The Four Stooges
You all remember The Three Stooges. You know — “nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.” “Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.” “What are you, a wise guy?” Whap! Smack! Bop! (a pop to the chops, a poke in the eyes, a slap in the face).
There were of course THREE Stooges, Larry, Moe and Curly. But, for awhile, Curly held out and quit the team for whatever reasons, and they had another Stooge named Shemp step in and do the Stooge thing. So, they really had Four Stooges.
A lot of people have yearned for something as hilarious as seeing The Three Stooges once again, making some kind of comedic comeback. Well, it has happened, plus one. There has been a sighting. There IS a place where The Four Stooges are alive and breathing and doing some really ridiculous things once again. It’s called the NFC South Division.
The NFC South Division, once the proud home of a couple of Super Bowl Champions (Tampa Bay in 2003 and New Orleans in 2010) and a few other Super Bowl participants (Atlanta in 1999 and Carolina in 2004), is now, in 2014, the home, record-wise, of the worst brand of division-wide professional football that has ever strapped on a pair of cleats.
The four teams collectively are playing at a level of 19 games under .500 ball. To put that in perspective, the average division usually has one team considerably above .500, one team considerably below .500, and two teams (plus or minus) a game or two above or below .500, making the collective records of all of the teams in the league somewhere around .500. To have all four teams be losing at a collective level of something around.310 ball and being 19 games under .500 is horrific. Remember the movie with Jack Nicholson titled “As Good As It Gets?” The NFC South is as BAD as it gets.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 2 and 11. They are tied for the WORST record in the entire National Football League and they are still technically within three games of first place in their division with three games to play.
The Carolina Panthers had lost six games in a row. They thrashed the “first place” New Orleans Saints 41 to 10 on Sunday. Even with six straight losses, the Panthers, at 4-8 and 1 (because of a rare tie), they are only a half game out of first place. Who would have thought that the tie they had with the Bengals earlier in the year might be good enough to help them win a divisional title by a half game?
The Atlanta Falcons are 5 and 8. They have a very good offense, but they can’t play defense worth a crap. They can score 37 points in a game, and still lose. Before the season started, they were talked about as if they’d be part of the league’s elite teams. With eight losses, they cannot even have a winning record.
The New Orleans Saints are even more of an underachieving team than the Falcons. They won the Super Bowl five seasons ago and have consistently remained amongst the league’s elite teams. They were definitely considered one of the favorites to contend for the Super Bowl this year. They used to be unbeatable at home and only so-so on the road. Now, they have the NFC South disease of Loser-itis. They can’t seem to win anywhere.
The last place team in the NFC West, the Rams, would be LEADING the NFC South by a game. The worst team in the NFC Central, Da Bears, would be tied for first in the South. And someone from the NFC South might be playing in a playoff game? What the hell is going on here?
The NFC South teams each have three games left to try to salvage their dignity. Two of them have a chance at going 8 and 8, but I wouldn’t count on that happening. Losing becomes a hard habit to break.
No one sets out to lose the majority of their games, but these four teams have done a helluva job in accomplishing just that task. The Four Stooges have officially lost so much that their division has become the joke of league. When people think of any of these four teams, there is pretty much one consistent impression they make on all that see their work. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!
