Greetings from the sports desk located somewhere below decks of the Good Pirate Ship RedState. Sammy the Shark is far too preoccupied with making a WELCOME MACKLIN CELEBRINI banner to do any writing, and Karl the Kraken is still working on his rėsumė for the presently vacant Seattle coaching job. So you’re stuck with me.
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In the realm of overhyped sports events, few match the mid-May release each year of the upcoming NFL schedule. After the final Sunday of the previous regular season’s games conclude, that evening, the league announces every team’s list of opponents for the next season. This means the “grand schedule reveal” has nothing to reveal save which week each game will take place. Knowing when a given game will occur is helpful, but it’s hardly earth-shattering news.
Recent years have seen an increase in individual teams putting together a social media-aimed video regarding the schedule release, said videos invariably spending time poking fun at the upcoming opponents. It is, after all, the off-season following the annual draft, in which every team selected lead-pipe cinch future Hall of Famers with every pick, and a 17-0 season is a given en route to the Super Bowl. In fact, the NFL might as well cancel the season and hand the Lombardi Trophy to every single team right now. Strange how they don’t.
Anyway, not to be left out of things, the Los Angeles Chargers released their video. It’s … well, see for yourself.
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For comparison, here’s the Rams video.
You get the idea.
While the Chargers video did manage to work in a gratuitous Taylor Swift reference when mentioning the team’s first of two regular season matchups against the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, the most noticeable aspect, aside from how bad it is, springs forth from its attempt to lampoon Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker following his commencement speech at Benedictine College. In his speech, Butker offended many for espousing traditional Catholic viewpoints and values at a … traditional Catholic college. As our Nick Arama noted:
He lit into societal disorder telling the class they’d witnessed how “bad leaders who don’t stay in their lane can have a negative impact on society,” talking about COVID lockdowns.“Bad policies and poor leadership have negatively impacted major life issues.” he said also calling out the “growing support for degenerate cultural values and media, all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder.”
So many people are sufficiently offended that they have made Butker’s jersey a bestseller. When was the last time you could say that about a kicker? I’m quite certain the answer, at least in Buffalo, is “never.”
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Here is the kicker (no pun intended … okay, maybe a little). This upcoming season will mark Butker’s eighth in the NFL. In the seven years he has played, Butker has appeared in the postseason each time. He has played in four Super Bowls, winning three of them. Obviously, it helps to have Patrick Mahomes as your quarterback. But Butker has been there as well.
In that time, the Chargers have played as many playoff games (three) as the Chiefs have won Super Bowls. They have won one of those games. One. The last time they were in the playoffs, in January 2023, they went into halftime leading the Jacksonville Jaguars 27-7. They lost the game 31-30. Oops.
Oh, and the Chargers record against the Chiefs in the past seven years?
Three wins and 11 losses.
When your opponent routinely takes you out with the trash, maybe you shouldn’t trash talk.