Hail to the Jaguars, troll kings of the NFL

The Jaguars are 4-4. They’re currently tied at the bottom of the AFC South, but there’s still a good chance they can win the division and make it to the playoffs. Regardless of where Jacksonville finds itself at the end of the season, though, one thing is certain: Nobody has more fun making others feel terrible than the Jags.

Their latest victim is Jets quarterback and spleen safety enthusiast Sam Darnold. One week removed from uttering his now-infamous “I’m seeing ghosts” line, everything was set to be the perfect Duval storm. Halloween is around the corner, and this was a home game in North Florida, so yeah, you can see where this is going.

In a steady adherence to the bit, the Jaguars also played the Ghostbusters theme over their P.A. system while showing a highlight reel of every time Darnold was sacked or turned the ball over in Week 8.

Jags mascot Jaxson De Ville tweeted along and at the end of the game, he was ready with a tweet.

To his credit, Darnold took everything in stride as best he could this week. He downplayed the ghost comments, explained what happened, and honestly handled it better than a lot of 22-year-olds would under intense New York-style criticism. That said, I’ve got to admit that even I felt a little bad for him when Jags fans flew a damn plane over the stadium dragging this banner:

The Jaguars are the most important team in the NFL, and nobody else is a better lens for society than Jacksonville. We’re still emerging from the dark ages where there was no fun in the NFL, and the Jags are a constant reminder that we all take this stuff way too seriously.

If you’re truly upset about Sunday’s antics, that means they won. Such is the job of the troll. The troll exists to entertain their small but rabid community while pushing an “us against the world” mentality and infuriating everyone else in the process. Nobody does this better than Duval. If you’re clapping back with “your team sucks, you know!” to a Jaguars fan, well, you’ve already lost and you’re in too deep.

If you don’t believe that, I have a test for you: Spend a couple of hours trashing the Jaguars on Twitter. Whatever you feel like saying. If you awaken the nest — and chances are you will — you’ll want to deactivate your account in three hours.

That’s what I love about them. Jaguars fans aren’t delusional. They’re hyper-realistic, but there’s very much a “proud family” quality to them. Jaguars fans can talk shit about the Jaguars, but if you tread in that world without being a fan, you’re going to get your head kicked in faster than when Joe Pesci lost it in Goodfellas.

They’re exactly what the NFL needs.

Now, since I’m feeling a little funny heaping all that praise on Duval, it’s time to go around the league ...

I knew a graphic like this was going to be bad, but I didn’t know precisely how bad. At this point I’m not even sure I can blame the Bears for completely giving up on the concept of offense and just clocking in and out like the NFL is a shift at a Dairy Queen.

You can’t get tackled if you tackle yourself first. This is galaxy-brain thinking by the Buccaneers — the kind of lauded football I.Q. we come to expect from Bruce Arians — and I’m here for it.

Also, they lost to Ryan Tannehill, who dropped a QB rating of 109.8 against them. Process that however you want. There’s no wrong answer here.

My goodness there’s a lot to unpack here. First off, we have the shirtless-Gardner-Minshew-wrestling-a-tiger mural. I get it. It’s on brand. I really like that someone did this to their Cadillac. It’s the tuxedo t-shirt of car design — and so perfectly Duval, I can’t handle it.

Now we’ve got to talk about this bladder of Fireball. Who in God’s green earth thought this was a good idea? This is the beverage analog of Icarus flying too close to the sun. We were too busy seeing if we could that nobody question whether we should.

And yes, at first I assumed (like most sensible people) that this was a jury-rigged Jacksonville invention. Nah, they sell this abomination at retail. The world is equally amazing and terrifying.

The Patriots’ defense is so terrifying that we’re seeing some Black Mirror stuff going on. They take the field and suddenly grown-ass football players completely forget how to play the game.

Call it a hunch.

Seriously, though, can we put this whole thing to bed? I know the 49ers’ defense is good — really, really good — but when you’re averaging 4.2 yards per attempt, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Who is to blame for his sudden regression? Real fans know.

For giving us a game that actually didn’t suck. I feel like we’ve become so accustomed to the SNF game being weak that this one caught us all off guard. Even knowing that Matt Moore was going to be quarterbacking for Kansas City, it wasn’t enough to put a damper on the one-score thriller at Arrowhead Stadium.

Ultimately, the Packers walked away with the 31-24 win, but really the winners were all of us — the sports fans.