Hurry Up Marge. The previews are coming. The previews are coming

If September wasn’t my work month from hell, we would be cuing up “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” right about now. The oppressive heat and humidity are clearing. The tourists have gone home. Oh, and football’s starting. So without further ado, I present to you the internet’s least informed football preview. In fact, I’m not even messing with doing separate college and pro previews. We’re doing this in one shot, twenty questions style. One for each BCS League, one for each NFL division and then six additional random questions. Press on dear reader, there might actually be one useful football related observation. And if there is one, here’s my disclaimer that you’re a full fledged retard if you use information from someone who is nicknamed after a purple dinosaur for gambling purposes. Please note: All college questions were done prior to last Saturday. I have not adjusted anything with regards to the Big 12 for posterity purposes even though it makes my point got a huge endorsement this past weekend.

ACC
Remember when Miami-Florida State on Labor Day would have been the highlight of your weekend?
Yup, reason number 2,397 I feel old. Now, I’d be more interested in an alumni game before the actual one. While I’d love to see Deion covering Michael Irvin, I would positively be thrilled to see the Chris Wienke/Vinny Testeverde matchup (In the immortal words of Nasty Nate, “How ‘bout this matchup?”). I’m not kidding.
The Pick: Florida State because I’m a sucker for schools on probation. Plus I now have to root against Virginia Tech since their alumni disowned Ookie.

Big 10
Can you relate the Big 10 to a Homer Simpson philosophy?
I sure can (If you couldn’t tell by the title of this episode, this will be the football preview that uses the most Simpsons references by far). To paraphrase the immortal Max Powers, there are three ways a conference can play football: the right way, the wrong way and the Big 10 way. But isn’t that the wrong way, you say? Yes, but slower.
(The Max Power line is like a fine wine in that it gets better with age. I feel I’m using that more and more as time goes on.)
The Pick, aka which team wins the right to shit the bed in January: I think Ohio State would win regardless (Pryor is the difference because of that remarkable 40 time which if you believe the time, is faster than Usain Bolt. Let’s just say I’m a little skeptical about anyone from THE Ohio State University operating a stop watch, never mind them operating it correctly. I see them getting all screwed up with the reset function and the university having a $40,000 budget every year for stop watches because they use them one time and throw them out), but there’s way too many Penn State alums down here and I don’t want to deal with that crap. /chugs bottle of haterade

Big 12
Why should I not pick Oklahoma?
Because Sam Bradford is an idiot and didn’t learn anything from Matt Leinhart. If you’re going to be the first pick in the draft, you come out no questions asked. You’ll remember this when a loss to Texas in Dallas ends up costing you $20 M. Is banging college freshman for six months really worth that much (plus don’t forget the child support ol Matty is picking up for that extra year)?
(Though some may argue it was worth $20 M not to go to Detroit. If so, then that is an acceptable answer.)
The Pick: Texas. Colt McCoy grew a hideous mustache this summer. That’s all I need.

Big East
I know the Big East is shitty. How can they get shittier?
Its pretty tough to top your BCS representative just joined your conference out of Conference USA. I say, go all the way and be out right terrible by bringing all the basketball schools in conference join I-A (I refuse to call it Bowl Subdivision or whatever the hell its called). Hello Georgetown. Welcome to the big time, Marquette. DePaul, do you even have a football program? These are mere details. We’ll do anything we can to get Syracuse to 3 wins.
The Pick: Do I have to? Ok, fine. Rutgers. If only so I can reflect back on the time we made a trip down there and Radio ended up passing out in some girl’s room. I asked if he got any when he woke up the next morning. He said he didn’t remember. Then the girl whose room he passed out in came in and said, “No he didn’t. He passed out on the floor with his pants around his ankles. Oh and he pissed on the floor.” She then proceeded to produce a picture of Radio face down on the floor with his pants down. Let’s just say that was a fun trip back to the Boken, even better when we got back and sent the picture out to everyone and their mom. (You won’t get this info in any other football preview out there, will you?)
But in actuality, no one wins when they have to watch the Big East play football. Except the bookies. They always win.

Pac 10
The Pac 10 comes on late Saturday night, and I’m usually too wasted to stay up and watch. Can you give me a reason to chug some Red Bull and Vodka to catch the games?
Oregon State is putting its star wide out Jacquizz Rodgersin the qb spot for some plays. And since every school has to incorporate their mascot into this offenses name, what do you get? That’s right, the Wild Beaver. Not just that, but the announcers will say, “Jacquizz in the Wild Beaver”. You can say it: I just made your Saturdays for the next few months. You’re welcome.
The Pick: Besides everyone if Oregon State runs this offense? Alright, I still don’t think anyone stops USC.

SEC
Is it possible that the SEC got even more entertaining?
Why yes it is. Let me answer that question with another question. Have you been monitoring what Lane Kiffin has been doing this off season? I won’t go into details (you can google it yourself) but it has been tremendous. Just get ready for next years road trip to Tennessee. We’re going to Lynchburg (for obvious reasons). Maybe Memphis, if only to start a petition that they erect a monument to the Triple 6’s Oscar. And definitely Knoxville to see the Sun Sphere (and get some sweet discounts on wigs) and watch a Lane Kiffin practice.
The Pick: I think you have to go with Florida. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a national champ returning its top 22 on one side of the ball. It will be interesting when the nation turns on Tim Tebow through no real fault of their own, but out of sheer media over saturation. When it does, he and Tyler Hansborough should start a support group.

AFC East
If the coaches of the AFC East were playing a game of Clue, what would be their preferred method of killing people?
Belichick: The knife. He would walk up to you casually, smile, then stick it in. And he would hold you up against a wall and watch the life drip out of you. And it would conveniently be next to a security camera. But oh no, that’s not going to get you justice. That’s Ol’ Billy Boy’s camera.
Sporano: Him and Parcells would have a meeting about this at a fancy restaurant to discuss. They’d settle on the car bomb once they got to dessert, and then go back to considering how to incorporate Pat White into their offense. (Note: I don’t think car bombs are in Clue.
Rex Ryan: Louisville slugger. Kids today use that aluminum crap. Rex is old school like that.
Juaron: He’d send JP Losman to kill you with a spork.

The Pick: From that last one, you can tell who I pick to finish last. Kind of hard to not go against the Pats.

AFC North
I’m preparing to do a modern remake of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Would I be able to do all my casting in the AFC North? You sure could. Here’s your first seven calls to make:Rapey: Ben Roethlisberger
Stabby: Ray Lewis
Flabby: Andre Smith
Punchy: James Harrison
Droppy: Braylon Edwards (though Limas Sweed is all set to step in if Braylon declines)
Hairy: Joe Flacco’s Eyebrow (Not Joe Flacco, just his eyebrow. The best part of this would be the opening credits when they say, “And Introducing – Joe Flacco’s Eyebrow”)
Doc: Scariest words you can here in a hospital? Paging Doctor OchoCinco. Paging Doctor OchoCinco. Please report to emergency surgery.

Don’t start thinking about this unless you have some time on your hands. Because I spent like 30 minutes going through more variations. In fact, I was able to come up with a cast made up entirely of recent Tennessee Titans. Let’s go with that:Drinky: Kerry Collins
Stompy: Albert Haynesworth
Rainy: Pacman Jones
Tubby: Lendale White
Holey: Steve McNair (What? Too soon?)
Itchy: Jeff Fischer’s Mustache
Doc: Vince Young (Imagine VY coming into your room to see how you were doing. First off, he has to come in without a shirt on. Then he reads your charts upside down. Finally, when he tells you that you have cancer, the conversation ends with you telling him he has everything to live for. This might be scarier than OchoCinco doing surgery…and twittering at the same time.)

The Pick: Baltimore. Ray Rice looks to add a reason to actually watch Baltimore’s offense this year. That’ll be enough to put them over Pittsburgh. (Wait a second. Was that? Yes, I think it was. Actual football analysis.)

AFC South
Could you think of a more boring division?
Not only do three teams reside in the three blandest locales in the league, but these teams have the collective Barney Show ranking of negative 47. Since Matt Jones (Who? Matt Jones) left Jacksonville, has anyone in this division gotten arrested? Where’s the fun in that? Don’t these players know they’re in the NFL now and getting arrested triggers a bonus? Vince Young is carrying this division.

The pick: Tennessee. Indy falls back a bit now that Dungy has left to do more important things like resurrecting Ookie’s career. You’re doing the Barney Show’s work now Tony. Also, Houston is a chic pick this year. Just remember they’re one play away from Rex Grossman entering the game.

AFC West
Has there ever been a worse collection of coaches in one division than the AFC West this year?
Josh McDaniels has gone out of his way to irritate Denver fans. If he was a diplomat, we would be in a nuclear war with North Korea right now to gain back those two idiot reporters who thought it was a good idea to go wandering into North Korea (I can’t wait to read this again in January to see how wrong I was and saying, “Wow. That joke just did not stand the test of time.”) Todd Haley might be the biggest prick I’ve ever seen. Tom Cable has turned meetings into Fight Club. When Norv Turner is clearly the best coach in your division, you have problem.
The Pick: I think this one answers itself by the above paragraph: San Diego.

NFC East
Which group of fans will I hate the least this year?Well, the Giants have a movie coming out how pathetic the lives of one of their fans is. Cowboys fans have the world’s most expensive stadium so you know they’ll be extra pretentious this year (Everything’s bigger in Texas. Go fuck yourself you stupid city). Washington fans are more concerned about who is the 3rd string quarterback than the fact that their offensive line sucks. And Eagles fans cheered Ookie. Well, that was easy. “Fly, Eagles, Fly.”
The Pick: Eagles. While the Giants do have great line play, I think I could get some run for them at wide out. I would punch out Santa Claus in front of my daughter, rip off his beard and then call him a fraud to have McNabb get hurt and Vick lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl. The collective media shit storm would be awesome.

NFC North
If you were at a college party, which guys would the quarterbacks of the NFC North be? And could you rank them in order which you would most likely want to fight them?
Aaron Rodgers – He’d be that senior who really never let loose his first three years in college and is now trying to make it all up last semester. You kind of know him (Note: I repeatedly called Aaron Rodgers “Aaron Brooks” multiple times this summer. What is it with me and getting QB’s in green uniforms wrong). You want him to get drunk, maybe get laid. But there’s always the chance he’ll go a little too far and next thing you know, he’s peeing off a balcony. And that’s when you need to check him. You really don’t want to, but you have to out of general principle.
Matthew Stafford: Stafford would be the freshman who has a sick car and a girlfriend who is still in high school that is ridiculously hot who came up to visit for the weekend. He shows up to the party and gets a little too drunk. Starts running his mouth a bit. You realize he’s kind of a prick, but he hasn’t done anything that would justify knocking him out. So after he gets a bit too drunk after trying to hang with upper classmen in beer pong, you start trying to nail his girlfriend, statutory charges be damned. (Note: I think this was O’s MO at every party we had)
Brett Favre: He’d be the alum who comes back for a weekend. At first, everything is cool. He’s buying your broke asses premium shots. Telling some good stories of his parties back in the day. Then he starts making snide remarks about your monetary situation when buying drinks. And then he starts flirting with your girlfriend and telling he how much of a big shot he is at his company. And when the fists are about to fly, he leaves the bar saying he has better places to be. But what you didn’t know is that he got your girlfriends number and will be calling her in 30 minutes.
Jay Cutler: Definitely has a popped collar. Bitching about how the Hamptons were too crowded this summer. Basically, he’d be hanging out in Georgetown (I’ve been away from NY too long to know what the equivalent is now). And the one time I spent more than 30 minutes in Georgetown, I was asking Matty Ice to pick out random people and I ripped on them. And then had to be separated from someone who didn’t even say anything to me.

For the record, Dante Culpepper would be the one I most want to party with. And that’s not out of NFC North quarterbacks. That might be out of anyone in the world. Boat Party!
The pick: I guess Green Bay, just so I don’t have to root for Cutlerfucker or Favre.

NFC South
The NFC South looks like a balanced division. Can you give me one reason why each team can and one reason why they won’t win the division?
Sure, why not. It’s not like I have anything better to go with.
Atlanta:
Why they can win: Tony Gonzalez joins Matt Ryan and Michael Turner to make the Falcons one of the most exciting offenses in the league.
Why they won’t win: Matt Ryan is on the verge of being on of the best Irish Catholic athletes I can remember and he goes and fucks it up by calling himself “Matty Ice” (Looks self in the mirror. Suddenly looking like a black pot).
Carolina: Why the can win: They have one of the league’s best rushing tandems and Julius Peppers returns with the franchise tag. And Steve Smith is still a bad man.
Why they won’t win: Jake F’ing Delohomme
New Orleans:
Why they can win: Drew Brees and that passing attack will keep them in any game (Don’t you like how these first sentences of each team sound like an actual sportswriter?)
Why they won’t win: Sean Payton spent his off season writing a screenplay about a kid who gains the power to control NFL games through Madden. I’m not making that up. That’s what he did with his free time.
Tampa Bay: Raheem Morris brings a fresh face to South Florida. Aww, who am I kidding. Tampa is going to suck.
The Pick: If you can’t tell, I’m a little on the fence here. I guess Atlanta. A Philly-Atlanta conference championship would be filled with Ookie goodness.

NFC West
Why should I watch this division?I have no good answer to that. My advice if you have to watch an NFC West game: Make it a Cardinals game, get hammered, and anytime Chris Wells gets a carry crank that Beanie Siegel song where the hook just goes “BEANIE, Siegel was the name that the gave me.” Call him the Broadstreet Bully when he scores a touchdown. In fact, make all the Cardinals members of State Property. Kurt Warner has a beard. So does Freeway. Get creative. Then put “Roc the Mic”, take your shirt off and do the Dam Dash dance. Now there’s a fun Sunday.
The Pick: Do I have to? Ok, fine San Francisco.

Reader: OK, thank God. He’s gotten through 14 of these questions. Only 6 more to go.
Barney: We’re only just getting started. Six more “wild card” questions. Gimmicky!

What was the most overblown story of the offseason?
It was tough to beat the Brett Favre shit show (And yes, I’m waiting for the Jets to file tampering charges. Do you think Favre asks out if Minnesota hasn’t called him? One 2nd round pick please Mr. Goddell), but it got eclipsed the first night of the season (Ok, I know it technically isn’t the off season. But give me a break). Blount throws one punch, spends the next day all over the 24 hour news cycle and then gets suspended for a year. First off, it was one punch. Second, I’d at least like to hear what was said to provoke him. Would he have been suspended if something racist was said? I’d at least like to hear that before the University of Oregon caved like the hippies that they are.
Maybe I’m just immune to it. I was at the bar when his suspension got announced and someone said, “Punching? What is this, the NBA?” Touche my friend, touché.

Any J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets thoughts?
Of course. I have to say, I could not be more thrilled with the Rex Ryan era. As the kids say in the streets these days, the Jets now have, “swag.” (Did I use that right?) In fact, he even came up with his own name for it: “swagalicious”. He’s already gotten in a verbal spat with Chrowder from Miami and told New England he isn’t coming to kiss their rings. It’s like he’s taken G-Unit Marketing 101. Even if they don’t win, they’ll at least be entertaining. They can just go to stock footage of his dad choking his OC.
As for Mangenious, he tried to keep his starting QB a secret until gametime so Minnesota had to game plan for both. Who broke his starter? TO via Twitter. That’s not exactly Jay Glazer, I must say. Me thinks the Jets got the better of that deal.
(Not saying anything about Sanchez. Too afraid to jinx it)

What was the biggest cocktease of the summer?
The state of Delaware legalizing sports gambling on individual games, but then having it reversed by a federal court. In the words of Kent Brockman, “I’ve said it before. Democracy simply doesn’t work.” (Thus smashing the world record for Simpsons references in a football preview). So fuck you even more Delaware. You stupid little state can be annexed by Canada for all I care. (Yes, I know they have multigame parlays, but it’s not the same. I would have moved them into at least my top 40 states if they had just promised that. I thought we were going to double team in the back of a Kia Rio, Instead I got a pity handjob in the back alley. Feel free to use that last analogy, Delaware. It sure beats “The First State”.)

What’s going to be the most entertaining story of the season?Definitely the Merriman-Tila Tequila trial. I can’t wait for that one. I’m sure the Norv will handle the situation deftly. It also resulted in it being reported that San Diego GM AJ Smith did not like hearing about Merriman on Page 6. If this results in the first NFL trade because of Page 6, I’m all for it.

How’d your fantasy draft go? Because I’m dying to know about a team that isn’t mine.I’m glad you asked. I had the last pick of the 4th round and the first of the 5th. I already had AD, Brady and Andre Johnson (we only have 6 teams so you can end up with that type of quality). I was primed to take Brandon Jacobs and Greg Jennings. And then Brock had to go and take Jacobs, that fuck. I had to settle inevitably for Clinton Portis. It’s almost fate at this point. I don’t think there’s been a year where I haven’t ended up with him.
Barney after round 5: “Oh boy, things kind of escalated there pretty quickly.”
Champ: “Barney, I saw you pick Lee Evans.”
Oh well, at least my team name is Original Hipsters. And our logo is Dan Cotese’s face. I’m awesome. In a related story, I’m single.

Let’s sum this up on a positive note. The Barney Show is for the kids. What lessons can we tell them?
Don’t ever come back to college if you’re a top 5 pick
Never date celebrities who got famous through the internet
As always, Delaware sucks
Jay Cutler’s an asshat
Enjoy watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the same ever again.

And with that, I’ll let you start the season.