Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Why, Todd, Why?

You can preach and preach, but sometimes the people nearest to you just do not listen...

The marketing gurus at Campbell's announced who will be carrying the cursed banner of Chunky Soup this year. In an effort to really get the name out there this year, the fine folks at Campbell's decided to lower the hammer on an unprecedented eight players this year! Unfortunately, one of the unlucky is someone who needs no help being cursed.

The Unlucky Eight are: LaDainian Tomlinson, Jonathan Vilma, Larry Johnson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Demarcus Ware, Devin Hester, Matt Hasselbeck (some people never learn), and Todd Heap. While the rest can go and get injured and be unlucky all they want, I make this lone request of the football gods: leave the Heap alone. For the love of all things holy, leave the Heap alone.

The seven players who do not don the purple and black can do however they please, because they all represent obstacles that just stand in the way of the Ravens reaching the pinnacle of football. The issue I have with using eight players in a cursed ad campaign is the impact it has on the fantasy footballers of America. LT, LJ, Jones-Drew, and even Hasselbeck all carry some weight when it comes to the only game America loves more than football. LT and LJ are sure to be top 5 picks in every draft, and Jones-Drew will most likely be taken in the late first or second round rounds of most drafts. All of these players now have huge targets on their backs, and join Vince Young as people to be avoided in fantasy drafts.

But how? How do we avoid five premier offensive players in football just because of some goofy curse? The answer is, we can't. I am firmly of the belief that Campbell's is overloading the curse in an attempt to break it. By using eight players, Campbell's is trying to guarantee itself that at least one will escape the season unscathed. They have used a multitude of diverse players in the past, but never all in the same year. Past Soup sponsors have included Donovan McNabb (Mr. Curse himself, falling victim to Campbell's, Madden, and Super Bowl Loser), Reggie White late in his career, John Elway, Terrell Davis, Jerome Bettis, Brian Urlacher, and the official spokesperson of motorcycle safety, Ben Worthlessberger. All of these players experienced unusual amounts of hardship in the year they ate the soup. It's not coincidence, but it might be ending.

This is an unprecedented attempt at breaking a curse. Nobody has ever thought to overload it in an attempt to drown it. The Red Sox beat their curse the only way they know how: get it so overexposed in the media that even the baseball gods couldn't take it anymore. But Campbell's is looking to be a pioneer in curse breaking. They're going to face the demon head on and try to beat it. If this works, maybe next year the Madden cover will feature a group photo of every player in the NFL.

All that aside, what the hell are you thinking, Todd Heap? Do you not hurt your ankle bad enough each year already? Every week you look at the injury report, and it's "Todd Heap, Questionable, Ankle". We don't need more of that, and tempting fate has never been the Ravens' forte. It just seems to me that the Ravens were better suited to fly low under the radar this year, and now Heap has gone and blown that, and for what? Free Soup? Campbell's Chunky isn't even that good. Soup should be smooth and soothing, not chunky. Chunky soup is just a fancy name for stew. If Todd Heap was a faithful reader and knew that Kurt does in fact know best, he would have read the end of the very first post: Here's hoping that the Ravens are eating Progresso this year. So much for that. Thanks a lot, Todd.

Peace.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

no el whammo?


-r to the a

Anonymous said...

el whammo the uhaul peeps

Kurt Nose Best said...

you can't el whammo when youre writing about a curse... the universe will implode. also, the previous el whammo on the d-rays carried over because we're still playing the rays.