I Dislike Your Favorite Team

For those of you not in "the know", the Buddy Cop Quotient is simple enough. Figuring that many a NFL backfield resemble a Buddy Cop movie--mismatched partners (because of mindset, race, and/or age) that somehow make it all work. There are two key factors at play:

1. The previously mentioned mismatchedness (totally a word) of the backfield tandem.

2. How enjoyable they will be to watch. Consider: Cedric Benson and Carson Palmer might be mismatched without much in common (except injury history), but how entertaining are they going to be watch? That's Bucket List levels of boring, folks. We want fun and exciting!

These tandems suggest, on paper, at least, a wacky buddy movie with a couple of mismatched buddies, who may just save the day! Let's review the Top Five.

#5 Cleveland Browns: Good Lord, Jamal Lewis is too old for shit. He's like Lennie Briscoe out there. He's going to die on the job, if someone doesn't replace him in a hurry. Brady Quinn is the young good-looking buddy that Jamal can't bring himself to trust, because he's such a young punk, with his good looks, and healthy knees. But when Jamal does die on the field, and Brady Quinn cradles his head, looks up at the NFL camera suspended in the rigging and yells, "MENDOZA!", there will not be a dry eye in the house. Up until that point, though--a pretty shitty movie. 1 out of 5 stars.

#4 New York Jets: Thomas Jones is too old for this shit. Mark Sanchez is just getting in there. And what an exciting wrinkle the agents could pitch for this Buddy Cop movie--"It's 100% ethnic! No white cop at all!" Los Angeles movers and shakers will doubt at first, but warm up as they think about the truckloads of cash that the "Bad Boys" franchise (with another on the way, maybe). And then they will see Thomas Jones, plodding along, and Mark Sanchez dumping passes off to Dustin Keller over and over again, and they will say, "Effective, maybe. Boring, definitely. Pass." 2.5 out of 5 stars.

#3 Arizona Cardinals--We definitely have 1/2 of a Buddy Cop movie here--Kurt Warner is without a doubt too old for shit, and yet, just like Danny Glover, is more than capable when it comes to job performance. But who is the young gun? Tim Hightower? Just because there was a Hightower in Police Academy, which still stands as one of Bubba Smith's finest moments in cinema? Or does Beanie Wells get the nod, because of his ridiculous nickname? Tough call. And I'd be remiss if I didn't point out how the Buddy Cop Quotient reflects changes in the NFL. Way back in 2007, I celebrated the Cardinals for the exact inverse of their current situation--they had a young gun at QB, and a Running Back who was too old for this shit. 2009's version is all about the Old Guy Who Is Too Old For This Shit, and his totally awesome WR buddies who aren't in the backfield. As a Buddy Cop movie, this team needs a serious rewrite. 3 out of 5 stars.

#2 Washington Drunken Savages--Jason Campbell, a youngish guy, who has struggled in his job in the past, and is looking to redeem himself. His partner? A nutty, older guy with a penchant for costumes, practical jokes, outlandish behavior. Sure, Clinton Portis is unorthodox, but HE GETS RESULTS. Can the nutty Portis teach life lessons to the uptight Campbell? That's a buddy cop movie, people. It also has the potential to sneak into another genre--The Manic Pixie Dream Girl, as coined by the AV Club's Nathan Rabin. Consider that Portis fulfills 3/4ths of that description, and has a 50/50 chance of actually wearing little pixie wings at some point this season. Rating: 3 out of 5 stars. If Portis dons wings, 4 out of 5 stars. Do it, Clinton!

#1 The Minnesota Vikings--Was there any doubt on this? There could not be a better buddy cop scenario, and yet this is one not actually plumbed yet by Hollywood. Consider, your old white guy is the nutty, unbalanced one. In The Template (aka, Lethal Weapon), the crazy white guy is the younger of the two, and the solid by the numbers cop is the old black guy. This reverses that totally! Adrian Peterson is a Young Black Guy who is the aggressive, but fairly normal member of the duo. He knows how to get shit done, but he doesn't do anything too crazy. His backfield partner, the Experienced, Grizzled White Guy is the one who is totally nuts, and prone to doing things that fuck the team over. Adrian Peterson may already too old for the shit that his crazy ass Wrangler wearin' partner is getting him into, but AP will get them out of it. There has been no movie quite like this--I've been searching in my database of Buddy Cop movies*, and the closest I have come up with is this admittedly tortured formula: 48 Hours (young Nick Nolte and Brett Favre are the same guy on a different time continuum) - Eddie Murphy's character + Will Smith's character in Six Degrees of Separation, if he actually were the son of Sidney Poitier. Will I watch it? Fuck yes. 5 out of 5 stars.

Let me know if you feel like a missed an obvious tandem. I will evaluate accordingly. Until then, the balcony is closed. Closed like a motherfucker!

*my database is my own fuzzy memory.