Alright, wildcard weekend is the biggest bust I can remember. Pretty much unsalvageable already.

A bit surprising, after underdogs (especially big ones) ruled the regular season this year, that only one favorite (Dallas) lost this weekend. But you keep adding teams to the post-season and you end up with three 20+ point blowouts. Hopefully, MLB takes note. Though all they really care about is increasing revenue.

This is the week I think we see some dogs shine. In fact, my early bold prediction is that at least two dogs win outright. Maybe even three or all four depending on what kind of shape Tampa Bay is in injury wise.

I think we get Bills/Bengals & Bucs/49ers next week.

I really don't see the Niners upsetting the Packers. It's the one week when I quasi-hope they win (particularly because it's the surest route to neither team making the SB), but I think them actually winning outright is a big stretch.

Here are the Packers' results against post-season teams this year:
30-28 over SF in SF (SF had major injury issues in the 1st half - much more complete team now)
27-17 over Pitt in GB (doesn't seem that impressive)
25-22 in OT in Cincy (Cincy did everything they could to lose this game in OT, playing for FGs)
24-21 in Arizona
7-13 in KC (w/o Rogers)
36-28 at home vs Rams (Stafford & Rams were in middle of losing streak where he threw ton of INTs)

They had 3 one score games coulda gone either way. I don't think they've really been challenged by team of SF's caliber this year at the right time. I'll have to look more at the matchups later this week, but I certainly think they have a chance.

I've been trying to watch the MCU movies that I missed when they came out (read: most of them). A number of them pretty much serve to reaffirm how I suspected I would feel about them; it feels like every origin story since Iron Man (which was great) has been some degree of meh. They do culminate in some significant high spots though. I loved the first Avengers movie, and Captain America: Civil War may actually be my favorite of any of them that I've seen.

The only one that I might call "great" that doesn't include Robert Downey Jr. is Captain America: Winter Soldier. To be fair, simply including Downey isn't a path to automatic salvation; Iron Man 3 was maybe my least favorite of any of them that I've seen.

I've seen all of them except all of the Iron Man's - couldn't get past the snarkiness of RDJ (though the majority of comedic moments in Marvel are exactly that).

Ha. I love him in that role. I don't really have any complaints with most of the actors. Chris Hemsworth is whatever, probably the weakest of any of the actors playing superheroes (keeping in mind that I haven't watched each one yet), but his blandness doesn't really annoy me or anything.

Completely agree with the last part. Winter Soldier was my favorite of the non-Avenger movies, even better than Civil War I felt. And Iron Man 3 was my least favorite.

The shows I've seen so far have been okay (Wandavision, Falcon & Winter Soldier, Loki), but nothing mind blowing.

Just saw Black Widow a few days ago. Had low expectations going in, but they were far exceeded. Some of the stunts near the end were ridiculous, but Florence Pugh was pretty amazing in her role. It was actually pretty funny.

Winter Soldier is a classic spy games movie, which is why it works so well on its own. The first Cap movie is pretty blah, but that goes for most of the phase 1 origin stories. I think Captain Marvel is my favorite origin, but that has the advantage of being released much later in the MCU life cycle when things were more solidified.

Civil War was definitely a game changer. The introduction of Black Panther was the best onscreen material of the character. Cap's trilogy is probably the best of the solo movies (although Civil War is basically Avengers 2.5).

Sequels that I found really entertaining were Ant Man and The Wasp and Guardians 2. I really need to catch up on the shows, as well as Shang-Chi, Eternals, and Black Widow.

I think Captain Marvel was under-rated as well. Actually liked it more than Wonder Woman, which was an unpopular opinion at the time.

At the time, people seemed to be overly critical of the film simply because it was the sole MCU release between Infinity War and Endgame. While not exactly the same scenario, I think Solo was received a similarly unfair treatment at release.

The whole Guardians vibe is just out of step and not my thing, but I've come to view Chris Pratt as something of an annoyance after enjoying him on Parks and Rec. I did think Bautista's "you're disgustingly ugly" gag in Part 2 was funny and only became funnier as he insistently rammed the joke home over the course of the movie.

I thought the origin story of Ant-Man was probably the second-weakest MCU movie I've seen after Iron Man 3, but I haven't seen the sequel yet. The origin story just had me rolling my eyes when he turned up in Civil War. However, I obviously acknowledge that - again with the exception of Iron Man - the character's movies tend to get better over the course of time rather than worse, so perhaps I'll enjoy the sequel. I was pretty negative on the first Captain America too, and that drastically improved in subsequent movies.

You don't see too many people go through the entire MCU with the opinion that Guardians is closer to the bottom of their offerings than the top.

Wondering your thoughts on Ragnorak, which also leans a bit more comedic (like Guardians) than the rest of the MCU.

Yeah, right now I'm something like

Civil War
Avengers
Iron Man
Winter Soldier
Age of Ultron

Spider-Man: Homecoming
Iron Man 2

Thor
Captain America
Thor 2
Guardians
Guardians 2
Doctor Strange

Ant-Man
Iron Man 3

Hmm, wasn't even including the Spider-man movies. Aside from Guardians (based only on what you've seen so far), I would rocket Doctor Strange up the rankings just under WS and drop Ultron a tier or two.

Mister Doctor is really not an endearing character. By design, obviously, but I think that detracted quite a bit from the experience for me.

It seems clear that Spider-Man is part of it; it already has quite a bit more connective tissue to the larger story than Guardians does.

Ultron is a movie that's a way better watch now, than it was on release. Going back, you see how much foundation it subtly lays down. Highly recommend a revisit if you haven't watched since it was in theaters.

^ That's how I felt about watching Iron Man 2 back. I saw it in theaters back in the day and thought it was just okay. It upgraded on this watch because it was integral to the foundation of The Avengers.

I don't dislike Ultron. I just still feel it's the weakest of the Avengers movies, which is kind of like saying the shortest giant, and behind maybe 5 or 6 additional MCU offerings (Winter Soldier, GotG, Dr Strange, GotG 2, Ragnorak). I'd probably put it on par with Captain Marvel just after that. Around where I'd rank Civil War too.

Odd but true: I've never seen The Rock act in movies or TV. That just came to mind because watching Guardians was the first I'd seen Bautista appear in a movie. I was inclined to say that I hadn't watched a wrestler star in a movie since Hulk Hogan, but then I remembered that John Cena was quite funny in that (not particularly good) Amy Schumer movie.

Alright I knocked this one out tonight. I have a tough time immediately rendering an overall opinion given how uneven it was. I cannot believe they spent so much time on Sakaar; it's as if the movie spent more time on the detour than the main story. But there was a good amount to enjoy also. Snap-reaction is that it was maybe the best of the Thor movies.

I do think it leaned too hard into comedy, but I probably wouldn't have thought to compare it to Guardians.

By the way, I find it odd that they pay the money it must take to get Idris Elba, and then they give him a recurring part that you could give to basically anyone.

Was Elba that big a star when they originally signed him to play the part?

So I think the Sakaar thing was that they wanted to make kind of a Hulk movie too (Planet Hulk), but due to a rights thing (w/ Universal ??), they couldn't make a stand alone. Essentially, they were going for two movies in one.

Tonally, I felt Ragnorak (directed by Watiti) was more like Guardians (Gunn) than other Thor movies. In fact, I think they're going to be crossing over in each other's movies next.

Can't believe I forgot to mention Black Panther above too. I'd group it with Ultron, Captain Marvel & Civil War in a second tier. A massive part of it was the cultural significance, but I think if you just strip it down to overall plot, it's more good than great. I'd probably put Black Widow in this tier too.

Well in that case, the Sakaar movie - while having entertaining parts - is not all that good. The rest is quite enjoyable. The Jeff Goldblum role was annoying. I was surprised that they just straight-up took the end-credits scene from Doctor Strange and inserted it as part of this movie. I haven't seen those scenes reappear before like that.

Not entirely sure of the trajectory of Elba's star. It still seems like The Wire is what he's best-known for, and obviously that was a while ago now. At the same time, he's clearly a lot more famous today than he was back then. (I didn't really get into The Wire when I first made an attempt at it, but I do think I owe it another attempt; it took a second attempt to get The Sopranos to click for me.) I assume he can't be had by MCU for pennies on the dollar though.

Come to think of it, the MCU does sign up a lot of stars for bit parts. Karl Urban in Ragnorak comes to mind. Sylvester Stallone & Glenn Close in Guardians.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...-aaron-rodgers

I've been spewing bile at Aaron Rodgers for years - well-documented in this thread - and even I might have slightly underestimated how insufferable he is. "The other side canceled me." He has removed all doubt that he conflates "criticized in any way" with "canceled." Wonder if he was wearing his "cancel culture" hoodie during this interview.