Oh, Ryan. Poor Ryan. My poor, sweet, handsome Kiehl's-loving boy. This tailgate was a challenge you should not have failed. I don't even know what so say about your performance last night. Actually, scratch that. Who am I kidding? I do have a few thoughts. The first one is, even if you don't watch football you've gotta at least know that people who do are people who like burgers and dogs and ribs and fries and hearty, beer-friendly chow. I mean, even if you exfoliate and get manicures, you've gotta at least try to get into the mindset of your customer -- one who, quite frankly, does not crave panzanella, bone-in chicken, and poached pears. Part of your job as a chef is not to cook what you want to cook, but to cook for your customer. You can make panzanella and spa chicken on your own time while you press your Prada pants, but when your Elimination Challenge is football food, you've got to think outside the poaching pan and get into the grill, get into the grease, and give those Bears fans something smoky and juicy and also at least marginally bad for you. Oh, Ryan. I was sad to see you go.

My favorite part of the Elimination Challenge was when Tom approached him while prepping and asked him why he was making grilled chicken and poached pears for dessert for the tailgate. "I wanted to do something simple and clean so you won't feel too stuffed and get comatose," he said. "Instead of something heavy I'd thought I'd do something light and fresh." Come on, man! Light and fresh? We're not at Canyon Ranch on a detox mission, we're at Soldier Field at a tailgate! I found Ryan's lack of understanding of his mission to be a bit frustrating. It just didn't seem like a hard challenge to get.

In any case, I will say that despite Ryan's lack of judgment last night, I still do not think he should've gone home. I was betting that Nikki would be packing her knives and going for serving store-bought sausage in store-bought rolls. All she actually cooked was the peppers and onions (that she didn't even save for the judges) and she doesn't get tossed off? I'm sorry, I thought that was the wrong call in terms of skill. But I guess in terms of following the instructions of the challenge, which were to cook for a tailgate, the judges did have a point in kicking Ryan out. But still, I felt Nikki's effort was so poor that she deserved the boot more than Ryan.Although Mark came pretty close to being sent home too for his messy station, I did admire his decision to use a real charcoal grill. He also is given the illustrious honor of the Quote of the Show award for this gem: "I'm the only one with the testicular fortitude to cook on a real charcoal grill." Testicular fortitude, indeed. But next time though, I think Tom might want you to find the testicular fortitude to keep your station clean and strain your chowder, alright mate?