With Week 17 in the NFL in the books, the regular season has come to a close; and with that, many more WTF moments occurred!

To truly appreciate the Week 17 games, you must first understand that teams heading into the playoffs will often “sit” their starters. Sometimes the starters play a series or two, in other cases, they may be listed as “inactive” for the game (and get a day off.)

Teams do this to rest their star players for the playoffs, which also gives backups, those guys who come off the bench, a chance to show how they can help their team… or it’s a job interview for their next team, if that player is entering free agency (or the subject of a potential trade in the offseason).

Fantasy vs. Reality

With many stars sitting in Week 17, there were as many WTF moments for fantasy football as there were for “real” football!

Example fantasy WTF: Steelers backup quarterback Landry Jones got me 28 points! (Woah.)

Anyone who picked him up (like 1% of players) probably said that!

WTF in Dallas

Tony Romo is another “backup” in the sense he lost his starting job to Dak Prescott, following Romo’s injury in the preseason. Romo could be headed to Chicago, New York or maybe even Los Angeles, and was also kept fresh following his perfect 70+ yard drive down the field for a TD.

However, the best WTF from the Dallas game wasn’t Romo. No, after Tony “did his thing” after one series, he too took a seat, allowing Dallas’ third string QB Mark Sanchez to take the field.

The WTF isn’t that Romo played one series, rather, Sanchez enters the game and throws not one, but two interceptions on only five pass attempts! (Only one of those five were actually caught by one of his players!)

Typical WTF moment from Sanchez.

Coaching vacancies

We had plenty of coaches fired leading into or following the Week 17 slate of games. Teams currently without a head coach include the Bills, Chargers, Rams, Forty Niners and Jaguars.

Gary Kubiak retired from the Denver Broncos, leaving GM John Elway in pursuit of a new coach in the Mile High City.

The real WTF is my local sports radio: California is my neck of the woods and we have three teams in the state without a head coach (LA, SD, SF) and one team without two of the quarterbacks (the Raiders lost Matt McGloin in addition to Derek Carr, heading into the postseason).

So if you’re a coach interviewing for a head coaching position, you may want to figure out WTF is going on in California! Don’t pack that surf board just yet.

Maybe it’s the sun, maybe it’s Hollywood, but whatever it is, it isn’t winning football games.

Good luck.

Steelers backups best the Browns

The big WTF in this game wasn’t the expected one. Landry Jones and company started out flat; they had a great 2nd half, and his own performance may have extended his NFL career. The WTF were the sacks allowed, by only rotating Maurkice Pouncey out of the starting lineup.

The offensive line had an opportunity to set a franchise record for sacks allowed, but gave up three (yes, three) sacks in the first half: two of those in each of the Steelers first two offensive series.

It looked like Landry was going to be killed out there if they didn’t wake up.

Likewise the defense was sleeping too. Despite sitting only two starters (James Harrison and Stephon Tuitt) the unit was on a coffee break, or bought into the “meaningless game” theory, and embarrassed themselves early against the Browns.

WTF?

At least they woke up as the game wore on, forcing 4 turnovers and sacking RG3 4 times as well.

Here we go… again

Nope, not the #HereWeGo that’s attached to tweets. This is a WTF dedicated to Adam “Pacman” Jones, who was once again arrested over the weekend. He was charged for a number of “brawl” incidents, which is enough to say WTF, but then he spit on someone administering a blood test upon his booking.

Now Pacman adds a “felony assault with bodily fluids” charge to the list.

WTF!

Double that WTF with the Bengals once again owning the Baltimore Ravens, beating them 27-10.

More impressive is that Vontaze Burfict went another game without a penalty, something he’s done most of the year (though a few of his escapades went unnoticed by officials).

Theft or taunting? Or both?

In Denver, Aqib Talib thought it was cool idea to yank the gold chain off of Raiders WR Michael Crabtree‘s during a break in the game.

Dude, you know there are cameras right?

Well Crabtree was the bigger person here, just giving him a look and not retaliating… but where was the flag on this? I would think this would qualify as unsportsmanlike conduct, right?

Either way, Talib made the act intentional… that’s so childish on his part. WTF?

Most polarizing player in the NFL*

Lastly, I must mention the inflammatory SI article on Ben Roethlisberger this week.

The release of the article made me pretty mad!

Alleged events that took place 7-10 years ago, have no business showing up now, right before a playoff game against the Dolphins, from a writer who is also from Miami (see the connection?). There was an apparent agenda in calling Roethlisberger the most polarizing player in the league.

Were there points about what a great quarterback Ben is?

Yes.

Were those great points overshadowed by a piece, that was obviously sitting on the shelf for awhile, and now released to smear Ben for something he “may” have or may not have done in his 20’s?

Yes.

So why now? The article itself mentions there hasn’t been even a peep of bad behavior mentioning Big Ben since those incidents.

So WTF?

He is a different man now: married, with 3 kids, a community guy, a philanthropist, and a supporter of all communities across the country with his BR Foundation K-9 police dogs.

All of his teammates call him “a great leader”, but the article had to continue attempting to make a point it never ended up making anyway. It was long, drawn out, and unnecessary.

Find another player, who by the way, is in fact polarizing to smear!

Maybe that guy in New England, who may be polarizing for others reasons… oh wait… do they ever say a bad word about him? (Not even when he was on “vacation” for the first 4 games of the season?)

Perhaps the aforementioned players in this article like Burfict or Pacman Jones? No matter where you stand politically, I think we can all agree Colin Kaepernick is far more “polarizing” in his actions this season. Colin generated discussion: “polarize” is defined as “to cause people to adopt extreme opposing positions”.

But Ben Roethlisberger? What has he done but outlast other athletes who have had run-ins with trouble, who were also mentioned in the article (such as Kobe Bryant or Ray Lewis).

SMH and WTF?!