Fumblr: NFL Week 1, As Experienced By The Internet

Vernon Davis Fail

Welcome to Fumblr, a new sports blogging platform designed to capture the essence of the Internet's consumption of the NFL.

Hello, this is a column about the NFL. Well, not so much a column as a multimedia Frankenstein of animated GIFs, videos, and Photoshops with a few ounces of commentary; a visual buffet with a smattering of prose not beholden to AP Style.

Fumblr, as you web-savvy types have already recognized, is a football-y pun on Tumblr, the blogging platform known for its endless font of impossibly specific single-serving blogs. Throughout the NFL season, Fumblr will give you a web-centric look at how the vast subcontinent of the Internet sees the NFL. Ready? Let's get weird slowly, by increments, until people think we're crazy.

TightEndCelebrationFails.fumblr.com

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I have a simple request: I would like two or three tight ends to mess up throwing a ball into the ground every week. Jermichael Finley can help with inadvertent piggy back rides that end up with him on the ground. Marcedes Lewis could throw the ball into the stands and knock a full beer out of a man's hand. Jason Witten could dance into an idling thresher left unattended on the sideline (Jerry Jones has several chrome-plated threshers that he uses for personal transport around Cowboys Stadium). But nooooo, Tony Gonzalez has to go and rain on the parade.

FYeahRG3.fumblr.com

Robert Griffin III is candid, friendly, and apparently ready for NFL stardom. This is terrific for him and terrible for anyone who knows Redskins fans, the NFL's equivalent of Lennie from Of Mice and Man. Given the chance, DC fans will crush RG3 with their brute love. Until then, they'll merely ruin him for everyone else. Need proof? The meta-Tebow meme of Griffining.

Not even once. (image via LBS)

SportsNationIsAwful.fumblr.com

One game in, and @rgiii is already the most interesting man in the NFL. twitter.com/SportsNation/s…
— SportsNation (@SportsNation) September 9, 2012

ESPN is a global multi-billion-dollar enterprise, and SportsNation is its little mutant baby arm that, I don't know, connects with the people of the internet or something? So let's talk about this ham-fisted slice of web failure.

1. Robert Griffin III does not have white hands. Please hire someone with rudimentary Photoshop skills so I don't have to see RG3's large-headed white twin in blackface.

2. "I don't always make my NFL debut in the Superdome." Yes you do, Blackface RG3. It's a singular event and will never happen again. You will always and forever have your NFL debut in the Superdome.

3. Don't shoehorn story lines into a meme; it's insulting to the translucent-skinned floating cerebella of 4chan and Reddit that dictate the internet's tidal swells. "HEY RG3 IS INTERESTING MAKE HIM LIKE THE DOS EQUIS GUY AND PUT STATS IN THERE." No. Stop that.

Here, try this:

Maybe not an A+, but it's at least a correct and sensible use of a meme. Oh, and the above image was suggested to me by a perfect stranger on Twitter who happens to be better at this than whatever intern at ESPN is responsible for knowing about the internet. SportsNation is awful.

PissedOffJimHarbaugh.fumblr.com

(click to animate flying spittle, via KSK)

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You have to wonder if maybe Jim Harbaugh wasn't entirely pleased by the officiating in Green Bay. Imagine his reaction if the replacement refs give the Seahawks a fourth timeout with the game on the line again against the 49ers.

(Honorable Mention, Things Easily Lip-Read: Norv Turner)

OverthrownShovelPasses.fumblr.com

Skelton's gonna Skelt.

I'm a Seahawks fan, which means that this is one of the few highlights I can enjoy from Sunday. My team, after all, received some friendly drive-extending pass interference calls in the final quarter, not to mention a fourth timeout in the second half (thanks, replacement refs!). Throw in my worries about Russell Wilson's too-quick exits from the pocket and his tendency to throw too high to his receivers, and my only real solace in the 'Hawks losing a winnable game to a division rival is this: Russell Wilson, in his first day on the job, is better than John Skelton.

In the history of professional football, has a shovel pass ever been overthrown out the back of the end zone? I have no way of ascertaining this, but common sense tells me "no, that is impossible, you're crazy, how could that even happen." The physics don't jive with established laws, but it's worth further scientific experimentation.

Proposed Airizona space program: Skelton fires a pistol into the sky, sends the bullets into orbit.