WEEK NINE: Eh.

"Ohhhh, I get it now! You're supposed to BLOCK the other guys."

Part of me wants to be really happy with Sunday's game. I mean, after a few utter bullshitty weeks, a lot of what was wrong actually went right for a change. But it's real hard to do so, because after all, it was against the Bills. The line only allows one sack? But it was against the Bills. Finally a play from the one yard line that doesn't result in a field goal? It was the Bills. Cutler has a half-decent game for the first time in a while? He did it against the Bills. Actual short passing and quarterback movement is in the game plan, contrary to that "Greatest Concussions on Turf" crap? Bills. Seriously. I know they did well against the Ravens and the Chiefs, but they were still a winless team, the bottom-scrapers in a year where half the teams suck. They were still the Bills. This is a team that very recently had Trent Edwards leading a Dick Jauron-coached team, and whose fans can honestly refer to that as "better days." A team once four consecutive times on the verge of becoming one of the greatest dynasties in history, only to fall beyond falling, with their status as the pride of a city now replaced by some fucking chicken wings. And I'm sorry, but Buffalo wings are crap. I know, they're really hot, and in some fucked-up realm, where people have riding mowers for quarter-acre yards and white dudes wear tucked-in jerseys in their "man-caves," that equals a good time, but I'm sorry, they taste like vinegar-basted dog shit set on fire. And that's why I can't get too excited over Sunday's win.

Any game against an 0-7 team should be an utter ass-stomping, the kind of game that ends in forfeit when the other team only has ten players left alive. But the Bills were right there the whole time, and Ryan Fitzpatrick looked like Peyton Manning, right up until the point where the interceptions by Tim Jennings and Chris Harris served as the dagger in the back and the shotgun to the face of the Bills' victory hopes. And after barely squeaking past the league's statistical worst team? The Vikings (twice), the Dolphins, the Eagles, the Lions, the Patriots, the Jets, and the Packers. Matthew Stafford's tragic shoulder-death and Brad Childress's tragic existence aside, there is really not a single game ahead that I can look to and say "oh yeah, we're gonna win that one." Even now at 5-3, down by half a game in the division with half a tie-breaker over the Packers, I can say with no hesitation that while something like 8-8 or even 10-6 is a big possibility, finishing 6-10 or even 5-11 still isn't out of the question.
So where do we go from here? Who knows, but it's probably more downhill than up.

NEXT WEEK: The Minnesota Vikings come to Soldier Field, and I'm gonna have a whole big thing on that sometime this week. The time to kill is now.

Also, I was planning on throwing up a picture of Julius Peppers right here, murdering Brett Favre in last years Panthers/Vikings game, but this was on the second page of Google Image Search results, and I just had to share:

"¡Chupa mi verga, Brett Favre!"