Raiderdamus: The following is a work of satire and humor about the Las Vegas Raiders. It may contain offensive language and imagery and as a result it should not be read by anyone.
Greetings, Raider Nation! It is I, the man whose belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly, who brings coal to the children of Chiefs fans, and the man who spreads holiday cheer and joy to all who appreciate football-related insult comedy, Raiderdamus the Great and Powerful. I come to you today without an ass, because I laughed mine right off watching the final play of the Patriots-Raiders game approximately 300 times over the past week. It’s a good thing the Raiders are on the road this week because Allegiant Stadium workers will need more time to remove Mac Jones’ sorry corpse from where Chandler Jones embedded it into the turf near the Raiders logo.
Raiderdamus’ Friday Foretelling: Raiders vs. Steelers
As amazing a Christmas gift as that win over the Patriots was, the Raiders must now travel across the country to Pittsburgh, where the weather will be as bitterly cold as the hearts of the boorish cretins who live there. In keeping with tradition, I’ve asked the Great Beyond for his thoughts regarding this upcoming game, and here is the message I received:
“For the first time in twenty years, the Steelers are not the AFC North team with the worst sex offender as their quarterback. They had a good run.
In this Christmas season, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, whose life ended the exact same way the Steelers’ playoff loss to Tim Tebow ended—by getting killed on a cross.
The Great Beyond always loves to lampoon Cincinnati for its odd food culture, but the truth is that Pittsburgh is just as bad. There is a thing there called a Pittsburgh Salad, which is just a regular salad with a bunch of French fries on top. Pittsburgh’s most famous sandwich chain, Primanti’s, is famous for sandwiches also topped with a mound of French fries. Pittsburghers love their potatoes, which comes as no surprise if you understand that Pittsburgh has a huge part of its population descended from Irish people fleeing the potato famine. They have to eat as many potatoes as possible before they all go missing again. How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman? None.
Steelers fans are everywhere…Â
If you watch any Steelers road game, you will see Steeler fans in the stands, and the perception might be that Steeler fans travel well. This is not true; Steelers fans cannot afford to travel. The fact is that Steeler fans simply live everywhere, because when the steel mills shut down in the early 1980s, Steeler fans left Pittsburgh and moved literally everywhere else, spreading Steeler fandom across the country like a virus. The last time an infection spread that quickly, we had to shut down the world for a year and a half.
Steeler fans are proud of their steel mills that no longer exist, much like they are proud of the Immaculate Reception that didn’t happen because the ball hit the ground. Steeler fans love to celebrate things that didn’t happen, like Big Ben’s rushing touchdown in the Super Bowl against Seattle or when their cousin doesn’t get pregnant.
It’s hard to fault a Steelers fan for holding onto the Immaculate Reception like a Bears fan holds the last sausage link in his Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast. It’s the clear line of demarcation between the Steelers being one of the worst teams in football, which they were prior to 1972, and one of the best, which they have been since then. And how did the Steelers get so good? Well, by icing the turf when they played the Raiders and by drafting four Hall of Famers in 1974. In every instance, the Steelers cheated. Far be it for any Raiders fan to be holier-than-thou about cheating, but Steeler fans are the sort who think the way their team plays is tough, hard-nosed football, and if any other team does it that way it’s a personal foul, so f*ck ’em.
Raiderdamus: Remember BLESTO?
In the early days of football, there was no internet to share scouting tape, and sharing film had to be done by mail. One of the first organizations to do this was BLESTO, established in 1963, which was the Bears-Lions-Eagles-Steelers Talent Organization. You may ask, “What do the Bears and Lions know about talent?” And you have a good point, but I digress. The teams helped each other prepare for the draft by sharing college game film. Except when the Steelers saw tape on John Stallworth and Mike Webster. The other teams asked for the tapes and were told they were in the mail. The Steelers never sent them at all.
To make it seem like they weren’t cheating, they drafted Stallworth in Round 4 and Webster in Round 5 after having drafted Lynn Swann and Jack Lambert in Rounds 1 and 2. They won several Super Bowls after this, leading Pittsburgh residents to think they are hot sh*t while forgetting that their crappy state is getting spit-roasted by Lake Erie and New Jersey at all times.
Why is Pittsburgh so affordable?
Pittsburgh is one of the most affordable places to live in the country because it’s such an awful place that no rich people want to come and gentrify it. All the people who could be priced out already were about 40 years ago. There is nothing in Western PA but Amish and clinical depression. Pittsburgh’s most notable invention is the Pittsburgh toilet, which is a toilet surrounded by absolutely nothing in the middle of a basement floor. There are no walls, no stalls, and no privacy. It prepares Pittsburgh residents for the day when they tell other people they are Steeler fans by forcing them to endure embarrassment and isolation. The Pittsburgh toilet is the reason the Terrible Towels are all yellow.
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is one of the longest-tenured coaches in the NFL, and it’s so cool how he took time out of his busy schedule starring in the Fox show House to coach the Steelers and make sure the Patriots had at least one easy game in the playoffs every year. In Tom Brady’s tenure with the Pats, Tomlin never tripped him up even once.
The Raiders come into this game on a high note, but they will be facing three of their biggest enemies: the East Coast, cold weather, and expectations. The Steelers suck; they know it, and they have nothing to lose, so I figure the home team will do what they usually do and pull a Lance Armstrong, acting like American heroes while cheating their way to a win.
Steelers win, 24-21.
*Top Photo: Sports Illustrated