The 49ers’ rainy win over Washington was the least memorable event of the NFL season

The San Francisco 49ers’ 9-0 win over Washington Sunday was technically a football game. People attended it. There were officials. Players physically occupied space and moved the ball around the field in an effort to score points. Refs blew whistles and made rulings. TV cameras captured images of it and broadcast them to people at home.

This is not an attempt to set the scene. I seriously need some reinforcement to ensure I didn’t go through a fugue state.

Garbage-ass football games always share something in common: They feel like an eternity. But this game — this was something special. I remember kickoff, and then I glanced at the clock and the game was in the fourth quarter. It was the weirdest thing. Maybe this was because it was the shortest game of the last decade, but I have another theory: 49ers vs. Washington was so terrible that it refused to be watched.

When you attempted to enjoy it, it thrashed about like a cat being forced into a carrier. This putrid mess could only be absorbed through osmosis like a hastily dumped corpse filling with bilious gas until it eventually erupted from the inside out.

I got covered in the goo, and I kind of loved it.

Every week we get to see astounding athletic feats playing out for our entertainment and yeah, that’s cool — but have you ever thought about how incredible it is to have an NFL game finish without anything memorable happening?

If you don’t believe me, go and take a look at the box score and check out the player stats. Seriously, go now — I’ll be right here waiting for you.

Have you ever seen a more meaningless game? Nobody achieved anything of note. Normally, even in a bad game, SOMEONE will do something (heck, the horrific Cowboys-Eagles game on New Year’s Eve 2017 at LEAST had Ezekiel Elliott run for 100 yards).

This game had nothing close to that. It was so average I can remind you that Case Keenum threw the ball only 12 times this game for 77 yards and it doesn’t seem out of place.

It’s vital that we celebrate the meaningless and average, if only to make us feel slightly better about ourselves. You can go to work today and put in a totally mediocre job, knowing that you are on par with 106 NFL players. How good does that feel?

At least we got some INCREDIBLE photos out of this slop-filled rain mess.

This photo is getting a ton of love, and rightfully so. There’s perhaps no better football image than “yelling muddy man,” but even in this genre it’s a special image.

Matt Ioannidis is a 310-pound man who woke up on Sunday morning never entertaining the idea that he could spend his afternoon hurtling across wet grass like a curling stone.

Big man slip-and-slide for the win.

Enough about the worst game of the week, though. Let’s jump around the league.

If you see a Chargers fan today, just give them a hug. They need it more than you can possibly imagine.

Normally horrible runs in Cincinnati are caused by their chili. Three not-Andy-Daltons had opportunities to run the football for the Bengals on Sunday against the Jaguars. Nobody succeeded.

The non-Dalton trio tallied 16 carries for zero yards. Their entire afternoon comprised of being given a football and functionally standing still. They achieved nothing. The stat book will show nothing for their effort, and for one fleeting moment Dalton was a rushing god*.

This wasn’t against some world-beating, All-Pro defensive line either. The Jaguars came into the game 25th in the NFL in rushing defense, allowing 131.2 yards on the ground per game.

*A very average, still not good god.

Well into the third quarter literally every point scored in Cowboys-Eagles came from (a) Dallas.

Then, down 27-7, the Eagles decided to kick a 38-yard field goal with 5:02 left in the quarter. I don’t believe anyone on the team thought trimming the lead to 17 was going to be the difference-maker. They just wanted to break the Dallas streak.

If you haven’t seen Netflix’s new series starring Paul Rudd, I’ll give you the elevator pitch: Man goes to cloning facility housed inside a massage parlor to make a new and better version of himself. However, his old body didn’t die and now there are two of them.

Now, please enjoy a very content-looking Tom Brady leaving said massage parlor.

I really want to know why Brady didn’t tell Robert Kraft ahead of time. You’ve got to imagine that’s a really awkward talk to have with your employer — but also you’d think Brady would at least give him a bit of a heads up that he was in a massage parlor scene in a dark comedy.

I’ll keep watching the show and let you know if art imitates life and there’s a happy ending.