I waited a few hours before I decided to go ahead with this post. I waited for a pair of press conference that have yet to come. I think these press conferences have been delayed because it takes a while for information to filter into and back out of Middle America. The most vital is the one Lovie Smith is to hold any time now. For those who may not know, Lovie is the coach of the Chicago Bears.

In the wake of last night's sublimely amazing victory over the Vikings, the New England Patriots achieved something no other team has achieved in the history of the National Football League. They beat a team 27 days prior to the scheduled start of their game. As I first suggested a few weeks ago, the time has come to refer to the Bears as a one loss team. There is no way, barring some sort of Jim Jones Kool Aid episode, that the Bears can come into Gillette Stadium and compete with the mighty Patriots. That is, unless Ron Borges could have placed too much emphasis on last night's win over a very flawed Minnesota team.

Maybe Ron Borges and I read different articles and watch different TV programming, but I had not heard Minnesota mentioned among the class of the NFC until his article. They have a shot to make the playoffs, but not a very good one. Most national coverage of the National Football Conference seems to favor the South and East divisions rather than the North. The Cowboys, Eagles, Falcons and Panthers all have better shots to end up with the 2 wildcard playoff berths than the mighty Vikings.

Ron Borges makes a big deal (pun not intended) about the two massive Minnesota defensive tackles. Perhaps he would have done well to make it clear to his readers that Pat Williams, one of the pair, is still more famous for his bizarre feud with Bears center Olin Kreutz than for his play on the field. Apparently, Kreutz single-handedly formed a cabal that kept Williams out of the Pro Bowl. That sounds about as ridiculous as this poor cat looks.

For those who insist on the proprieties, I got the picture from the AP via the Daily Telegraph and Jed Carlson. I did not take that picture. I do not own a cat, and if I did, there is no way in the world that someone would dress that cat in a costume of any sort. Look at it. Any fool can tell that the cat is livid. So you're a loser, live with it. Don't take it out on a cat, or dog. But I digress.

I know that it has become every reader's favorite thing that nearly resembles a feature in this blog, but it's time for another of my sporadic musings on the Bears and their title hopes. At this point, I still don't know that they can win the Super Bowl. They beat the 49ers in resounding fashion on Sunday. But I'm reluctant to call it an impressive win.

Yes, the Bears were ahead by forty one points by halftime. So they had that going for them, which is nice. They went on to win 41-10. I am not saying that they should have played as hard to preserve the shutout as they did in the process of building the big lead. Nor am I saying the Bears should have tried to run up the score (even more than they did). I am merely not overly impressed with them beating a team savagely when they were expected to beat that team savagely.

I am fairly convinced that the Bears can venture into Gillette Stadium and compete with the Patriots. I believe the Bears can win the game. I am not willing to say anything more definite on the subject at this point for two reasons. First, there is the menacing presence of Rex Grossman. I think he got the bad game out of his system in Arizona, but what if he didn't? Then there is my prediction that Dallas would beat Philly. That didn't go so well.

So I would say this to wrap up this stream of something (not quite consciousness) with this advice to Lovie Smith. Don't forfeit just yet. After all, the Patriots have the Colts this week. While they have had some success against Peyton Manning in the past, the New England defense hasn't been tested the way they will be on Sunday night all season. If the Patriots lose that game, according to Ron Borges logic, the Bears will only lose by 30. Then again, if the Patriots win, Brady and the boys will win the Bears game by somewhere on the order of a trillion points (give or take an order of magnitude). In that case, I'd best start rewriting the Paper Lace opus "The Night Chicago Died."

The other press conference I expected this afternoon should have come from city officials in Boston. Since the Red Sox picked up Tim Wakefield's option, I assumed that the city would have announced its preparations for the victory parade to celebrate the World Series championship which is now in the cards for the 2007 edition of the Henrymen (the CHB's expression, not mine). Maybe they're waiting until after the election, maybe they were too hung over from celebrating the Patriot triumph or maybe they await the big name signings that are currently in the works. I'm rooting for them to engineer a trade for Gary Sheffield, and I think you know why, Red Sox Nation.

PS - I don't know if you happened to catch Cold Pizza today, but for the first time ever, I thought Dana Jacobson looked a bit frisky in her Halloween costume at the end of the show. Of course, I might not have noticed it before in her more professional attire. Maybe I was a bit prejudiced against her as a graduate of Michigan. I think we all know by now that Ann Arbor (and the northern Midwest, in general) is pretty much Xanadu for the unattractive female. As with most of the insulting and offensive things that appear in the blog, I hope you realize I mean it in the nicest way possible.

I know it's been a while since I last updated this blog. I've been more than a little depressed by this World Series. The Cardinals winning is not good for any one. I think we can all agree that no one in St. Louis really deserves to be happy. When your chief landmark is a big freestanding arch with no particular significance (I know the arch represents the gateway to the West, but it's still pathetic), you live in a loser town. No way around it. Given the choice between living in Missouri and death, I'm taking death.

A lot of people wonder why the World Series ratings are so low. Part of it may be the fact that the Tigers and the Cardinals did not get the national TV exposure during the season that the New York teams received. Part of it may be the fact that the Cardinals were dreadful this season. They finished two games over .500, and they went on an amazingly boring run in the playoffs. Part of it might be that baseball is no longer America's pastime. The NFL is the big sport now.

One thing that has not received enough attention is the network itself. FOX does an atrocious job of packaging and presenting baseball as a television sport. It is difficult to make baseball work as a TV sport, there is a lot of dead time in a baseball game. Do we really need to see managers spit and scratch themselves while the pitcher and catcher sort out the sign, the hitter steps in and out of the batter's box and boring announcers try to be amusing and fail miserably? But that is what we get. There are those who maintain that the beauty of baseball is that there is no clock. I disagree. With a clock there might be more consistent urgency, more motion and more action. Is that a bad thing?

Joe Buck and Tim McCarver have no business broadcasting games, together or separately. Think about it. Ask your friends (provided, of course, that you have any). Find some one who is willing to admit that they like these guys calling games. Is there one person in America not related to Buck or McCarver that looks forward to their brand of broadcasting? They have no charisma, they are boring, predictable and dragging the games down. The network attempted to bring some life to the booth for the championship series by including Luis Gonzales. That was a colossal failure.

Then there is Scooter, the annoying (to say the least) animated baseball endeavoring to explain the various pitches to the casual fan. Will any of us who saw it ever recover from Jeff Suppan's ill fated appearance with Scooter, rebroadcast during Game 3? I think not. I know he was trying to be funny, but I can't forgive him for failing so drastically. And if my name were Suppan, and you called me Soup, there would be both consequences and repercussions.

Baseball is really dying before our eyes. Yeah, they set an attendance record this season. That's nice, but when your marquee event's TV ratings decline year after year you have a serious problem. Crowning 7 different champions in 7 years may point to parity and competitive balance, but have teams leveled up or leveled down? I think baseball has leveled down. There are no great teams, and very few great players. There are even fewer compelling stories. When we look back on this postseason, will we remember it for having one of the weaker champions of all time, or for it bringing the demise of Steve "Psycho" Lyons?

As I type this, FOX put a fitting signature on this evening's broadcast. Joe Buck finally revealed the ultimate mystery of baseball. His final thought: "There can be only one champion." No way! Really? I was under the impression that there could be 13 or 14 or an infinite number of champions. And as the credits roll, what does FOX play? A cover of U2's One. And a very bad one at that. Apparently they couldn't get the Kenny G cover of Juicy by the Notorious BIG (I am aware that was also a cover).

This World Series was terrible because the media built up the Tigers until we were sick to death of them. And then the Tigers, whether because of the layoff, the team buying into the media coverage and letting down or a combination thereof, bombed and bombed badly. Now we have the Cardinals as a reigning World Series champion, and who cares? No one likes the Cardinals because they are eminently dislikeable.

Maybe Albert Pujols is the best hitter in the world, but he has no personality. He's not marketable the way Jeter or Ortiz or even Manny can be marketed to the masses. He has all the charisma of the Frankenstein monster in the original cinematic version. Then there is Jim Edmonds, the least likeable centerfielder since Ty Cobb. Duncan, Taguchi, Belliard, Molina, Rolen, Spezio. Those names don't exactly leap off the page, do they? Even with that stupid red beard on Spezio.

David Eckstein, the All American boy (Jim Leyland's words, not mine)? More like that hall monitor that always ratted you out for breaking whichever of the insipid rules elementary schools use to thwart the creativity of the individual (I was less than a model student as a youngster), without, of course, the bear mace and religious fervor that made Cartman such a success in a recent South Park. And if proud NH product (as though that weren't a massive contradiction) Chris Carpenter ever despairs of living free, I won't miss him should he try the other half of New Hampshire's glorious motto.

If you can't tell by now, I wanted to see the Tigers win. Alas, Placido Polanco didn't want to hit. The Tigers pitchers didn't want to field their positions correctly. And Curtis Granderson wanted to play centerfield like a drunken sailor in Game 3. There is more blame to go around, as is always the case with a catastrophe of this magnitude, but there isn't enough time to get into it now. I'll just have to deal with my disappointment.

Before I sign off, I think this point must be addressed. Jim Rome, among others, has discovered a disturbing trend in America today. Shawne Merriman tested positive for steroids, and it isn't as big a deal as the baseball steroid witch hunt. This double standard exists for two reasons. First, we expect more violence from our football players so we are willing to look the other way when they enhance their natural gifts with banned substances. We also focus so much of our energy on our fantasy teams and football gambling that we look the other way in these cases.

There is another way to look at it. Perhaps we reacted to the Merriman suspension the way we did because the NFL has a history of suspending players for steroid use that goes back more than two decades, and not until Congress wasted time and millions of dollars in a farce two years ago. I'm sure I'm wrong though, because my way of thinking would require Jim Rome and his followers to step down from the soap box and spare us the anger of the righteous. I don't think any of us want to live in world like that.

The other night I had some trouble falling asleep. I decided to do a bit of reading, so I picked up my copy of Orwell's Collected Essays. Not exactly light reading, I admit, but I find his blend of sarcasm, appreciation for everyday things and insight into human nature reassuring. I read the eighth of his As I Please columns he wrote, and it made me think that I should write this post.

In that column, written for Tribune and published on January 21, 1944, Orwell addressed the people who criticized the BBC and its programming. He concedes that there was a great deal wrong with the BBC, but none of the critics seemed to devote any thought to why this was the case and what could be done about it. When I read this again, it occurred to me that I have spent a lot of time criticizing various media outlets without analyzing how things could be better.

The most obvious target of my criticism has been the CHB. I suppose there is very little of intelligence or constructive suggestion in the statement that the CHB looks like Dr. Who. I think it's funny, though, so there will be no form of retraction or apology. And as for his colleague Bob Ryan, and fellow traveler Jay Mariotti, both of whom have been enshrined in the Max Mercy Hall of Fame, they deserved it.

There is a way to fix newspaper sports coverage. It's really quite simple, in theory. Hire better writers. Hire people with a modicum of creativity, who will not have to resort to the "there is something gravely wrong in the world of sports" column that attaches earth-shattering significance to each day's developments (like the Terrell Owens saga). Of course that's a pipe dream, what with the fact that the newspaper is slowly dying right before our eyes.

Lately, I have been critical of ESPN also. Perhaps I overreacted to their coverage of the Cory Lidle tragedy. However, there is a lot to be said for respecting a family's privacy and letting a story unfold before devoting an entire evening to covering it. I have a problem with ESPN because they air sports programming 24 hours a day on four networks. It sounds like a sports fan's dream scenario, but it isn't a good thing.

Because they have 24 hours to fill, the powers that be have to fill it with something. There just aren't enough sporting events and "sporting events" (darts, poker and billiards are not sports), and only so many times you can rebroadcast The Contender. In order to fill the time, ESPN rushes some stories to air. By doing so, they end up manufacturing stories. By that I don't mean they make up a story. They end up taking an event and covering it, and then their coverage becomes the story.

Consider the Terrell Owens episode. Will any one ever completely believe any version of his hospitalization? What would have happened had the network waited before it rushed to the air with the Dallas police narrative? So much air was wasted and ink spilled over what may well be a non-story. He could have deliberately ODed, or been the victim of a pharmaceutical interaction. We'll never really know, because the spectacle of an entire afternoon devoted to the incident and the press conferences held by the various parties from the Dallas PD, EMS, the team, T.O., Parcells and the PR assistant.

Then there is the Larry Coker situation at Miami. Every commentator and his/her brother has weighed in on that sordid scene. Has any one asked the question what responsibility resides with the media for the fight? I don't know if Larry Coker has lost that team. It certainly looked like it on Saturday. But if he has lost his team, might it have been adversely effected by the infinite number of has Larry lost this team stories that had already appeared since the loss to Florida State in the first game?

Of course, if ESPN (and the media in general) were to ask questions like that, it would question their very reason for being. We all know that no one needs 24 hours of sports coverage, but we want it as consumers. ESPN gives us what we want and if the Lidle family, Larry Coker or Terrell Owens must be trampled, then trampled they shall be. God forbid one think for oneself, or come up with something to say to one's friends without help from the Worldwide Leader.

In all of that, it seems that I have failed to provide a constructive criticism of ESPN's programming. There is no constructive criticism to the problems addressed above that I can see, except for waiting a bit before breaking a story. That won't happen, since every media outlet is competing not only with other media outlets, but with blogs like Deadspin (not this blog, since it takes me days to assemble my thoughts and ramble). I do have a constructive suggestion about the talk show rotation on ESPN. Here it is.

In this day and age, it is amazing that there isn't a female host on any of the ESPN talk shows. Think of their roll call: First and 10 -Page, Crawford and Bayless, PTI - Wilbon and Kornheiser (with luminaries like LeBatard, Ryan, Whitlock and Mariotti as stand-ins), Quite Frankly - Smith, Around the Horn - Reali and Rome is Burning - Jim Rome. Even among the panelists on Around the Horn, Jackie MacMullin is the only woman. Is there some reason I don't know of that a female host could not succeed as the men listed above have?

The first to go, if some one must go, from the list above is Jim Rome. While I am not acquainted with every demographic among the ESPN audience, I can say this. No one I know likes Jim Rome. The only segment of the viewing audience to which he seems to appeal is the phony tough, crazy brave frat guy, would be frat guy, future frat guy and former frat guy. Jim Rome must be their lizard king, since he is as phony tough and crazy brave as they come.

Memo to Jim Rome: everybody knows you aren't tough. Even if the famous incident with Jim Everett were staged, you were still dribbled on the set of your own show by a guy you called Chris Evert. Memo to Jim Rome: calling T.O. "to" is not funny. Nor is it tough. Memo to Jim Rome: now that you can see this in print, maybe you'll realize how ridiculous it is and give the "memo to" expression the rest it so richly deserves.

Can any body honestly tell me that one of the ESPN sideline reporters like Suzy Kolber, Michelle Tafoya, Lisa Salters or Erin Andrews couldn't do a better job? After all, Pam Ward does the play-by-play on ESPN college football telecasts, and she does as well as most of her male counterparts (not that that is a compliment, necessarily). Any one of the women I mentioned above would probably do very well as a talk show host. They would certainly be less abrasive, which is Jim Rome's one skill.

ESPN needn't fear losing the audience segment described above, they would watch the show merely because an attractive woman hosted it. For those who think advocating the termination of the show Rome is Burning is not a constructive suggestion, watch the show and tell me that the nation would not be better off if that tool were off the air.

As the fourth quarter of this evening's NFL Monday Night Football game between the Chicago Bears and the Arizona Cardinals winds down, it looks like a fair number of pundits and commentators might be calling in sick tomorrow. Physical therapists across the nation will be treating them for a variety of minor injuries like muscle pulls and joint sprains associated with awkward landings. The Chicago Bears bandwagon might have some good seats available this week.

I have complained a time or two that the media make too much of the most recent performance when they do their analysis. The Bears look awful on offense tonight, and the defense hasn't made enough plays to beat the Cardinals. As I write this, the Edge has fumbled and Charles Tillman took it in for the TD. They are not done yet.

It was only a matter of time until Rex Grossman came back to Earth. He take a lot of chances, he doesn't have much game experience. He hasn't had to battle through a bad road performance like this has been to this point (3:27 and counting, now). The Bears, as a group, don't have that much big game experience. Yes, they made the playoffs last season, and there are some holdovers from the team Dick Jauron took to the playoffs.

In those years, they didn't have to battle their way into the playoffs. Their division just sort of opened up for them. Right now, it looks like the NFC North is going to open up for them again. Green Bay is dreadful. Detroit is four back in the loss column. Minnesota has shocked me thus far, by winning a couple of games. I thought they were going to be much worse (and they aren't very good). Chicago has one game remaining against each of their division rivals, and there is no reason to doubt that the Bears could go 5-1, or even 6-0 in the NFC North.

Devin Hester has just returned a punt for a TD with about 3:00 remaining, giving the Bears a 24-23 lead, in a game where Rex Grossman threw 4 picks, and the offense managed to score all of 0 points. If you are a glass half full person, then you see visions of the 2000 Ravens who weathered a multiple game stretch in midseason without an offensive TD. If you're a glass half empty type, the Bears were overrated and Arizona exposed them tonight. Neil Rackers just missed the kick, the Bears won the game.

I am a pessimist, as a general rule, but I'm also a contrarian. The NFL season, as cliche tells us, is not a sprint, but a marathon. The thing is, to get through the season, a team needs some help at different points along the line. Yes, the offense did nothing, or less than nothing when you factor in the six turnovers. Yes, they needed a 21 point effort from their defense and special teams. But is that a reason to abandon the bandwagon?

To those who say that it is a reason to jump off the Bears' bandwagon, I can't deny they looked bad on offense tonight. It made one think with longing of the glory days of Kyle Orton. But I think it's too soon to forsake them. I would like those who want to stop believing in Chicago breakdown the 1972 Dolphins' perfect season. I haven't looked at it myself yet, but I'm sure there must have been one game they could have lost somewhere along that storybook season. At the end of the day, unless you're Billy Beane or Peyton Manning, it's the win that matters.

I posed the question two weeks ago, and it is going to be a running theme as the season progresses. Can the Bears win the Super Bowl? I didn't have a definitive answer then, and I still don't. Believe it or not, I am more inclined to say that these Bears can win it all than I was then. Adversity is important in the shaping of a team's character. Depending on how the Bears come out from their bye week (not just the San Fran game, but the two or three following it), I think I will be ready to give my answer by mid November.

If they can get a more consistent offensive performance, this Bears team could be unstoppable. If they don't calm down a little bit, they are eminently beatable. There is no way this team can go undefeated. I said it to a friend (believe it or not, I have friends) on the blower before the game tonight. They have to play St. Louis in the Edward Jones Dome, and the Bears have not been a good indoor team in their history. There is the three game stretch in November where they play both New York teams and the veritable gods among men that call Gillette Stadium their Valhalla.

The Cardinals were up by 20 in the second half, and collapsed. Some of the better opponent's who will face the Bears as the season progresses will not collapse under the same pressure. The Bears need to learn from this game, and temper their confidence. Perhaps a wave of refugees from the Chicago bandwagon will wake them up.

As a fan of My Name is Earl, I think there is a lot to be said for the effect karma can have. One reason I am reluctant to wholeheartedly endorse this Bears team is that a lot of negative karma is still hovering over the Chicago football landscape. The premature demise of a Bears team that should have become a dynasty atoned for the Super Bowl Shuffle video. For those a more serious punishment should have been meted out, remember that the proceeds from the video went to charity.

There is some negative karma lingering from the Bears Super Bowl team that may never be exorcised. There is a video from the Super Bowl season featuring Harold Washington, then mayor of Chicago with a group of women dressed as cheerleaders. The women sing a song that goes: "Should we give them the finger? Yeah, yeah. We're number one, we're number one, we're number one, one one." I tried to find it on YouTube, with no luck tonight. But you can see it from time to time on extended highlights of the 85 season on ESPN. I'll look again, and if I find it I'll post the link to it.

Well, the As won't be celebrating a World Series title this fall, just like they haven't celebrated in each of the seasons during Billy Beane's reign of terror. Sooner or later, the commercial media will stop massaging his ego and start expecting a little more than simply making the playoffs. Until that day, I guess fans will have to swallow his snake oil for at least one more year. Perhaps Billy Beane and Peyton Manning can have a grudge match in the offseason to see which overhyped fraud can rightly lay claim to the title "King of the Frauds."

Unlike most people, I guess, I think that at some point a player or a coach has to lead his team to a championship game or series, and an executive must build a team that can at least reach the championship game or series. Until that happens, any praise a player, coach or an executive receives isn't worth a damn thing. Sports, unlike any other aspect of life, are shockingly simple. Someone wins and someone loses. And until you've won, you're nothing but a loser. Any other sentiment but that is nonsense you feed little kids after they lost a Little League game. That's why Peyton Manning is a fraud, and Billy Beane is nothing more than the nerdy kid who knew more algebra than they rest of us (Theo Epstein, stats tool though he is, gets a pass because his team won a title).

A development more interesting than the As collapse occurred in this year's ALCS. Far be it for me to take delight in the downfall of another, especially when some many better paid commentators on TV and in the press do it so gleefully. But Steve "Psycho" Lyons will not be joining us in the broadcast booth at least not for the foreseeable future. I guess we all should have seen this coming, but I never believed it possible.

I imagine their must have been a segment of the viewing audience who enjoyed his "wit," "wisdom" and "insight." I was not one of those people. Moreover, no one I know enjoyed his commentary on baseball broadcasts. And yet, there he was calling games on Fox Saturday baseball with Thom Brenneman making you miss Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, as impossible as that seems. It's amazing that a lack of talent, humor and real insight into the game is not cause for dismissal.

I do agree that his off color comments on people of Hispanic descent merited punishment. But is saying that Lou Pinella was "hablaing Espanol" so terrible? I don't think so. It's certainly stupid, a poor attempt to be folksy. Very poor indeed. Far worse, and less intelligent, was his remark that he was uncomfortable sitting next to Lou Pinella (who is of Hispanic descent) and he feared for the safety of his wallet. That was enough to get him fired.

The strange thing is he had a history of this type of behavior. During the Mets-Dodgers NLDS matchup, he cracked on a fan wearing unusually thick glasses. The cute little epigram was "wearing a digital camera on his face." Of course, there was no way for Steve Lyons to know that the fan in question was almost blind, but there was no need for him to say that either.

Then there was the infamous criticism of Shawn Green for not playing a game against the Giants during Yom Kippur. Shawn Green just happens to be Jewish. Amazingly, Lyons survived that incident. He was suspended without pay, but he wasn't fired. I guess this was his third strike.

I am somewhat torn about this. Part of me is glad that he's no longer broadcasting baseball because I thought he brought nothing to the table. Part of me understands that what he said was colossally ignorant and has no place in civilized conversation. But part of me knows that we've all either made off color comments about other racial or ethnic group. And part of me fears political correctness will eventually overwhelm free expression.

One must ask the question how dumb is Steve Lyons? Even if enlightenment in this area is beyond your intellectual capacity, at some point the instinct to self preservation should come to the fore. If you have been caught on two prior occasions for general insensitivity, and disciplined for religious insensitivity, avoiding any type of ethnic insensitivity might be a good idea. If those of you who read this (all 1.3 of you) aren't smart enough to grasp the self preservation concept, I would suggest this course of action. Simple politeness.

Take a page from General Patton (as depicted in the Oscar winning film with George C. Scott). After omitting the Russians from a speech on his experiences in England where he ever so briefly mentioned Anglo-American world rule in a postwar scenario, Patton found himself in hot water with his superiors. The organizers of his appearance assured the General that his remarks would be off the record, but word got out and caused a huge controversy.

Patton said to his superiors that he would have mentioned the Russians if there had been any present at the time. He said he didn't like the SOBs, but he would have mentioned them out of simple politeness. Apparently simple politeness is far, far beyond the capacities of our society.

Do not misconstrue the tone of this post. Racism is not acceptable. Under no circumstance should you make someone uncomfortable because of their heritage. I merely suggest to those individuals who are not sufficiently enlightened to abandon racial prejudice or clever enough to recognize the consequences of ethnically insensitive comments, that you should at least be polite enough to keep your mouth shut. I apologize for the grammar, but if you can't not be a moron, at least be a quiet moron.

In the long run, I think it's a victory for us all to have Steve Lyons off the air. Unless, of course, the network finds a permanent replacement who proves to be worse than Psycho. I guess we can always hope.

Congratulations are due to the Worldwide Leader in Sports, today. A tragedy occurred in the sports world, and machine that covers the comings and goings of athletes sprang into action with ruthless precision. Words cannot adequately describe the sorrow involved when a 34 year old man with a wife and six year old son passes away suddenly. And yet the story dominated ESPN all afternoon and all evening since it broke.

I am being harsh in my treatment of the ESPN family, I suppose. And uncharacteristically serious. Like many sports fans, I watch ESPN quite a bit. And like many sports fans, I hate the "have righteous indignation, will travel" mentality which is the trademark of the modern sportswriter. I try to strike a light tone, but today isn't most days.

Cory Lidle died when his plane crashed into a building on the East Side of Manhattan. In their rush to coverage, ESPN came on the air with the story before the family could be properly notified. Can you imagine? Stepping off a plane (his wife and son were apparently on a commercial flight when the tragedy occurred) in an airport terminal and seeing on the TV that your spouse died in a plane crash.

Never having taken a class in journalism, I can't say whether or not that is responsible. I do know that it is a pretty rotten way to find out that you're widowed. It also struck me as ghoulish to see the Baseball Tonight talking heads intermittently appearing on screen to remind us how this sad even puts a perspective on the Yankees recent difficulties and controversies. Did this story really merit the three or so hours of national television time it got today?

I understand that too much attention is paid to the world of sports in general, and to high profile franchises in particular. The Yankees are the most visible franchise in the nation's largest media market. There is also the fact that from no until this generation passes, no one will hear a story of an aircraft hitting a building and not call to mind images of the carnage of September 11. As a matter course, this unfortunate incident was bound to be overcovered. That is the unfortunate reality of cable television, 24 hours programming and the internet media circus era in which we live.

There are several questions which linger. First, is the obvious, who made the decision to devote the day of programming to this story, and why? And again, was it coincidence, or a mad rush on the spur of the moment, that a retrospective on the tragic death of Yankee catcher Thurman Munson in a plane crash in 1979 was available for broadcast tonight? Finally, where is the line in reporting a breaking story and respecting a family's right to privacy in the wake of a tragic loss?

Tragedy TV is an unfortunate trend in today's entertainment industry. When a celebrity dies or does something noteworthy (provided, of course, that it is a negative action), it will be covered in the news media until people have their fill of it. I don't watch the news on a regular basis because of this phenomenon. I can live without knowing the gory details of each horror of every day that passes.

I might be one of the last 3 or 4 people to understand why the Irwin family withholds the footage of the tragic death of Steve, famously known as the Crocodile Hunter. Why do people need to see their personal tragedy unfold on You Tube? He was struck in the chest by a sting ray spine, it pierced his heart. Isn't that a vivid enough description without seeing the poor man die?

Sports was my escape from this insanity. But now there is no escape. Look at the events of the Terrell Owens soap opera. Whether or not his camp is telling the truth about a pharmaceutical mishap is not the real issue. The real problem is that the media hopes events like that turn out to be an attempt at suicide. It fills more broadcast time. The fifth starter on the New York Yankees tragically dies in a plane crash, and it's like a head of state passed away. Well, it looks like we've lost sports to the tragedy TV culture. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I write this evening to demand that the Dallas police arrest one Drew Bledsoe for triple homicide. With one throw, he killed the Cowboy's chances of winning the game, my prediction that they would beat the Eagles and my fantasy football team's chances for victory. All of my players are done, all of the other cat's players are done. I came up 3 points short.

I like Drew Bledsoe as a QB. I wish him well, but I am seriously pissed at this week's turn of events. I was 3-1, tied for the lead in my division and for best record in the league. Now I'll go to 3-2, the tool who beat me is now in sole possession of said best record. I may stay tied for first, if Tomlinson and Gates are stifled by the Steelers.

A TD pass from Bledsoe would have won me the game. Especially if he threw it to TO or Jason Witten, both of whom were in my lineup. His interception got him -1.8 points on the day. Not only did he bring nothing to the table, he actually took things away. Seven sacks, three interceptions and a lost fumble. That will offset 223 yards passing, 24 yards rushing and a rushing TD.

Every criticism of Bledsoe was present in today's game. The Eagles pressured him up the middle, big time. He held the ball too long, refused to throw it away and took big sacks. Especially on first and second down in the two minute offense. He did make some big throws, too, to be fair. Especially the one to Terry Glenn that drew the pas interference call which brought the team down to the 3 yard line. Ironically, if Glenn had caught the ball it wouldn't have meant a damn thing in the real world but it would have put me in a better position to win the fantasy football game.

And then, he took the jam out of the collective doughnut of Dallas fans, idiots like me who played him in fantasy football, his coaches and his teammates. He found a wide open defender and drilled a perfect pass to him for 6 points. It was a classic Drew Bledsoe moment. I like his competitiveness and his confidence, but I hate the ghost in the machine that makes him make the fatal mistake at the big moment in the big game. Visions of Reggie White devouring Max Lane danced in my head all day today (Super Bowl XXXI, for those with short memories).

I suppose I ought to explain myself and the thought process that cost me the game. If I played Byron Leftwich in a much better matchup against the New York Jets, I win the game. It's that simple. It's a risk you take each week with the decisions you make as a fantasy owner. It's an artificial feeling of power that makes games which might not be so compelling in their own right more interesting. That's why they call it fantasy football, and not the Cincinnati Kid wins.

I took a chance, playing the Jaguars defense after a game where they were shredded by Mark Brunell and Santana Moss. They were facing Chad Pennigton who was ripping it up, throwing for over 300 yards against the Titans and the Patriots. It worked like a charm. They shutout the Jets, sacked Pennington five times, intercepted him three times, recovered a fumble and blocked a kick. All told, they got me 23 points, so I can only complain so much about Bledsoe.

What kills me is that I'm in a league that gives points for return yards. My opponent threw Rock Cartwright, JJ Arrington and Wes Welker at me. Welker got 12 points from his return yards alone (to go with 7 points from his receptions). Arrington and Cartwright didn't touch the ball on offense, but combined to score . I went with a more conventional lineup, Bledsoe, Larry Johnson, Deuce McAllister, Ronnie Brown, TO, Torry Holt, Jason Witten, Lawrence Tynes and the Jaguar defense. In addition to the kick returners, my opponent played Peyton Manning, Kevin Jones, Santana Moss, Robbie Gould and the Saints defense.

It was a brilliant ploy, each time a kick returner touches the ball he's going to get about 20 yards or so. That's 2 points a touch. I have a much more traditional lineup, and I took it for granted today. I didn't even look at my team this week, I just figured my lineup was good enough that I didn't need to tinker with it. That's what cost me the game.

But my fantasy woes this week tie back into the real world issues. I tricked myself into going with the Cowboys this week, and Bledsoe in fantasy football using the same rationale. I thought the Cowboys could handle the Eagle blitz package. The Eagles weren't doing anything particularly exotic. They just sent more people up the middle than the Cowboys could handle. It was a brutally elegant and simply devastating.

The Cowboys thought they could handle the blitz, and didn't communicate well up front. After all, linebacker and safeties weren't the one running free and hitting Bledsoe. The guys hitting Bledsoe most often were defensive tackle Darwin Walker and especially defensive end Dwight Howard. That means the offensive linemen aren't communicating effectively. They have to close down to the inside, that's an offensive lineman's fist responsibility. If one guy has to close down to the inside, some one has to move with him, and Dallas failed to do that time and time again.

It wasn't all Drew's fault all the time. But the big play at the end of the game was all Drew. It looked like he had the time, but just rushed the throw. As for the Dallas defense, I expected them to play more consistently than they did. At times they were great, and at times they didn't execute at all. Ware got caught inside on Westbrook's TD run. I thought LJ Smith held him on the play, but it wasn't called. But it evened out when Greg Ellis forced the fumble Ware returned for a TD thanks to LJ Smith's lackluster effort to tackle him.

Patrick Watkins, the rookie free safety, was burned badly on the 87 yard TD pass to Hank Baskett. He bit on the first part of a double move, and bit hard. Then to top it off, he had a chance to make the tackle, but failed to bring down the Philly receiver. But the flea flicker wasn't his fault. He covered it well enough. Donovan McNabb just made a great throw, and Pro Bowl strong safety Roy Williams misjudged the ball in flight and took the wrong angle. Two mistakes, which added up to 14 points. Dallas had the chance to win. They made some plays, but the Eagles made more plays and made bigger plays.

In the baseball world, rumors are flying fast and furious in the Bronx. Will The Boss fire/buy out Joe Torre? It's should be harder to say this about a guy who's taken his team to six World Series and won four since 1996, but I think it's time for a change in the Big Apple. A month, two weeks ago I would not have said it. Of course, that was before the Tigers quickly closed the Yankees out of the playoffs. The Yankees looked old, tired and listless compared to the Tigers. And now the buzzards are picking at the Yankee failure.

It's time for a new direction. The Yankees haven't won a championship since 2000. They haven't won a postseason series since their tragic collapse in 2004. They looked out of sorts against the Angels last year. They didn't look any better against the Tigers. They will likely lose Sheff, and ARod and Mussina might also be elsewhere next season. That's life in pro sports these days. It will be interesting to see what sort of team they field in 2007.

By a new direction, I don't mean Sweet Lou Pinella. Yes, he has experience and a World Series ring as a manager. Yes, he has historic ties to the Yankees as a player who was on Yankee champions in the 1970s. He's also a Tampa guy, and Tampa is the winter headquarters of the Boss. Does he have the temperament to manage for Steinbrenner? I don't think so. The Yankees will let a team like the Cubs make that mistake. If Torre goes, my money's on Girardi.

If I were the type of blogger in the habit of giving titles to posts, I guess I might call this one Damn Yankees. The Yankees fans might be consoling themselves with the dulcet tones of Crowded House in their hit "Don't Dream It's Over." I wanted the Yanks to win, not as a Yankee fan, but as a Red Sox hater. But I like Jim Leyland as a manager. I think he radiates an old school, more competent, less snakebitten Pop Fisher (the manager from the Natural) vibe. I've never been able to summon up any negative feeling against the Tigers, which is strange for me since I hate so many things with so few reasons.

The Yankees assembled one of the great paper champions of all time this season. But like another team I hoped would best a squad from Michigan this fall, they were ready for every eventuality but one. In case you're wondering or you don't read my blog regularly, I'm referring to the Notre Dame loss to Michigan. I still don't know whether the Irish are better than the Wolverines, I believe it but I'm biased. The Yankees seemed to deflate when Detroit battled back to win game 2.

It's just me talking, but I got the sense that the Bronx Bombers expected Damon's 3 run shot to put the kibosh on the Tigers. The whole team seemed to be looking around for some other one of the All Stars to step up and get the big hits. Unfortunately, no one stepped up against Bonderman or Kenny Rogers. I don't want to diminish the excellent pitching performances both gentlemen submitted. But the Yankees of 6,7 years ago with a lesser galaxy of stars made a living out of surviving against excellent pitching performances.

This Yankee team just seemed like it lacked guts in huge moments. The Tigers seemed more like the Yankees of old than this edition of Yankees did in this series, and it decided the series. Read this article from the Tigers website. It tells me that it's go time for Oakland, and in the immortal words of Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: "This will all end in tears" if your Billy Beane. Or at least another Bonderman inspired tantrum where he throws a chair into the wall.

Alex Rodriguez has to go. He's a great talent, I can't deny it. He says he wants to be part of the solution in NY, but I just don't think he can do it. The big stage and the pressure seem to eat him alive. It might be self-inflicted, he might take the pressure the media and the fans and his teammates put on him and internalize too much of it. But he has an absolute knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment. First there was his infamous war of words with Trot Nixon a couple of years ago. In the recent Sports Illustrated piece, he complained that people didn't like him because he was biracial and good looking. That seems odd to me, what with the fact that the average Yankee fan would take a bullet for Derek Jeter, who is both good looking and biracial.

I looked at his Wikipedia page, and you who read this tell me that a Red Sox fan wasn't at this. I didn't know that ARod was openly gay. I didn't know he was gay at all. Somehow, with the amount of ESPN I watch and the sports articles I read, I think I would have heard that one of the most famous players in the game swas gay. Not that I care, because it's not my business, but it presents a chance to try Red Sox Nation. Are you really so petty, and pathetic that you need to call a high profile Yankee a homosexual to feel better about yourselves? Even homophobes should be horrified by this trend.

Some other team will take him if the Yankees pay a big percentage of his salary, and he'll fill seats for them. Any other team will be glad to make the postseason, and he just might make a difference (think Magglio Ordonez, but much more talented). In New York, a Yankees championship is not the amazing event that it is elsewhere. Even winning the World Series there has a "Nice work, you did what you were supposed to do, now shut up" feel to it. Outside of the New York pressure cooker, his errors will likely drop and his offensive numbers will probably go up.

The Yankees can afford to pay him to play somewhere else. They might be better off as an organization, as strange as it seems, to pay him to play for another team. He won't be a focal point, no more pressure, no more controversy. The Yankees will have a hole in the lineup, and they'll need to find a third baseman. Aaron Boone is available, since the Indians declined his option. He'll be a cheaper alternative, with less power, but the power numbers weren't there for any Yankee in this series. It's time for the team and the player to go in a different direction, and Red Sox fans surely share my fond memories of Aaron Boone's home run to end the 2003 ALCS.
Gary Sheffield will likely be gone from the Bronx next season too. His option is too expensive for the production one can expect from him. I'll miss him. His massive swing and his if looks could kill expression were pretty cool. I remember Bill Simmons saying that Sheff looked like the last guy you see when you get too deep in the hole with your bookie (I'd link the specific article if the ESPN archive fee weren't too steep for the limited budget of this blog). He didn't look good at first base today, and is he a better option in right field than Abreu (who is most definitely under contract for next season)? Big Stein spent a boatload on the two, but he can afford to cut his losses. And as the Walrus said, the time has come to talk of other things...

I think it was unfair to talk about this Yankee team as the best offense ever assembled. Obviously they weren't, when you look at the fact that Giambi, ARod and Sheff managed three hits among them in the ALDS against the Tigers. There are, or were, two factors oft overlooked in the rush to overhype and overanalyze this Yankee team.

First, it is insane to compare any team from this era to the Murders Row Yankees of the late 1920s and early 30s. In case you may have forgotten, let me remind you that in the dark ages, pitchers hit every day. There was no DH until the 1970s. So there was a weak link in the lineup every day for those Yankee teams.

Most people who know that Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett would have submitted the two most dominating pitching performances that the human mind can conceive understand that I am fabricating the second factor from thin air. Unfortunately for Red Sox fans, they spend too much time looking at the world through rose colored glasses or perhaps the bottoms of empty glasses. But the second reason I think it is pointless to compare the current MLB players to their far distant antecedents is this: they lowered the pitcher's mound after Bob Gibson (who disappointed me by not throwing a hellacious beating on scribes who compared him to Pedro Martinez in the mid to late 90s) ruinated the MLB hitters in the 1968 campaign.

I haven't even mentioned the other peripheral issues one ought consider in such a comparison. Advances in nutrition and exercise regimens altered the physical dimension of even the average American, so what has it done for pro baseball players? And then there are the ball parks. Back in the day, what is now Monument Park in Yankee Stadium was in play. The centerfield wall was 450 feet away. I'm surprised no one else mentioned anything like that on ESPN. That has to be like 12, 13 minutes of talk on Baseball Tonight. Perhaps it's too intricate for the average fan.

I think the Tigers will win it all. Right now, they have a serious team of destiny vibe. Kind of like the Red Sox had the vibe that they were destined to be swept by the Yankees in a pivotal five game series. Heads had to roll for this season, and they did. The path is now paved for a title run next season. Ron Jackson and Dave Wallace will not be joining us for the rest of their lives (to borrow a phrase from my favorite movie villain, Hans from Die Hard).

It seems like only yesterday that Ron Jackson was the genius who undid the singles hitter mantra the Twins tried to instill in David Ortiz and turned him into one of the most feared power threats in baseball. We live in a what have you done for me lately world, and apparently when they reckoned the account on Ron Jackson, the answer was not enough. Francona (or Francoma, as the Red Sox fan who told me he'd be happy with a 12-7 split in the season series with the Yankees calls him) is still in place for the time being, but like Nebuchadnezzar's kid, the writing is on the wall. I'm thinking of betting that he'll be looking for a job come next November. I take no joy in it, I merely use it as one more avenue to pour salt into the wounds of Red Sox Nation.

This offseason will be an interesting one. Will the Red Sox spend to compete with the Yankees? Or will they weasel out and rely on the dwindling reservoir of goodwill from the travesty of 2004? At some point, Red Sox fans might cowboy up and kick back against a team with the highest ticket prices in baseball, a penchant for charging nitwits $12 to tour an empty stadium and $9.95 for citizenship in Red Sox Nation, a skewed concession economy that leaves fan with a colossal thirst paying over and above the cost of a 30 banger in a packie for a round of watered-down Bud/Bud Light and an front office devoted to misinformation (OK, so I made that last one up, can you find it in your heart to forgive me?). Third place in the AL East sticks going down, even if they did win the title two years ago, and fickle friends in New England won't take it again.

Remember, you heard it here first. The Yankees will win it all next season if they sign Roger Clemens. I dreamed it two weeks ago, now we'll see if it becomes reality. I believe in mysticism and dreams and that irrational stuff. It's fine with me if you don't, but that's how I roll. I feel so strongly about it that I'm willing to be that guy and provide a link to my own post where I initially mentioned the dream. I hate the self reference, but just so you know that the Yanks were still alive when I dreamed it.

Notre Dame did what we expected them to do today. They beat Stanford, and I actually felt badly about it. I hate Stanford, I root against them all the time in every sport, but they looked like a high school team out there this afternoon. It was like me arm wrestling my four year old niece. Dallas plays Philly tomorrow. I'd be rooting for them anyway, but I have TO, Bledsoe and Jason Witten in fantasy. Poor drafting, I know, but I was drunk.

What did we learn from the rest of the college football games this week? Michigan beat Michigan State pretty badly. Last week Illinois upset Michigan State in East Lansing. Today Illinois lost a shootout at home to Indiana. The Fighting Irish needed a miracle comeback to beat the Spartans. So Notre Dame might get through the remainder of their schedule unscathed and face USC with a 10-1 record, but then again they might be in the weeds if Illinois or Indiana decided to pull a fast one and ambush them WWE style.

While it might be intriguing to see a team that had game planned for one opponent suddenly be surprised by another team jumping into the stadium without warning, that's simply not football. And I doubt the NCAA would approve. It might happen one day, with the degeneration of sports fandom. Hopefully, I won't live to see it. I think Michigan still isn't quite as good as they were on that day in South Bend, and Notre Dame wasn't that bad. But the long and short of it is, Michigan has national title hopes, and they killed Notre Dame's chances of competing for that stupid crystal football.

The first day of the Divisional Round is now behind us. And it was a good day. Of course any day that teams are playing playoff baseball, and the Red Sox aren't one of them, is a good day in my world. Not quite good enough that it gets me referring to myself in the third person, but close.

I'm not sure who I want to win at this point. Obviously, it will depress the Red Sox organization and their fans if the Yankees win. That should make me happy because I am a sad, small person in many ways. But I admit that about myself, which makes me a better person. So it all evens out in the end.

I do know one thing. I don't want any of the National League teams to win. I hate the Cardinals. For several reasons. First, they lost the 2004 World Series to the hated Red Sox in depressingly short order. Secondly, they are owned by Anheuser Busch, and I am a High Life drinker (although in the interest of honesty, I must confess that I will drink Bud Light if I'm not buying it and I do like Bud Select). I think my anti-Bud stance can, in small part, be traced to the movie Rooster Cogburn and the Lady (the not entirely disappointing sequel to one of my all time favorites, True Grit), and the sentiment that Rooster Cogburn and his alcoholic cat did not like St. Louis beer.

I don't really care about the Padres, even though they have former Red Sox like Todd Walker, Mark Belhorn and Josh Bard (even though he was on the Sox for about 3 weeks). I have to root against the Dodgers and Grady Little. I don't know what would have to happen for me to root for a team with Nomar on it. I still hate him just as much now as I did when he played for the Sox. I hate the Mets too.

In the AL, I wouldn't mind seeing either the Yankees or the Tigers emerge. I hate the Twins (and all Minnesota teams) because I hate the Vikings. I guess it's like a transitive property of petty hatred. Unless of course my math analogy is incorrect, then it's some other property of hatred, still petty, though. I also hate the As. I think there ought to be a moratorium on declaring a baseball GM a genius until he's won a World Series. In the end of the day in the harsh world of professional sports, the runner up is just the king of the losers. Only this and nothing more. So I guess the guy who can't get out of the first round is like the jack of the losers.

So I guess those of us who wish minor misfortune on Red Sox Nation must back the Yankees. After all, the new commercial for playoff baseball with Tommy Lasorda coaxing a reluctant Red Sox fan from her room to root against the Yankees should provide ample motivation. I imagine it it could be worse. At least it's one more spot where a network isn't showing the "Go, boy, go" Dockers ad and Peyton Manning isn't in it. I guess I should be more grateful for small favors.
PS - To those few of you who read this, I offer the following disclaimer. If you're under 21 and you decide to drink because of this post, it's not my fault. You're a moron. If you're under 21, 21 or over 21 and you undertake to get a cat drunk because of this post, it's also not my fault. You're an even bigger moron. At some point, you have to be responsible for your own decisions.

Well, the first quarter of the NFL season is over now (at least it is for most teams). It is abundantly clear that the three remaining undefeated teams, the Bears, Colts and Ravens, have received far too much attention. The real class of the NFL are the 3-1 teams who faced off in Super Bowl XXIX, the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots.

In fact, I insist that we start referring to the Bears as 4-1, anticipating their inevitable defeat at the hands of the Patriots in Foxboro on November 26. Alas, Rex Grossman, we hardly knew ye. By the time Bellichek's insane clown posse gets through with him, he'll wish he were injured. Of course, there is just a slight chance that the suddenly vaunted Patriots' defense might be more than a step older and slower than in the salad days. Then again, it might be the No Name defense of this generation.

I favor the less optimistic view, which could be summed up in this paraphrase (and bowdlerization) of Winston Wolf from Pulp Fiction. It might be a little premature to offer the gift of oral gratification all around.

After all, while they may have played the most impressive collection of teams that have only won one game apiece at this point in the NFL season, the Eagles have beaten the Texans, the Forty-Niners and the Packers. Those three teams might not wrest the number one pick away from the Titans (who look more and more like a prohibitive favorite as each week progresses, or regresses as the case may be), but they'll most likely be in the top ten come April. They lost in Week 2 to the Giants, when they blew a sizeable lead in the fourth quarter. Perhaps it's a coincidence, but the Giants are the only playoff team from last season the Eagles have faced thus far. Dallas, on the other hand, played Jacksonville in Jacksonville and beat the Redskins convincingly in Texas Stadium.

We probably should start assuming that the Eagles will be 4-1 come Sunday evening. Dallas can't hope to compete with the Eagles this week. The only reason Mike Patterson is left out of the conversation for the most dominant defensive lineman in football is his dearth of bigtime talent. But he'll crush the Cowboys offensive line. I admit that the Cowboys are suspect up front, but the Eagles aren't exactly the Steel Curtain. NFL teams are often only as good as their last game, a fact that should be remembered when we consider that the Eagles sack totals have come against the Texans, Giants, San Fran and Green Bay (all units are even shakier than the Cowboys).

Donovan MacNabb has put up numbers this season, but I am not as impressed with them as some. For instance, in this week's Vent SportsNation poll on ESPN.com, we are invited to vote on whether this group of Eagle wideouts is the best McNabb has had and whether he is a better QB without TO. Perhaps it might be too early to ask questions like that. After all, according to the stats on ESPN's website, the Giants are the 29th ranked passing yardage allowed. Green Bay is ranked 31st and the Texans are dead last. San Francisco is slightly better at 24.

I just wish someone would come out and say that Philadelphia might have the number one offense as far as passing yardage is concerned, because they've played four of the eight worst defenses in that regard in the NFL. Dallas, by comparison is currently ranked 8th in passing yardage allowed. And as for the shaky Dallas offensive line, they've only allowed 3 sacks this season, tied with Chicago for second in the NFL. McNabb has been sacked 9 times, tied for 17th in the league. Maybe they'll play a game in Philadelphia this Sunday, instead of just handing the win to the home team, after all.

As for the Patriots, anyone who knows football (and by that, I mean the exact opposite) knows that the Patriots are better than the Bears across the board on defense. Vince Wilfork is easily better than Tommy Harris, and every other player in the defensive tackle rotation in the Windy City. Teddy Bruschi and Junior Seau aren't a step slow after age and debilitating injuries, and they make Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs look like chumps. Rodney Harrison isn't fully recovered from last season's injury, but he singly handedly thwarted the Broncos passing attack. It's not like Javon Walker tore up the Patriots downfield.

That's the problem with football fans in this fantasy football/24 hour news coverage/internet generation. Every tool gets too excited about a big win, and too down after a big loss. Cincinnati cannot stop the run. Denver could, and did. Cincinnati lost, Denver did not. It also helped that there were two high profile arrests involving Bengals players in the week leading up to the game. Say what you want about how much or little these things effect a particular team in a given week, Boomer Esiason did. His take is interesting, if slightly sanctimonious. These incidents couldn't have helped.

There are also a number of significant injuries on the Bengals, depleting their linebacking corps. David Pollack is out for at least 2 seasons, and probably for ever with a broken vertebra in his neck. An injury like that has to weigh heavily on the minds of his teammates. It's certainly depressing me right now.

During the football season, I'm going to be running a new feature after each week's games. It's my favorite running debate of the season. Are the Bears good enough to win the NFC championship? They hung a pretty solid beating on the defending NFC champs this week. Their defense looked unbelievably good, and very fast. But they were playing a game at home, and Seattle was playing without the reigning NFL MVP.

Would Shaun Alexander have made that much of a difference? I think he would have been worth at least one TD, maybe 2 when you factor in Jeremy Stevens and the red zone flexibility that might have afforded the Seahawks. I doubt that it would have been enough, especially since Alexander was not playing like an MVP when he was injured. Obviously, one can discuss the would haves, should haves and could haves for hours and not resolve anything.

The answer to my "Are the Bears Good Enough?" debate: not right now. They have played much better on offense than anyone expected. Rex Grossman looks dangerously close to becoming a serviceable quarterback, like Trent Dilfer in 2000, but better, younger and not bald. Their defense is at least as good as it was last year. But like I said about Philly, what is their competition so far?

Green Bay is not good. Detroit was stifled by the Bears and Roy Williams was ridiculed for his wild predictions, but they came alive against the Rams in a big way. Minnesota is the second best team in the NFC North, but there's a big gap between first and second here. The Bears did beat them in the Metrodome, where they've always had trouble in the past. And they did beat Seattle convincingly, especially when you figure that the Kyle Orton edition of the Bears needed 4 weeks to score 37 points during last season's doldrums. But as I mentioned, Shaun Alexander and Jeremy Stevens were out of the lineup.

Looking ahead, it is very possible that the Bears could go undefeated in the North. I won't say it will happen, but they do have Green Bay and Minnesota at home and Detroit may fall apart at any moment. 12-4 or 13-3 aren't outside the realm of possibility and may indeed be a very probable outcome for this team. With the way things are going that just might be good enough for home field throughout the NFC playoffs.

Soldier Field in January should be a big advantage, but you never know. Just look at last year. I never expected Carolina to win there in the winter. And they had beaten Carolina at Soldier Field earlier in the season, sacking Jake Delhomme 8 times. I'm sure that fed into an arrogance that caused them to cover Steve Smith with Charles Tilman one on one. Obviously, that didn't work too well based on the result. To make a long story short, it might be something to consider in the back of your minds should Seattle play Chicago again in the postseason.

Of course, the above scenarios depend on the vain hope that the inevitable beating at the hands of the Patriots doesn't utterly devastate their fragile psyche. One can only hope the Belicheck puts some compassion inside that grey hoodie. We all know that the Jedi master will frustrate and bedevil Grossman just as though the Bear QB were a younger, more articulate (he'd almost have to be more articulate than Junior Simple) version of Peyton Manning. On a serious note, I think the Bears can beat the Patriots even in Gillette Stadium. More than that, I think they will beat the Patriots. But I'm not sure that they can win it all.

Now that the Patriots have beaten a quality AFC opponent on the road, I guess we can stop concentrating on Tom Brady's body language for a while. Like most people who watch football, I was not surprised that Brady looked unhappy, to say the least, on the field against Denver. The team didn't play particularly well, and they lost the game. It would have been a much bigger deal if Brady took that in stride, but people need things to talk about and write about.

One thing that nobody mentioned in the one million and one analyses of Brady's body language that came out in the past week is the great personal strain in his personal life. As America became metrosexualized in the last 10 or so years, one issue was neglected. What happens when a metro goes bald?

With the recent pharmaceutical advances, male pattern baldness has lost much of its sting. However, there are some who have concerns about the chemicals in these drugs, particularly the need to keep hair loss medication away from pregnant women, or women who might become pregnant at some point. The trouble is, no high profile metrosexual has gone bald with dignity (if that's possible). Brady is blazing a trail for metrosexuals everywhere, and that must be difficult for him. Maybe the media needs to ease up on him a bit, and let him work through this issue.

There were a few things that disappointed me during this weekend's games. Like most people, I'm sick of seeing Peyton Manning in his 25,000 commercials. I understand that he's a high profile player in America's most popular professional sport, but for the love of God, there must be one or two other guys out there. I must confess that I would take the money, so I don't fault him for being in all the ads. I blame the agencies which create the ads and the companies that pay him to appear in them. Imagine the horrors which would be unleashed if he had won a championship? One would never be able to see any sporting event or TV show without seeing Junior Simple.

Another thing that disappointed me was learning that a certain balding metrosexual sent Matt Hasselbeck a scouting report on Branch from John Madden during the Sunday night game. I understand that baldies have to stick together, and there is an element of professional courtesy involved. But in the end, they are quarterbacks on two teams that might end up contending for a Super Bowl berth. Why try to help out somebody that wants to win it all when you want to win it all? It doesn't make sense to me.

Finally, there is the Dockers ad. If I saw that stupid commercial one more time today, I think I would have lost my mind. I still have that insipid "Go, boy, go" song stuck in my head. I hate when that happens. But at the same time, I hope those of you who read this have it echo in your minds all day. "Go, boy, go." "Go, boy, go." Over and over. "Go, boy, go." It's very catchy, isn't it? "Go, boy, go." You can thank me later. "Go, boy, go." Now stop.

And one more thing, in a weird way, it's bad for Notre Dame that Illinois won this week. All of a sudden that impressive 19 point fourth quarter comeback against Michigan State looks quite a bit less impressive. The Spartans managed one offensive touchdown against a team that allowed 20 points to Rutgers in one quarter. A quarterback named Juice Williams threw one of the biggest wounded ducks that turned into a long TD for the Illini.

There might be something to be said for the Spartans going into the tank after the emotionally devastating defeat, but Illinois hadn't won a Big 10 game since 2004. They hadn't beaten Michigan State on the road since the 1980s, nor had they beaten them at all in 10 years. Ron Zook was winless in the Big 10, now he's not.

There was some unpleasantness at the end of the game when Illinois players attempted to plant the flag at midfield. I am of two minds on that subject. It's not cool to do things like that, especially when your team is coming off a year where they hadn't won a single conference game. On the other hand, and I think this applies to the TO situation in Dallas when he disgraced the star, if you want to protect your honor and your field...there is one thing you can do. Win the game. Like Al Davis said: "Just win, baby."

It's pretty late on Saturday night. Most people are in bed right now, which is probably a much better idea than a blog post while slightly intoxicated. Perhaps that might be an optimistic estimation of my condition, but there will be no channeling Kellen Winslow II problem tonight. I still wonder sometimes where that came from. I probably should have simply deleted the post, especially since the Sedition in Red Sox Nation Nation numbers about 3 on a good day. No one would have known how serious my drinking problem can be, but that would have been totally dishonest, and honesty is one of my vices.

I haven't had much to say lately. The Red Sox collapse this season has, in a strange way, taken the jam out of my doughnut. Red Sox fans, at least the ones I know, have started taking my calls again. They don't get mad when I ask them if they find any consolation in the haunting lyrics of the magnum opus of 1980s band Crowded House, Don't Dream It's Over. I did get a rise out of one of the Red Sox fans I know who toes the party line (He told me that he would gladly take a 12-7 split in the season series with the Yankees. I thought at the time, but didn't say, that I'd gladly take the Nobel Prize in Literature for this little blog of mine, the one being as likely as the other) about the US Ryder Cup team wilting the way they did.

I know, because a couple of tools told me that the Red Sox have had somewhere on the order of 17 different deals in place which might have brought Roger Clemens to town this year for minimal cost. Alas, none of them were consummated. And the Red Sox faded, finishing in what looks like third place. It's the first time the Sox haven't come in second to the Yanks since 2001, if memory serves. Of course there was the chance that the Sox could have won the AL East last season, but they finished tied with the Yanks who owned the tiebreaker. At the time, a little bit was made of then fact that there was no playoff. There were 19 games for the Sox to make their mark, as long as both teams mad e the playoffs, there was no point to risk an injury to a key player on either side.

While Red Sox fans are watching the DVD of the 2004 crime against humanity, the Yankees have had a chance to rest some people and set their rotation for the upcoming playoffs. I, for my part, don't think they'll win it all this year. I had a dream a couple of days ago where Roger Clemens was putting a pinstriped jersey with the number 27 into a locker. Since I believe in my dreams, I think he'll pitch for the Yankees next season and they'll win the World Series. Just some food for thought. But if Clemens pitches for the Yanks and they win it all in 2007, both of you who read this blog heard it here first.

After another week of college football, some things became clear to me. First, the CHB and Bob Ryan in their capacity as mouthpiece for Tom O'Brien will eventually out Ohio State as a fraudulent number one, since the Buckeyes continually duck America's team in Chestnut Hill. BC beat Maine today. A win so impressive I feel no need to provide for those who missed the game. It's not every day an ACC team outs a 22-0 beatdown on a 1-AA team, but it sees to happen frequently these days.

According to John Powers in the Globe, these games are mutually beneficial. For the small matter of taking a savage beating at a bigger school's hands, a 1-AA team can receive a bribe of a half million dollars or so. This is an important issue to me, as a committed and admitted Notre Dame fan. There has been a lot of talk about how their schedule is comparatively soft. I, for one, resent that allegation. Yes, Notre Dame plays Navy every year and plays at least one other service academy on an annual basis. But the school owes the US Navy a debt of gratitude because the Navy used Notre Dame as an officer training school in WWII, which kept the school from going broke when most of its students enlisted (ND was a small, all male university at the time).

As the talk about Notre Dame's weak schedule mounts, somebody must comment. As I have a very nearly photographic memory and a serious ND fan complex, it might as well be me. Yes, the schools that will face the Fighting Irish over the remainder of the season might not have the best records. But I have combed my memory of ND games since the Gerry Faust era, and I cannot find a single game in which Notre Dame played a Division 1-AA adversary. And yet Notre Dame's impressive comeback against Michigan State looks a lot less impressive since the Spartans did not hold the pass against a much weaker Fighting Illini team today.

Boston College and Notre Dame are both 4-1. But BC has a much more impressive 4-1 record. After all, Notre Dame has beaten 1 ACC team and 3 Big Ten teams, while BC has beaten a few NFL teams and the core of the 2nd Marine Division (the 1st, 3rd and nominally reserve 4th Marine divisions are all hiding from BC by fighting in the current wars). Oh wait, I made a very inappropriate joke to conceal the fact that BC aspires to be the nation's premier Catholic university in the face of a weak curriculum and a fraudulent athletic program that feeds on the weak and aspires to be Notre Dame's rival/equal.