Ich bin ein Eagles Fan

OK. If you stuck a gun to our head and told us we had to choose between college football and the NFL, we’d still probably go with the amateurs over the pros. But that once yawning gap that existed some 10-15 years ago when organizations, players, coaches and GMs all struggled with the intricacies and implications of free agency and the salary cap and which resulted in a sub-standard quality of play out on the field is closing fast as the overall level of play in the NFL is as good as it has ever been (yes, the 0-16 Lions stink but to illustrate our point, they would beat the stuffing out of the 0-14 ’76 Tampa Bay Buccaneers who set the standard for futility).

Oh, and one other thing has been setting the Leauge apart: yesterday. Good lord. Nearly half (7) of the 16 games played yesterday had playoff implications. Not merely seeding implications but lose-and-you-go-home… win-and-you’re-in/maybe-in implications.

The NFL schedule makers did a fine job of lining up as many intra-divisional match ups as possible so that you had 3 games (Chargers/Broncos, Philly/Dallas and Miami/NY Jets), heated divisional rivals all, that were also defacto play-in games for all six participants. Excuse us, meaningless regular season play-in games. And what really could be more exciting than seeing America’s Team, the Dallas Cowboys, culminating another December meltdown at the hands of their hated rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, 44-6?


As we mentioned before, our mixed feelings about the Chargers’ miraculous come-back against the Broncos, owners of their own epic December collapse, (no team has ever started off 4-8 and made the playoffs and no team has ever had a 3 game lead in its division with three weeks left and lost it) is decidedly a little less mixed as the opportunity to play at least one more game, at home no less against the Indianapolis Colts, trumps the certainty that head coach Norv Turner will be back next year and the uncertainty that the seemingly perpetually immature Chargers have yet to really learn their lesson as despite sleepwalking through the first 3 quarters of the game just 2 weeks ago (after a night of partying?) find themselves, once again, in the playoffs.

Boy O boy, all that excitement from yesterday has totally got us geeked for….. the Papajohns.com (We thought they made pizza) Bowl (N.C. State vs. Rutgers) and the Alamo Bowl (Missouri vs. Northwestern) today and the slew of all the other totally meaningful, relevant and sexy bowl match ups we get to endur… er, enjoy until the the Grand-who’s-yer-Daddy of ‘em all, the BCS championship game to be played sometime in mid-January.

P.S. We'll take a break from our usual end-of-the-year slamming of our college football sweetheart to admit that the Mizzou/Northwestern affair could be a pretty high-scoring and exciting affair.