Can I Do Worse Than Last Week?

Wow. I hope you went the other way last week. Because I went a stellar 5-11. Well, acutally I was 5-10 because I didn't write about the Steelers-Ravens game. But to be honest, I was taking the Steelers. So that's a loss, too. I can't do worse this week, right? Still, you might want to do the opposite of whatever I say. Think of it as switching from tuna on toast to chicken salad on rye, untoasted! On to the debacle:

(home team in CAPS)

Atlanta -3 over DETROIT
Can Atlanta possibly blow this one? Steve Mariucci has taken to withholding the name of the Lions starting QB so the Falcons have to "prepare" for two quarterbacks. I guess that means preparing for catching a lot of interceptions versus recovering a bunch of fumbles?

Denver -2 over DALLAS
The biggest winner in this game? Bill Belichick. You know Coach Sweatshirt will be studying how his mentor Parcells handles Jake the Snake if the Pats have to travel to Denver in the playoffs. Back to the actual game... Drew Bledsoe and the smoke and mirror running game are no match for Shanahan's new juggernaut.

KANSAS CITY -4 over New England
Larry Johnson is good. Really good. The Pats have the AFC East locked up and probably get one home playoff game. Brady will pull out a few wins while key players get healthy, just not this one.

Baltimore +9 over CINCINNATTI
I just have a feeling about this one. Let down game for Cincy. Ravens still play good D. And let's talk about Cincy for a second. What are they missing? Basically nothing. They have the QB, the receivers, the running game. They even have a good defense. Not a great one. They're kind of like the Colts of two or three years ago. Lots of offense, not enough defense and NO killer instinct. Anyway, Baltimore keeps it close when Cincy doesn't get hyped until the second half.

Carolina -4 over BUFFALO
Wasn't Buffalo close to turning the corner a few years ago? What happened? Their quarterback position is terrible and I always thought McGahee's fantasy stock was way too high to start the season. Panthers will bounce back big time against the league's worst passing D. Steve Smith is unstoppable. Strong, fast and great hands. Man-crush developing.

Chicago +3 over TAMPA BAY
Are you serious? F U, gamblers of America. Jake Delhomme looked downright "differently-abled" last week against Bears D and now Chris "Jake Busey" Simms is giving three points? Look through Tampa's schedule. The refs handed them gifts in their last two wins over Washington and Atlanta. Besides that, they don't have any impressive victories. It'll be close but Orton finally gets a quality road win.

WASHINGTON +3 over San Diego
I'm going against the grain on this one (yeah, I know, I'm gutsy). Washington won't lose two in row at home. Their fans are just too obnoxious. San Diego might miss Antonio Gates and Drew Brees, well, he's just got to be due for a bad game.

Cleveland +4 over MINNESOTA
As a Bears fan, this might be wishful thinking. But it also might be sheer genius. Vikings, coming off an emotional Monday win at Lambeau, are talking playoffs and all that noise. They're offense still isn't very good and the Browns play hard for Romeo Crennell. And let me reiterate that Mike Tice sucks and he's a terrible coach. The Vikes can't keep this ride going much longer.

San Francisco +8 over Tennessee
Tennessee and San Francisco. Whoo, baby! Another candidate for worst game of the season. BUT, it could be a fun one. I bet it's kind of high-scoring and close in the end. San Francisco could've beaten Seattle last week if Ken Dorsey wasn't just plain attrocious. Dorsey might blow this one, too, but the Titans aren't in the business of blowing teams out. Even the 49ers.

St. Louis -4 over HOUSTON
I really want to take the Texans. I do. St. Louis can't even keep it close at home against the Cardinals. But I watched Houston on Sunday night. Andre Johnson's career might be over due to stunted emotional growth. David Carr's career SHOULD be over. Why do announcers keep making apologies for him? If he was an ugly black quarterback and not a good-looking white one, would Joe Theisman and Paul McGuire continue to sing his praises as he throws pick after telegraphed pick for touchdown returns?

ARIZONA +3.5 over Jacksonville
I got another funny feeling with this one. Jacksonville has done a good job of taking care of some crappy teams the last few weeks (Tennessee, Baltimore, Houston) and to the naked eye a match-up with Arizona might seem to be the same story. But these are the games mediocre-to-good road teams have been losing all season. The Jags are not upper echelon and Kurt Warner was actually good at sports last weekend. This game reeks of a closing-seconds field goal situation.

OAKLAND -7 over Miami
Miami hurt me last week. They hurt my feelings and they hurt my self-confidence. I cannot take them on the road for the rest of the season. Oakland should be as competitive every week as they were against the Skins. That probably won't happen this season but against the Dolphins seems pretty safe (famous loser-gambler talk).

N.Y. Giants +4.5 over SEATTLE
Best game of the year in the NFC? Sad but true. Seattle hasn't done jack squat this year. They get to play Arizona, San Francisco and St. Louis twice each. Their whole schedule is crap. Good chance the NFC Super Bowl rep comes out of the battle-tested East.

PHILADELPHIA -4.5 over Green Bay
I don't know about this one, so I'm taking the Eagles D (honestly any D would do) against the crap-tastic Brett Favre. He's skating by on past accomplishments and the old media hard-on they've got going for him. And getting to cheer for Mike McMahon is fun with all that scampering and cluelessness.

New Orleans -1.5 over N.Y. JETS
The Saints scored some points at New England last week. The Jets might not win another game this season... check that, they have Buffalo at home to end the year. But you know what, I'm going the other way. I mean, why would I possible take a 2-8 road favorite? Jets in a close one. Yeah, that's the ticket.

INDIANAPOLIS -5 over Pittsburgh
I was sure that Cincy would knock off the Colts last week. I'm not betting against Peyton the rest of the way. Pittsburgh's got more flaws than your best friend's suck-ass girlfriend (hi-oh! Tip your waitress, folks).

Week 11 Bears Recap: I Walk The Line, The Betting Line

I saw "Walk The Line" this weekend. We've all seen enough previews to know the whole story by now. Johnny Cash play good music. Johnny Cash say funny one-liners. Reese Whitherspoon say "baby, baby, baby, baby." Johnny Cash and Reese Whitherspoon do it. Despite my sarcasm, it actually was a good movie.

Anyway, in the movie, Johnny Cash likes popping pills and drinking beer. Who can blame him? It takes his mind off the hollow stardom and his unrequited love for Reese "I'm so cute you want to punch me in my angular jaw" Whitherspoon. He generally enjoys himself while drinking Bud's and consuming handfuls of speed, crank and what-not.

But eventually the drug addiction starts to suck and securing a good woman like Reese is clearly the better option. Johnny cleans up his act and he and Reese live happily ever after.

The man-woman-addiction love triangle makes perfect sense to me. Because after the Bears stunning 13-3 victory over the NFC powerhouse Carolina Panthers, I no longer care about wagering on other NFL games on Sunday afternoons to liven up those once drab days. The Bears are enough. I've kicked my gambling pseudo-addiction thanks to the love of a good woman, er, team.

Today was the last day, I swear it. Well, actually tonight. After the Texans cover against Chiefs, I'm done, baby. Baby, baby, baby.

I love watching the Bears. I really do. They are all I've ever needed. But this season I've enjoyed making other games interesting as well. 10 bucks here. A seven game parlay there. Just to spice things up. Even the heartiest Bears fan has to admit some of the wins this season have been somewhat anti-climactic.

Otherwise, why would I get up from my comfy chair with the Bears in front of me, a plate of wings, a Miller Lite, water and Diet Coke (that's right, I drink diet. Screw you) at my table, to check the score of the Cleveland-Miami game? I wouldn't. Dolphins at Browns sucked. That game will always suck. That game was guaranteed to suck eight months ago when the schedule came out.

But the Bears have struggled the past few seasons and I've gotten into the bad habit of spicing things up with other games. I let my eye wander from my true love.

No more. I don't need that drama in my life. The Bears are now marked men, and every week our opponents will aim to knock us down a notch, to prove the naysayers right. Beating the Panthers today in a dominating performance raises the Bears to a new level. We're not the Colts, Broncos or even the Giants probably, but we did shut down the best team in the NFC on Sunday and sacked everyone's sleeper quarterback Jake Delhomme eight times.

As the game wore on and an unthinkable win started to look more and more possible, I felt the junk leaking out of my system. I wasn't noticing what the Jags were doing in Tennessee. Would Thomas Jones hold up consumed me. Arizona-St. Louis you ask? Couldn't care less. Could we continue to keep Steve Smith out of the endzone was my concern. I only knew what was going on with the Eagles and Giants because of the obnoxious amount of those cities' fans clogging up the bar.

Even at the end of the Panthers game, with the Bears up ten and a minute left, I was pulling the hair out of my head, unconciously standing up with frayed nerves every time the ball was snapped. It's getting to that point. The Bears MIGHT be for real and now every play becomes huge. And during those tense moments, my silly five-game parlay involving 10 teams I really didn't care about became unimportant to me. What mattered became clear.

Before this win, I have to admit, I wasn't sure. We beat some bad teams and the ugliness of the victories was a bit off-putting. Making Sundays exciting was my right. "I'm a man,"I told myself. "I need this extra action to unwind. It's totally under my control. I can quit any time I want."

But I don't know if I could quit, not without the help my Bears,

Now that we've proved we can hang with some of the big boys in the league, to take a step backwards would be hard, harder than losing to a crappy team a few weeks ago when every marble-mouthed analyst on TV just knew the Bears were pretenders.

So who needs distractions and sideshows like the first half line in the Vikings-Packers game when the national media is going to simultaneaouly jump on OUR bandwagon AND scrutanize the Bears' every move? My team rescued me today. Now it's time to pay them back.

Do you have time to look around the bar to check if the Jets can manage to lose by less than 14 to the Broncos when the Bears are fighting for HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE in the playoffs? I certainly don't.

What if I relapsed, threw a little something on next Sunday's games and lost the Bears? Or worse, the Bears lost. I just couldn't forgive myself. They make me a better fan and I owe it to them to devote myself entirerly. No more parlays, progressives, or five-game teasers. No more second half lines and over-unders. Just me and my lady, er, team.