Notes from the Underground

As I sit here this morning, drinking my second Pepsi and letting law cases and letters pile up on my desk, I come to you with a heavy head and humble heart. It has been a rough 24 hours wondering what went wrong with Sunday's picks. Maybe "Nums" is right, maybe the league can be reduced to a formula, and that going on extensive knowledge and guts is wrong, or maybe, just maybe, and this is much more likely... I put too much faith in some gutless wonders this weekend, and they should know about it. I'll let you in on a little secret, my gut is two things, accurate and fickle and if wronged, can really stir up some ill feelings. That's the good thing about this system though, it's human, it's fallible, it can admit when it's wrong, but in this case, it can also admit when it's been WRONGED. There are a couple of teams this Sunday that made their week 11 games look like a preseason game or worse, a dolphins game. I try and make a habit of doing what I do, and doing it well. I encourage the following teams to do the same.

Pittsburgh, I don't know what to say to you. With Indy's recent struggles, you are the second best team in the league, act like it. You have New England coming up and you aren't ready.

Oakland, Cincinnati, New Orleans... You're in a world of pain in this writer's eyes. Oakland, I had faith that your defense could do enough against a veritably empty Vikings team to win. Yet, I don't know if you noticed but Chester Taylor ran all over you. And Cincinnati, you just keep perpetuating the myth that Arizona can win football games on things other than Neil Rackers field goals. Who Dey? Dey suck. Oh and how the Saints go marching out. Way to get everyone's hopes up with your 4 straight impressive victories only to lose to St. Louis and Houston back to back. Oh no, Andre Johnson is back. YOU MADE IT TO THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP LAST YEAR! Remember? Maybe you don't.


Chicago: I'm going to just set you aside for the time being. You have one of the gutsiest quarterbacks in Bloomington South High School's rich history under center again and you let it slip away. Granted, Seattle is a good team, if they were in any division but the NFC West though, they might be under .500.


Detroit: Wow. You're having your best season in 100 years, you've got athletes all over the football field and you can't beat a reeling giants team on your home dome AstroTurf when you need to most? You're in a conference where the last wild card team may finish 8-8. A division that is led by Brett Favre and a good looking Packer team. It would be a big win for you on Thanksgiving, make us all believe again. Kitna, make a deal with your God because Favre has already made one with the devil and it has blessed him with eternal youth and throwing power, you at least need some finesse.

San Diego: You may be off the hook because Norv Turner is your coach and he can ruin anything, even a 14-2 team.

That's it for now. It's tough love, but love nonetheless. I'll be back soon with praise for those good, gutsy performances of the weekend. Until then, keep dreaming, world.