Week 5 Prognostications - The Saga Continues

In the middle of last Sunday’s games, I had to send Van an e-mail admitting that I knew absolutely nothing about football. Whatever else happens, a football prognosticator should always be able to outperform a coin.

Donald Rumsfeld went over my picks and was appalled at how I had misinterpreted the information available to me.

Van: Leave Rummy alone. As we speak, he’s checking the sock drawer for those WMDs that he was sure he’d left in Iraq for CNN to find…

So Van extends his lead. In related news, swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker is working Sports Illustrated’s resident expert Dr. Z. Coincidence? Perhaps. Van looks awful in a two-piece.

Van: Only if it’s a Van Heusen 17 two-piece with the bad lines and a short vent. Now, put me in a silk, charcoal colored, long cut Perry Ellis After 5, pleated baggies and a 4-button front, well, hide the women or put me in the Pope-Mobile for my own safety.

It is time to hit the comeback trail. I raised a lot of money this quarter and I am ready for a big run. If you guys have any doubt that Van is ripe for a fall, scroll down and check out his superhero commentary. Dude, put down the twenty-sided die and come out with your hands up.

Van: Axis and Allies, baby, Axis and Allies…

Miami at Houston
Bill’s Pick: Miami
Hell of a way to kick off the new me. Matt Schaub can be as great as he wants to be, but unless he is planning to run quarterback draws all day, I do not see the Houston offense getting a lot going. When Andre Johnson got hurt, we all scrolled down the depth chart and wondered who Jacoby Jones was. Now Jones is also hurt, Johnson is still out, Andre Davis has a dislocated finger and Ahman Green still may not play. You remember in college you could play intramural basketball and then one of your Alpha Phi buddies would come up and be like “hey, Bill, we’re short a guy, you wanna run with us?” I figure Schaub is calling T.O. and Patrick Crayton right now, saying, “Hey, I know you got a game Monday, but if y’all aren’t doing anything Sunday…” Meanwhile, there are signs of life in Miami, where Ronnie Brown suddenly sacked up and started hitting some fools and the spiritual center of their defense, Zack Thomas, is set to return after missing two games with a concussion.

Van: If Houston were healthy, they’d be a lock to win this one. And if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a happy Hannukah…

Jacksonville at Kansas City
Bill’s Pick: Kansas City
K.C. has one of the five best home-field advantages in football, and unless Jack Del Rio used his bye week to learn that Maurice Jones-Drew is his best offensive player, then I like the momentum the Chefs have coming off of the win in San Diego. The biggest difference between who the Chefs are and who we thought they were is Dwayne Bowe. Period.

Van: Because of Bowe, UV-deprived fantasy owners will see more of last season’s Larry Johnson in this game than they’ve seen of their alleged families this season.

Cleveland at New England
Bill’s Pick: New England
Romeo Crennel is the kid proudly bringing home a short story about aliens to his Pulitzer Prize-winning father. Dad can take the high road (“Great work, Rome. Let’s have some ice cream to celebrate.”) or he can dispense truth (“If that’s all you got, that’s fine, but big boys write in this house.”), but nothing will change the fact that the story is not good enough to impress Dad – it’s just an improvement over last year, when the kid kept spelling his name wrong. The Browns look like they might have a football team, but this will not be the best week to show it off.

Van: The Patriots game plan comes straight from early Ah-Nold – “Crush your enemies! See them driven before you! And hear the lamentation of the women!”

Carolina at New Orleans
Bill’s Pick: New Orleans
Sean Payton brought a wagon into the practice facility to motivate his team with all of the people who are off of the Saints’ bandwagon. First of all, I hate with the mightiest vitriol cutesy motivational techniques. Second of all, there will be no whining about disrespect if you actually earned it on the field. What I am doing here is taking a flyer that Sean Payton did something else during his bye week, like maybe addressing his ethereal blocking schemes, because Carolina is fading faster than my respect for Reggie Bush. Dan Morgan is hurt again. Nobody seems to have noticed that Morgan is Kerry Wood, the guy to whose health the team’s fortunes are always tied, which is a complete embarrassing waste of time because of course he is not going to be healthy. That’s just not who the guy is. With David Carr at the helm of the Morganless Panthers, their fans better start investing in paper bags.

Van: Sooner or later, the Saints are going to Justify (Bill’s) Love (thanks, Madonna). As for me, I’m not quite ready to buy real estate in the Crescent City just yet. FEMA’s got a little more hatin’ on black folks yet to do (thanks, Kanye) before I pick the Saints.

The Jets at the Giants
Bill’s Pick: The Giants
I got a concussion last week just watching the G-Men tee off on a defenseless Donovan McNabb, and this week the inexplicably resurgent Giant D faces the last word in defenseless quarterbacks, Chad Pennington. The over/under on Pennington’s day is 8:00 in the second quarter. Betting lines are provided for entertainment purposes only, please, no wagering. Unless you want the over, in which case I will cover it for you.

Van: Donovan McNabb was last seen hiding in the holding cell beneath the stadium, shaking uncontrollably and muttering “Momma, there go that man again!”

Seattle at Pittsburgh
Bill’s Pick: Pittsburgh
Seattle is better than I gave them credit for – they are probably better than you gave them credit for, too, but you probably came around quicker than I did. Hale Bopp comes around more quickly than I do. But Pittsburgh is a killer at home and until they ran into the clairvoyant buzzsaw formerly known as their offensive coordinator, they were comfortably the third-best team in the AFC. Seattle does a nice job keeping a lid on long pass plays, so Pittsburgh will hitch themselves to Fast Willie Parker and pull away in the second half.

Van: If Seattle is smart, they’ll let Deion Branch be a real nuisance to Pitt’s secondary and a nice complement to Shaun Alexander. Since they’re not, they’ll try to bludgeon a defense that was built to stop the better AFC running backs and lose handily.

Arizona at St. Louis
Bill’s Pick: Arizona
I would like to publicly apologize to the Raiders – the Rams are on the clock. This week’s brilliant idea to save the franchise is Gus Frerotte. Let me know how that goes for you. The Cardinals are living on borrowed time with their platoon quarterback system, which has literally not worked in the NFL since George Blanda, but they are otherwise engaged in winning football games with running and defense, which I am sure Van will tell you is how it is done. He will also have to admit now that the Cardinals are doing it.

Van: What? Arizona gets what amounts to a Saturday walk-through against the corpses in St. Louis and now I have to admit something about the Cardinals? I admit that the Cardinals coaches gave away every possible dirty secret they could in beating Pittsburgh in the desert. I admit that Ken Whisenhunt has two starting QBs, which is the same as saying that he has no starting QBs. I admit that Edgerrin James has scared no one since he cut his dreads…no…took his grill out…no…OH, right, since he LEFT THE FRIGGIN’ COLTS. And I admit that the Cardinals, quoting previous head coach Denny Green, are still what we thought they were: sorry as hell.

Atlanta at Tennessee
Bill’s Pick: Tennessee
I think the Falcons’ win last week said more about the Texans’ triple amputee offense than it did about the Falcons. The Falcons really do suck. You should not confuse one lonely win in a sea of suckitude for land. While Tennessee should win this, their pass defense is vulnerable, and somehow nobody will admit that Joey Harrington has actually been playing better than Atlanta could have expected Mike Vick to play. I imagine Jeff Fisher is enough of a professional to look at the facts and gameplan for them, even if everyone else is reluctant to give Harrington his due.

Van: Joey Ballgame has had two good games in a row. It sez so right here that reality crashes in on him this weekend in the angry form of Keith Bulluck and a Titan defense at home.

Detroit at Washington
Bill’s Pick: Washington
I have vacillated about a dozen times on this game. I can see it going either way. Detroit’s last road trip resulted in a violent bludgeoning at the hands of an Eagle team that has been mysteriously unable to do, well, anything against anybody else. Washington can do what Chicago, Minnesota and Oakland could not, which is to control the ball and grind out long drives to keep Martz’s madmen on the sidelines to entertain themselves. Even the Lions’ win over the crippled Bears came with a freakish outburst of true weirdness in the fourth quarter unlikely to be duplicated here or anywhere else anytime soon. I was going to make the argument that despite all that, the Lions are warriors for Christ, playing with the confidence of the truly saved, but forget it. I just bought my own arguments and changed it back to Washington.

Van: Don’t forget, Washington QB Jason Campbell’s confidence is growing by the day, and his receivers are the beneficiaries. Detroit won’t find Washington’s O-line as porous as Chicago’s was in the fourth quarter of last week’s clusterfudge…and we’re four games into the season and no one is impressed with Detroit’s running game yet.

Tampa Bay at Indianapolis
Bill’s Pick: Indianapolis
The Colts are not as good as you think they are. They humiliated the Broncos, but that is simply what Peyton does. Some people talk a lot, some people like tapioca pudding, Peyton pounds the Donkeys. Tampa Bay has already clinched their division and has nothing to play for, but they may still sneak up and win this if two of the big three injuries (Joseph Addai, Marvin Harrison and Bob Sanders) cannot go on Sunday. I am betting they all play and the Colts escape with a surprisingly hard-fought win.

Van: Quit hating on the Colts. You’ve been mad at them ever since they pimp-slapped your beloved Saints in Week 1 in front of God and three other white men. Only the Patriots and the Cowboys have easy games every week; everyone else has to work for a living. The good news is that Tony Dungy now has a Colts team with the cojones to get their hands dirty and occasionally grind victories out. Beating teams while injured makes them easily as impressive as New England blowing teams out while healthy.

San Diego at Denver
Bill’s Pick: San Diego
Speaking of pounding the Donkeys, even Norv Turner can watch last year’s game film and figure out how to hand the ball to LaDainian Tomlinson…right? LT ran wild last year over what was probably the best Broncos run defense ever, and this year’s version is…not. If LT gets fewer than 30 carries, the Chargers lose in Denver and A.J. Smith is not man enough to admit he was wrong, I authorize the citizens of San Diego to take matters into their own hands and exact a little vigilante justice, although I caution them to take the vice-president, too. You don’t want to lynch Norv just to end up with Ted Cottrell as your head coach.

Van: Continuing on a theme, Norv Turner is exactly who we thought he was: a guy so clueless about running a football team that he still hasn’t figured out a way to get LaDainian Tomlinson the football more than 17 times in a game. For goodness sakes, even Cro Magnon Marty Schottenheimer knew that his bread was buttered by Number 21…no way San Diego mans up and wins on the road. No way.

Baltimore at San Francisco
Bill’s Pick: Baltimore
Dear Mr. Billick: Tennessee owed Steve McNair better than they gave him, but you do not. Bernie Kosar looks younger and sprier than McNair right now, so Kyle Boller certainly does. Speaking of spry, have you seen how slow Willis McGahee looks? Is he hurt or just fat? For all of the Ravens’ difficulties, they are better off than the Niners right now. The Niners have the also-older-than-Bernie-Kosar Trent Dilfer under center throwing to my least favorite NFL player, Darrell Jackson. If there is a player with the astonishing lack of brains, balls and heart weekly displayed by Jackson, I have not seen him. Facing ten guys in the box (you have to at least cover Arnaz Battle) as well as puzzling play-calling from his own sideline (averaging only 17 carries a game), Frank Gore has been unable to help much. Obviously, San Fran’s defense gets tired of being on the field after a while. They will this week, too.

Van: Dilfer might have Tampa Bay flashbacks during this game, none of them good.

Chicago at Green Bay
Bill’s Pick: Green Bay
I just saw, I am not kidding, a fantasy football expert (read: virgin) on ESPN advise everyone not to start Cedric Benson this week. Thanks for that, Mr. Virgin. You might want to sit Roman Gabriel and Funky Winkerbean, as well. Although I like the Packers at home, this game is not the mismatch it appears to be. Last week, the Bears fielded a defense with two CFL guys and four cardboard cutouts and still slapped around the high-powered Lions’ offense for three quarters before whatever the hell that was happened. This week, the real Bears’ defense starts to trickle back, and with just a little help from the offense they can still turn it around and compete for a playoff spot.

Van: I’m a Bears fanatic, and I’ll say what y’all are too scared to say (thanks, Bernie Mac): This Bears Team Officially Sucks. As long as there is a Brett Favre inside that Number 4 jersey, he will continue to own the Bears. As long as this Bears team continues to exhibit an appalling lack of…spine?...testicular fortitude?...they will continue to lose games like this. Before the season, I concluded that this game was a foregone conclusion. Turns out I was right, just about the wrong team.

Dallas at Buffalo
Bill’s Pick: Dallas
Tony Romo can take Cthulhu. Did you see him use his Jedi powers to convince the Rams that they had a horrible defense? Oh, right. Anyway, DeMarcus Ware, Greg Ellis and company will do to Trent Edwards what the Jets could not, which is welcome the rook to the show in style. Look for the offense to take the foot off the gas in what will unquestionably be a hideous game, but the defense will score enough to beat Buffalo by themselves. Bring on the Patriots.

Van: Dallas will win, but Dallas’ defense will not shut Buffalo down. This game will score into the ‘90s, like Cleveland and Cincinnati did. You heard it here first.

Week 4 Prognostications...The Bruise Gets Larger

Van: If you have borne with me through the first three weeks of Bill's picks, well, Week 4 needs no introduction...egad...

The definition of dire straits is needing New Orleans to win on Monday night in order to beat Van that week. Wow, does New Orleans suck. Bleah.

Van: Actually, the definition of Dire Straits is Mark Knopfler and a lot of triple-scale union musicians…

Meanwhile, back in Van’s yurt, there’s a party goin’ on. Van and his hot wife are pounding jug after jug of cabbage brandy in celebration of Rex Grossman’s overdue demotion. Careful there, cowboy. It’s even worse on its way back up.

Please check out my website here to read Van’s hallucinations about the coming week.

Van: Last I checked, I’m hallucinating five games better than you at this point…but I digress…

Since I have some catching up to do in this little competition, I feel I must squash Van this week. And so I shall. Maestro?

Houston at Atlanta
Bill’s Pick: Houston
For Michael Vick, life is the unholy union of Morrissey and Ice Cube - Every Day is Like Friday. He ain’t got no job, heaven knows he’s miserable now, and he’s gonna get high today. And high would be a huge step up for the tragically overcaffeinated DeAngelo Hall, who will miss the first half (?!) of this game after single-handedly losing last week’s game. Is it just me, or was Bobby Petrino frightened when Hall accosted him on the sideline last week? If you show up like a little bitch in front of your team, do they keep listening to you? Erm, hey Van, can I use the word “bitch” on our blog? Like, if I have a good reason? Man, I hope so, because I am going to need it for Brian Griese here in a minute. Anyway, Atlanta is a mess and will continue to lose games to better teams until we find a team that isn’t.

Van: (too busy laughing to post a comment) Hey, last I read, the Pope declared that all Protestant blogs aren’t real blogs…it’s what I heard, anyway, so write what you want, dude…

The Jets at Buffalo
Bill’s Pick: The Jets
I have a question. Who on their deeply questionable roster are the Bills paying so much that they are only carrying two quarterbacks? If your starting quarterback is J. P. Losman (no need to commit hara-kiri here, this is only hypothetical, unless you are a Bills fan, in which case go ahead), why do you not see the need for a more thorough contingency plan than rookie Trent Edwards? As long as Losman is shuffling around, wondering what routes his receivers are running, overthrowing guys over the middle and bouncing passes to his checkdown guys, the Bills will continue to lose…but God forbid he gets hurt.

Van: The scary thing is that we know nothing about Trent Edwards, other than his poll-attractive name if he were a candidate. Who knows? This guy might be Dan Marino…or Rex Grossman…such is the crapshoot that is drafting a quarterback.

Baltimore at Cleveland
Bill’s Pick: Baltimore
Ohio is the panacea, the snake oil of the NFL. If you want to regrow hair, fix your blocking scheme, or heal a pulled groin, just go play the Browns or the Bengals. Steve McNair gets to be 26 again, Willis McGahee gets to play at the U one more time, but since the Ravens, with very few exceptions, are not the Bengals, the Browns get no such benefit.

Van: All Derek Anderson did was give Brady Quinn one more week of prep before the Bye…

St. Louis at Dallas
Bill’s Pick: Dallas
Tony Romo is a Jedi. I have no idea what that means, exactly, but my boy Dog says so, and so it must be true. Romo could be an Ewok and the ‘Boys would roll unchecked over the hapless Rams. See, the Rams used to be terrible, but then they lost Steven Jackson. Now they are something worse than terrible and traveling to play what is probably the NFL’s second-best team right now. Dallas is favored by 13, which theoretically means that half of the betting public would take the Rams and the points. I do not know precisely what this means for the next presidential election, but I am moving to New Zealand.

Van: If Tony Romo is a Jedi, then he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan single-handedly beat the butts of Darth Maul, General Grievous, and Darth Vader (pre-suit!!)…in fact, in the last one, Obi-Wan is the whole reason Vader even needs the suit. For all that talk about the Skywalker family, Obi-Wan was the baddest of the Jedi.

Chicago at Detroit
Bill’s Pick: Chicago
Now that the Rex Grossman era is over, Bear fans should prepare themselves for their next great Inconvenient Truth: Brian Griese is not very good, either. He will look good for the next four weeks, and then you will find out why he has been cut by three different NFL teams, and why nobody has signed him to compete for a starting job since he got run out of Denver in favor of, seriously, Jake Plummer. Griese is a smart guy, but he has no arm and no balls. OK, I didn’t use “bitch,” but I did use “balls.” Remind me we need to set ground rules for these things, because I may want to use these words again sometime. Right now, da Bears are the team Searching for Trent Dilfer, and they think they have found him, but all they have really managed to do is upgrade from Grossman. Well, that’s something, anyway. This week, the upgrade is enough against a Detroit defense that could not keep Britney Spears out of Princeton.

Van: While I’d agree about Brit-Brit and Princeton, that wounded Bears defense isn’t going to do more than frisk Mo-Town receivers on their way to the end zone…my beloved Bears are awful.

Oakland at Miami
Bill’s Pick: Miami
Miami is at home. Last week I invented some rationale for choosing KC over Minnesota because it did not seem like enough to say that KC would win the battle of the offensive fleas because they were at home. See, everything would have been fine and I would have done it again for this game, but Van had to go and call me out last time, so there’s your analysis. Miami is at home.

Van: Uh, I said the same thing…dang it…

Green Bay at Minnesota
Bill’s Pick: Green Bay
I have a bad feeling about this game, and I wanted to pick the Vikings, but they match up so incredibly poorly against the Packers that I cannot justify it. The Vikings have an incredible run defense – no problem. The Packers cannot run the ball and are not inclined to even try. The Packers have an elite defense. The Vikings have…Adrian Peterson. The Packers could put ten guys in the box and Travairious Jackson would never unravel it. I feel like Minnesota can win this game, but I cannot figure out how.

Van: Minnesota only wins this game if they are playing in one of those Legends Leagues, where the old Purple People Eaters are on defense and Ahmad Rashad hadn’t resigned himself to burying his nose in Michael Jordan’s buttcrack.

Tampa Bay at Carolina
Bill’s Pick: Carolina
Picking this game is like choosing whether or not to accept a free vacation without knowing the destination or your fellow travelers. Maybe you are going to Vermont with your wife to see the fall colors. That’s nice. That’s Jake Delhomme. But maybe you are going to Amarillo with your in-laws for a tour of fast food restaurants. That’s David Carr. Now, I think it is pretty unlikely that Carr starts this game, but I am tempted to turn down the free vacation on the grounds that there is a chance. Both the Bucs and Panthers seem to be growing into their teams as the season goes on, and this is clearly round one of a two round bout to decide the NFC South (for those of us who have come to the painful recognition after three weeks that New Orleans would be hard-pressed to win a game, much less this division). Assuming Delhomme plays, the Panthers win, well, because they are at home.

Van: Tampa Bay’s best receiver is still Joey Galloway. Joey Friggin’ Galloway. Hell, I thought the guy was in WitSec for testifying against Rae Carruth…

Seattle at San Francisco
Bill’s Pick: San Francisco
These are both cities with great culture, wonderful seafood and peculiar weather. They both have superior independent record stores and storied local music scenes. Real estate is absurdly expensive in both places. You have to give the nod to San Francisco for being the superior walking city. And I do not like the Seahawks.

Van: This is why you lose to me every week. Not liking the Seahawks should have nothing to do with picking them when they are the better team. And they are the better team. You might want to note any sideline cameras on Mike Holmgren when he laughs at Darrell Jackson riverdancing through a route.

Pittsburgh at Arizona
Bill’s Pick: Arizona
Far from the friendly rust belt, three time zones away in the oppressive September heat, the Steelers walk in where everybody knows their names. All their names. And tendencies. Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm, purported in-house frontrunners for the Pittsburgh head job that went to Mike Tomlin, now prowl the sidelines for the Cardinals. The Cards have the knowledge and they have the heart. After storming back against the Ravens last week, Arizona gets it, and you can bet that Matt Leinart is on a shorter leash this week after Kurt Warner’s performance last week. Whisenhunt and Grimm can downplay this all they want, but you can bet they have been game-planning the Steelers since June.

Van: They can gameplan like The Belicheat, complete with the Wachowski Brothers filming in I-Max, and it won’t matter at all. They can gameplan like Wile E. Coyote and they still get run over by the train. God’s favorite QB might be Jon Kitna, but it sez so in Leviticus that He hates the Cardinals.

Denver at Indianapolis
Bill’s Pick: Indianapolis
This should be interesting. Nobody has even tried to throw on the Broncos this season. The Bills, Raiders and Jags totaled 58 pass attempts in three games. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that changes this week. Last year, after nibbling for a half, the Colts blew up at Invesco field, exposing a Bronco defense that had been the league’s stingiest. After brutal first-round playoff beatings in 2003 and 2004, the Donkeys re-tooled their entire defense just for the Colts. A perusal of the Broncos’ injury report turns up about half of their secondary. Champ Bailey is healthy, but as the Colts proved last year, it is not that hard to throw to the other side of the field.

Van: Mark it on your calendar – both Bill and I have picked against our teams. Then again, one of us is down five games to the other, and the other is trying to grow that lead. Loyalties fall by the wayside when victory is at stake.

Kansas City at San Diego
Bill’s Pick: San Diego
After a brutal early season tour of the NFL’s best teams, San Diego’s bye week comes early. Green Bay, New England and Chicago have provided three entirely separate blueprints for beating the Bolts (disregarding for the moment that the Bears gacked it up in the final twelve minutes), but the Chefs do not have the personnel to avail themselves of any of these plans. Good thing, too, because if KC had any plan at all and the wherewithal to execute it, Norv Turner would never adjust. A couple of weeks ago, one of the networks showed a bunch of pictures of Norv and his little brother (Chicago offensive coordinator Ron) growing up. Bears and Chargers fans should all be concerned (this means you, Van) because in all of the pictures, from birth to freshman basketball to weddings, they both look completely vacant. It’s weird. I guess I have to say about this game what a lot of people (this means you, Van) said about this season: even Norv can’t screw this up.

Van: What, me worry? I’ve got a QB in Chicago that’s one beer from a relapse and a running back in Chicago that makes me yearn for those halcyon days with Curtis Enis in the backfield…and while San Diego can indeed screw it up, KC can screw it up a lot worse.

Philadelphia at the Giants
Bill’s Pick: Philadelphia
Apparently, I was a week ahead of the curve complaining about throwback uniforms. See, Van, you clowned me and now I am vindicated. Now sports. Even after they finally showed up for a game, I cannot rid my head of the vision of the G-men uniting to quit against the Packers. I thought Donovan and the Iggles were better than they were showing, that they had a competent offense camouflaged by their inability to break 20 points. So on the one hand, they hung 56 points in week three, and on the other it was against the Lions. Without knowing which of the four teams playing this game might show up, you have to return to square one, which is simply that Philly has the superior team. If they both play to their highest capabilities, the Eagles win this by two touchdowns.

Van: Given a choice here, I’d almost rather hit my thumb with a hammer. Twice. And make that a sledgehammer. And let John Henry his own self swing it. If you are the demented sort that reads both Bill’s picks and mine, you’ll note that my metaphor for this game was haggis versus lutefisk. John Henry, swing away…

New England at Cincinnati
Bill’s Pick: New England
I think that Cincinnati can score on New England’s defense and that Carson Palmer can continue to put up absurd numbers, but I also think it will be completely out of necessity. The Bengals defense is just a suggestion. If the Ravens’ defense is a law, the Bengals’ D is a helpful hint. Palmer and Johnson and Houshmanzadeh will get their numbers, but it will be because they are constantly 21 points down.

Van: The Bungle’s defense isn’t even a suggestion as much as it’s a lewd comment to a minor. A first class berth aboard a cruise ship might mistreat guests more than Cincinnati’s defense, but not by much. The Natty’s defense is softer than Cedric Benson, and HE’S softer than the judges on America’s Next Top Model. I mean, this is the joke that keeps on giving, kinda like Kofi Annan’s Scams For (His) Kids…okay, I’m done. So’s Bill, by the way…heh heh heh…

Quick Slants - Week 3

Rex Grossman sucks.

There, my grip on the obvious is as firm as ever.

On Sunday night, in front of God and three other white men, Rex Grossman puked on his jersey.

(For Bill and Marin, that was what we in the English department like to call a metaphor. See, Rex didn't really puke on his jersey, but he played really horribly, AS THOUGH he'd puked on his jersey. Get it?)

And, truth be told, if he'd puked on his jersey it might have taken the attention away from that vomit-inducing stat line of his.

How bad? Joey Harrington (!!) outperformed him. By a mile. Harrington completed 70% of his passes in a real football game against men who were trying to knock the fashion sense out of him.

Grossman, on the other hand, couldn't complete 70% of his passes in a drill.

Speaking of drills and getting drilled, that thud you heard was the Lions falling back to earth in Philly. Maybe it was Donovan McNabb doing what the great ones do, responding to criticism by playing lights-out, or (more likely) it was the blindingly-ugly throwups, er, throwbacks that the Eagles were wearing, but boy-oh-boy the Eagles got well in a hurry.

So, uh, how's that whole Norv Turner thing working out in San Diego?

The guy is a disaster as a head coach...we get that. What we don't get is that this guy is way more than competent as an offensive coordinator, and he gets God's own running back in LaDainian Tomlinson, and yet arch-conservative Marty Schottenheimer was a LOT better at getting LT pointed north-and-south than Ol' Norv is...

The Belicheat has gotten Tom Brady and Randy Moss on the same page...sheeesh...the way those two are playing right now, The Belicheat could fax his game plan to the other team's defense and it would still be like the Coyote's parasol under an avalanche.

This just in - the feds are on the steroid case. Big time. As I write this, news is breaking of a major drug bust that encompassed several different countries, including the good ol' U.S. of A., and resulted in the seizure of millions of dollars of 'roids and HGH and the like...and names.

Lots and lots of names.

Hundreds of thousands of names, the reports kept saying. Hundreds of thousands.

One civic-minded district attorney in New York State found a handful of big-name pro athletes when he aggressively investigated one crooked doctor's office in Florida.

How many athletes in how many sports are about to get outed now?

Paraphrasing Morpheus, we're about to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Kansas City sleepwalked to victory over Minnesota thanks to a really bad replay call. In other news, pocket lint will have as much effect on this season as the result of this game.

Say this much for Houston: yes, they really miss Andre Johnson, but no, they didn't quite roll over and die for the undefeated Super Bowl champs.

And say this much for Indy: The Only Colt Who Really Matters wasn't too pleased with the victory. And that's a good thing if you're a Colt fan...heck, it's a good thing if you like good football, because the truly great ones are never satisfied with merely winning, but with total domination. The Colts didn't dominate, and Peyton Manning wasn't happy about it.

AFC Championship Game, Round 1: November 4, New England at Indianapolis.

AFC Championship Game, Round 2: Whoever wins Round 1 will likely host Round 2 in the playoffs.

And if it weren't for the fact that Indy and New England play each other in the regular season, we might have had two undefeated teams this season.

As it is, these two won't be chasing the ghosts of the '72 Dolphins as much as home field advantage throughout the playoffs...and it might take running the table to get it done this season.

On the other end of the spectrum, Jacksonville finally won a game. Now there are only five teams left in the 0-16 derby, with the winless Saints yet to play the Tennessee Titans. As difficult as it is to go undefeated, it may be even more difficult to go winless. In the Super Bowl era (not counting the strike season of 1982), only the legendary Tampa Bay Suckaneers managed to keep their zero unblemished for an entire season.

In the same era, 14 other teams, most recently Carolina in 2001, have managed to win only 1 game all season.

It sez so right here that the Falcons go the distance without a win. They got a great game from Joey Harrington and they still lost. If the Falcons can't win when Joey Ballgame is having Joe Montana flashbacks, they have a snowflake's chance in Satan's zip code of winning when he's playing to his historical (read: bad) form.

There's been a Ronnie Brown sighting in Miami, which means we can take the roadblocks down now...

Before the season started, I liked the Bears to go 13-3. At this rate, they'll go 3-13...

But I can take some solace in the fact that Bronco fans are contemplating jumping off ski lifts after their beloved Orange got Crushed by Jacksonville (snicker).

Hey, don't think I'm done flagellating myself over that sickening Bears loss, especially when I haven't even addressed the running back debacle. See, the current guy, Cedric Benson, is soft. SOFT. Johnny Mathis soft. NASA-approved foam cushioning for mattresses soft. Jell-O Pudding soft.

The guy the Bears traded, Thomas Jones, is not soft. He ran like a man looking to start trouble in the Jets victory this weekend; wherever the biggest guys were, Jones ran right at them and knocked them over.

Benson, on the other hand, ran like a co-ed in a panty raid, all screaming and giggly and in circles hoping someone might catch him, which they did all afternoon.

Between Grossman completing more passes to the other team than to one of his starting wideouts (or tight ends, for that matter) and Benson running like a block of quartz in a box, the Bears offense is truly offensive.

...and I'm OUT like half the Bears defense...gaaaaaah...