Welcome to Week 25 of THIS WEEK IN GIFs, everyone! This week is a strange one, full of GIFs of things I have never seen before. But I can certainly pick out a favorite, and so can my fellow GIF enthusiasts, Matt Ufford and Dan Rubenstein:
This Week In GIFs: Running backs are fearless and largely ineffective
Running places almost never does anyone any good, and we have the animated sports GIFs to prove it. Vote, and help us determine the greatest GIF of the week.
Voting, as usual, will remain open until 11 p.m. Eastern Sunday. Enjoy!
RILEY COOPER
(Via Joel Thorman)
I’ll give you a choice here. I explained the context in the video above, so if you want that, you can watch that. Or, if you’d rather, you can just stare at this for a minute and wonder what the Hell is going on.
NICK YOUNG
(Via Mike Prada)
Nick Young is one of my favorite players in the NBA. He’s perfectly emblematic of the Wizards team he began his career with: tons of talent, tons of dumb shit. Depending on the night, he will either emerge as a top-rate scorer or commit 300 turnovers.
Neat shot, Nick!
FELIX JONES
(Via Bill Hanstock’s Week in Worst)
This play was fun to watch, because the Falcons were playing the preventiest of prevent defenses. With the clock at zero, Atlanta was obviously happy to allow the Cowboys to advance to the 50, or 40, or 25, or anywhere that wasn’t the end zone. The only way for the Cowboys to give themselves a chance in this situation would be to chuck a couple laterals and hope the Falcons left a door open.
You remember Labyrinth, that wooden game you would tilt to guide the marble through the maze? Watching this is like watching someone try to use the marble to bust down one of the walls.
“WELL IT WORKED IN TEMPLE OF DOOM!”
“no it didn’t”
“GEORGE LUCAS BLOWS”
REF HIT IN FACE
(Via James Dator)
This GIF is no HOCKEY MASSACRE. But I do see a little HOCKEY MASSACRE in its eyes.
LES MILES
(Via Jason Kirk)
This moment occurred shortly after Les Miles called 423 Power O Hound Dog, which instructed quarterback Zach Mettenberger to hand the ball off to his running back, Jeremy Hill, who dropped the ball into his satchel and made haste for Memphis while his teammates kept Alabama at bay. “There’s a man at the train station,” said Les, “who will know what to do with this football.” Upon receipt of this delivery, the man put his ear to the football, furrowed a brow, smiled, produced a buck knife, and slashed it open. Out of the slashed-apart seams of the football waddled a baby chick, who unsteadily made his way to Hill’s feet. “It would seem you’re his mother now,” the man said with a smile. Hill was worried; after all, he had never raised a chicken.
The play resulted in a loss of five yards, by virtue of where Hill stepped out of bounds to hop the train. There are things more important than a first down, and Les knows this. Perhaps in some world, the little things -- the babies -- can survive without shelter or guidance, but it is not this one. “It is our charge,” said Les with a thoughtful ear-scratch. “It is our charge to keep. And my finger is like a special drill for ears.”
KORVIC NEAT
(Via Jason Kirk)
Alright, well, KORVIC NEAT. I would probably nominate a GIF of a man named Korvic Neat drinking a glass of milk. I can’t say no to that name.
What is actually happening here, and what appears to be happening, are probably two different things. But it appears as though Neat got so thoroughly spun around that he kept on his trajectory without a hitch, and without realizing that his course had been altered a full 90 degrees. Look at his hand gesture at the end. WAIT WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING IN THE END ZONE
REGGIE BUSH
(Via Michael Gallagher)
Reggie finds his way on this page because this GIF reminds me of the NFL Films reels I saw as a kid. That’s in part because it plays at half-speed, but also because this play is just so Barry Sanders-like.
To this day, despite all the running backs that have arrived over the last 15 years, and despite the ramped-up physical abilities of NFL players, Barry Sanders remains the owner of the greatest highlight reel in the sport. Perhaps defenses from the 1990s were bad, or perhaps Barry just made them look that way, but watching him make his way down the field was like watching a student complete a math worksheet. Every defensive lineman was a problem that needed solving, and then it was on to the next one. On his best runs, he had the perfect answer for every single one of them.
Barry was so incredible that I just spent Reggie Bush’s entire entry talking about him just because he reminded me of him.
VOTE!
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