NFL Week 8 Status Report: Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Peppered

Smokey: I was gonna start out this status report by pointing out how glaringly wrong Bill Simmons was in his prediction of this past Sunday’s Cardinals/Panthers game. Lucky for ol’ Bill, I spent the weekend enraptured in the spacious lap of luxury one can find in the paradisiacal region known as NoPho, and thus, can’t bring myself to care.

Around mid-day on Friday four couples pointed four cars east for Phoenix and arrived later that night. A sibling of one of our ilk had hooked us up in some of the nicest rooms inside one of the nicest resorts this side of Xanadu. Saturday was spent primarily basking in the sun on a lazy river, drinking well-poured drinks and soaking up the sun. Sunday, however, was gameday.

formerly known as the Pink Taco

We awoke and walked down the hall to meet up with another couple to begin our drinking/facepainting pregame. After making a few laps around the Melted Hershey Kiss, we parked and headed out to find our tailgate. Funny thing about Arizona, by not recognizing Daylights Savings, you get an extra hour of tailgating. In the parlance of our time: fuck and yes.

Several burgers, beers, and margaritas later, we made our way towards the stadium, and towards destiny.

Smokey cont’d: A lot can change in two years and one playoff game. My first trip to this glorious air-conditioned oasis in the desert resulted in a big win for a struggling Panthers squad. This time around felt similar. I predicted that Jake would have a Rocky-IV-esque revenge game, but in the end I came to realize that Jake was Apollo Creed, killed by Ivan Drago on Janurary 10th, 2009. Our defense, and Julius Peppers in particular, was Rocky Balboa, embarrassing the Cards in front of their fans to the tune of five interceptions and a solid 34-21 victory.

Seeing as how our schedule gets incredibly unforgiving as we careen towards the end, this was, for me, the most important game of the season. It was John Fox’s statement game to the Carolina fans, reassuring them what we all told ourselves all off-season: last January was a fluke. This team still has hope. And hope is a good thing. And no good thing ever dies.

Next up: toppling the Undefeated Saints

Mickey:I ain’t got much more to add. Smokey was there, and when Smokey is in attendance, the Panthers know. And the Panthers win.

This was the Silver Fox’s statement game, and has given we Panthers fans hope. It was unsettlingly easy. It was potential come to fruition. It was Jake Delhomme throwing 14 passes. It was beautiful.

So let’s bring on the media dahling Breesus and Saints and see where we can’t go with this season.