Kyle and Quags’ Mascot Pick-Em: Your New Step-Dad Edition

Picking football games based on reality is hard! But your mom finding a new husband? That’s extremely difficult to process on an emotional level.

Lucas Quagliata

Published in

That Good You Need

6 min readDec 29, 2016

It’s the last week of the NFL season, who even cares anymore?

Anyway, when we started the Mascot Pick-Em, a good friend of ours suggested we pick games based on who would be the best step-dad. We wanted him to give the chance to write the intro to this week’s piece and give us an insight into his mind. Without further ado, here’s Brian’s editorial debut!

Brian Cunningham’s Step-Dad Pick-Em

Brian “Quags stole this idea from me.”

Thanks, Brian! And now onto this week’s picks.

49ers vs Seahawks

Quags: Pete Carroll is the step-dad that seems too good to be true. He’s energetic, he’s nice to you, and while he invites you on his weekly bike rides and morning jogs, he isn’t too pushy. You go with a few times and actually have a great time. “Boy,” you think to yourself, “Mom really found a winner. This guy is great!”

Then one evening, after a few too many Michelob Ultras, he leans in close, whispers, and asks you if you know how hot steel needs to be before it melts.

Chip Kelly, on the other hand, is a dang nerd. I’ll take Pete.

Kyle: I can tell you one thing and one thing only, any step-dad who believes that 9/11 was an inside job is a step-dad that I don’t want to have. Just imagine dinner conversation with him? 9/11…the moon landing, etc. No chance I’m picking anyone but Chip Kelly and the 49ers.

Eagles vs Cowboys

Quags: The Cowboys’ Jason Garret wasn’t a great NFL quarterback, but he was a solid backup. He was even part of two Super Bowl winning teams. In other words, hearing him talk about his life story, the glory days, he’d call them, over and over again would be nauseating.

Doug Pederson played a little in various professional football leagues, but he was never very successful. Still, he too won a Super Bowl, as part of the Green Bay Packers. This means that Pederson would also be insufferable.

The tie-breaker? Pederson also played football in Europe. Most people don’t know this about me, but I studied abroad in Europe. Doug and I would get along great.

Kyle: There’s a rumor that went around about Doug Pederson cheating on his wife with a secretary. I simply could not stand for that kind of character in a step-dad. Even though Garrett is a soulless RANGA, I’m taking the Cowboys here.

The ‘You Don’t Know Jack’ Lock of the Week: Jets vs Bills

While his time in Buffalo has come to its end, we will look back on Rex Ryan’s time in the great white north favorably. Rex, along with his brother Rob, are America’s Uncles. Now, I know this week’s columns is about #Dads (Editor’s Note: Close enough) but Uncles are kind of like Dads, but with less (fewer!) responsibilities and a greater propensity to involve you in dangerous activities. While dads may be there to guide and shape your life, uncles are there to pull you just far enough off the path to have fun and experience the more absurd aspects of growing up.

Is your uncle laughing at a joke you told? Or laughing at you tripping and falling? Or laughing because you can’t figure out how to work a manual clutch? All are possibilities!

The Ryan Brothers exude the perfect midpoint between serious business and joking around. Now, that may not have translated into consistently stellar team records, but it can’t hurt. Rex’s head coaching records may make him look like Jeff Fisher 2.0 but hot damn if he doesn’t seem like he’d be fun to play for. As someone who never seriously considered football as an enjoyable athletic endeavor I’d throw the pads on for the Ryan Brothers. Would I still maintain my stance of not playing a position that doesn’t get to handle the rock or hit people? Of course. You better not stick me at fullback, Rex, or there’s gonna be a problem. Still, I can’t look over at Rex or Rob and not be inspired to go do something great on the field while also laughing about someone farting in the huddle or something equally dumb and childish.

I imagine this is what Rob Ryan looks like when he gets to a team dinner and all the wings are gone.

Taking a massive pay cut and getting humiliated via film study every morning by Bill Belichick sounds great (Author’s Note: Actually, it sounds terrible) in exchange for a better chance to win a Super Bowl, but I’d rather do battle on the gridiron with these two behemoth brothers and then watch one win the Wing Bowl. Besides, how could any football fan worth his salt not love them after they were rendered immortal by Drew Magary.

/door flies open, “Oh! Oh! Oh, do I feel good, men!”

The Ghost of the Ryan Brothers, America’s Uncles, win, 27–13

Dolphins vs Patriots

Kyle: Imagine having Bill Belichick as your step-dad. If you ever dropped anything in the house you’d be grounded for weeks. He’s just an angry man with a terrible sense of fashion (although, to be honest, hoodies with the sleeves cut off of them are in now).

I don’t know anything about Gase, but I’m not trying to get grounded every day. Go Dolphins.

Quags: On one side of the coin here, we’ve got Adam Gase. I don’t have anything against Adam Gase, per se, but he does look a little young. I don’t think I’d be into him trying to buy me craft beer and explaining to me that he’s not that much older than me, so he understands what I’m going through.

On the other side of the coin, we’ve got this guy.

If you don’t think Bill Belichick is king of all step-dads, with the look that says he’s disappointed in you, the stupid jokes that somehow still sting and humiliate you, and the general sense of awkwardness, then I don’t know what to tell you. If Bill’s victory isn’t clear to you, then you just don’t know dads.