"It's Attitude, Not Aptitude, That Determines Altitude."

No. No it's fucking not. It's goddamn sports, not the inane admissions slogan from your safety school. I don't know who said this tonight, and it doesn't even matter, because it could've been any single one of them. You people. I mean this what, sentiment?, is not myth, it's not narrative, it's not funny ha-ha and it's not funny interesting. Fuck you. In the world of idealism paraded as fact, this is the untethered turkey balloon of all turkey balloons.

No It's Not Like Horse. Pff! (Pff.) Pff.

STILL: Goes great with mustard. Let's do this.

"I mean, that's rules. That's the explanation." Joe Theismann, coming in H-O-T!

"One of the things the Tennessee Titans have decided to do, is they're not going to do a whole lot on defense." There is no try in the Titans Play-- and/or Choose Your Own Adventure-- Book.

"All you players out there remember: it takes no talent to hustle." Hustle, commentate, fall off a log, and in that order. (I mean, that's rules. That's the explanation.)

"The head is taboo." Thou shalt not suffer a scholar to live.

Follow up: "Dis-con-cert-ing Sig-nals...? (??!)" ???

HALFTIME!

"Yeah, it's a playoff game." Is he as bored as I am? Is that possible?

My God was this one ever a real slobberknocker. I'm out.

A Hell Of A Place To Be Coming From

AND NOW: Thursday Theismannlights!

"What the Falcons are trying to do is get this Raider defense a little tired." Good start, good start. Keep 'em on their toes.

"They're [Falcons O line] not going to win any beauty contests.... Except for my guys. They were all beautiful." Maybe there is meaning to be found in a Pauly Shore movie, he thinks to himself.

Wow, nobody's really letting him talk much, are they? We're well into the second quarter and his comments have amounted to, "The player that just got a first down is a heck of an athlete, on account of getting that first down." Otherwise it's just stats he's been fed.

"I love his [Matt Ryan's] stroke." Play it cool, Theismann, play it cool.

"There've been a lot of places where he's [Flacco's] had to squeeze it in, in rhythm." Success. (Not an Australian joke; it's funny because Flacco has no rhythm. What Flacco does have is a poster of Tom Brady in his room... back at his parents' house, where he lives.)

HALFTIME!

"Let's see if Joe Flacco can stabilize this." Joe Flacco is the quarterback equivalent of the folded envelope you put under a wobbly table leg? Yes.

"We talked about running left. What happens? Go left. Alright." Left Good. Fire Bad.

"This is where the nightmare has begun for the Baltimore Ravens." But not because this is my first Thursday Night Football or anything, no. Correlation does not prove causation, after all.

"We know who the Ravens are." I mean the Raiders. What, what?

"You have to stay true to your personality." Take a look, it's in a book.

"He got it to his body and let it go right through. I bet that's the last time you see him (... use that body)." Tony Gonzalez is either A. dead or B. a shapeshifter

"They knew it would be a real slobberknocker." ... . And I'm done.

"I'll Give You A Dollar To Shut Up"

• CAN JOE FLACCO CARRY THE WATER?
• WILL THE ATLANTA HAWKS FINALLY HEADLINE A MARIONBARBERIS POST THAT DOESN'T FEATURE RACISM?
• WHICH CHEERLEADER (OR CHEERLEADERS) GET PUSHED DOWN SOME ICE?

Find out all this and *more* during the campfire, wagon circle, "liveblog" of Joe Theismann's Thursday Night Football premiere. Because look at me, what else am I going to do. What else, indeed.