Gross Football Lunch – 2025-26 Conference Championships

Recipe of the Week: Sosuke Sandwich

Method & Analysis:

Rob?

Yes, other Rob?

What the fuck is this?

…What do you mean?

This recipe that you are trying to pass off as new, and worth publishing for all to see. This is just a ham sandwich.

It’s a Sosuke sandwich!

Call it what you want, but it is clearly nothing more than a bog-standard ham sandwich. You have already written and published a recipe for a ham sandwich. That is to say nothing of all the recipes you’ve published that may as well be recipes for ham sandwiches. A tuna melt is basically a ham sandwich. Your nasty-ass namesake sandwich may be made with beef, but spiritually it’s a ham sandwich and we all know it. An Italian sub is nothing if not a gussied up ham sandwich. Hell, if someone were to come up to us and declare that nachos are also a ham sandwich, neither of us would have any recourse except to mumble something under our breath while staring at our shoes about how nachos are nachos and not a ham sandwich, then stumble away feeling like assholes knowing that we do not have any metaphysical or epistemic counterarguments to the assertion that nachos are a ham sandwich, and feeling like complete shitheads for the rest of the day, if not the week, as well as any time in the next few years that this whole incident goes all intrusive thought mode on our asses.

Yeah but uh…uh…this one is for kids!

Explain how!

So the kids have been watching the movie Ponyo a lot recently, and the main character in Ponyo is a kid named Sosuke, and he befriends a magical goldfish who can turn into a little girl and also loves ham, and they have these sandwiches, and

Oh my god I don’t care about how you’re raising your kids to be weebs, answer the question.

Shut up! It’s a good movie, and you’d like it! Tina Fey is in it! So is Liam Neeson! It’s charming, dammit! Also, I’m explaining how the sandwiches are for kids, like you asked me to, asshole!

Okay, well then get to the point already.

First you have to promise you’ll stop being such an aggrieved nutsack about it.

Ugh…

Promise!

Okay, I promise.

Promise what?

Ugh you fucking…fine. I promise I’ll stop being such an aggrieved nutsack about your bullshit sandwich recipe.

Good enough, thank you. Was that so difficult? Anyway, the kids liked the idea of ‘Sosuke sandwiches’ so much that we started making them for their school lunches to great success, and since it’s been several weeks since I even posted a recipe in this space and because the wife was out of town most of the week on a work trip and everything is scary and exhausting and there’s not time for anything anymore, let alone development and testing of new and better sandwiches, and because I haven’t developed any new recipes that are sufficiently original to call my own in, well, a couple years or so, I decided now was as good a time as any to publish the easiest recipe I could think of so that all of the other Other Robs stopped giving me bullshit about how I haven’t published any new recipes lately, even though publishing recipes with every column is the stated purpose of these columns.

Thanks man, I love it when you use me as your Imposter Syndrome Therapist/Punching Bag.

You’re welcome.

…

…

…So how do you make the sandwich?

I’m ever so glad you asked! First, grab two slices of whatever bread is available, and spread each side with a thin layer of yellow mustard.

Do kids eat yellow mustard?

Some do and some don’t.

Well won’t the kids who don’t eat yellow mustard complain about it?

Yes, and while that is disappointing and demoralizing in the short term, in the medium term it will no doubt prove to be useful information for determining which child gets the last spot in the life raft when the rising flood waters of imminent ecological catastrophe come to claim us all.

Jesus Christ dude, are you okay?

Are you? Because if you are okay these days, you’re either ignorant, psychotic, or both.

Fair point. Continue.

Once your mustard is on the bread, place a slice or two of ham, followed by a slice of whatever cheese you like (while noting that Muenster cheese is particularly excellent in this sandwich configuration), followed by a polite layer of lettuce or arugula or spring mix or whatever. Place the other slice of bread on top, cut in half, and serve/place each half in each preschool lunchbox.

That’s it?

That’s it.

Oh, well uh, neat. So…

…Yes, Other Rob?

Can I try it?

Of course. You take this half, and I will take the other half.

Thank you. [munch munch munch] Oh hey, this isn’t bad at all.

I know, right? It’s almost like ham sandwiches are easy to make, nearly impossible to screw up, yet delicious and satisfying despite those facts.

Quite.

So will you stop talking shit about ham sandwiches?

Yes.

And you’ll assent to the publication of this particular ham sandwich recipe without giving me any more guff about it?

Certainly.

Good. Dig in!

...I already did?

Shut up!

Conference Championship Picks

My picks for each game are given in bold.

New England Patriots vs. Denver Broncos

To be bold is to risk failure, and the thing with risking failure is that it can often result in failure. Only one of my double-digit playoff picks remains in the field. My game picks have gone about as poorly. Any chance of a conventionally successful playoff pool or playoff picks record has long since evaporated and, to make matters worse, I have done just well enough that I can’t tank the final three games on purpose in order to produce a comical or otherwise memorably terrible final pool score, pool differential, or picks percentage.

In other words, I cannot commit to the bit because there is no bit to commit to. I really, truly believed that the Texans were dead-serious Super Bowl contenders and the Bills were the second-most dangerous team in the AFC and the Eagles would un-fuck their offense through some combination of playoff experience and roster talent. Gee, when it’s written down like that, I may as well have believed the Eagles would un-fuck their offense due to their status as The Chosen of Pazuzu or whatever.

My point is, my playoffs are going badly because I clung to beliefs about the teams and the very nature of playoff football itself that were either demonstrably false, not important, or, in far too many cases, entirely fabricated from my own after dark visitations to the Mind Palace, where the Doom Serpent of Primordial Ball Chaos appears to psychically embed cryptic but obviously threatening prophecies into the deepest recesses of my YoutTube essay and video game damaged brain.

This brings me to the New England Patriots. The Patriots benefited from a comically easy regular season schedule and, having heard about their schedule time and time again as they rattled off win after win after win, I internalized these musings as a cause to believe that the other shoe was bound to drop at some point. I held onto this belief all the way until last Sunday’s game, when this band of upstarts who never went the fuck away in the first place knocked out my chosen Super Bowl Champion. If I continue to write off 14 wins and a trip to the AFC Championship game due to low strength of schedule, all I’m doing is writing off 14 wins and a trip to the AFC Championship game. Past is prologue, but it’s also in the past, you know what I’m saying?

However! As a result of Bo Nix’s season-ending ankle injury, it has become quite fashionable to pencil in the Patriots for an easy victory on Sunday, and I must warn you that this thought process is a trap. As tempted as I am to submit to what my underestimation of the Patriots hath wrought, I cannot do it. Starting with the obvious, yes, something called a Jarrett Stidham is starting for the Broncos, but there is no coach more competent to the task of getting something out of a backup QB than Sean Payton. The Broncos will be prepared for this game, and they will be prepared to do everything they possibly can to win this game. They also have a great offensive line, whereas both of the Patriots’ previous two opponents couldn’t put together an adequate one if you combined their rosters. Does this guarantee a Broncos’ victory? No, not at all. But an upset is a frighteningly real possibility, and I refuse to go out a coward.

Los Angeles Rams vs. Seattle Seahawks

With that said, I am having trouble justifying this pick in terms that do not reduce to “But Sam Darnold.” The case for Seahawks skepticism has been rooted in Darnold skepticism for the entirety of the season, and I spent the entire season waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then, in their first game against the Rams, it did. Darnold threw four interceptions to go with zero touchdowns, the Seahawks lost, the Rams took the division lead, and I saw no reason to think the Rams would ever consider giving it back.

And then, the funniest thing happened. Darnold continued to play not all that well – check these season splits, and any way you slice it, he fell off in the second half of the season – and it didn’t matter. The Seahawks have not lost since that very game against the Rams in November, which was an eternity ago in this chaotic season. Hell, the last time the Seahawks lost, I thought the Rams were going to cruise to a division title! Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Even against a 49ers team with a season casualty list to rival the Battle of Shiloh, the Seahawks’ skull-melting performance was a real eye opener. As with the Patriots’ game that awaited the next day, for the first time it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, the Seahawks excellent record might be the mark of an excellent football team. Almost nothing this season has played out the way I expected. Only one of the Big 4 AFC quarterbacks even made the playoffs in the first place. The Bears won a playoff game. The Panthers won their division. And the Rams faded down the stretch to the Seahawks, because the Seahawks were the better football team down the stretch and have the receipts to prove it.

Yet I still cling for dear life onto the shattered fragments of my priors, until the very bitter end. There are three ways this game can play out. Either the Seahawks win a close one, the Rams win a close one, or the Seahawks nuke the Rams from orbit; I do not believe the Rams doing so is possible. Hell, they barely won a game where Sam Darnold threw four interceptions. But the Rams have the better quarterback, and you can’t say the Rams cannot beat the Seahawks. We all saw them do it.

This game is going to kick serious ass. Expect to be violently ill and hanging on every snap by the time the fourth quarter comes around, even if you’re a neutral observer. I do not know who is going to win and, quite frankly, anyone who claims to is lying to your face. Can’t wait.