Week 14 Review

A Couple of Real Chicago Bears

For the Week:
Vs. W/L: (8-8)
Vs. Spread: (8-8)
Vs. +/- (9-7)

For the Season:
Vs. W/L (124-84)
Vs. Spread: (101-105-2)
Vs. +/-: (98-103-3)

With a .500 week, the Clueless Prognosticator jumped into sole possession of third place vis-à-vis the cbs.sportsline.com experts, five games out of second and a-mere-seven wins behind the leaders.

Leading off with the disappointments, New England always has had tough luck down in Miami, but Sunday’s performance was a new low; what an awful game. Forget about Belichick’s pronouncements about being 9-4, right now, they have glassy-eyed "one and done look" heading into playoff time. Thanks to Buffalo’s great showing against the Jets, the Patriots took another step toward January by default. There were two rather big disappointing blowouts: Indy and Dallas. The Indianapolis run defense is a joke; and it was blatantly exposed for the world to see. The Jags decided to play well on Sunday, and everything worked out just right. And how ‘bout them Cowboys? In front of a national TV Sunday night audience, they were pathetic, so we can hold off on enshrining Tony Romo in Canton. New Orleans took it to Dallas in every phase of the game. And one can only wonder what words Big Tuna shared with his troops after the game. Most likely, there were no further celebrations of TO’s birthday week. Owens has already had a number of dropped passes in critical situations this year (insert Ted Knight laugh track here). Seattle was also a big disappointment, losing to the woeful Cardinals. The NFC West simply has to be the worst division in the NFL. The winner may come out of it with a .500 record, which would be simply deplorable. The Packers victory in San Francisco was another big surprise, based on their lackluster play of late. The 49ers had an opportunity to tighten things up even further in the NFC West and failed to do so. Once again Coach Marinelli’s crew from Detroit proved that they belong at the bottom of the NFL. One can only hope the Lions finish at the bottom of the barrel and grab Notre Dame’s quarterback Brady Quinn with the first overall pick in next year’s draft.

On the plus side, you have to like what the Ravens are doing these days. After subpar showing in Week 13, they rebounded quite nicely in Kansas City and have to be considered along with San Diego as favorites for the AFC championship in in late January. The Chargers basically handed Denver their tickets for home on December 31st. The Broncos are done, so we might as well stick a fork in 'em. On balance at this point in the season, the Chargers are the best team in football. Cincinnati had a very nice win against pathetic Oakland. And before all is said and done, they may have a say in the January tournament.

Over in the NFC, the Bears rebounded last night with a big win against the putrid Rams. And watch out, because Philadelphia's coming on strong, which is a nice thing to see for team who will be without the leader for the rest of the way. Though they squeaked by the Redskins, for the rest of the season, it’s Jeff Garcia steam now. And they appear to be responding quite well under a veteran quarterback’s leadership. The G-Men had a nice win as well against Carolina, who proved once and for all that without Jake Delhomme, they ain'y goin' a'nowhere. The Giants definitely have a wild-card shot, but the team is so riddled with injury, that it's hard to predict how far they could go in the tournament. Atlanta is still alive for a wild-card shot, but has become painfully obvious for Falcon fans that Michael Vick will not be able to lead them very far in the playoffs. I can guarantee that you will be a lot of talk behind closed doors down in Atlanta about trading Vick to the likes of Oakland for a package of draft picks, and going the more conventional quarterback route with Vick's backup Matt Schaub.

Hands down, Week 13’s most exciting game took place down in Houston, where Vince Young had quite a wonderful homecoming party, running for the winning touchdown in overtime. There will be a lot of debate now, regarding the Texans wisdom of passing up Vince Young with the first overall pick in last year's draft in favor of Mario Williams. No doubt, the David Carr doubters of the world will be having a field day, which is a shame. Any time a player goes into an expansion team environment, things are going to be rough for a while. However, when the first overall pick is the quarterback and is given no support on the offensive line, he’s going to spend a lot of time on his back. Carr shown that he is a major-league quarterback and that he was worthy of the investment of time and money. He's only now starting to develop into its prime, and the Texans were wise in the long run not to draft another franchise quarterback but to build a team around the franchise quarterback they already have. After what occurred on Sunday, the local yahoos will be turning up the heat to hasten Carr's departure from Texas. I hope the football people with the Texans don’t abandon ship on this kid. Were he given the opportunity to play with a contender, people would not write him off so easily.

Catch you later on this week, with the games for week 15.