Oh yes, that guy

As far as power hitters on our city tours go, the Soldier Field stop is pretty much the crown jewel of the South Loop. Regardless of the tour group (either locals or out of towners visiting our fair city) the conversation always goes the same way.

Me: So, this is Soldier Field.

Guest: So this is the home of the Bears? (Out of town) / Woo! Bears! (In town)

Me: Yup.

Guest: Why the hell does it look like that? (Out of town) / Jesus, that looks like hell. (In town)

Me: Yup. It doesn't bother me much, I like what they've done with Lambeau.

Guest: Packers fan? What the hell is wrong with Brett Favre?

To be totally honest, I only have one major problem with the whole situation (aside from ESPN's constant coverage and their feeding the story until it spun out of control like a Tilt-a-Whirl assembled by unsupervised carnies). I feel the team was in the wrong to go down and try to bribe Favre into staying retired.

I feel that showed a total lack of class, especially for a small market, old school team that should know better. It just felt dirty to me. I know Vince Lombardi would have dropped a handful of f-bombs if it would have been suggested in his presence.

Still, after spending some time around a pro locker room - and I think it's ultimately irrelevant that it was the Packers - I feel for Favre, especially as he prepares for his 39th birthday.

Obviously, the team was tired of the on again/off again Favre saga that was a tiring dance the past few offseasons and needed to move ahead with Aaron Rodgers or get ready to lose him to free agency. I worry now with what amounts to three rookie quarterbacks on the depth chart, but there's not a lot anyone can do about it now (and no, picking up Daunte Culpepper is not a viable option).

On the Favre side of the fence, if he sits this year, he's done. The rust crops up on a 39-year-old body and no one wants to go near him next season. Professional athletes have a very short window of opportunity - whether it's a teenager skipping out on college to begin his career in the NFL or NBA or taking one last shot before retirement - and I will never fault them for trying to make the most of their moment in the sun.

I will take teams to task for constantly signing retreads that have no business collecting a paycheck, but the players are hardly to blame for capitalizing on what the market is willing to offer them.

So, in short, I have no problem with the Packers sticking to their guns and going with the youth movement, especially when Favre has very little left in the tank from a calendar standpoint. I also have no problem with Favre coming to grips with his own shelf life and deciding to try and make the most of the time he has left (man, it sounds like the man is dying, doesn't it?)

It seems that most people have come to grips with this and I'm strangely proud of Packers fans who have drawn that line in the sand between being Green Bay fans and Brett Favre fans. I didn't give them enough credit in that department.

At the end of the whole soap opera, Favre comes out looking a bit foolish and selfish and the team looks stronger for standing its ground and backing the future of the franchise. The Vikings come up empty handed at their biggest weakness and the Bears are selling reversible Orton/Grossman jerseys while fans half jokingly await the Tim Tebow sweepstakes.

I just hope Packers fans are ready for life like the rest of the league now - living with an eye trained on the backup quarterbacks in case their starter is one of the three or four QBs to go down with a season ending injury.

This would be a good time to start hoping that there's no such thing as "QB Karma."

(Image from: CBSNews.com)

Fun while it lasted

The reports are blazing across the Internet this morning - Brett Favre is retiring.

Frank's first response was to ask if it was for real this time and unless we have another trigger-happy code monkey on our hands, this time it's legit. (He has since sent this gem: "Aaron Rodgers, Rex Grossman, Jon Kitna, Tavaris Jackson - one of these QBs is guaranteed to make the playoffs next season. Gotta love the NFL.")

I'll spare the world another blogger wailing in the darkness and asking what Packers fans have done to deserve a quarterback who is subject to the aging process of the human body. I'll fess up right here and let everyone know that I was calling for Favre's (overdue) retirement a little over a year ago.

I'll also skirt the positive spin post until closer to draft day, when you'll see plenty of copy devoted to Aaron Rodgers and how he's primed to step into a starting role in Green Bay.

Instead, I'll fight back the tears and urge to vomit and relay a quick Favre story while I watch my Flickr account explode.

I went to St. Norbert College in DePere, Wisconsin and the school has served as the summer home of the Packers dating back to the Lombardi era. Apparently, Coach Lombardi struck a deal with some of the Norbertine brothers to house the players on campus and they've been there ever since.

The prize job for me was as the van driver, who racked up a ton of hours each day, was fed three meals a day (a huge perk as a college kid) and drove players the few miles back and forth from campus to Lambeau Field.

I have often explained to people that this was the best job I've ever had and it's a shame that my career peaked so quickly. It used to be a joke when I said that.

One of the most stressful parts of the job... OK, pretty much the only stressful part of the job, was picking up players after practice each day when they had finished signing autographs after the morning workouts. It was my job to nose the huge 15-passenger van up next to the gates and hope that people had the good sense to stay away from the wheels and front end as we left to head back to the locker room.

Someone in the Packers front office had a great idea where eight or nine players would hang back after the morning practice and sign autographs for 30 to 45 minutes and fans would be issued tickets to get onto the practice field to get whatever they had with them signed. It cut down on the crush of fans hounding for autographs and meant that a good chunk of them went home with some nice souvenirs.

Normally, I just concentrated on getting guys into the van and then safely getting away from the crowd. This was usually stressful as fans do dumb things around athletes - like one kid who threw his bike under my rear tires to hopefully force me to stop and keep the players around while the police sorted things out - and the players just wanted to hit the showers and head back to campus for lunch.

Favre usually got a personal ride back with the security team - if he tried to wade through the railbirds and hop on a bike, he'd have been torn limb from limb - but on days that he was signing, he'd catch a ride in the van.

Favre would have been justified in grabbing shotgun and no one would have much of a case for kicking him out, but he didn't. In order to give more room to a series of linemen and players with pads in the August heat, Favre threw his helmet down between the driver's and passenger's seats and sat perched there for the short drive back.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but in the summer of 1997, Favre was a defending world champion, the quarterback for a frontrunning team and one of the most popular players in football - he was also a guy bouncing along and telling off-color jokes while squeezed into the front of a van so his teammates would have just a little more space to spread out in the air conditioning.

It was easily one of the best displays of leadership I've ever seen.

Late addition: Of all the stories today, this has been my favorite.

(Image taken for Siberia, Minnesota)

Why my life is worse today because of the Giants win

Two quick points today to wrap up the Super Bowl postmortem. They both relate to how the New York win last night will impact my life in the short- and medium-term.

First, the big reason I didn't go off the deep end two weeks ago when Green Bay fell apart at home and let the Giants escape with a field goal in overtime was because I assumed that the winner of the NFC game just won the "get your ass kicked by the Patriots" medal.

So much for that.

(Did we ever get a solid reason for why Green Bay didn't want to rush the ball in subzero temperatures and insisted on trying to force the passing game? Aside from the Giants' front four, what was the reasoning behind keeping the ball out of Ryan Grant's hands? The Packers do realize that in the span of a dozen years the team has gone from winning a Super Bowl to losing home playoff games to Michael Vick and Eli Manning, right? Mike Holmgren must be rolling in his grave.)

In addition to not enjoying seeing the Giants win, I got a delayed suckerpunch from seeing New York pull out the win against the unbeatable Pats. I'm just saying that it could have been Green Bay. That was something I never even considered as a possibility.

I think that's why I'm still shocked at the upset.

Secondly, this is going to be an annoyance for me of epic proportions as the Red Sox season ramps up in two weeks. Whether it's on the surface or not, the subtext for Patriots fans who will probably just stay drunk until pitchers and catchers report in a few weeks (can't really blame them) will be that the Red Sox need to pick up where the Pats left off.

This has happened before as both teams have put together handsome post-season resumes. This year will be much worse.

Most baseball fans will just be able to enjoy the usual Boston freak outs, so remember this in May when people are screaming and acting irrationally on message boards because the Sox got off to a slow start.

It's going to make for a very long summer with meatheads blowing every stupid loss out of proportion for three to five months.

Thanks for nothing, least of the Mannings.

(Image from: SportsByBrooks.com)

Wait, Eli did what?

If I was just a bit more motivated, I would have gotten this up sooner in the day, just so it didn't seem like I spent all morning scouring the Internet to build a case and then try and run with it.

I'm just not that motivated.

But, unlike Super Bowl victories, judging what the media will do next is really easy to predict. The blogosphere is as easy, if not more so.

So, here's my version of the prop bets for what to expect in the next week and beyond.

From New York:

* Tales of the "never say die" Giants, primarily focusing on Eli and Strahan (Come on, that's a total gimme and it will be just as bad as press for the Patriots, if not worse)
* A push to make Eli a legitimate star. This will be awkward and hilarious. (I'd like to see it set to rap/rock so it will look more like the montage in the middle of movies like The New Guy.
* Fans using this as leverage against the Yankees collapse in 2004.
* A sudden exodus from the remaining Jets fans who don't give a crap about football.
* Story after story about how Eli is now an elite QB (he's not), how he's caught up to Peyton (he hasn't) and how the sky is the limit for the Giants now with such a young QB (it's not - they are a suspect team, just like they were before the playoffs).

From New England:

* Brady was hurt.
* The Pats lost the game, the Giants didn't win it.
* Brady was at fault for being too distracted / not into the game enough / hurt. Pick one.
* The coach wore a new sweatshirt.
* The Pats didn't deserve to win, so everyone should stop paying attention because it's being handled by angry fans.

From Everywhere Else:

* This is karma for winning so much lately.
* This is karma for cheating during the season.
* This is karma for all the ads, being too cocky, etc.
* The Pats have lost focus.
* Did New York win or did New England lose (Deadspin Commenter Slapfight Division)
* It is somehow Randy's fault (Minneapolis Bloggers Division).
* This is what happens when fans tempt fate with the whole undefeated thing.
* This is the ultimate karmic payback for Pats fans being so unbearable all season.
* The league is rigged (I'm nearly on board with the VanPete theory here, hatched after the Falcons' trip).

And Further Along the Line:

* Long, boring submissions about autumn in New England, mortality and the quest for perfection.
* Long, boring submissions about how one person or another personally jinxed the team (Bill Simmons Division)
* Pointless soul-searching for a scrap of meaning the likes of which we haven't seen since the Buckner Game.
* Letters of resignation to allow people to spend time living quietly in a small shack in the Carribean (Tiki Barber Division).

(Image from: ABCNews.com)

See, there's still joy from football

I'm not going to get into the postmortem on the Packers/Giants game... well, maybe not yet, it's just too soon.

Instead, enjoy this - from WithLeather.com - and remember that someday football might be fun again. Until then, just take it one day at a time until you get the satisfaction of seeing the 1975 Dolphins forced to shut up and the 2007 Giants are shamed during the biggest television event of the year.

Eli Manning is a sad little man forced to live in his brother's shadow... OK, I feel just a little bit better now.

Two Mannings enter, one Manning leaves

What makes today outstanding? Two Mannings were playing football this afternoon, and the right one lost.

I'm near the bottom rung of the ladder when it comes to the line of succession for the Peyton Manning fan club, but this means I possibly get to indulge myself when it comes to another offseason of reports that Peyton is sulking, Peyton is being snippy to his wife and Peyton is drowning his sorrows with the teamsters at one of the 40 to 50 commercials he's filming for the Super Bowl.

My favorite of these stories was an AP report that he was acting like a child while on vacation with his wife months after the Colts were bounced in 2004. A co-worker cut the story out and put it up in my cube and I'm pretty sure I still have it in a box from when I packed up my desk in Minneapolis.

I've settled down a bit since Manning did me a solid and bounced the Bears from the Super Bowl last year, but I'm really disappointed that there won't be a Pats/Colts showdown next week. That game would have been better than the actual Super Bowl, as it has in the past - thanks for nothing, Indy.

Regardless, here on Upset Sunday, the Giants and Chargers both won on the road. I have no idea how this happened. I'll leave the obvious shots to the Monday Simmons column, but I can barely contain myself after watching the Cowboys bow out tonight.

It's not just because Brett Favre has a historically suspect record in Dallas, it's because I don't have to spend a week hearing and reading about how Favre has a historically suspect record in Dallas.

So, New York is headed to Green Bay next week to face the blatant rip off of Seattle's 12th Man, the G Force and, more importantly, nut-numbing temperatures usually reserved for theoretical physicists.

As we learned from th Seahawks this weekend, electric underpants are apparently not the answer. No we can get back to the business at hand and prepare for a week of criticism directed at Tony Romo and his Mexican vacations with Jessica Simpson and speculation about how badly the Chargers should get killed in Foxboro.

Maybe Romo can give Manning some vacation tips - I'm thinking double-dating in Acapulco?

Update: The poll on NFL.com right now? What will happen in the AFC Championship game? Pats by more/less than 10 points or Chargers by more/less than 10 points. It begins.

(Image from: NYPost.com)

Making things right for the West Coast audience

I played two games of Madden.

I cleaned up the living room a bit, including vacuuming up two dozen rogue pine needles from a tree that was hauled out last weekend.

I walked the dog, ran to the mailbox on the corner and made lunch.

I still had two hours to go before the Packer game kicked off. Damn, did that suck.

With the games pushed back for the Saturday schedule - 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. for the Central zone - it was like killing time before an afternoon flight as I waited and waited for football today. You get really excited and can't really do much because you have this moderate event waiting later in the afternoon.

On the plus side, fans in the Pacific time zone must be eating this up. One of the big things I remember from a trip to San Diego was that the Red Sox were playing at the same time as Sunday football games were kicking up. There was a loud slice of Red Sox Nation in attendance to see the late-season game (2005) and more Charger fans in one place than I'd ever seen (previous record? Zero.) at that point.

The whole thing was moderately disorienting because we had to get to the bar at 9 a.m. to get seats. It was like being in college all over again, only with less murky-headedness.

I imagine this has to be somewhat comforting for California residents who are transplanted from the Midwest and out east. Still, if given the option, I'd totally opt for the West Coast schedule, which lets you get up and watch sports, no screwing around.

Sure, it'd suck for baseball season when the AL East games would be wrapping up when your lunch break ended, but still - football on during breakfast, how nice is that?

Enjoy, California - this is why the rest of the country is so chubby and pasty - by the time games end out here, you're too exhausted to head out and do anything productive.

That and every meal in Green Bay is served with a pound of fried cheese in lieu of a bread basket.

*Side note: Maybe I'm brainwashed after reading the Simmons column this week tonight, but how much better would this CBS Halftme show be if any of the color commentators were replaced by the smart-aleck Masshole who is on the NFL Network commercials at the diner?

A lot better. Much, much better.

(Image from: JSOnline.com)

A world without quarterbacks

Not for nothing, but today's games seem to be some sort of experiment in what the NFL would be like if the forward pass had never been invented. I like to call it "the day the forward pass overslept and missed the playoffs."

For our neighbors, this is more likely known as "the day those old knuckleheads upstairs got Rock Band and just pounded away on the floor all... damn... day..." Too bad for them. On the plus side, the dog won't bark when we're making an unholy racket with the drum kit.

So, there's that.

I'm not watching the San Diego/Tennessee game too closely, but you shouldn't expect much from teams featuring Philip Rivers and Vince Young (Rivers is actually having a good day on a couple of long plays).

The first game was just brutal to watch. Frankie and I were catching up with the game on in the background and we interrupted each other every few minutes as Eli Manning and Jeff Garcia took turns looking ridiculous on the field.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think that one of Garcia's retinas had been knocked loose, rendering him unable to accurately judge distances. But where would someone be exposed to that sort of force and/or blunt trauma? Oh, wait.

It was just ugly, like watching kids on a playground who had really good arms, but had yet to realize their limitations in terms of control. I suppose it didn't help that the Tampa Bay offensive line appeared to be in strike for parts of the second half - every replay was of Garcia throwing under pressure or while he was being wrapped up, leading to him trying to strongarm lame duck passes over the middle.

In San Diego, CBS is loving the stats regarding the Chargers' post season flops - they haven't won a playoff game since 1994, the year they were blown out by the 49ers in the Super Bowl.

If they could find some long-dead player to pin this on, they'd have a full-blown Curse of the Bambino on their hands. I'd prefer to call it, "the curse of shitty coaching hires in San Diego."

(Image from CNNSI.com)

That's a valid point

Thanks to Kissing Suzy Kolber for putting it all in perspective.


It makes so much more sense now.

Happy Madden Day

Yes, I still went to work.

No, I don't own Madden yet, with baseball season running so hot still.

Yes, I'm a little sad that the ambulance is no longer a feature in the game. I'm telling you, if you made a mod to return the ambulance to Madden and to make little Wayne's head bleed in NHL, you'd be a rich man or woman, virtually overnight.



Thanks to Our Book of Scrap for the video.

I had to check twice

I have a bad feeling about drafting a guy named "David Clowney."

Yes, the word, "clown" is right there. This will either be the best or the worst opportunity in the history of moron fans and really, do Packer fans need any more opportunities to embarrass themselves on national television?

Still, there's something appealing about a man dressed like Ronald McDonald, half in the bag and inappropriately groping someone seated next to him while screaming to the ESPN cameras and spilling beer all over himself being seen as the face of the fan base.

Because while the Black Hole in Oakland may be dangerous, there's not a person on earth willing to tangle with a sweaty, drunk clown.

Don't ask me how I know this.

Crazy hurts, but creepy scars you for life.

(Image from Muhwaukee.com and they named the image "beerclown" not me.)

Steve Young is pissed

With the Packers taking uh who? Justin Harrell, Steve Young is ready to challenge Mel Kiper to a knife fight in the parking lot between rounds.

Once I get the video component of the blog back in line, I'll post the video, but as Young was trying to make a point that by drafting a defensive player with two wide receivers and a top tight end on the board, it sends the wrong message to Brett Favre about how much the team is willing to help him.

If you were to let the exchange play out, Young was a minute or so from asking to see how many Super Bowl rings Kiper had won.

While I would have liked to have seen Greg Olsen go in that spot, I'm just happy Brady Quinn wasn't taken to bookend him with his brother-in-law, AJ Hawk.

For the record, Quinn has been moved to a secure location backstage to save him from further embarrassment, except when Suzy Kolber comes around and praises his bravery for sitting backstage and waiting to collect millions.

Also, I think that there has been somewhat of a snowball effect here, where teams see a guy fall from the Top 10 and assumes there's something they don't know about why he's still on the board, so they go elsewhere with their pick. I'll be surprised if he doesn't get drafted in the first round, but have to say it'd be pretty funny.

(Photo from: NNDB.com)

Reggie was disrespected

In a strange new commercial for Madden '08, Reggie Bush gives a short soliloquoy about how he "fell" in the draft to a number two pick and that was OK by him because now he's a Saint and the Saints are good, dammit!

Uh, what?

Should it really count if the reason he was left on the board by the Texans because he was deemed unsignable?

Not to let the Texans off the hook on this one, but if Bush was using that disrespect to motivate himself in his rookie year, he's a superstar in waiting on the public speaking circuit.

By the end of a weekend session at the Holiday Inn ballroom, Bush would have you convinced that you were due thousands of dollars in back pay at work because they failed to promote you despite never showing up on time, taking three-hour lunches and taking a whiz in the plants around the office.

(Photo from AllPosters.com)

NFL Draft - 12:30 p.m.

I'm watching the picks tick by - and Brady Quinn sit around in the green room - and so far there hasn't been any action on the trade front.

I'm just not feeling Quinn like I did for previous players who have fallen on draft day. My recent favorite has to be Ben Roethlisberger, who made fun of Eli Manning and sat around eating free candy while he waited his turn.

The big subplot this year is "the character issue" with players being described in terms of work ethic and maturity - Calvin Johnson was pimped as Randy Moss talent with Jerry Rice personality - as a close second to actual ability.

Following the record suspensions doled out to Adam "Pac Man" Jones and nearly half the Bengals and Vikings -well, those are pending - it's no surprise that this is a big concern with this year's draft class.

On sports talk radio this morning, there was a lengthy discussion about whether the Raiders would want a new blue-chip receiver in the same stable as Moss and whether or not that could poison a draft pick.

Just something to consider after the Quinn ruckus yesterday.

(Photo from ESPN.com)

Super Bowl, Super Hype

Only two days out and the Internet is abuzz with Super Bowl hype that will ultimately reach its ridiculous crescendo on Sunday afternoon with hour upon hour of pregame analysis, breaking down everything from the X's and O's to who had what for breakfast.

In the interest of actually writing a post this week and trying to stay ahead of the curve before the game kicks off, here are some scattered thoughts leading into the big game.

* I'm pretty tired about of the myth of "cold weather" teams. This is becoming more annoying as the temps here in sunny Minneapolis threaten to drop into the negative 40s with the wind chill this weekend.

Now, after living in cold weather climates for my entire life, it's still damned cold out there. I dare anyone to jump out in a short-sleeved shirt and run around the block for an hour and not need a trip to the hospital. Go ahead, you can even stay here, we have plenty of space in the basement.

To say that some teams are "cold weather' teams is absurd. Ask Bears fans about Curtis Conway, whose yearly bellyache about the weather as compared to his Southern California home became as predictable as bird migrations.

Now, while I admit that a team that practices outside and plays outside has a small advantage over a dome or warm-weather team, I think the biggest advantage comes from just living in the climate.

A 20-degree game time temperature isn't so bad when it's been negative 3 while you're grabbing groceries on a Wednesday night and that's where the true advantage lies.

All of this was in play for the NFC Championship game, which had Rex Grossman versus Drew Brees as the quarterbacks of record. Grossman grew up in Indiana, went to school at Florida and now plays in Chicago. Brees grew up in Texas, went to school at Purdue and now plays for the domed Saints after years in San Diego.

You pick an advantage there.

Need more proof? Look at the quarterbacks in the Super Bowl during the 1997 season. John Elway was born in Washington state, moved to California and went to school at Stanford before playing in Denver, while Brett Favre is a Mississippi product who now makes Green Bay home for as little time as possible during the season.

Both are good QBs when the temperature dips, but you try and explain why.

* How are the Bears underdogs?

No, really - I have some time here. Go ahead and argue with anything Frank the Tank has to say on the subject.

I still contend that Indy's perfect storm of choke is enough reason for anyone to wager heavily against them - I wouldn't trust Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning to come up with a win in a game of checkers against Mrs. Hughes' kindergartners, much less in a Super Bowl - but Frankie is right when he says this is a weak team by Indianapolis standards... assuming there actually were standards in Indy.

Has everyone forgotten the Ravens win?

Has everyone seen too many Manning commercials this season so they've been slowly brainwashed since August?

Maybe it's an elaborate plot by the national media to clean house in Vegas this year.

Personally, I'm lost. Remember when I wrote this:

The weird thing this year is there's no clear cut favorite heading in. The teams that started hot cooled down the stretch and the teams that had to sprint to the finish don't seem to be very good - Chiefs, ahem, Chiefs - so the traditional "peaking at the right time" team seems to be out of the equation.

Well, Chicago is that team now. As long as Grossman doesn't do a great deal of harm, I think this team has proven over and again that they can win without anything more than a mediocre offense.

Run the ball, keep the Colts offense off the field and let the defense smack the Magnetheads around the field and they'll be tipping over cabs and lighting pedestrians on fire in Lincoln Park before you know it.

* Finally, this game pits a team I can't stand - save for the fact that it consistently pisses off Viking fans - and a player I can't stand in Manning.

While I attempt to be a glass is half full type of guy, I keep telling myself that someone has to lose. Either the Bears go home and cry all offseason, or Manning spends the next two months in his PJs, refusing to shave and smelling like a sheep. See? Win-win!

In actuality, this setup will drive me nuts. While I'm sure I could cheer for the Colts, minus Manning, that's not much fun, because he's the poster boy for that sad franchise. That said, I can't be one of those fans who cheers for teams from their division, or worse, the team that knocked their guys from the postseason.

Because that's just lame.

(Image from NYTimes.com)

Trying to reason with the postseason

One of the most difficult things for me to justify in my head is how things can be unendingly important one day - like schoolwork, deadlines at the office or that bill coming up next week - only to fade from the forefront in a few quick weeks.

More than that, sports and their respective championships tend to fall fast and without anyone really paying much attention. Between the build up and the ensuing celebration, most wins are remembered by the fan bases of the winning and losing teams and the big fans of the sport, but even for them, the details get hazy.

Case in point is my friendship with Frank the Tank and, more specifically, our divided rooting interests.

I honestly thought the world might end and that I'd never get over the White Sox winning it all in 2005 and that has faded to the rear view mirror in the grand scheme of things. Now, despite the championship gear floating around the city, my brother-in-law's closet and video evidence, it's not such a crushing blow anymore.

Of course, I fled Chicago immediately following the World Series that year, so my perspective might have been different watching the ensuing commercials for half price night at buffets in Alsip featuring second- and third-string infielders - "Baseball has been very good for me and my World Series teammates, just like the good folks at Arnie's All-You-Can-Eat rib shack, so come on down and strike out hunger..." - but it's not something that haunts me on a daily basis anymore.

On the flip side, the few times my teams have won were difficult to watch at times and were events in my life I thought I'd never top. I went to Lambeau Field following a Super Bowl win and a loss in the 90s and did my best to keep things to a dull roar when the Red Sox won in 2004.

As it stands this morning as I sit here with a cup of coffee on the couch, I don't get a larger tax refund for the Green Bay win, a free soda with a fill up at the gas station for any of the Bulls' championships or slid up higher on the waiting list at my favorite restaurants for following nearly every pitch of the Red Sox postseason in 2004.

In fact, without any major Yankee fans in my life, I'd say I'm getting less mileage off of all of those than I would normally. It's a shame really, the big payout for any sports fan should be the ride to the championship, but most of us are too nervous or critical to enjoy that part of it.

For the rest of the country, we wait for our teams to fall off and then try and pick a prohibitive favorite and a new version of "our" team. We can watch games start to finish without suffering from chest pains or anxiety-related fainting spells and actually enjoy games more than fans of the teams involved. The catch-22 is that the more exciting the game is with close scores, epic matchups and huge plays, the more excruciating it is to watch for the fans of the two teams who are actually playing - just ask Rams fans.

Once the final gun sounds, your Colts, Patriots or Bears fans grab the torch and celebrate like there's no tomorrow, but by then, everyone else is moving along. It's like showing up to a really great party late when things are starting to break up and people are heading for home.

I guess what I'm saying here is that the paradox for sports fans is that if your team is advancing, it's hard to enjoy that ride in the moment. Unless you have an absolute powerhouse like the '85 Bears or some of the great dynasties where a championship is a foregone conclusion, it's pretty difficult to focus on the moment and just go with the flow. Maybe that's why the championship videos sell so well - it lets you relive the games from a safe distance, knowing that your team is sitting at home with giant rings on, so you have nothing to fear.

So, as we grind through a Sunday without football before football goes away for a few months -sigh - I am pumped because at next week's Super Bowl, I know I'll be interested as a fan, but have the added bonus of not really caring who wins.

In fact, in situations like these where I really dislike both teams playing I get pretty deep into my Zen state and keep telling myself over and again - "One of these teams has to lose and I'm really going to enjoy what that does to their fans."

For the winner however - and yes, I do think that will be the pride and joy of Illinois - try not to get too bogged down in the hollering, nail-biting and "I just can't watch" aspects of the game. Regardless of the outcome, the sun will rise tomorrow and you will have to pay full price at the supermarket.

Unless of course you manage to blow the game on a fluke play. Then no one will ever let you forget the name Bill Buckner.

(Image from ProFootballHoF.com)

You either have it or you don't

With the Bears game in the books, the Colts are gearing up to face the Patriots, Bill Belichick is putting on his homeless sweatshirt and Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning are taking turns holding each others' heads as they throw up in the bathroom.

As much as I detest the stupid story lines that are rammed down my throat every week - I know, Rex is uneven, Hurricane Katrina will be forgotten if the Saints win it all and Brady vs. Manning is bigger than God vs. Satan VII - I really like this AFC matchup.

It's not just that I hate Manning - let's just get that out there right now - but that it's the perfect dichotomy of players in the two quarterbacks.

I've long been a believer that intangibles - while difficult to quantify - are often overlooked and undervalued. This has long been my downfall in fantasy leagues, as I'll pass on number-piling monsters in order to take a player I can actually respect and Brady and Manning are great illustrations of this.

On paper, Manning racks up huge numbers each year, while Brady will get you a few points here and there, never really coming through with a breakthrough week to the point that in deeper leagues, he rides the pine in favor of quarterbacks who will throw their arm out every Sunday like they're trying to catch Dan Marino's records in two seasons or less.

This is not news to anyone.

Every hack with a pro football column, blog or e-mail account has made this point in varying degrees all week, but it doesn't mean I'll enjoy this game any less.

I love how this also extends to other sports as well, from having the requisite ice water in your veins to close out games in major league baseball to those scrappy wingers who are always in the top 15 in scoring years after year in the NHL, despite having no discernable talent.

On paper, the Colts have a defense that has risen to the occasion this postseason, a big time quarterback in Manning and a team that is built to play on the turf in the dome. Yet, the Patriots are being seen as the team to beat tonight and Brady is the reason for that.

No one can tell you why he's so successful in the playoffs, just like no one can tell you why Joe Montana, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan or Joe DiMaggio just kept winning. Sure, talent can take you a long way, but at that level, how much more talented are you than your competitors?

Along those same lines, look at the notable players who were on par with the stars of their era - Dan Marino, Ted Williams, and a borderline vote for John Elway - who never seemed to put all the pieces together. Forgive me for just spewing all of this out without much to hold it all together - I honestly find the whole thing fascinating.

Even now, they are flashing the graphics showing playoff records for the two players and a half dozen reporters are pre-writing their opening pararaphs so they can fully focus on the press box buffet.

For me, I like how it gives the world a little more balance and helps things make more sense to me. There are winners and their are losers and regardless of pedigree, hype or talent, the winners finds ways to win and the losers continue to lose.

We saw it with Martyball's spectacular failure last week, with Herm Edwards' refusal to use Larry Johnson correctly in the opening round and the Giants saying a quick goodbye to their national TV audience.

Reagardless, it'll be fun to watch with the knowledge that if the Colts pull off the supposed upset, Northern Indiana will implode upon itself. With the regional favorite and the in-state team headed for Florida, it might cause widespread rioting. And that's a situation where we're all winners.

(Update at 9:17 p.m. - Well, so much for that, huh? Wow. Just wow.)

(Photo from NFL.com)

I know, I know - Super Bowl, Super Bears

Quick hits from today's Bears/Saints game (4:19 left in the fourth right now, with Thomas Jones putting the final nail in the coffin) which I partly heard on the radio, partly saw on TV and partly napped through:

* During the radio pregame, they were giving it up for Lovie Smith and his decision to keep Rex Grossman in as his quarterback. The only hitch was that because of the way they said it - "It's the playoffs now and Lovie's stuck with Grossman" - it was hard to tell if that meant "Lovie has stuck with Grossman" or "Lovie is stuck with Grossman."

That's problematic.

* Good job with the double flip off on a panning crowd shot, where one guy stood there and gave the camera the bird and the other wandered into the aisle to really sell his point. Since then, all the crowd shots from that sideline tractor have gone by really quickly.

* Virginia McCaskey looks good, huh? And there's Mike! Man, he looks like a movie bad guy more and more these days.

* After halftime as the Bears were getting ready to take the field, they were playing the Grossman's QB rating game again. Yes, we know, he's inconsistient, but that shouldn't be the biggest issue with his season.

I had Bull Durham flashbacks to when the manager was going over Nuke's stats for the game - both new league records.

* If I forget, will someone please remind me to talk about cold weather and why it shouldn't be a big advantage to anyone at all? It'll give me something to do later this week.

Contenders and Pretenders

There's a post-season football pool at work that is getting off the ground today and it's been driving me crazy pretty much all week.

The basics are that you pick two QBs, three RBs, etc. and pick up points as they move through the playoffs. Because of this, there's an important wrinkle in the way this works - a good running back who plays three games will be a better pick than a great back whose team goes one and done.

The weird thing this year is there's no clear cut favorite heading in. The teams that started hot cooled down the stretch and the teams that had to sprint to the finish don't seem to be very good - Chiefs, ahem, Chiefs - so the traditional "peaking at the right time" team seems to be out of the equation.

When chalk and common sense points to the Chargers as the favorites, it's been a strange year.

In laying out a lineup, the first step was to figure out who has a shot and who doesn't. In the interest of keeping this shot and letting the "football" tags cool off before I have to spin off a Siberian Football site like I had to do with baseball, here's how I see it.

Teams with a shot at hitting the Super Bowl:

NFC: Bears and Saints
AFC: Chargers and Ravens

The Big Maybes:

NFC: Cowboys and Seahawks
AFC: Colts and Patriots

The No Way in Hells:

NFC: Eagles and Giants
AFC: Chiefs and Jets

Just how I'm seeing it this morning. I will be completely wrong by 6 p.m. today.

As promised, a horse shit performance

If you're on any sort of diet you might want to skip this medley.

It's Jim Mora - who is a master of post-game interviews and should have a job coaching with Denny Green somewhere in the next two years purely for entertainment value - calling his team horse shit, scoffing at the idea of the playoffs and how crappy his team performed.

My favorite is the Peyton Manning Droopy Dog look at the end of the clip.

Priceless.



And a little something extra because you were all so awesome this week.

God, I love football and combustible coaches. Say what you will about Ditka, but I'd be intimidated to have to go ask him questions after a loss... much less seven of them.