I never cared for the way everyone rushed to anoint him as something when he hasn't done anything just yet.

Remember when a quarterback had to sit, hold a clipboard, learn from the sidelines, and THEN play with the big kids? A lot of otherwise smart people ran RGIII's name up the flagpole simply because he was a rookie that didn't look like he was playing in pants-shytting terror all of the time (which is what most rookie QBs look like).

The problem with looking reasonably competent as a rookie is that people now expect one to magically leap from the middle of the pack to Peyton Manning...without considering the fact that there aren't ten good quarterbacks in football right now/ Think about it: after the usual suspects - Peyton, Brady, Brees, Rodgers (even injured) - who else rounds out the top 10? Probably Russell Wilson...Andrew Luck...Matthew Stafford (we're already getting on shaky ground with Stafford, cuz he ain't that good)...and whoever else you can find for the last three spots.

I'd like to see the guy get as far as The San-Chize has gotten (two AFC Championship Games) before raising his profile too much...

Look at the rest of that conference.

After Seattle and New Orleans, who else should we be worried about?

At this point, every team that will fill out seeds 3 through 6 will have some serious baggage.

Think about it. Someone's road to the NFC Championship game could possibly include Arizona and Detroit. Does that really scare anyone?

Carolina has beaten a lot of bad teams, but now they've beaten a couple of teams with a pulse. Given the overall lack of depth in the NFC, I don't have any problem putting them third until I see something to convince me otherwise.

Kendrick Lamar's "Control" verse is easily in my top 10 Illest Rhymes Of All Time, and I'll tell you why: he straight up bodied Big Sean AND Jay Electronica in the same fuggin' track WITH dem n!ggas on it (!!) and the verse was So. Cold. it HAD to be left in.

HAD to be.

Picture Shady gettin' dropped like that by a guest vocal on his track. Figure Common for some ol' boolshyt like that. Try Hova. Meth'. Andre 3000. Sheee-yit. Not finna happen, right?

Bytch-slappin' a n!gga on his own track might be the sickest verse ever dropped since, what, "Fugg tha po-lice comin' straight from the underground?" "A child is born with no state of mind?" "Shut up, bytch! I'm tryna talk! Hey Slim, that's my girlfriend screaming in the trunk?" "Cash rules everything around me?" "I got 5 mill, I ain't rhymed like Common since?" "Motherfugg him AND John Wayne?"

DAYum. It's been a minute and I'm STILL trippin' off the bawlz Kendrick Lamar showed on that verse.

Back in my dack-slangin' prime, I ran up in this roiling cauldron of bugshyt crazy (but with an azz that was built by Swiss watchmakers...lawd Jeebus).

Apparently, the first time I hit it, I knocked the linin' out AND hit the "I LUH This N!gga Right Here" button at the same time, because I could do NO wrong. She worked at a skrip club (blame a n!gga if ya want to) and used to bring me her gat dam tips err' night like I was somebody's pimp...closest I ever came to shakin' the Red Card, ya heard?

Anyway, I remembered what my pops told me about tryna turn heaux into housewives and I had my exit strategy in place: back to university (read: rapid and exponential expansion of azz-gettin' opportunities) and long-term relationships with bug-eatin' crazy bytches did NOT fit in the overhead bins...so I just bounced.

Three. Months. Later.

Its right around Halloween, and I'm coming back to my spot when WHO THA FUGG IS THAT PARKED OUTSIDE MY HOUSE?

Bytch found me.

She was mad (a bit...jeezus), talmbout killin' folks and burnin shyt down and shyt...'til I took her inside and gentled her down with the magic dack. When she left the next morning (after the wake-up hummer AND leaving me a stack of cash "to get by on"), I was like, "I'm here to study, and you need to work, so gone back home and I'll hit you up when the semester's over."

I have it on the best authority that it took her three years to figure out that the semester was over, AND that she came looking for me AGAIN...but I was already in the wind. And that was 17 years ago.

(::cue somebody knocking on my door here in Korea in 5...4...3...2...::)

Oh, god...be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Either Bill Simmons reads this column or he's just dam lucky because he and I have eight of the same winners for this week.

I only mention that because Bill Simmons, whom I respect and admire as a sportswriter and Boston sports fan, welp, he sucks as a prognosticator.

And if I share eight out of thirteen picks with him?

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid....

Bitte bitte bitte
Dam, they can spit-uh
Balloons in they kit-uh
They don't give a shyt-uh

Bitte bitte Bitte
Dam they can spit-uh
I gots to admit-uh
it's a bomb-azz hit-uh

This is what some wimmen-folk (and a whole lotta other folk) fail to understand:

The only thing between you and that man you failed to knock the shyt out of is air and opportunity.

Anyone counting on something other than a retaliatory strike has chosen the Worst. Possible. Moment. to ignore 99.9% of all of human existence.

This ig'nant bytch went at that man with all of the power of "being right" on her side.

When he got back at her, he didn't have neither right nor wrong on his side. What he did have, however, was a significant size and reach advantage, something Joan of ::URK:: failed to consider when she HAM on him.

In other words, ladies, when and if you finna raise ya hands to a man? Make certain you have him faded in the important categories...like size, for example...

...or at least keep a roll of nickels in ya purse, just to even the odds a l'il bit...

Remember what Drew Brees was like in San Diego?

He was Ordinary. Shucks, he was Alex Smith.

In fact, people forget he was ALMOST a Miami Dolphin before he signed with the Saints...there was not a lot of love for him on the open market back in the day.

This many record-setting seasons later, with a couple of bold, black numbers next to his name and a Super Bowl ring on his hand, Drew Brees will get his Hall of Fame bust with a Saints jersey on.

The question is...where would Romo fit best? I think he'd thrive in the following, needing-a-QB situations immediately: Tennessee, Cleveland, and...wait for it...Chicago. (I gotta be honest: we've seen whatever we're going to see from Jay Cutler, and nothing about him says "The Promised Land." Romo can't possibly make worse mistakes than Cutler does, his arm is arguably as strong as Cutler's, and I think he burns to win more than Cutler does.)

I have to teach a class on Tuesday mornings over here. Because of the time difference, this game will be on during my class.

It sez so RIGHT HERE that my students are getting a nice, long handout to do, and that they can leave as soon as it's done. I ain't teachin' shyt. I ain't gradin' shyt. I ain't assessin' shyt. I ain't doin' anything that would make me miss a second of this game.

People always get free speech wrong.

The point of the First Amendment is that a person can speak freely without fear of government prosecution. I am free to say that I think (elected official) is ruining the country and there will not be a police escort waiting to take me to the Graybar Hotel. I am free to say that After Earth was a steaming, stinking pile of manure AND that Will Smiff owes me money AND the time I wasted, and it won't generate a red ball from the pre-cog division.

However, as has been pointed out in these pages, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of that speech. These three individuals were within their First Amendment rights to do something unconscionable.

The people they freely shared this picture with (that'd be, what, ALL of us? remember, you sign away any real right to privacy when you join Facebook) were equally free to share their disgust at this unconscionable act.

The company this woman used to work for was free to disassociate themselves from her, because they rightly believed that a lot of customer-type people would disassociate their coin of the realm from that business upon discovering someone so blatantly disrespectful and offensive worked there. Some folk sleep better knowing that their hard-earned dollars aren't directly supporting offenses to decency.

...oh, and as far as things going "too far?"

That'd be some folks finding out the hard way that being offended doesn't have a statute of limitations.