Jimmy Buffet Explains Football

Good Day Grover Pickers,

Jimmy Buffet died. So, this week we continue an occasional series called “How Dead Musician’s Music Explains Football”. With just a guitar and his bare feet, the Gulf Coast’s great philosopher, the Auburn drop out, the leader of the Parrot Heads, and humble billionaire, puts one week of football in perspective. Grab your favorite frozen concoction and hang on.

Chiefs v Lions

Changes in Latitudes Changes in Attitudes works for both the Super Bowl Champions and the hopeful team from Detroit that has never been to a Super Bowl (and there have be 57 of them so far!).

Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder

So I can’t look back for too long

There’s just too much to see waiting in front of me

And I know that I just can’t go wrong

Colorado v Nebraska

Colorado looks like a Maserati and everything about the idea of Lincoln, Cornhuskers and Matt Rhule screams “Rubber Speed Bump”.

Deion is HIM, as he likes to say now. Full of defiance and bluster wearing cowboy hats and a perpetual scowl that means, “I told you so”! And when it comes to Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders, he did tell us and he was underselling them!

The Commissioner has always admired Deion from the moment he showed up at FSU in a limousine because Deion always backed up the bluster. He also never carried the ‘Prime Time’ persona to professional baseball. He worked and was humble because he wasn’t the best player on that field. But football? Maybe we should never doubt Deion. As NFL Network’s Rich Eisen points out, “Deion is the only guy to win his power 5 coaching debut, be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, host Saturday Night Live, AND hit .500 in World Series.”

Deion and Colorado get two Jimmy Buffet songs.

from “Manana”

Don’t try to describe the ocean if you’ve never seen it

Don’t ever forget that you just may wind up being wrong

from “I Heard I Was In Town “

Ain’t it quite funny, word gets around

I heard I was in town

Utah v Baylor

Baylor comes off a loss to a Texas State team that was pre-season ranked 131 out of 133 FBS teams. Utah comes off a win over a team that should take that 131st spot from Texas State.

The Utes, a school we are sure USC and UCLA never liked having in the Pac 12, intend to win the final Pac 12 Conference Championship. They just might do it with any of three quarterbacks on the roster.

from “Gypsies in the Palace”

We ain’t got no money, we ain’t got no right

But we’re gypsies in the palace and we got it all tonight

James Madison v UVA

Former Grove Picker HURRICANE JACK is now the scholarship long snapper at James Madison. His dad, ALL ABOUT THE U, is still in the pool so if you ever want any inside information on the up-and-coming Dukes, he’s your guy. For this week, you don’t need to know much other than UVA does not have as many talented players as James Madison. JMU only joined FBS a season ago and has already been to the Top 25!

from “Who Gets To Live Like This”

I’m happy to inform you

That we get to live like this

Iowa V Iowa State

The Hawkeyes have a goal this year to average 25 points per game on offense. They are already behind.

Which only means ISU players will take the under.

from “Useless But Important Information”

Where am I bound, it don’t matter

Whole world’s now viewed with car-wreck fascination

If I were you, I’d just keep driving

Past all this useless and important information

Most of the Iowa State players arrested for underage gambling pleaded to a lesser charge and only face a fine. I’m sure, positive, that Iowa State is the only school in the NCAA where active players gambled on college football games.

Texas A&M v Miami

I write this every year about these teams. One of them is ‘back’. The other is not. I predict a tie.

from “It’s Midnight and I’m Not Famous Yet”

Well, it’s midnight and I’m not famous yet

Tryin’ to win it all with one more bet

Alabama v Texas

Is this a day when Quinn Ewers wins the September Heisman? Is this the day when the Arch Manning legend begins. Is this the day Texas asks the Big 12 to please take them back?

from “The World Is What You Make It” (which maybe Saban co-wrote?)

There ain’t no happy time without no pain

Heartbreak, new date, move on up the alleyway

Pick up the pieces, hit the road again, uh-huh, uh-huh

The world is what you make it

The world is what you make it, baby

Arizona AT Starkvegas

Auburn AT Cal Berkley

Nothing about either of these games is NOT odd.

From the duet with Alan Jackson, “It’s Five O’clock Somewhere”

What time zone am I on? What country am I in?

Buccaneers v Vikings

Just months before his passing, Jimmy Buffet renamed his classic “A Pirate Looks at 40” to

“Ode to Tom Brady”.

Yes, I am a pirate two hundred years too late

Cannons don’t thunder there’s nothin’ to plunder

I’m an over forty victim of fate

Never meant to last. Never meant to last.

I have been drunk now for over two weeks

Passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks

But I’ve got to stop wishin’, got to go fishin’

I’m down to rock bottom again

Just a few friends. Just a few friends.

Commanders v Cardinals

I repeat from last week… Can anyone identify the head coach or quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals?

How much will the loss of Dan Snyder help the Commanders? And who is the worst NFL owner now that Snyder is out on a yacht somewhere spending $6 Billion?

from “Cowboy in the Jungle”

We’ve gotta roll with the punches, learn to play all of our hunches

Makin’ the best of whatever comes your way

Forget that blind ambition and learn to trust your intuition

Plowin’ straight ahead, come what may

Chargers v Dolphins

The Jimmy Buffet Bowl! Two coastal cities and one had a stadium named after’s Jimmy’s beer, Landshark. The Chargers remain unforgiven by The Commissioner for their 1981 playoff win against the Dolphins. It was rude and uncalled for. If I had been older than 12, the next morning I may have felt like this….

from “My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don’t Love Jesus” (feat. Oak Ridge Boys)

And now my head hurts, my feet stink, and I don’t love Jesus

(Oh my Lordy)

It’s that kind of morning, really was that kind of night

Tryin’ to tell myself that my condition is improvin’

And if I don’t die by Thursday, I’ll be roarin’ Friday night

Cowboys v Giants

One team is talented. The other team is well coached. So this is a clash of the famous, overhyped and average.

It feels like Jimmy wrote a song specifically about Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones…

from “A Lot To Drink About”

Got a lot to drink, a lot to think, a lot to drink about

God bless America

Bills v Jets

The NY Jets, in The Commissioner’s humble opinion, are a bunch of toad lickin’, tofu snortin’, egg suckin’, Taylor Swift hatin’, yellow bellied, telemarket callin’, garbage pickin’, pineapple-on-pizza eatin’, dimwitted anti-Santa ninny muggins’.

From “Breathe In, Breathe Out , Move On”

Don’t try to shake it, just bow your head

Breathe in, breathe out, move on

Panthers v Falcons

I know the Falcons have a spotty history, but so do the Panthers and here is an incredible fact, courtesy of ESPN’s Bill Barnwell.

Patriots getting the picks from the Panthers when they moved up to draft Matt Corral and getting Corral without the Panthers ever giving him a single snap is a sneaky incredible trade”

From “The Great Filling Station Holdup”

We were sittin’ in the Krystal

About as drunk as we could be

In walked the deputy sheriff

He was holding our TV

He roughed us, then he cuffed us

And he took us off to jail

No picture on a poster, no reward, and no bail

Sail on, Grove Pickers, and Happy Picking,

The Commissioner