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The least you can do is say you’re sorry. We all make mistakes, it’s easy to do. The hard part is admitting them, nobody likes to be wrong. When we watch sports, we see a lot of apologies. It can be as simple as a gesture, a player tapping their chest, indicating they made a mistake. It can be a coach taking the full blame for his team’s failures. Or it can be a team making wholesale changes to a weak spot.
Last season the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ defensive line was perhaps the worst in the league. No team had fewer sacks or a lower sack rate, and they had the 7th worst yards per carry against. To rectify this, they used multiple draft picks and committed over $39 million in guaranteed money to overhaul their line. They should be better, but better is a long way from great. Today we’re going to give them the greatest defensive line ever seen. And to help them on their quest of dominance, we’re pitting them against the worst offensive line we could assemble.
The Buccaneers Defensive Line
I kept the Bucs DL as their real life players, but gave them 99 ratings in everything, as if they stumbled into the Captain America serum while trying to create a cure for MRSA. No other changes were made.
The Eagles Offensive Line
I removed every real life Eagles offensive lineman and replaced them with you, the reader. I asked you to tell me about the saddest purchase they ever made.
Starters
Left Tackle: Devour Chaos
A Kevin Kolb Jersey
— Ἄλγος (@DevourChaos) September 12, 2018
Attention to detail is key in movies. In Silver Linings Playbook, Jacki Weaver had a Kevin Kolb jersey, which was perfect for the character. She got an Oscar nomination. You get to start against JPP. Fitting user name too.
Left Guard: Red Weddin
I bought a novelty nightlight version of the glowing sexy leg-lamp from the movie “Christmas Story”. When I was opening the package, it fell out onto the floor and broke.
— Red Weddin (@RedWeddin) September 12, 2018
Those are only acceptable at over-the-top campy bars.
Center: Andrew Jackson
Was a bit hungry, so bought a small block of cheese to eat
— Lewis Jones (@Jonzee72) September 12, 2018
We’ve all impulse purchased before.
Right Guard: The DFC
I bought Lawbreakers. Have fun learning how much of a failure that game is
— Liquid Snake Lee (@TheDFC) September 12, 2018
This game was set to be free to play, but instead it cost $30 on release, then it was free to play. That all happened in a span of the previous 12 months. Today it ceased to exist.
Right Tackle: Scott, With Rage
I waited 2 years to buy an HD-DVD player because I wanted to see how the Blu-Ray HD-DVD battle would turn out. Literally a month later, HD-DVD died.
— S (@scottwithrage) September 12, 2018
Did you also own MiniDiscs and LaserDiscs?
Backups
Tackle: Brandon Vidrine
Madden. I don’t know if that’s what this is about but I regret any money I’ve spent on that game in the last 10 years
— l3randon (@brandon_vidrine) September 12, 2018
Well you’re in the game now. It’s like a trial run of being in hell.
Guard: Drew McAuliffe
The "Ab Dolly". Purchased late night after many drinks, while Vandela was showing how it worked in the ad. One month later, it was being used to move kegs around.
— Drew McAuliffe (@drewmcau) September 11, 2018
At least you found a use for it.
Center: Mike Kontolios
A college education
— Mike Kontolios (@ThaReal_Kont) September 12, 2018
Every player was given a 0 in every rating except two: The game will not let you have a injury rating below 11; and since you volunteered this for this you have some level of toughness in you, so everyone got a 50 toughness. Their overall rating was 12, and dragged down the Eagles team rating from 90 to 63. Oddly, the Buccaneers superhuman linemen didn’t raise them at all. I don’t think the people who make this game know how to do math. I gave every regular person random normal person heights and weights and random equipment.
The Game
I let the game sim it with full 15 minute quarters. This is not recommended, it takes nearly three hours.
The Eagles offense was, surprisingly, not comically inept. Nick Foles’s first two attempts were completed for 23 and 16 yards, and he was able to complete 23 of his 41 attempts. However he dropped back 51 times, taking 10 sacks. There were two safeties. The Eagles ran the ball 23 times for -16 yards. The offensive line committed 22 false starts. The Bucs won 34-10, the blowout disrupted by four Ryan Fitzpatrick interceptions and a blocked field goal. The Eagles had no chance because their offense line were children playing a man’s game.
That is going to leave a mark.
Midway through the 1st quarter, left guard Red Weddin left the game with an injury. His backup, Drew McAuliffe, was no help.
McAuliffe and The DFC were even useless on good plays. Nick Foles threw a 57 yard touchdown while his guards did nothing.
Doing absolutely nothing was a theme.
At times, it was a group effort. Red Weddin returned, and was of no assistance.
Things got so bad that it rubbed off on the defense, who got a case of the Keystone Cops.
The one guy actually trying was Scott, With Rage. He was useless.
His teammates may have noticed and rally themselves. Sort of. DeVour Chaos pretended to care, attempting to fend off JPP with one hand. Maybe he felt pity.
It was surprising that Nick Foles wasn’t injured. And it was surprising that apparently all of the linemen were jerks. Nobody was sorry. Nobody helped Foles up off the ground. Nobody apologized to Jay Ajayi for the safeties.
Least Valuable Player
There were two choices. Center Lewis Jones was called for so many false starts I actually lost track. He had at least 8. But I give the award to right guard The DFC, who had the most lowlights and the worst of them all. After letting Gerald McCoy breeze right by him to score the second safety of the game, did he apologize to Jay Ajayi? No. He talked trash.
The least you could do is say you’re sorry.