Brian Hoffman
From the January 5, 1994 edition of The New Castle Record
The National Football League regular season is over and the playoffs are ready to begin. It’s one of the most exciting times of the year for football fans.
In a couple years two more teams will be in on the action, although it’s unlikely they’ll make the playoffs the first year. However, when Carolina and Jacksonville join the NFL in 1995 the league is sure to realign, and that should stir things up.
I’ll tell you who is all excited about the two new teams; our cat “Joker.” We call him Joker because he’s entirely white like Joker from Batman. He’s a much more pleasant sort, however, and he enjoys lying on the couch in the den during Sunday afternoon football games. Actually, he enjoys lying on that couch in the den just about any day of the week.
Up until a month or so ago Joker had two favorite teams, the Lions and the Bengals. A Detroit-Cincinnati Super Bowl would have been the cat’s pajamas, so to speak, for that little white cat.
Actually, joker likes the Lions a little better, because they have the cool helmets with the jumping lion n the side. The Bengal helmets, or so says Joker, make the players look like Coneheads when viewed from the rear. Have you ever noticed that? He’s right; I used to call Kenny Anderson, “Beldar.”
Now we have two more cat teams battling for his affection, the Carolina Panthers and the Jacksonville Jaguars. A couple of pretty good names, I must say, and some pretty fine looking football helmets.
It seems like the secret to getting an NFL franchise this time was to have a cat name with a silver helmet. Maybe St. Louis would have a team right now if they had announced the team would be named the St. Loius Siamese. How about the Baltimore Bobcats?
Memphis was way off base with the Hound dogs. As far as Joker is concerned, that would have been about as popular as the University of Georgia.
I anticipate a lot of haggling when it’s time to realign, as will surely be the case with two new teams. A simple solution might be to put all the cat teams together. Then you’d have the Panthers, Jaguars, Bengals, and Lions in the same division.
Of course you’ll need one more team, as the league will have six divisions of five. Maybe put the Redskins in there, because that will be pretty weak division and maybe they can win a few games.
To go one more step, why don’t we put all the teams in divisions by nicknames? Along with the Cats you could have an “Animal” division with the Colts, Bills, Broncos, Bears, and Rams.
How about an “Assorted Heathens” division, with all the teams taking their names form plunderers and malcontents? You could have a five-team division of Vikings, Raiders, Buccaneers, Giants, and 49ers. You might balk at the 49ers, but have you ever seen their mascot? It’s a cowboy lookin’ guy shootin’ off guns.
A “Heroes” division would be great for the Patriots, saints, Chiefs, Cowboys, and Chargers. They’re all admirable sort of nicknames.
That leave 10 teams. Four will fit perfectly in the “Birds” division; Eagles, Cardinals. Falcons, and Seahawks. Four more will go nicely in an “Industrial” division; Packers, Steelers, Oilers, and Jets.
That leaves two team, The Dolphins and the Browns. These two teams don’t fit amongst any of the aforementioned, so we’ll have to put one in the” Bird” division and one in the “Industrial.” For the sake of keeping animals together, let’s put the Dolphins with the Birds and the Browns with the Industrials.
What the heck is a Brown, anyway? Their mascot is that little guy with elf shoes, striking fear into the heart of no one. If we had a wimp division, the Browns would be there.
Next, we split up teams into NFC and AFC. That will be easy, I’ll just find the three divisions with the most current NFC teams and put them together, and likewise with the AFC.
So, our new AFC will have the Industrial, Animal, and Hero Divisions. The NFC will have the Heathen, Bird, and Cat Divisions.
Having the Birds and Cats in the same conference should make for some interesting games. Likewise, if the Hero and Heathen champs meet in the Super Bowl, what a game that would be. The Patriots against the Raiders?
It’s just so stupid it might work. In fact, it’s no more stupid than having Phoenix in the NFC East and Atlanta in the NFC West.
And this will give Joker an entire division to cheer for. He might even root for the Redskins since I put them in the Cat division.
Afterall, who were the bigger pussycats this season?
