Fumblr Week 5: An ode to Manningface

Hello, internet football fans. Do you get bummed when people on Twitter and Facebook talk about baseball during football games? Isn’t that awful? Ugh, BASEBALL. You had ALL SUMMER for people to talk about you. Why are you still here?

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a social media site dedicated SOLELY to the NFL? Well, there is! It’s called Fumblr.com and it’s located here on SB Nation every week during the football season. So really it’s not social media at all. But it could be! Where’s my ether?

I touched on the internet history of Manningface in last week’s Fumblr, but after Week 5’s bumper crop of Manningface, I’ve made a new resolution: any time the Giants or Broncos suffer a defeat or some kind of worthwhile embarrassment, you can expect the Manningface to be catalogued here. We owe that much to history.

Also: dude, Peyton, talk to the equipment manager about your helmet’s forehead padding. Something ain’t right.

“We have to throw deeper!”

That’s no way to get ahead in life. It’s a shame he wasn’t more headstrong. He’ll never be the head of a major corporation.

Honestly! Who throws a shoe?

(NOTE: this is the worst fumblr blog ever.)

(via KSK)

Everyone else in the NFL can stop with the clever shout-outs to their high school or hometown, because a man named named for a video game console has won this competition.

(via @SBNationGIF)

This was an actual crawl on ESPN during halftime of Monday Night Football. “Hey, here are Tim Tebow’s stats: he’s 0-for-1 passing, but that’s only because Jason Hill dropped the ball so he should REALLY be 1-for-1 for like 33 yards but his teammates aren’t good enough.”

“Tim Tebow came into the game and the Jets played AWESOME but then Mark Sanchez came back in and they sucked :((((” --Television’s preeminent show about sports.

Tim Tebow came in for two plays, the second of which was a run for no gain. By my count, Tebow was never in the game for more than three consecutive snaps. So actually, SportsCenter, it did not resemble anything approaching full-blown #TebowTime. But hey, way to pin that red zone failure on Mark Sanchez to keep Skip Bayless’s preferred story line alive.

I get it: ESPN is a business that puts entertainment ahead of journalism, and “you can’t talk enough about Tebow” is the party line there. I don’t expect (or even want) muckraking from Bill Simmons. I would, however, appreciate it if the Worldwide Leader in Tebow didn’t treat me like a dying animal found in the woods by a stick-wielding ten-year-old. Please stop poking me. Stop it. Please stop. DAMMIT JUST LET ME DIE.

Hello, I’m Matt Ufford, and I was put on this planet to make a picture of Michael Bush rail-grinding a shark. (Apologies to Filmdrunk.)

Chiefs fans cheered when Matt Cassel went down with a head injury in Sunday’s game, prompting offensive tackle Eric Winston’s completely badass postgame comments. In a thoughtful and self-aware monologue, Winston called the fans’ reaction to the play “sickening” and “disgusting,” and said that he’d never been so embarrassed on a football field.

I agree with every word Winston said, yet I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Saying “Chiefs fans are wrong to cheer Cassel’s injury” may be correct, but it’s also too reductive to capture the more complex truth: that Chiefs fans are passionate people desperate for change. Through five games, Matt Cassel has turned the ball over 13 times. Despite a potent rushing attack and a Pro Bowl receiver in Dwayne Bowe, Cassel has just five touchdowns to nine interceptions. He’s fumbled in every game this year, and his goal-line fumble on Sunday likely cost the Chiefs a win against one of the NFL’s elite teams.

Given that frustration, it would be easy to get caught up in the moment and cheer for the prospect of ANYONE BESIDES MATT CASSEL entering the game at quarterback. The cheers, I would posit, weren’t for Cassel’s injury as much as they were relief that Brady Quinn would enter the game. Read that sentence, Eric Winston, and feel sympathy for the fans who sickened and embarrassed you: few straits are more dire than hoping Brady Quinn plays quarterback for your favorite team.

NO! Stop asking!