2. San Diego Chargers (3) – Many folks expect the Chargers to win the Super Bowl, but I urge those folks to remember that you can never underestimate Norv Turner’s ability to botch a playoff game.  That said, hanging 42 points on the Titans in Nashville when their season was on the line is extremely impressive.

3. Philadelphia Eagles (4) – If the Iggles beat Dallas on Sunday, they will lock up the number 2 seed in the NFC playoffs, which means a first round bye and a home game.  A few weeks ago, that appeared to be out of reach, as the Saints were undefeated and the Vikings had only one loss.  Amazing what a few strong weeks of winning can do.

4. Dallas Cowboys (6) – Give ‘em credit.  They took down the Saints, and then embarrassed a very strange Redskins bunch.  Their supposed December demons appear to have been exorcized, which makes their tilt with the Eagles for the NFC East title that much more intriguing.  There remains a scenario under which the Cowboys can still lock up the number 2 seed, so this game is quite meaningful for them.

5. New Orleans Saints (2) – Okay, being topped by the Cowboys at their very best is understandable.  Messing the bed against the Buccaneers?  That’s not very Super Bowlish behavior.  Panic button time may be approaching in New Orleans.

6. Minnesota Vikings (5) – Speaking of panic buttons, how does a supposedly ferocious defense cough up 36 points in Chicago?  Sure, the Bears played their most inspired game of the year, but that’s inexcusable.  Where once it appeared the Saints and Vikings were locks to meet in the NFC title game, we now must wonder whether either one of them gets there.

7. Arizona Cardinals (7) – While the Packers have little to play for this weekend (they will either be the 5th or 6th seed), the Cards have a chance to climb as high as the 2nd seed, which includes some nice swag.  A lot of dominoes have to fall their way for that to happen, but you have to believe they will play hard to do their part.

8. New England Patriots (10) – In a game Jacksonville desperately needed to win, the Pats absolutely blew them out.  This is not one of the great Patriots teams of earlier in the decade, but would it surprise a soul if they show up in Lucas Oil Stadium with a trip to the dance on the line?

9. Green Bay Packers (9) – If they hadn’t completely destroyed the Seahawks, something would have been wrong.  For those keeping score, I still see this as a one-and-done playoff team.

10. Cincinnati Bengals (not ranked) – I am just not sure they can score enough to be a factor in the playoffs.  You have to like what a turnaround the Bungalows have made this year, however.

2. New Orleans Saints (2) – I saw some push the Saints down a couple spots after they came up short against the Cowboys on Saturday night, but there’s no doubt in my mind that they’re still the second-best team in football.  You must give them credit though; down 24-3, and to end the game 50 yards from a tie against Dallas’ best performance of the year.

3. San Diego Chargers (4) – Fine, I’ll admit it; I was tempted to leapfrog the Bolts over the Halos.  What a hot team.  Their Christmas night affair with the Titans is a fascinating one, as two of the hottest teams in the league face off.  While Tennessee has everything to play for, the Chargers have all but locked up the AFC’s second seed.

4. Philadelphia Eagles (5) – How about this combo platter to end the season: vs Denver, at Dallas.  The Iggles haven’t lost in their last five games and – in case you forgot – they were in the NFC championship game last year.  I know I usually forget that.

5. Minnesota Vikings (3) – You know what usually cures wayward teams who have lost two of three and look entirely mortal?  A night game against Jay “Mr. Interceptable” Cutler and the Chicago Bears.  Hey, look at that!  The Vikings are in Soldier Field on Monday night!  To quote the creepy oracle in “The Matrix”, they’ll feel right as rain in no time.

6. Dallas Cowboys (not ranked) – Big bump up from the abyss, but that’s what happens when you knock off an undefeated team in week 14.  I guess that whole December issue is solved, eh?

7. Arizona Cardinals (9) – The question has become, which was more impressive, the Cardinals beating the Lions by one score, the Titans beating the Dolphins by one score, or the Patriots beating the Bills by one score?  Hard to say.

8. Tennessee Titans (8) – I said it above, but the season is very much on the line for the Titans on Christmas.  Beat the Chargers, and you have a pulse (especially with Denver and Baltimore, the two teams ahead of them in the wild card chase, both having tough games in Pennsylvania this weekend).  Lose and it’s over.

9. Green Bay Packers (7) – They hung 36 on the Steelers.  Very impressive.  But the alleged Number 1 defense in football coughed up 503 passing yards to a team that has no threat of a running game?  One and done is how I see the Green Bay playoff experience.

10. New England Patriots (10) – No bump for beating the hapless, coach-less, quarterback-less, talent-less Buffalo Bills.  Sorry, Bradychick.

2. New Orleans Saints (1) – A Matt Ryan-less, Michael Turner-less Falcons team stayed in the game, a week after Washington had to miss a chip-shot field goal and cough up an overtime fumble for the Saints to squeak by?  It’s going to take a little better effort this week against Dallas to keep the undefeated dream alive.

3. Minnesota Vikings (3) – A week after being taken to task by the Cardinals, purple did some damage to the Bengals.  My God, what an NFC championship game it looks to be in the Superdome.

4. San Diego Chargers (5) – What a smokin’ hot team.  If they march into Lucas Oil Stadium with the AFC title up for grabs, I see no reason why they couldn’t move on to Miami.

5. Philadelphia Eagles (8) – That was quite a track meet in Giants Stadium.  Donovan McNabb is having one of his best seasons, but the defense is going to have to tighten it up if the Iggles expect to go indoors and knock off the Saints or Vikes.

6. Cincinnati Bengals (6) – By the results, it would only be right to dump the Bungalows down a notch, and give the Package a push.  No thanks.  The Bengals are a much better team than Green Bay, regardless of what happened Sunday.

7. Green Bay Packers (7) – And what happened on Sunday, to me, was that the Packers barely squeaked by a terrible Bears team, and showed that despite their fine record, there just isn’t a whole lot of “there” there.

8. Tennessee Titans (9) – Yep, it was the Rams, and they’re terrible.  But 47-7 is still 47-7.

9. Arizona Cardinals (4) – What the hell was that disaster?  What the hell is with this team?  Beat up the Vikings one week, get taken to the shed by the lowly 49ers?  I don’t know how dinged Larry Fitzgerald is, but if it’s serious at all, that’s serious trouble in Zona.

10. New England Patriots (not ranked) – It was a game they really needed, should’ve won, and did win against Carolina.  There is nothing at all that feels right about this team.  Randy Moss is falling into old behavior patterns, and the defense is lacking… something.  Could be one of the more difficult stretches in Bill Belichick’s remarkable career.

But as a sports fan, I’ve always wanted to be able to celebrate my birthday in conjunction with one of my favorite teams.  Baseball fans with summer birthdays have incredible good fortune in this regard; they have warm weather, the beautiful ballpark, lots of sunlight and all that goes with it.  I, on the other hand, have my abusive spouse-like football team, the Chicago Bears, to torture me.

I thought back upon it, and I couldn’t recall if the Bears had ever won a game on my birthday.  I remember a party on my golden birthday in 1990 where the Bears lost to the Washington Redskins.  So I did some research, and discovered that, lo and behold, my favorite team had never gifted me a victory on my birthday.  Not only that, in the four instances during my lifetime that they’ve played on December 9th, they’ve performed especially hideously on that date.  Let’s have a look:

1984: my third birthday

The beloved achieved their highest offensive output in any of the December 9th games, scoring 14 points against the hated Green Bay Packers.  Starting quarterback Rusty Lisch – nope, I’ve never heard of him either – threw no touchdowns and an interception in the 20-14 loss.  But noteworthy was Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton’s touchdown pass to Matt Suhey, which was – disturbingly – the first of only two passing touchdowns the Bears have mustered on my birthday to date.  That’s correct: four games, two passing touchdowns, one of which was by a running back.  Wow.

1990: my ninth birthday

Quarterback Jim Harbaugh led an explosive Chicago scoring attack to three Kevin Butler field goals.  Redskins quarterback Mark Rypien desperately attempted to gift myself and my Bears the victory by throwing a stunning five interceptions, but Harbaugh’s own pair of misfires ultimately sealed our fate in a 10-9 nail biter.  Boy, that sucked.

2001: my twentieth birthday

It took eleven years for the calendar to align with the schedule and allow the Bears another crack at breaking the hex of my birthday.  And let’s face it, if there was an appropriate decade in team history to skip, it was the 1990s.  After all, they’d compiled a 70-98 record following the ‘90 game through the 2000 season, the odds were well stacked against me during those lean years.

But if ever there was a year they could do it, 2001 was it.  They came into my 20th birthday with a record of 9-2, the surprise Cinderella team of the entire NFL (well, one of them… the other one had Tom Brady).  The Bears had this incredible streak of luck.  They won back to back games where safety Mike Brown returned interceptions for touchdowns in overtime.  Hell, their quarterback had the same name as my best friend!  How could this team let me down?

The game was a rematch against one of only two teams that had beaten the Bears that year, the loathsome Green Bay Packers.  Quarterback Jim Miller threw for… an interception.  The Bears lost to Brett Favre and the Packers, 17-7.  The lone score came on a run by rookie running back Anthony Thomas.  The Bears won their next four games that year and went into the playoffs at 13-3, where Donovan McNabb and the Philadelphia Eagles promptly disposed of them in the final game played in old Soldier Field.  The bottle of Jack Daniels I followed that game with had no chance.  Neither did the futon I reupholstered that night.

2002: my twenty-first birthday.

In retrospect, this would’ve been a good game to go to.  A jaunt down to Miam in December for my 21st?  Take in a Bears-Dolphins game?  What could be bad about that?  Nothing… except for the game itself.  The Bears achieved what I thought was impossible that Monday night: putting on their worst performance my birthday had ever seen.

Chicago had three quarterbacks on the roster that day, and all three of them played… and played badly.  Miller completed three passes for nine yards – and an interception – before being carted mercifully off the field with an injury.  Chris Chandler heated it up for 86 yards on 7 completions, but blemished his Unitasian effort by throwing two interceptions of his own.

But wait, there’s more!

After Chandler proved his worth(lessness), coach Dick Jauron put in perhaps the most infamously inept quarterback in Chicago Bears history: Canadian Football League legend Henry Burris.  ”Smilin’ Hank” completed one pass.  Of course, that pass was the lone touchdown thrown by a Chicago Bears quarterback on any of my birthdays.

As you might imagine, the Bears lost to the Dolphins that Monday night, 27-9.  (They were so bad they botched the extra point after Burris’ touchdown.)  Chicago quarterbacks – dig this – completed just 11 of their 32 passes for 101 yards, a touchdown, and three interceptions.

Cumulatively, the Bears are 0-4 on my birthday, and their running backs have thrown as many touchdowns as their quarterbacks, who boast a 1-to-7 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

I can’t even imagine how this is possible.

I mean, it’s not as if they owe it to me to win on my birthday.  But for God’s sake, it’s also the birthday of the greatest linebacker in history, Bears legend Dick Butkus!  Surely if they don’t care for me, they must care for Number 51!

Ehh, maybe not… the day the team retired Butkus’ number 51, they lost 33-6 to Favre and the Packers.

Happy birthday, Mr. Butkus.  Happy birthday to both of us.

2. Indianapolis Colts (2) – They’d been questioned about as much as a 12-0 team could possibly have been questioned, with some tight wins and a few come-from-behinds.  Give credit where it’s due; they solidly handled one of the hottest non-undefeated teams in the league in the Titans, and kept the unblemished record intact.

3. Minnesota Vikings (3) – No shame in dropping one to a tough Cardinals team out in the desert.  And it’s taken longer than I anticipated, but Old Man River finally got sloppy and tossed the other team a few passes.  This weekend’s tilt with the Bungalows should be quite a contest.

4. Arizona Cardinals (7) – What a statement game for the defending NFC champions.  If you’d asked me four weeks ago which Super Bowl XLIII team would be on the bubble, and which one would look prepared to make another run, I would’ve called Mr. Warner the Bubble Boy.

5. San Diego Chargers (4) – They did what they were supposed to do: beat an awful team.  They’ll visit the Cowboys on Sunday for what looks to be quite a showdown against likely division winners.

6. Cincinnati Bengals (5) – No style points for beating the Lions in an entirely-too-close contest.  Sorry.

7. Green Bay Packers (not ranked) – I think I pick against this team virtually every week, and somehow they have twice as many wins as losses, and are in prime position to scoop up a wild card and try their hand in the second season.

8. Philadelphia Eagles (not ranked) – I realize Atlanta was without their franchise passer, but was unaware that they also played without their franchise’s defense.  Philly put on a show even with a few banged up stars of their own.  I just don’t quite know what to make of this team week to week, but this week, I make them the underdogs in Giants Stadium.

9. Tennessee Titans (9) – Yes, they lost.  But they lost to Peyton Manning, so how can that really count?

10. Denver Broncos (not ranked) – Speaking of losing to Peyton Manning, Kyle Orton and the plucky if not special Broncos are scheduled to be Unlucky Number 13 this week.  Hopefully I will be able to drop them back off the list and into the abyss from whence they came afterwards.

2. Indianapolis Colts (1) – A lot of folks thought that Houston outing was going to be Indy’s downfall.  I’m not one of them.  They may stumble after home field advantage is locked up in a couple weeks, but these Colts are coasting.

3. Minnesota Vikings (3) – That wasn’t very nice, Purple.  Leave my poor Bears alone!

4. San Diego Chargers (5) – I keep thinking that the Bolts could be dangerous in the AFC playoffs.  Then I remember: Norvelous will always, ALWAYS find a way to botch it.

5. Cincinnati Bengals (not ranked) – I’m trying to figure out how it is that the Bungalows tumbled off of my list last week, but they did.  And I was wrong.  And they promptly went out and beat the mighty Brownies.  With a two game advantage on the corpse-like Steelers and the back-and-forth Ravens, the Bengals are going to have a home playoff game, and maybe a bye.  I’m very interested to see what they can do in the playoffs.

6. Dallas Cowboys (7) – It took a turkey-like Raiders team to put the ‘Boys back in the end zone after a few weeks of avoiding it.  This may be the most difficult team in the NFL to get a read on right now.  You have to like the talent, but something seems amiss.

7. Arizona Cardinals (6) – Losing to one of the hottest teams in the NFL isn’t that big a deal.  Losing Kurt Warner for any extended period of time, however, is.

8. Baltimore Ravens (not ranked) – What a game on Sunday night, and a statement win against the defending champs.

9. Tennessee Titans (10) – What a remarkable rebound the Music City men have created.  This week, however, they must face the music in Indianapolis.  The magic – and their playoff aspirations – will end, I fear.  But you have to love the effort.

10: New England Patriots (4) – On the other hand, what kind of effort was that in the Superdome on Monday, Hoodie?  Many may fear the Brady-Belichick mystique, but if you put them in different uniforms and changed their names, would anybody really fear this team?  Those five 2nd quarter touchdowns against Tennessee seem like ages ago.

2. New Orleans Saints (2) – That’s not to say that I think the Saints are a lesser team, nor Drew Brees an inferior passer.  I just think that the Colts’ defense finds a way to get the ball back to their leader, and their leader finds a way to get the ball into the end zone.  Every time.

3. Minnesota Vikings (3) – Hell is coming to breakfast for my beloved Bears.  Last week I predicted that Brett Favre Interceptionfest 2009 would begin against Seattle.  That worked out well – he only threw four touchdowns and no picks.  Week by week, the old sombitch keeps proving that I’m an idiot… but I swear to God, one of these weeks, he’s going to Favre it and throw some picks.  Is it this week?  Does Zack Bowman have a three-pick game in him?  Ha!

4. New England Patriots (5) – I am tingling with anticipation of Saints-Patriots this weekend.  I hope New Orleans wipes the floor with them, but I am getting a sneaking suspicion about it.

5. San Diego Chargers (5) – They’re on cruise control, sailing to another AFC West championship thanks to a nice hot streak, and playing in the league’s worst division.  Oakland, Kansas City and Denver will all have losing records to conclude the season (How about them Broncos!), so just like last year, the Chargers only need a total of 8 wins for the crown.  By my math, they’re one away from that right now.  Perhaps they win 10 or 11 just for kicks.

6. Arizona Cardinals (8) – The Cards have the division wrapped up, but if Kurt Warner is less than perfectly healthy in the playoffs, a return trip to the Super Bowl is completely out of the question.

7. Dallas Cowboys (9) – Well done, holding the Redskins to 6 points.  But scoring 7 spells “uh oh” in Big D.

8. New York Giants (not ranked) – Welcome back to the party, my darling Super Bowl pick.  Do me a favor – no more four game losing streaks to make me feel bad about the world.  Okay?

9. Pittsburgh Steelers (7) – Is somebody going to scramble that egg you laid in Kansas City?  Speaking of scrambled eggs, how’s Big Ben’s brain this morning?

10. Tennessee Titans (not ranked) – Welcome home, my lovelies!  Your incredible free-fall start to the season notwithstanding, I am officially on the bandwagon, and of the opinion that you are back on course not only to go to the playoffs, but to meet the Giants in the Super Bowl, as I predicted!  Okay, maybe not… but hot damn are these Titans playing some solid football right now.

2. New Orleans Saints (1) – Sorry kids.  Just barely pulling out a win in St. Louis is less impressive than just barely pulling out a win against New England.

3. Minnesota Vikings (3) – The Seahawks visit the Horror Dome this week.  Prediction: Bret Favre Interceptionfest 2009 officially kicks off this week.

4. Cincinnati Bengals (6) – I was tempted to push them past the Vikes, but there are seven more weeks to do that.  The Bengals are clearly the best team in their division after sweeping Pittsburgh and Baltimore, but what happens come playoff time?

5. New England Patriots (5) – They played the best team in football and should’ve won.  No downward bump after a loss like that.  By the way, circle your calendar:  Monday, November 30th: Patriots at Saints.

6. San Diego Chargers (8) – It was rocky early for the Bolts, but the defense has turned it on and is putting quarterbacks on their asses.  Not only will the Chargers win their division over the fraudulent Broncos, but they will be a force in the playoffs, if things hold up.

7. Pittsburgh Steelers (4) – Just as I start to give them some love – and pick them HUGE to beat the Bengals – the Steelers prove that they’re not quite as good as I thought.

8. Arizona Cardinals (not ranked) – Emphatic exclamation point on their (inevitable) division title with a win in Seattle puts the Cards in the top 10 for the first time in a while.  Remember last January?  I think they’re starting to remember it too.

9. Dallas Cowboys (8) – I wanted to drop them off the list for losing to the Packers, who are quite bad.  But the rest of the league is stinky, so the Boys get a reprieve from my wrath.

10. Atlanta Falcons (9) – Twelve NFL teams have a record of 5-4 or 4-5.  The Falcons are one of them, because they laid down and died against Carolina, who – in case you missed it – is bad.

There are four specific on-the-field areas of glaring weakness on this team, but none has proven to be more detrimental to the team’s success than the offensive line.  An argument could be made that with even league-average line play, the Bears’ offense would’ve made this a legitimate playoff team.  But league-average would’ve been an enormous improvement.  The left side of the line has to be remade in the off-season, no questions asked.  Orlando Pace and Frank Omiyale have been purely awful, allowing pass rushers to pillage and plunder quarterback Jay Cutler at will.  While Olin Kreutz, Roberto Garza and Chris Williams aren’t exactly studs, remaking an entire offensive line in one off-season is a monumental task.  The left side, for the second year in a row, is top priority.

While the offensive line is very much the top off-season priority, the other three primary areas of need seem to be at a similar level of importance to one another:  safety, wide receiver, defensive line.  The Bears have had a black hole at safety for years, thanks initially to never-ending injury problems for Mike Brown, and more recently due to a succession of failed draft picks at the position.  It’s difficult to determine whether or not anybody from the current crop of young safeties has any real future, but just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean the scouting department is off the hook for doing so.

They likewise do not get a pass for the ongoing ineptitude at wide receiver.  Devin Hester is a good number three NFL receiver, and Earl Bennett and Johnny Knox may well become decent twos or threes in their own right, but the Bears lack a legitimate one or two at the position, and they have since the departure of Bernard Berrian, who was a passable number two, but hardly worth the money he ultimately commanded.  It has been seven or eight seasons since the Bears last have had even a decent number one, dating back to Marty Booker’s prime, where he went to a Pro Bowl.  Unfortunately for the current crop of receivers, the quarterback who is charged with getting them the ball has no time whatsoever to get that task accomplished – thanks to the porous line play.

The defensive line is another ongoing problem that the Bears have had a bunch of bad luck with, to go along with bad drafts, and it all starts with Tommie Harris.  The line – and indeed the entire defense – was dominant when Tommie Harris was healthy and effective in 2005 and 2006 (until injury ended his year prematurely).  Since that time, only an occasional flash of the dominant Harris has appeared (including Thursday night against the 49ers, where Harris had far and away his best game of the year).  However, most of the last two-plus seasons, Harris has been somewhat invisible, rather than the disruptive beast he was early in his career.  While it remains to be seen whether Harris can ever regain that form, it has become increasingly apparent that he won’t be doing so with the Chicago Bears.  Attitude issues and questions about his effort have surfaced, to the extent that he was effectively suspended for the Cincinnati game, and was thrown out early in the Arizona game for throwing a punch.  I would be surprised if Harris is still a member of the Chicago Bears come next season.

While the defensive line has had to sink or swim with Harris, ends Adewale Ogunleye and Alex Brown have never produced eye-popping sack numbers, and as they age, are becoming less effective run stoppers as well.  The Bears are hoping that Gaines Adams – acquired for their 2nd round draft pick in 2010 – will have a big enough impact that any other changes are insignificant by comparison, this unit is plagued with some of the same problems that several other areas on the team have; lack of depth due to ineffective draft classes.  The list of failed defensive linemen the Bears have drafted over the last six years is staggering.  From Michael Haynes to Tank Johnson to Dan Bazuin and so on, the Bears have continuously shot themselves in the foot with their inability to draft effectively.

If you’ve noticed a common theme in the Bears’ problems, you aren’t alone.  College scouting has proven to be the Achilles heel of Jerry Angelo during his tenure as Bears’ General Manager.  The playmakers on the Super Bowl XLI team were primarily drafted by somebody else – whether it was the previous Bears regime, or Angelo’s acquisitions from other teams via trade and free agency.

Where Angelo and his staff have been quite good at scouting and acquiring professional talent via free agency (John Tait, Thomas Jones, Garza, Ruben Brown) and trade (Ogunleye, Cutler), his drafts have produced far less talent than is required in order to consistently win in the NFL.

Those fans calling for Angelo and Lovie Smith and the coaching staff to be dismissed will not be happy with the outcome of this coming off-season, as neither are likely to be dismissed with multiple years remaining on their respective contracts.  On the other hand, it’s quite possible – better than a 50-50 chance, I think – that Ron Turner will be made the scapegoat of the 2009 Bears, which will be quite unfair and unfortunate, considering that he was the offensive coordinator who oversaw the two most productive offensive seasons the Bears have had in the last 20 years (2006, 1995), and cannot be blamed for the poor drafting and bad acquisitions that led to him having the worst offensive line the team has had in ten years.  Nobody short of Bill Walsh himself could’ve had success with this line, yet ill-informed fans are calling for Turner’s head on a platter, and I suspect they’ll get it.  Turner does not deserve the same fate as Terry Shea, Gary Crowton, and John Shoop, but he’ll likely get it.  So goes life as an NFL coach.

As for this season, while Lovie Smith will continue to talk about improving and getting back into the playoff hunt and so on, I feel the top priority should be protecting the franchise’s most important asset:  Jay Cutler.  Keeping Cutler unscathed is critical for the long-term success of the franchise.  A healthy Cutler will be the key to the Bears’ success in three to six years, when they are next ready to compete for a championship.  Cutler is the lone shining light on this team, and is likely one of only a handful of players currently on the roster who will be on the next Bears team to reach the Super Bowl.

If Angelo has done nothing else in his tenure, he has stabilized the most important position on the field for years to come.  The horrendous offensive line he has built in front of Cutler can NOT be allowed to jeopardize the cornerstone of the franchise, as they have through the first nine games of 2009.

2. Indianapolis Colts (2) – Peyton Manning is having one of the best seasons of his career.  Think about how good a season has to be to be one of HIS best.  Remarkable how the departure of Tony Dungy has done nothing to hurt this team.

3. Minnesota Vikings (3) – I haven’t checked the line on this week’s Lions at Vikings game, but I think it’s fair to say that this is a bit of a mismatch.  Matt Stafford will be wearing Jared Allen like a jacket.  This could be the ugliest game of the year.

4. Pittsburgh Steelers (4) – The championship mojo seems to be working again.  Big win in the Rockies on Monday night; a showdown with the Bungalows awaits.  More on that below.

5. New England Patriots (6) – This week’s game in Indianapolis may decide home field advantage in the AFC playoffs.  And, as always, it is certain to be a wildly entertaining affair; exactly the kind of game that makes the NFL great.

6. Cincinnati Bengals (7) – Thank God the Bengals are good this year.  If we had to go through yet another season of the endless Patriots-Colts-Steelers rotation atop the AFC, I was going to lose it.  This week’s rematch against the Steelers will tell us a LOT of what we need to know about how far the Bengals have or have not come.

7. Dallas Cowboys (8) – They walked into Philly and beat an Eagles team who had been crushing people of late.  I was not on board the Dallas bandwagon before that game, but I officially declare them contenders.  They now travel to Green Bay, to face the pre-season’s most overrated and over-hyped team (not by me, mind you… the Packers are EXACTLY what I thought they were.  Mediocre.). I anticipate Dallas’ hot streak continuing.

8. San Diego Chargers (not ranked) – I have no idea what the hell has happened to the Giants, but their prior three losses notwithstanding, I gave Norv Turner’s crew absolutely no chance of going into the Meadowlands and winning the Eli-Phillip Bowl.  I was wrong.  Things are finally coming back to reality in the AFC West, where the Chargers are proving that they are still the best team, despite Denver’s fluky start.

9. Atlanta Falcons (not ranked) – Hard to decide if a win against the Redskins was enough to bump them ahead of the Eagles.  But I guess I just did.

10. Philadelphia Eagles (5) – After all the good faith I showed in you last week, you take a spill at home?  Losing to Dallas is hardly cause for embarrassment, but it’s plenty good enough cause for a five notch drop.