Peering Into the Pigskin Future

"The future's uncertain and the end is always near."

• The Doors, Roadhouse Blues

How many timelines are there in the pigskin multiverse and how can I avoid the timeline where Jarrett Stidham turns out to be the best-kept secret in the history of all sports for all time?

You can think “there’s a reason why Jarrett Stidham has been a career backup” at your own peril, as - based on commentary from the gridiron cognoscenti - he appears to be Schroedinger’s Pigskin Cat. 

He might be that career backup, about to become a football footnote for all the wrong reasons, or, he might be some unholy alchemy, a combination of Peyton Manning and Brett Favre, a brilliant gunslinger with Gatorade Glacier Frost coursing through his Mile High veins. 

It helps having a gridiron genius in Sean Payton calling the shots, of course. The consensus amongst pigskin pundits and bobbleheads is that Payton will dial up plays he knows Stidham likes, feels comfortable with, and is confident he can make, and The Stidhammer will rake.

Then there’s that Denver defense.

(To my Inner Pigskin Child: Please shut up!)

Some self-soothing: I would like to note that the Patriots faced and beat five Top 10 defenses this season and post-season (Browns, Saints, Bills, Texans, and Chargers) but it seems this Broncos defense is different, in some indefinable way that will prove fatal to the New England offense, and at the very minimum, unhealthy for Drake Maye.

That pigskin timeline sucks so hard. 

I ain’t no Dr. Strange but I’ve got to figure out a way to jump that timeline. 

Wherever I land, it can’t be worse than this one.

Well, okay, it absolutely could be worse, because of course it could.

But maybe I will land - I will, I will, I will - in a better timeline from the perspective of this pigskin observer. A timeline where the Patriots Top 10 defense, as Mike Vrabel has described it, puts Jarrett Stidham in a blender. A timeline where Rhamondre Stevenson and Tre’veyon Henderson combine for 200+ scrimmage yards and three TDs. A timeline where Drake Maye is 16 of 18 for 190 yards and 2 TDs while adding 60 yards rushing and another score.

Yeah, I’m asking this timeline to do a lot of heavy lifting, but is any of that crazier than a backup QB, who hasn’t taken anything more than preseason snaps over the last two years, starting and winning the conference championship?

Yeah, I don’t care if it is.

Go Pats!