Some people are fans of the Tennessee Titans. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Tennessee Titans. This 2009 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group.

1. The whole Kige Ramsey thing is old now. Yeah, yeah, I get it. He's retarded. He makes hand gestures. He's very literal. Hilarious. I've had enough just about enough of the whole "Kige Ramsey is so dumb, he's brilliant!" thing. He's but one symptom of the wave of supposed unintentional comedy currently pervading the American landscape. We're so busy laughing at shit that isn't funny that it's affecting our overall funniness as a culture. Know why some people think Dane Cook is funny? Because they're too busy laughing at an episode of fucking "Flavor of Love" to know any better. Demand more of your fucking comedy, people.

2. No Haynesworth means Cortland Finnegan will suck. It's amazing how much a run-stuffing defensive tackle can serve to improve other players on defense. With Albert Haynesworth plugging the middle, linebackers don't have as many blockers to shed, or they can drop further back into coverage, which then eases pressure on the secondary. Every position on defense has an affect on every other position, but that defensive tackle can exert perhaps the greatest influence of all. The Titans had a lot of standout players on defense last year: Finnegan, Keith Bullock, Kyle Van den Bosch. Will they all be just as good without the big fella around this time around? Fuck and no.

3. You Tennessee folk were in on this whole slavery business. Peter King cracked the code!

4. You will never be the Volunteers. Face it: the Titans exist primarily as a way for college football fans in Tennessee to nurse a Sunday hangover. What's that? The Titans blew a #1 seed and fell to Baltimore in the divisional round? Oh well, that's too bad. HEY Y'ALL, DIDJA JUST SEE WHAT THAT THERE CRAZY COOT LANE KIFFIN JUST DID?! HE TWEETED A RECROOOOT! I'D FUCK HIS WIFE TILL HER HEAD FELL OFF!

5. When Kerry Collins is your QB, one of two things can happen. One: he'll play serviceable but unspectacular football for the season, then fail to deliver in the playoffs, when you actually need to be able to pass the ball in important moments. Two: he'll start drinkin' toilet cleaner again, then he'll whip out the sambo dolls and stage a little Mantan puppet show in the locker room. Either way, while the Titans claim to be happy with their quarterbacks, the fact is that their fate lies in the hands of a thoroughly average journeyman, backed up by a limp-armed head case with a shit attitude.

And that's the Titans for you. Always good. But always a yard or two shy of being good enough to give a shit about.

Wanna be part of the Deadspin NFL previews? It's simple. Just email me here and give me some reasons why the team you hate most sucks. If it's because you dated a fan of the team and she turned out to be some crazy bitch who keyed your car, all the better.

Since we're not publishing tomorrow, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish "YouTube Sports" phenom and former SHOTY/DHOF nominee Kige Ramsey a happy 23rd birthday. Yes — Kige Ramsey was born on Christmas day. It all makes sense now, doesn't it?

Go Titans.

Actually most English-speaking nations deemed it just short of brilliant, but you can see the evidence below and judge for yourself. An excerpt:

4:04
What was up with that call
4:09
Long pass by Tebow
4:12
FG Florida tied game
4:14
USC 7 UCLA 7
4:16
[Comment From UMeyer]
Kige, who's got your vote for Deadspin SHOTY?
4:20
Vince Young
4:26
Florida in the redzone
4:27
TD Florida

Kige Ramsey live blogging: superb.

Update: Kige informs me that he has a live chat every Tuesday at 2 p.m. CT on that site.

Behind The Scenes Of The Kige Ramsey Show [Official Site]

According to his Ebay listing as a potential pitchman for a college bowl sponsor, the buyer will get mention in all of Kige's upcoming video posts including:

• Announcement of joint venture
• History of bowl game
• History of bowl sponsor
• Analysis of potential teams in position to play in your bowl
• A Youtube introduction of teams after formal NCAA announcement
• Seasonal analysis of participants
• Game prediction
• Game recap

Admirably, 10% off the sales price will go directly to the Wayne Fusaro Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund. Unfortunately the auction doesn't include a personal appearance by Kige.

And as if that's not enough, Kige is throwing in two tickets to a Red Sox game next season. I'm not sure if that's a deal maker or breaker though. There are currently no bids, but interested parties can "buy it now" for $2,009. I'd say that's a bargain. Plus, you get free shipping.

Thanks to flubby for the photoshop.

I've been thinking about this and I think it's a good rule of thumb: One should always take relationship advice from people who record themselves from their parents' basement. A Deadspin reader actually dug out this report from the intrepid Kige Ramsey, in which he takes a break from relentless sports reporting to dispense some valuable tips for the lovelorn.

It's hard to determine which nuggets are more valuable here: What to do on a first date, or how to keep a marriage fresh. It's all enough to put Dr. Phil completely out of business.

"This Is Kige Ramsey For YouTube Relationships" [YouTube]

We're less than two weeks away from the start of the NFL season, so it's time to start the impassioned season previews from various writers, bloggers, diehard fans, cooks, TV personalities, and numerous other walks of life whom consider football the only sport worth watching.

Today: The Tennessee Titans. Your video author is...Kige Ramsey.

For the past two years, I've brought the Tennessee Titans preview to Deadspin. But this year I decided it was time to pass the baton to a worthier Titans fan, the one and only Kige Ramsey. Initially Kige was reluctant to do a single team preview, "I've already done the AFC South," he said, "and I'm not sure I've got the time." But eventually he came around. So, after the jump, Kige breaks down the Titans. As a quick preview, "Touchdowns are important." Truer words were never spoke.

On June 20, I traveled to the headquarters of "YouTube Sports" to sit down for an interview with Kige Ramsey. It was a three-part interview because Kige has difficulty loading clips of more than three minutes. At the time I planned on running my own interview and story about Kige with CBS. But then I left the ClayNation column and moved over to Deadspin. Meaning the video interview existed in this internet netherworld — inexplicable yet clearly existing. Like Kige himself.

Since the interview was posted people have been emailing wanting to know the story behind the interview. What Kige was really like? How this came to be? Now, here it is.

About two weeks prior to June 20 I received a cryptic email message from youtube sports reporter Kige Ramsey asking whether I’d like to be interviewed by him. We exchanged emails. I assumed that maybe he was coming to Nashville to report from Titans training camp again. Kige disabused me of this notion rapidly. Informing me that he couldn’t come to Nashville but he wanted me to drive to Russellville, Kentucky and be interviewed at his parent’s house.

I decided this made perfect sense.

So on the afternoon of June 20, I drove 60 miles north to Russellville. Kige had given me the address to his house but I’d forgotten the printed directions. So I got twisted around fairly soon after arriving in Russellville. Making circle after circle through the small Southern town of 7,000—the Logan County seat—that Kige Ramsey calls home. Eventually, I found his street. I couldn’t decipher exactly which house was his because none of the houses had numbers on them, but I parked and walked to the front door of a small home that appeared to have a Kentucky Wildcats mailbox in the front yard. Surprisingly there were no large satellites to denote the headquarters of youtube sports.

I knocked for about five minutes. I’d wait a few minutes and then knock again. Nothing. Kige and I had made an appointment with one another and still…nothing. I looked down at my blackberry to confirm that the address was correct. Only my blackberry was no longer working. Not one bit of signal. At this point, I started to get a bit nervous. Primarily because walking around a rural Southerner’s house is always dangerous. There are guns and there are dogs 100% of the time. Don’t believe me? I’ve been bitten by a dog and I’ve been shot at while rolling a cheerleader’s house.

But I make the decision that perhaps the back door is the primary entrance. So I walk around a well-kept with brown shutters, the grass is trimmed short, there’s the welcoming hum of a window air-conditioning unit. And I stand knocking on the door in the backyard.

I scan the windows expecting at any moment to see the owlish eyes of Kige peering out over the windowsill at me, the internet’s own Boo Radley come to life. After a couple of minutes the doorknob rattles—I’m hoping I don’t see a gun barrel— and a woman opens the door. She stands, shyly, inside the dim expanse of the doorway. At first I think she’s very young, then, she steps closer to me, out of the dimness, and I see that she’s retarded. She smiles at me and opens her mouth. An older woman steps in front of her then. My heart is hammering.

“What did I tell you about opening this door for strangers?” she asks.

Then she turns her attention to me. “I’m looking for Kige,” I say.

“Kige who?” she asks.

“Kige Ramsey,” I say, “of youtube sports.”

“The what tube?”

“The Ramsey’s.”

“Oh, the Ramsey’s?” She places her hands on her hips and looks closely at me. “They’re on the other side of the street.”

I leave then. Get in my car and floor it across the highway to a decent-sized white house with a large oak tree in the front yard. The front door is a bit ajar—there’s a screen door closed in front of it—and I can see the flickering lights of a television through the front window. I climb out of the car and walk slowly across the front yard. Up the steps, then push the doorbell. Moments later, I’m greeted by a giant.

Kige is a mountain of a man. And that’s no exaggeration. I’m 6 foot 180 pounds and he towers above me.He's easily 6'5 and about 250 pounds. His bulk is disguised by the camera. Primarily because there is never anyone else to judge him against. His glasses are a bit askew, he’s wearing white socks up to mid-calf, a Western Kentucky Hilltoppers T-shirt, and shorts. And he’s looking down at me from one step higher. I’m overwhelmed. For a moment I know what Bob Costas’s entire life has been like. Kige is larger than life.

“Well…hey,” Kige says to me ponderously.

He opens the door and I follow him inside. There are no lights on aside from the television —a fifty inch big screen that is playing Sportscenter.

“I have to stay on top of the news,” Kige says, gesturing to the screen. “My mom and dad are gone.” Baseball highlights are playing and Kige sits back down on the couch. After a short while I sit down beside him. Neither of us is speaking. We watch Sportscenter for about five minutes before I ask when we’re planning on doing the interview.

“Well, you ready?” Kige asks. “Let’s go to the studio.”

The "studio" is in a small alcove off to the side of the television room. Kige opens the door and steps through first.

“Lots of people don’t believe I do this from the first floor,” he says, grinning at me.

Kige has a practiced air of conversation. He often makes statements and then waits for you to respond. Like now. We stare at each other. Staring...staring...staring...

“Cool,” I say.

Having attained his response, Kige pushes his glasses up on to his nose and leads us inside the studio.

As we enter the wood-paneled alcove Kige’s Wall of Honor is on the right side. Scrawled there, in pen, are several athletes names, their numbers, and their positions. A few feet further along the wall Kige has posted the Democratic and Republic presidential nominees. He has their names written at the top of the page and nothing else beneath them.

There’s a small scuffle from near his brown card table. Kige is flipping through his books but can’t seem to locate Dixieland Delight. “I know I’ve got it here somewhere,” he says. On the wall directly in front of me are three pictures: UK coach Billy Gillispie, Western Kentucky’s new basketball coach, Ken McDonald, and Abraham Lincoln. To the far right is a weight bench —a large purple ball that’s used for abdominal exercise rests on top. Above that is a milk mustache Jeff Gordon poster.

Kige is setting up the camera in front of us. The small, gray camera easily fits inside one of his massive palms. He sets it up, Kige turns on the klieg lights (in this case a large white one from Wal-Mart) and I enter from stage left after Kige’s introduction. We talk for about four minutes. Topics include: Jim Rome, SEC football, and Kige’s opinion of sideline reporters. Kige hates them. “They don’t do anything,” he explains. I ask whether he would be interested in doing sideline reporting. “I don’t want to be typecast,” he says.

The first segment goes well and eventually Kige lumbers out of his seat and crosses the four foot distance that separates us from the wood paneled wall. “Uh oh,” he says, “the camera cut you out of the shot. All we’ve got is your voice. We’re going to have to do this in the living room.”

I ask for a mug to drink from so we can make sure and do the interview right. Kige leads me to the kitchen and selects a black cup with Asian script on the side. “This is a good one,” he says.

Back out in his parent’s den, Kige is struggling to move his brown card table from the studio alcove to the den. At long last he manages to succeed. “There,” he says. We do the interviews. That evening, when I watch them, I’ll note that Kige has a better video presence than I do. The camera loves Kige.

After we finish the three-part interviews (this time I’m in the frame) Kige wants to give me a tour of Russellville. I tell him I don’t have time but that we can go grab some lunch. It’s his choice. “Take me somewhere good,” I say.

Kige nods. We both go outside and I follow him into the road — thinking that we’re headed to a meat and three on the town square — a good southern restaurant. He’s driving his mom’s blue Chrysler LeBaron. We drive for about five minutes and Kige puts on his left turn signal.

He’s pulling into Taco Bell.

At the last moment though, he swerves the steering wheel and pulls in next door to the Taco Bell. At Captain D’s. We park and he bounds over to my car. I climb out. “I almost went to Taco Bell,” he says, “but I knew Captain D’s would be much better.”

Inside at Captain D’s Kige orders a fish and chicken meal. I opt for chicken. It’s my treat. As we stand waiting for our food Kige says, “Do people recognize you out and stuff?” “Some times,” I say. Kige nods ponderously. “Not much for me,” he says.

At that exact moment a woman leaving Captain D’s calls to us. “Hey there, Kige,” she says, “how’s your daddy and momma doing?”

Kige answers and they leave after waving at one another. There are only a few people in the Captain D’s with us. “She doesn’t watch the show,” he says.

We head to our seats and continue eating. Kige talks about how he’s posted over 240 videos and how much work that’s been. He’s not sure exactly what comes next and he’s gaining critics of late. This is Kige in winter, even though it’s summer at Captain D’s.

“You know,” he says, without prompting, “people are starting to accuse me of selling out because I have sponsors and stuff now. But what do they know? I’ve got to make a living, right?”

I offer him my hushpuppies and he takes them. Shovels one in his mouth. Whole. Kige talks about how his list of sources is growing, particularly in regards to Western Kentucky basketball. Even still he’s unsure what the future holds. We pause in contemplative silence. Eventually Kige Ramsey breaks the silence. “But, you know I almost made the Deadspin Hall of Fame last year. That's an awesome site.”

In case you didn't remember the campaign video:

By now, I certainly hope you've seen all the videos. I still love that the shows have a full production staff. They're so good that you don't even notice all the CGI.

But is he a Hall of Famer? Seventy five percent is the threshold for induction. Vote below: Polls will be open until next Monday afternoon. Vote as if tomorrow does not exist.

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You've all been wondering, waiting, dreaming about what Kige thinks of the upcoming slate of SEC football teams. Well, rest easy my friends, the day you've been dreaming of has now arrived.

Had you ever before been able to imagine what havoc 12 SEC helmets can wreak when they're handled by a giant? Or had you doubted whether Kige had truly mastered the dramatic pause? Doubt no more.

Most frighteningly, as The Serious Tip points out, their collective voices sounds like ... well, an old friend.

We haven't checked in on Kige in a while, and heavens, the guy appears to be doing well. How do we know? Because someone's auctioning off an appearance in one of his videos for $4,000.

It is my sincere belief that 10 years from now Mr. Ramsey will be considered a pioneer in the field of developing web concepts and their successful marketing to a global audience. Think along the lines of the spokesman a national sandwich company uses in their commercials.



The buyer of this item will receive the following:

1. Dinner with Kige Ramsey. This will take place at a mutually agreeable time in Mr. Ramsey's hometown of Russellville, Kentucky. (There will be another meeting option to follow). Feel free to pick his brain on sports or entrepreunerial ideas.

2. You will get to appear with Mr. Ramsey in one of his widely-viewed tapings to be broadcast over the internet on Youtube to talk about this auction. Feel free to remain relatively anonymous or step right up to the camera with your company apparel and get global publicity and exposure for you or your organization. The value of this opportunity far exceeds the cost of this auction.

The $4,000 goes to the Jimmy Fund, so it's for a great cause. Therefore, we remain flabbergasted that there have been no bids so far. You have until March 26.

Dinner, Video Shoot With Internet Sensation Kige Ramsey [eBay]

Isiah's heroic rise from a No. 8 seed was inspiring to anyone whose heart is not cold, withered and dead. He joins the late, great Barbaro as SHOTY winners. Hopefully Isiah survives the title.

Also, a great run for Kige Ramsey, who finished as the runner-up. There's always next year, Kige.

Thanks everyone for voting.

(Graphic by the moonwalking Jim Cooke.)

Voting is open until Thursday night. So you have plenty of time to mull. Our honored finalists.

No. 2 Seed Kige Ramsey
Carried around every book he ever owned in a belt.
Visited Wal-Mart.
Actively did some campaigning.
Expanded his commercial techniques.
Enjoyed Halloween.

No. 8 Seed Isiah Thomas
Don't give a shit about these white people, bitch.
Understands what black people can say, and what white people can't.
Explained sexual harassment to James Dolan.
Got gotten by the bitches.
Successful avoided Stephon Marbury's "dirt."

The vote is in your hands.

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He has a comfortable lead in the semifinals. But he is taking no chances. We just hope he understands the arcane, archaic caucus rules.

SHOTY Final Four: Kige Ramsey Vs. Pac Man Jones [Deadspin]

Again, a matchup of polar opposite human beings. But, in that Tennessee Titans way, they are teammates. Voting is open for about a week, and we'll occasionally remind.

No. 2 Seed Kige Ramsey
Carried around every book he ever owned in a belt.
Visited Wal-Mart.
Actively did some campaigning.
Expanded his commercial techniques.
Enjoyed Halloween.

No. 3 Seed Pac Man Jones
Introduced the phrase "Make It Rain" to a nation of grateful white people.
Scared his family.
Missed out on watching Vince Young play quarterback this season.
Didn't rassle, darnit.

Get on there and vote, folks.

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Should be a fun one.

No. 2 Seed Kige Ramsey
Carried around every book he ever owned in a belt.
Visited Wal-Mart.
Actively did some campaigning.
Expanded his commercial techniques.
Enjoyed Halloween.

No. 7 Seed: Brady Quinn
Sat in a crowded room, then left.
Grabbed some underage crotch.
Went all dance party marathon on us.
Rocked out.

So, who's on the way to Final Four?

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