The following is a work of satire and humor. It may contain offensive or indecent language and as a result should not be read by anyone. In any case, let’s take a look at the upcoming matchup between the Las Vegas Raiders and Miami Dolphins.
The Return of Raiderdamus
Greetings, Raider Nation! It is I, the whiskey in your sour, the banana in your hammock, and the world’s premier purveyor of football-based insult comedy, Raiderdamus the Great and Powerful. After a long hiatus I have returned because if there’s one thing the teams of the National Football League need, it’s someone to mercilessly make fun of them. The emperor has never had fewer clothes than now, and there has never been a greater need for a court jester. As always, Raiderdamus answers the call.
In keeping with tradition, I reached out to he who has all the answers, the Great Beyond, for his wisdom concerning Sunday’s upcoming game against the Miami Dolphins. His response has reached my ears, and now I relay it to you all. Now marvel at his words.
“You’re back! It’s been some time since I had to look at the football schedule, but it’s nice to see the Raiders doing well. Just as everyone predicted, the Raiders are one of only two unbeaten teams in the AFC, next to the Denver Broncos. Denver has yet to complete the FCS portion of its schedule, having defeated Seton Hall and the Jacksonville School for Kids Who Want to Read Good and Do Other Stuff Good Too. What will happen when they have to play a real team, like Syracuse? I predict pain.
Revenge Against Miami
Who you got this week? The Dolphins? It’ll be a revenge game then, and Raider fans can guarantee victory and catharsis by shoving some needles through a voodoo doll of Arden Key. He can’t hurt us anymore, but he can hurt the 49ers. Imagine having someone that volatile and self-destructive on your team? Excuse me while I put away my Ray-Ray Armstrong and Vontaze Burfict jerseys.
Over the years, the Dolphins have drafted plenty of rookies and had lots of first-year players, but the only great young career they ever successfully launched was Jim Carrey’s. Dan Marino performed better in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective than in any playoff game in the 1990s.
Dolphins are remarkably similar biologically to humans. They are highly intelligent, unlike the Dolphins’ front office. Where humans and Dolphins diverge is that Dolphins have two stomachs. One to stomach food and one to stomach the crushing failure and embarrassment of not having won a Super Bowl since Richard Nixon was in office.
Every football fan hates the New York Jets, especially Jets fans. But the Dolphins love the Jets because if the Jets didn’t exist, Miami would get far more attention as the biggest trash franchise in the NFL. The Jets are the Mississippi to Miami’s Alabama.
Wasting Talent
South Florida has a reputation as ‘God’s Waiting Room.’ That’s because when you end up there, you know your period of usefulness is just about over. Miami has a history of jettisoning young players just when they suddenly become good: Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Ryan Tannehill come to mind. The only young talent Miami didn’t want to get rid of but did anyway was Elian Gonzalez.
Miami’s status today as a football sinkhole stands in stark contrast to its history as home to some of the best football teams ever assembled. One team, in particular, stands as the undefeated gold standard of football, the greatest team money could buy, a team still celebrated today, one which will never be eclipsed so long as the Earth travels around the sun: the 2001 Miami Hurricanes.
Marino’s Super Bowl rings?
It’s appropriate that the Dolphins’ team abbreviation is MIA, because that’s exactly where all Dan Marino’s Super Bowl rings are. The Dolphins, because they are in Miami, where everything has to be as fashionable and brightly colored as the absurd home run fish statue in center field of the Marlins stadium, feel the need to change the Dolphins’ uniforms every few years. Every time they do, the dolphin looks angrier and less mentally stable, just like the Dolphins’ fans themselves who have to put up with this mess. Soon enough, the Dolphins helmets will cut out the middle man and just have a fishing net and a can of Starkist tuna on the side. Dolphins football: ‘everybody’s gotta die sometime.‘ Wanna buy season tickets to the worst stadium in the NFL while we pray you don’t remember that we passed on Drew Brees in favor of Daunte Culpepper?
This week the Dolphins may be without quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who was brutally dissected by the Bills pass rush because Miami forgot to put together an offensive line in favor of acquiring as many flashy safeties and wide receivers as possible. Miami could have drafted Justin Herbert but went with Tua instead. They thought Tua was the next Russell Wilson, but he’s turned out to be the next AJ McCarron. If the Dolphins had drafted Herbert, he’d look flattened right now like Wile E. Coyote after a boulder falls on him. The Raiders might be more concerned if Tua doesn’t play, but backup Jacoby Brissett doesn’t have the same devil beard magic as Ryan Fitzpatrick had.
Florida Men
Florida has some of the craziest news stories in the country because there are no laws that restrict what the police can tell the press. It gives an impression of Florida as a place where anything and everything can happen, and to an extent, that is true. But the one headline you may never read again is: Dolphins win Super Bowl.
Head coach Brian Flores has spent lots of time instilling qualities into his Miami team such as TUFFNISS and DISSIPLIN, but he forgot to teach them GOOD AT FOOTBALL. That’s a quality the Raiders actually do have, and it’s why the Silver and Black will turn these fish into sushi on Sunday afternoon.
Raiders win, 34-21.
*Top Photo: David Banks/Associated Press