Jonez on Jonez: The Raiders were our last best hope to stop a Patriots’ Super Bowl run

Dragonfly Jonez is a full time tweeter, a part time podcaster and an aficionado of spicy Popeye’s drumsticks who will be offering NFL commentary this season.

It has been said the first shall be last. Or even the sun shines on a dog’s ass once in a while. Or even a broken clock is right twice a day. Or even a shitty AFC South team can alter the landscape of a NFL postseason.

The last sentence doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue like the others, but nothing about the AFC South is easily palatable. However, on Saturday, a routine play in a Colts-Raiders game quite possibly shifted a postseason and maybe even an MVP trophy. Derek Carr is out. And the path to Brady’s thumb ring gets that much easier. And it’s all the AFC South’s fault.

It’s always the AFC South’s fault. Thanks a lot, guys.

Do I think the Raiders with Carr at quarterback would have eliminated the Pats? Probably not. Do I think the Raiders with McGloin have a snowball’s chance in hell of beating the Pats? Absolutely not.

I understand plenty of people root against the Pats, but I’m not one of them. I have no dog in this fight. Being a Washington Redacteds fan killed me on the inside long ago, so I only have room in my shriveled up, prune of a heart to truly hate three other teams. However, if you are someone who actively roots against New England, then you have to look elsewhere from Oakland to teams like Pittsburgh and Kansas City for your salvation.

Broncos 10, Chiefs 33

Yes, Kansas City. You have to cast your hopes in Alex Fucking Smith. The guy who threw the longest pass of his career versus the Broncos in Week 16, an 80-yard touchdown to Travis Kelce on a bubble screen where Kelce probably had 82 YAC. Look at what you have become.

I’m not sold on the Chiefs. They are 11-4 and 5-0 in the division but it’s all fool’s gold. Kansas City is 20th in total offense and 24th in total defense. However, they’re second in the league in turnover margin and fifth in total return yards. This tells us what we already knew: The Chiefs are a team with the best return man in football who often bails them out and an extremely conservative quarterback. It’s working for now. I doubt it will in the postseason.

One thing I can’t take from the Chiefs, however is how they beat the shit out of Denver and sealed the coffin on the Broncos’ season with a fat guy touchdown.

JaMarcus Russell was the previous record holder for the fattest guy to ever throw a touchdown in the NFL at 265 pounds. Dontari Poe shattered that at 346. Poe threw the fattest fat guy touchdown to ever fat guy touchdown. We witnessed history.

Chargers 17, Browns 20

While Dontari Poe gave us some historic quarterbacking, the quarterback at the bottom of that division ensured that history would not be made if he had anything to do with it. The Chargers travelled to Cleveland and saw to it that the Browns wouldn’t make history by being the second team to go 0-16. Not on their watch.

Winning is not what Chargers football is about.

We didn’t get to see Philip Rivers roll on the ground like Charlie Brown as he threw the game losing pick like we usually do. The potential game tying field goal was blocked by the Browns, so we still saw some Lucy pulling away the football shit. Good grief, San Diego.

Vikings 25, Packers 38

While nothing ever seems to go Phillip Rivers’ way, everything is coming up Milhouse for Aaron Rodgers lately. Green Bay is on a five-game winning streak and Young Turtleneck Aficionado has been playing lights out with 11 touchdowns and zero picks in this span.

He’s looking like the vintage Aaron Rodgers who I personally thought had turned into Dan Orlovsky during the Packers’ four game losing streak. Rodgers has been in such a zone that he even did a Lambeau Leap and let fans (or as he probably calls them, “the normals”) actually touch him.

This was a sight to behold. About two seconds into letting the normals grope him, the AR-12 model realized there had been a major malfunction in his risk aversion software’s calculations. You could see “ABORT! ABORT!” flashing in his ocular devices. I enjoyed every second of it.

So now we’re coming up on the last week of the regular season. We’ll be pulling out our plastic, green, accountant visors and calculators that print receipts while we calculate seeding and the scenarios that are required for the last few teams to punch their tickets to the playoffs.

It’s like the renowned philosopher, and expert in foods that start with the letter Q, Gloria Clemente once said: Sometimes when you win you really lose. And sometimes when you lose, you really win. And sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie. And sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose.

Until next week, internet friends.