Inspirational Thought of the Week

“Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.”

Kevin James as Doug Heffernan in “King of Queens”.

Here at Floundering Five headquarters, located in a place where Thanksgiving football is watched but Thanksgiving meals never occur, we have been considering the mentality of thankfulness. Like what are teams thankful for as we pass the two-thirds mark of the NFL season? Are they thankful for good health? Improved records? Perhaps better development of previously struggling rosters? But in this case, it’s probably a sense of thankfulness of not being featured in the Floundering Five rankings for this week. For the teams who are… well, at least most of them were competitive to a degree. To the great surprise of this author, the favorite team of his was barely left out in spite of putting together their worst on-field offensive performance in eons.

As for the teams who are on this list(the top/bottom four), they can at least be thankful that they will have a high draft pick(unless they find a way to trade it away for an enticing player/package). But a huge surprise was the amount of close games that occurred on Sunday the 23rd. There were a lot of games that ended in close scores and the teams who won those games benefited greatly. As for the teams who lost, well some of them were still in good position. That includes the two eight-win teams who were leading their divisions entering Weak 12 and they still have division leads in spite of their losses. But those losses were turkey-sized chokejobs that could come back to haunt them in their quest to either win their division or have a more favorable seed in their conferences’ respective playoff pictures. So, that’s not good. But they at least have solid records to be thankful for. Not many other teams could say otherwise. Let’s chow down this list of unfortunate but grateful losers.

With apologies to Truman Jones, Darnay Holmes, Korie Black, Xavier “Big” Truss, Sauce Gardner and Joe “Turkey” Jones, here are the pre-Thanksgiving Floundering Five rankings for the 2025 NFL season.

1. Tennessee Titanic Buffoons(1-10)

So, these Buffoons became the first AFC team to lose ten games this season as the Seattle SamChickens had a good pre-Thanksgiving showing in NashBille. But the ex-OilBoys at least were competitive as they fought back with a great effort by Cam Ward, who had some help from Chimere Dike in having a punt return TD and receiving TD. But in the end, a couple of turnovers on downs and a last-chance onside kick that was touched by the Buffoons before it went the required 10 yards for it to be a recoverable ball doomed Tennessee. Remaining in position to have the number one overall pick, the fans of the Buffoons should at least be thankful for that. But with zero home wins so far, it’s hard to feel happy about anything. Especially when the past three home games have all been losses of seven points or fewer. The fourth straight home game at crumbling Nissan Stadium will be against the Jack In The Cracked Jags, who just pulled off an overtime win in spite of Trevor “Dude Where’s My Car?” Lawrence throwing three interceptions. Someway, somehow the Jags won the season-ending Golden Undies award last year in spite of having two wins over the Buffoons. Now with seven wins, the spotted kitty cats are in playoff contention while the Titanic Buffoons keep sinking down to even lower depths of stink. At least they have a franchise QB to build around. All they need is a good head coach and maybe a competent owner. Good luck with that. It’s looking like it’s going to be a pretty Blue Christmas down in Tennessee.

2. BradyDoors of the Punk Carroll Ark(2-9)

Onto this eyepatched team, who lost their fifth straight game against the Cleveland Whitey ClownShow in a Blanket Fight of the Week off the Strip. The Doors gave up a couple of scores to a Clowns offense that had Shedeur Sanders making his first career NFL start. A load of three and outs and punts occurred for the Silver and BlackJack as Geno Smith got sacked a load of times with very little offensive line protection. A lot of drives ended with turnovers on downs, with the Clowns defense being relentless and great. Smith was so ticked off that he flipped off some fans at halftime who shouted out to him “You suck, Geno!” with an expletive thrown in there. Ironically, the fan who decided to voice his frustrations was given a slip of the DeathStar Stadium’s Code of Conduct by a security guard who told him “Don’t make me come back down here!” What an absolute joke and dumpster fire of a franchise, who used to deal with a load of foul-mouthed fans in JokeLand and Lost Mangeles for several years that did way worse things than simply cuss. In the second half, things barely improved offensively for the Punk Carroll Ark carriers but they at least scored a touchdown with their golden toy running back Ashton Jeanty. But they also gave up a touchdown pass to Sanders and ended up losing 24-10. The BradyDoors have now lost five games in a row and they decided to fire their overrated offensive coordinator BuffaloChip Kelly, who should have stayed put at Ohio State instead of inheriting a team with a reclamation project QB and an old gray-haired head coach. At 2-9, the BradyDoors are now four games back of the Kansas City Chefs in the AFC Wusst and it appears that they will finish way back of third place like they did the year before. Perhaps a first-round pick can be used on a QB, as Geno Smith hasn’t been that guy at all. Old, washed up and bitter. He won’t be able to escape the boo birds if he stinks next week as the Silver and Black make their annual visit to a metro area that has the highest share of their fans living there as they play against the Lost Mangeles Dolts at SoFine Stadium. There will be loads of black jerseys in the stands there and if Smith struggles again, oh boy there will be a load of boos. It will almost be like playing in a Black Hole that you abandoned in 1994, had a chance to return towards but didn’t due to the violent and gangsta nature of your fan base in L.M. How odd, as are a lot of things for this poor team ahead of Thanksgiving. At least they can be thankful for having Greg Olson(not the former tight end turned handsome broadcaster) step in to be their interim OC for the third time in a few years. Yikes, that’s a trend nobody should want to be a part of. Not at all.

3. New Yuck FatBall G.I-Ants(2-10)

Now, we go to one of the only teams with a longer losing streak than Lost VegAss in the Army Ants, who had a chance to get their first road win since October of last season and they have had so many chances to do so. But double-digit chokejobs are the norm for these Fe Fi Foh Fumers on the road as gargantuan blown leads have occurred in four road games, including this past week’s one at Ford Field against the Dumtroit Flyins, who continued their streak of refusing to lose back-to-back games under Gamblin’ Dan these past few years. In spite of an outstanding performance from Famous Anus Winston(who was a part of two trick play TDs for Big Blue), the Army Ants decided not to build their lead to six and instead a greedy Mike Kafka decided to have his offense go for it on fourth and goal to increase the late lead to ten points, only for the pass from Winston to be incomplete. That set up a drive where Dumtroit just needed a field goal to tie and a long kick made by Jake Bates did the job. In OT, the Flyins won the toss, elected to receive and immediately Jahmyr “Sonic” Gibbs ran for his second long TD of the day(he also had a receiving TD as well). With one last chance due to the inclusive OT rules, the G.I-Ants got close to scoring range but the game ended with Winston getting sacked on his arse by Aidan Hutchinson. A very tough loss indeed for New Yuck, who, with that loss and the state of the NFC playoff picture, are the first team to be officially eliminated from playoff contention in 2025. Due to all the road chokejobs, the Army Ants’ front office decided to fire defensive coordinator Shane Bowen in finally making a move that was overdue. But that didn’t stop Malik “Good” Nabers tweeting from the comfort of his couch some criticism from his team in late-game execution. He deleted that tweet immediately afterwards, but what is posted on the internet stays on the internet… forever. Nabers said what every angry Army Ants fan had on their mind and should have left it to the fans to vent about their team’s shortcomings. One thing for the Big Blue bums to be thankful for is that they only have five games left on their schedule due to a late Week 14 date with the Flailing Byes of Open Week Inc. Before that, they must take on the New VrabelLand PottyHats, whom they defeated in two STUPID Bowls in the past. So, they at least have those incredible memories of yesteryear to lean on as they play on Monday night football in satisfying the twice-a-year-in-primetime quota that they must achieve along with the New Yuck GlennJUTS, because who doesn’t love some New Yuck, New Yuck? The way football has been played by these teams in the past ten+ years, a lot of people don’t. Especially when they are stuck in North Jersey.

4. New Orleans Aints(2-9)

So, the Aints came marching out of their bye week in hosting the Atlanta ChokingBirds, who were coming into the Bayou on a five-game losing streak. But they would not choke for once, as New Orleans had issues with a lot of things. Firstly, their all-black threads. What happened to wearing the golden helmets? You can barely see the Fleur-de-Lis on those ugly helmets that Drew Brees would never wear as he called the game for FUX Sports in being a replacement for the criminal abuser known as Mark Sanchez. Secondly, they had offensive execution issues with Tyler “You Shough Me All Night Long” in having empty drives. Making matters worse, the Aints had kicking issues once again with Blake Grupe, who missed two field goals in the first half. The only thing that kept the game respectably close was a Pick-6 by Justin Reid off KirkoChainz Cousins, who got a redemptive win in NOLA in having a couple of clutch TD passes. The Aints’ offense couldn’t crack the end zone at all. Not even with their battering ram in Taysom Hill, who couldn’t run or pass his way into the end zone. With a 24-10 loss, NOLA remains in last place in the NFC Sourth, which remains the most mediocre and weak sauce division in the league with the Tampa Bayker MayfieldNeers losing on Sunday night and the Carolina Black KittyKATs blowing a chance to take the division lead on Monday night. So, the Aints and their fans have that to be thankful for. And also that the turducken was shown on live TV by John Madden many Thanksgivings ago at the StupidDome. So, gobble gobble on that you crazy Cajun folks. One extra thing- the Aints just signed former LSU kicker Cade York to be their new kicker in cutting Grupe. They had another candidate that they thankfully didn’t select because of the PR catastrophe and media firestorm they would have faced. That’s all I will say on that troubling matter down in NOLA.

5. Two Eight-Win Division Leaders See Their Opponents Gobble Up Massive Deficits On Feast Week Sunday(0-a load of frustrated folks in Indy & Phatty)

So, for this week’s Coveted Fifth Spot we have a pair of teams who had a chance to improve their position in their divisions and respective playoff pictures. But alas, they both lost and in devastating fashions. Before we continue, we must revisit last week’s quad of teams who lost on game-winning field goals and had their playoff chances significantly plummet. This prophetic author did say that if something like teams losing on a game-winning kick happened again, it would be featured in a future edition of the CFS. Well, lo and behold, it only took one week for this subject to be revisited, except this time it’s with teams who are near locks to get into the playoffs at this time. One of the teams hasn’t won their division in more than a decade and they are continuing the vibes of good team performances in their city. The other team are defending chumps looking to repeat in stealing the thunder of the team they just beat in last year’s SB matchup. So, let’s blunder into it and like Heart, kick this CFS note out.

To start out, Indy’s HorseShoe Hippies had a strong 8-2 start going into their post-bye week matchup against the Kansas City Chefs, who were 5-5 entering this must-win game for them at Arrowhead Stadium. The Hippies were on top of the AFC Sourth and right behind the PottyHats and Denver Donkeys in the AFC standings. Indy was seeking their biggest road win in several years and a win against the Chefs could have potentially put a hammer in the coffin of the Kingdom’s Dynasty. The game started with an interception thrown by Patrick MaHonEs and a touchdown scored a couple of plays later by Indy, who held the Chefs out of the end zone(along with a facemask penalty that negated a Travis Kelce rushing TD) twice and forced them to settle for field goals. Leading by five points at halftime, Indy increased their lead, but only to eleven points after missing chances to score touchdowns in the red zone. A fumble by Kareem Hunt in the zone hurt KC’s chances of making a comeback, but their defense continued to hold Jonathan Taylor in check. The Chefs offense finally broke through with a touchdown drive and a two-point conversion pass by MaHonEs to Rashee Rice that brought the Hippies’ lead down to three points. After a few three and out drives, the KC offense had one last chance to either win the game or force it to overtime. A long drive that came within a couple yards of winning the game occurred, with a MaHonEs sack on third and goal forcing a game-tying field goal attempt by Harrison Butker, who made the kick to tie the game at 20 and force overtime. Indy won the coin toss and elected to receive possession to start the OT drive, with their offense not being able to pick up a first down. Punting the ball to the Chefs unfortunately sealed their fate, as MaHoNes completed a couple of clutch passes to get the defending AFC chumps(three-peat in that regard at least) back into winning range. Butker made another chip shot field goal to win the game and have KC go back up to .500. The HorseShoe Hippies had a chance to beat the Chefs at ArrowHead and they blew it. It must be noted that the first-ever playoff win for MaHonEs in his career came against Indy back in the 2018 Divisional Round. So, that’s an interesting nugget. Making this loss more painful for the Hippies was that the Houston Texthens won their game on ThorsDay night and the Jack In The Cracked Jags ended up pulling out an OT win over the Arizona YellowBeaks in spite of Trevor Lawrence throwing three interceptions. So, having still to play their division rivals close behind them twice in their final six games, Indy is in a less secure position now as they suffered their third loss of the season(all on the road) and their second one by a close margin. Hope they can get back on their saddles and bounce back.

Now we head into the afternoon window, where the Phatterdelphia Seagles were taking on the Dellas CrudBoys in a sunny bright afternoon game at JerryWorld Stadium. The Seagles won their season opening game over Dellas, which was seeking a huge win to get their odd record back up to a weird version of .500. Playing an emotional game in honor of their fallen teammate Marshawn Kneeland, the CrudBoys got off to a slow start as they had a couple of bad turnovers in the second quarter. The Seagles, wearing their Kelly Green jerseys on the road, scored a touchdown before their first fumble and then scored off one of the Dellas turnovers. They built their lead to an almost insurmountable 21-0 mark with a Tush Push TD by Jalen Hurts His Opponents. But the CrudBoys scored a touchdown before halftime to get down by 14 points, which was still a tough margin to overcome against the Phatty offense/defense. Plus, the Dellas defense has been notorious for giving up a boatload of points on their home field these past two seasons and their record at JerryWorld has suffered because of it. But once the bright sun went down, anything could happen. The third quarter didn’t produce many scoring drives as Brandon Aubrey missed a rare field goal attempt from 51 yards out. But the quarter did close out strong as Dak Prescott unleashed a deep bomb pass that was caught by CeeDee Lamb for 48 yards. A couple of plays later, the CrudBoys scored again as Prescott had his second TD pass of the game. Now down by seven points, Dellas was putting pressure on the Seagles in this one. The Phatty offense drove into field goal range for Jake Smelliot to start out the fourth quarter, but penalties backed them up big time and instead of going for it on fourth and five, the field goal unit came out and Smelliot missed a long 56-yard kick. The very next play, Prescott unloaded another deep pass caught by George Pickens to get them Boys back into the red zone. Dak decided to run it in himself and score a massive game-tying TD. The PAT made it official as the Seagles had choked a 21-point lead. There was still plenty of time left on the clock in the fourth quarter, so redemption was only one big play away for Phatty. A good pass by Hurts to A.J Brown got the Seagles back to where they were previously in Dellas territory, with another first down giving them better position. But Saquon Barkley fumbled the ball on a pass he caught from Hurts and the CrudBoys defense recovered it. After a holding penalty backed them up, Dellas had to punt the ball back to Phatty, with punt returner Xavier Gipson deciding to catch the ball at the 2-yard line instead of potentially letting it bounce into the end zone for a touchback. That turned out to be a huge mistake as Alijah Clark ran all the way down the field after getting pushed and knocked down to force the ball out of Gipson’s grasp on the return. It was another fumble and the long snapper for the CrudBoys recovered the ball. Oh my goodness, Dellas had a chance to take the lead for good in having an immediate goal-to-go scoring chance. But somehow, they couldn’t score on four chances and even went for it on fourth and goal as Prescott threw an incomplete pass that was nearly caught by Jake Ferguson at the goal line. Phatty now had a golden chance to drive the ball and milk off time as they took this possession into the two-minute warning. However, Hurts got sacked on third down by Osa Odighizuwa and the ensuing punt by Braden Mann was a touchback along with a five-yard penalty for a player running out of bounds and back in tacked on. So, from the 25-yard line the CrudBoys drove the ball well and Prescott completed a couple of huge passes that got them into field goal range for Aubrey. After two consecutive kneeldowns and a spiked ball lowering the time to only a few seconds left, Aubrey came out and made a clutch 42-yard field goal to win the game. Dellas had walked off Phatty and completed their largest comeback in a game in franchise history for the fourth time. 21 points sure ain’t enough to hold this overpriced franchise down. The Seagles had a chance to basically wrap up the NFC Least division in their talons with a win and they failed to do so. Granted, they still have an odd two-and-a-half game lead over the 5-5-1 CrudBoys. But Phatty lost control of the number 1 seed in the NFC playoff picture as the Lost Mangeles Lambs won their Sunday night game. At 8-3, the Seagles will now play a home game on BlackEye Friday against the Chicago Bores, who also happen to be 8-3. So, that will be a huge game for playoff positioning. These two losses come to show that no matter how good your record might be as a team, you always have to finish the job. Can’t let your foot off the gas pedal, especially against two desperate teams with mediocre records. Hope that doesn’t happen again to Indy(or Phatty, fingers crossed on that), but it very well could. That’s all for this two-part thrilling edition of the pre-Thanksgiving CFS.

• Waiting List: New Yuck GlennJUTS, Arizona YellowBeaks(a home OT loss due to an end of regulation gaffe by Michael Wilson), Cincinnata Bungles(another close home loss before the Turkey Day return of Joe Burreaux), WokeShington CommandSkins, Having A Horrid Offensive Performance While Getting Concussed, Losing By A Close Margin And Falling Out Of The Division Lead W/O Your Old QB, Losing Again On The Road South Of The Mason-Dixon Line, Thanksgiving Day Table Discussions & Unnecessary Political Discord With A Side Of Gravy