe Flacco riding higher than everyone on the left couch during the James Franco roast. In the span of six weeks last winter, he went from no. 17 in my QB Power Poll and someone headed for the franchise QB tag to …

Yet again, this is Bill using his own opinion as proof of something Bill is trying to prove. It's insane to me. I don't understand how Bill can't see that using his own opinion doesn't help to prove his point. Is there no other list ranking quarterbacks Bill could use? Of course not, because Bill's opinion is the only opinion that matters.

B. Owner of the "QB You'd Want In A Big Game" title belt (replacing Eli Manning).

This isn't a real title belt and Bill probably just changes this award around every year depending on which quarterback displayed the most clutchiness the year before. 

Then again, I'm old enough to vividly remember 1989 Montana; I remember finishing that Super Bowl thinking, I am never gonna see ANYONE that good again — not in my entire life.

It's quite a quandary trying to figure out which quarterback had the better postseason between Flacco and Montana. These are Bill's problems. Fortunately, Bill remembers his opinion on Montana from 1989 so that settles this question indefinitely.

I've written about this before, but if you graded a team's QB and coach from 1 to 10, and your combined total doesn't add up to 13 — at least — then you're hopeless in the playoffs. Flacco is a 7 during the season and a 9 in the playoffs. John Harbaugh is probably a straight 9.

My head hurts. I rank Cam Newton and Ron Rivera a 19, so that means the Panthers aren't hopeless in the playoffs! I love using my own subjective opinion to try and prove something as factual.

There's only one problem, which Chicago reader Adam Roberts brings up: "Are the Bengals going to make the Good Bad-Team thing become boring and take the crown for the 3rd straight year? Of all the Good Bad-QBs, Dalton has to be one of the best. And Marvin Lewis has proven time and time again that he is a pretty Good Bad-Coach. They have to be the Good Bad-Team favorite coming into the season, right?"

That's not even close to being a thing. The amount of shit that gets made up by Bill and his readers is mind boggling.

4. Houston Texans
In 2011, they might have had the best playoff team … but Matt Schaub went down and that become a "What if Schaub didn't go down?" season for them.
In 2012, we thought they might have the best team again … but the Patriots annihilated them in Week 14, then again in Round 2, followed by everyone wondering if you could realistically win a Super Bowl with Schaub.

To recap: They didn't win in 2011 because Schaub got injured, but they didn't win in 2012 because he was healthy? That's confusing.

It's not really confusing. The Texans started their third-string rookie quarterback in the 2011 playoffs and this wasn't an ideal situation compared to the Texans having Schaub as their starter. It's also not confusing because some wondered after the 2012 playoffs if Schaub could have helped the Texans win another playoff game. No one knew how good Schaub was in the playoffs until the 2012 season.

(By the way, I'm more confused than anyone — I argued both sides over these past two years.

This is not shocking at all to hear.

There's a very good chance Hernandez killed multiple people — including poor Odin Lloyd, who wasn't just killed but executed like it was a freaking Cinemax movie.

What? "...like it was a freaking Cinemax movie"? I don't get this reference. So movies on Cinemax are known for portraying people being executed? I didn't know Cinemax was known as the channel to watch executions in movies. Maybe this is a "Strike Back" reference, but that is a television show not a movie. This is a bizarre pop culture reference in my opinion.

This summer, fans were allowed to exchange Hernandez jerseys in the Patriots Pro Shop, for free, for any other Patriots jersey. I can't remember that happening before.

You can't remember Patriots fans being able to exchange their Hernandez jerseys in at the Patriots Pro Shop for free, for any other Patriots jersey? This seems like a rather specific situation so I'm not sure that's shocking this hasn't happened before.

(Yes, I know what Bill means, but it's so much more fun to take him literally)

So really, the Patriots organization handled the Hernandez crisis correctly: They said barely anything, allowed those days and weeks to trickle by, kept that curtain up, and counted on their fans to eventually move on and move forward because that's what fans always do. Maybe it was a cold way for the Patriots to handle it, but hey, this is a cold league — as that $765 million settlement just showed us.

Yeah, it was pretty cold for the NFL to hand out $765 million to players who suffered injuries while playing the sport. What a burn!

The 2013 Patriots will go 11-5 or 12-4 like they always do. They'll be in the mix in January, like they always are. I will root for them, like I always do. We always come back.

Deep. So deep. Bill always tends to write a column full of pop culture references, stupid theories proposed by himself and his readers, and then try to wrap the column up with some sort of deep, meaningful thought. It's like he desires to be thoughtful in his writing, but isn't sure how to do it. 

Up next in a couple of days is the NFC Power Poll...