That Same Ol’ Doom

I don’t want to talk about the offensive line anymore. I don’t want to talk about the offensive line anymore. I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE STUPID OFFENSIVE LINE ANYMORE. But really, what else can you do? Ignoring it won’t make it go away; if that worked, there’d be no problem, Aldon Smith would have five less sacks, and Jay Cutler and Jason Campbell would both have a lot more fully-functioning brain cells. And after Monday night, things might have finally hit some sort of horrible, psychotic tipping point.Hands are wringing, teeth are gnashing, one guy’s already lost his job, and another just sort of… left. Shit’s getting weird, and just a week removed from NBC’s big “Super Bowl preview, question mark, question mark, question mark” game against the Texans, everyone is finally having to acknowledge what should have been obvious three years ago; that this offensive line is broken way beyond a one-year rebuilding job, and when you spend zero years improving it, it only gets worse. The bus has no breaks, the abyss has no bottom, and the cobras you’re ankle-deep in are incapable of remorse. The good times, they have gone.

Well. Bye.

Of course, the weirdest news of all involves apparently ex-guard Chilo Rachal. Precious little info has been trickling out about what happened, but apparently, when they told him that he wasn’t going to be a starter anymore, the dude just took off. Quit the team, hopped in the car, took his happy ass home, and ended up on that “reserve/left squad” list that Harvey Unga spent ten years on. He rejoined the team today, but really, he might as well have stayed back at the house, because if that really was the reason he took off, he has about as much of a chance of playing another game for the Chicago Bears as I do. As of right now, his season is over, moved over to the “reserve/non-football injury” list, which I think is upper management's way of making fun of him for being terminally butthurt.  Still, though, as bitch-made a thing as leaving because you got benched is, it probably gives this a much happier ending than anything anybody might have been speculating on yesterday would have been. I mean for real, as a lapsed pro wrestling nerd, I hear “so-and-so has left the team for personal reasons,” and my mind immediately jumps to “ohhhhh snap, dude’s gonna text his physical address to Chavo Guerrero Jr. and strangle his family.”
Like when Brian Urlacher took off to go have secret knee surgery in Europe from the Human Centipede guy or whatever, I was like, “Nooooo, don’t murder Jenny McCarthy, Brian! Sure, she’s nuts, but she was kind of funny in BASEketball, I guess! It’s not worth it!” But instead of killing her, all he did was dump her, which would seem baffling to a time-traveling fourteen year-old version of me, but made all the sense in the world to the grown-ass version of me. And Urlacher probably has enough experience with crazies, after his baby-momma pulled that crap she did a few years back, where she publically accused him of trying to turn their son gay, because she needed to shake him down for money, because she owed over ten million dollars to Michael Flatley – the goddamn Lord of the Dance -  from that time she accused him of rape. Wow, holy shit, no matter how many times I read, think about, or type that situation, it never gets any less insane. Like for real, I could not in a million years have made up a situation like that. No one could have. So yeah, Brian Urlacher knows a thing or two about crazy maniacs with Crazy Maniac’s Disease and knows better than to risk having one slip past the goalie and end up with a lifelong, child-based connection to another crazy maniac. I mean yeah, Jenny McCarthy is more of a “misguided” crazy than Tyna Robertson’s “something’s about to get set on fire” brand of crazy, but it’s best not to risk things on a woman who might slap the vaccination needle out of a doctor’s hand that would have prevented the kid from getting parvo three years later. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Chilo Rachal.
Anyway, dude got benched, then immediately threw away any prospects he might have had for a “rest of his career” ever really happening. Of course, who he got benched in favor of is a scary prospect, with Chris Spencer as the frontrunner. Chris Spencer being a guy who got benched earlier in the year in favor of Chilo freaking Rachal. So there’s one problem that’s not getting any better.

Meanwhile, he wasn’t the only starting lineman who isn’t one anymore. Gabe Carimi lost his starting job, although he’s admittedly taking it a lot better than Rachal did. A year ago, he was a first round pick, the sure-fire, can’t-miss savior who was going to come in, play right tackle, and then everything would be alright for the next decade. Nope. Much like Chris Williams – the previous first-round tackle savior from 2008 -  he lost his rookie season to a pre-existing condition, then collapsed into a big pile of holding penalties and time spent laying on his back like a great big baby-man while the other team’s defensive end runs a victory lap around the stadium with a clump of Jason Campbell’s internal organs raised victoriously in his mighty hand. So now, Jonathan Scott takes over at right tackle, so you give up on the first-rounder in favor of a career backup that no one wanted, and somewhere, Frank Omiyale laughs at my anguish.  It’s a curious thing that of the team’s two starting tackles to get slapped down, Carimi’s the one on the bench now, though. Because in a perfect world, you’d be able to find two serviceable tackles somewhere and bench both guys, but man, J’Marcus Webb has been over on the left side of the line – the blind side that Sandra Bullock told us about – being just as bad or way, way worse than Carimi, and he’s been doing that for three years now.

And man, J’Marcus Webb. I just don’t know, man. How he continues to even reside on the active roster week in and week out, to say nothing of his set-in-stone starting job, is completely mind-boggling. He was apocalyptically bad as rookie, and he’s never gotten any better, so you’d think there would be some back up plan in place. But nope, here’s to another six games of endless Twitter updates about food and the stupid JWEBB NATION, while he continues to seemingly not give a flying squirrel shit about professional football. And it sucks, because somehow, you really want to like the guy, because he just seems like such a positive dude who’s just happy as hell to be here, and he’s got that same big goofy, kinda droopy gigantism face that The Big Show has, and I dunno, man, he’s just so goddamn loveable, in a weird sort of way. But you see, here’s this thing. I got this dog, Cocoa. Now, for the record, I hate that name, but she already answered to it by the time we accidentally adopted her, so there was nothing we could do. Anyway, she’s dumb as a sack of hammers, but is otherwise a pretty loveable dog; just this awkwardly floppy, lumbering galumphus, running into shit and just being happy as hell to see anyone or anything that comes within 50 feet of her, and she’s got this big smooshy face, and OOOHHHH GODDDD. But for argument’s sake, let’s say I went out back, fixed all the holes in the fence, and started up a goat farm. Like a serious, big-money goat farm, and my whole operation hinged upon the success of one particular goat. A goat that I had purchased for fifty million dollars. Let’s call him Goatler. And let’s say that once a week, usually on Sunday, but sometimes on Thursday or Monday, my whole neighborhood gets filled up with ravening wolves, and those wolves want nothing more than to see the what the flesh of a fifty-million dollar goat tastes like. And for some reason, I have to choose one dog to watch over my Powerball-priced flock, with three years of time to bring in a series of new dogs and trial-and-error that shit until I can find one that’s the best at keeping the wolves away from Goatler. And you know, I love the hell out of that dog, but for the love of all that is fucking holy, the first time I caught Cocoa sitting in a mud puddle, barking at squirrels on the old Dish Network dish that may or may not still work, but we don’t have Dish Network, so who knows, while a shifty-ass wolf is taking bolt-cutters to the chain-link fence; man, I would snatch her ass up, throw her in the house, and have another dog out there immediately. This would not be a decision that took me four years to arrive at. Yet here we are, 2012, and J’Marcus Webb is still sitting in that damn mud puddle, chewing on an empty Mr. Pibb can at one of the church kids from next door tossed over the fence, while Jared Allen calmly roasts Goatler on a spit. Jesus Christ, there has to be a better way.

Beethoven seems the obvious answer, but he has bad footwork and trouble recognizing complex blitz packages.

I just don’t know. I’m sure that there are mean things I could say about the other two guys, but I just don’t have the energy for it anymore. But I can say that when Lance Louis is probably your team’s best offensive lineman, something has gone terribly, horribly, obscenely wrong somehow. Anyway, this week, the Bears play the Vikings, and they’re probably going to lose. In addition to the usual Jared Allen horrors, I’m honestly not so sure about the defense anymore. Not to say that they were never as good as people were saying they were while the team was winning, because no, they really can be that good. But this is that point of the season where it becomes more than apparent that the offense will never hold up their end of the bargain and that there’s really not much hope of even a one-game playoff run, and the combination of hopelessness exhaustion makes the defense just sort of peter out over time. So the big story this week will be how the Bears handle the Vikings offense, in particular the resurrected Purple Jesus, Adrian Peterson. Regardless of the actual final score, this more than anything else will reveal what the rest of the season will be like. If the Bears can remain respectable, maybe they split the series with the Vikings, stomp the Cardinals, then steal a close one from someone like Seattle, and hell, ten wins gets you in the playoffs, where everyone's 0-0, etc. If there’s another San Francisco game, the Bears get blown out, and Peterson runs for 190 yards? You can just forget it and hope for the best in 2013, because going from a 7-1 start to a 7-9 finish could seriously happen. The hurting never stops, horror, doom, pain, fear, cobras, etc. Awful, just awful.

PREDICTION: VIKINGS 24, BEARS 10

Week 10: This is it, I guess.

One of these two men might not play Sunday. The other definitely will, but might not play any more games after that.

Well, if any Bears fans (or maybe some confused Lions fans who somehow don't despise the Bears) ever stumble across this thing, I just want to say that I hope you've enjoyed the last several weeks. It's been really cool watching this team steamroll the living piss out of hapless bums like the Cowboys, Titans, and Jaguars, and it sure is cool seeing TV types bringing up memories of the '85 team and even the Grossman-ruined '06 team. But the fun times are over; I hope you realize that. Because from this point out, there's only one true tomato can left on the schedule, and that's not until the Cardinals in week sixteen. Every other team left on the schedule can beat the Bears, a division title is going to be harder than anyone wants to admit, the playoffs aren't a certainty, and I'm guessing a 15-1 finish is about as likely as me jumping flat-footed across the goddamn Pacific. Because the second half of the schedule is going to suck ass, and they've saved the worst part for first.

Oh sweet Christ.

It's like all the worst possible nightmares all hitting at once. Jay Cutler seems to save his worst games for prime time, and Wade Phillips has already come right out and said that Brandon Marshall is getting double-teamed on every play. The second part is really bad, because Cutler has made no secret so far that he's pretty much ready to throw it to Marshall on every play, regardless of what the coverage situation is. Not to mention that even with new dudes in charge, the Bears just ignored the offensive line again this last off-season, and this leaves 2012's leading mega-destroyer J.J. Watt up up against Gabe Carimi and J'Marcus Webb all night, and hoooo-leeee shit, that is terrifying. Webb is only not the league's worst lineman because I'm pretty sure Frank Omiyale didn't die at any point this year, and the only reason Carimi isn't developing a similar reputation is because he gets a stupid holding penalty every time a defensive end blows past him for a would-be sack. So Watt comes into the game on pace to be over twenty sacks by the end of the year, and if Mike Tice doesn't figure out some creative ideas to keep him out of the backfield, he might hit that by the third quarter. And yeah, I do realize how ridiculous it sounds to mention Mike Tice and the concept of these things called "ideas" in the same sentence, because the dude's never had any. So you've got the NFL's most destructive force with only the NFL's worst five guys at preventing destruction between him and Cutler's cervical vertebrae, and OH GOD COBRAS.

You know, he's turning out to not be so good at the American football, but I will say that Gabe Carimi is one goddamn handsome man.

And yeah, all the analyst types I keep reading keep mentioning how important it'll be for the Bears to establish the run, so the Texans won't just be able to tee off on Cutler all night, but if they even think that's a remote possibility, they've clearly not been actually watching any football games this year. Because you know what, Matt Forte rules, and everyone knows it. Even in situations of complete shithouse blockingm, he's got the moves to escape, and I seriously think the Texans would have a harder time stopping him than the Bears will have stopping Arian Foster. But you see, it doesn't matter, because Chicago Bear logic defies regular football logic. In regular football logic, you get the running game going, this puts the defense on its heels, and all of a sudden you just throw it way the hell downfield, and they don't know what hit them, and it's great. In Chicago Bear logic, you start to get the running game going, then just abandon it altogether, even though someone just ran in another fumble and you're up by twenty. So the Texans have nothing to fear from Chicago's running game, because even if they start getting gashed by it early in the first quarter, by the middle of the second, the Bears will revert to "pass, pass, pass, punt" Martz-ball. So even if you've got your star running back who just made a Pro Bowl and signed a huge contract in a groove, he might as well not even be in the game, and it's time to just blitz Cutler's ligaments off. This instills him with The Fear and makes him just chuck it to Marshall on every play, because he's the only competent non-Forte out there most of the time, and Mark Schlereth cackles with glee as the sacks and interceptions mount.

This is his O-face.

Notice, I haven't mentioned the defense much, because there's not much need to. The Chicago Bears have been a blisteringly evil force of devastation on that side of the ball all year, and are pretty much more of a scoring threat than the offense at this point. And sure, the Texans are a real football team, so it won't be anything even resembling the Music City Massacre, but they'll do their job. If last week is any indicator, Urlacher is finally back from last year's knee injury, and man, I don't even know what to say about Charles Tillman. Dude has been completely goddamn nuts this year, to the point where you don't even notice that the guy opposite him already has six interceptions. So barring an early child birth that makes him skip the game, if Tillman plays, Andre Johnson basically doesn't. And the Bears are a team with enough power up front to get pressure without blitzing and stop the run without bringing linebackers to the line, so I think even a team as good as Houston is (and yeah, it seriously is still bizarre to think of them as any good) is going to have trouble getting anything done offensively tonight. Looking back, though, I seriously wish it had been the Bears instead of the Texans who had drafted Whitney Mercilus. I think one of the main reasons I haven't been as active here as recent years is because I burned myself out pre-draft thinking of all the shit that could be said about a dude with such a killer last name. But instead of Whitney the Merciless, a mysterious warrior from a far-away land whose eyes see only death and whose hands make it so, we ended up with Shea McClellin, good ol' Wee Baby Sheamus, biding his time being kind of okay, I guess,  but fourth on the depth chart until his rookie contract runs out and he can go be awesome for some 3-4 team, possibly even the Texans. Stupid football.

LEFT: Shea McClellin. RIGHT: Whitney Mercilus.

Anyway, I'm going to come right out and say a win tonight is highly unlikely, but not completely hopeless. More than anything, the Bears have to find a way to score first. Because the Bears always abandon the run for no reason, but they do it more slowly when they're in the lead. And the less often the Bears have to pass, the better, because I get the feeling that mostly bad things will happen that way. Get Forte going, and instead of saying, "welp, don't want him to get tired, better throw nine straight to Marshall," just use the other guy you gave a ton of money to, because he's not a complete asshole, you know. If the Bears are forced to pass all day (or choose to) they will lose. If they can run with any sort of regularly, they only might lose. This is hard-hitting analysis, people. On defense, just keep doing your thing, man. Just make absolutely sure that Mrs. Tillman manages to keep her water unbroken until Monday morning, or Kelvin Hayden gets the start, which is a diplomatic way of saying the phrase "all is lost." If the Bears can keep Houston under 20 points, there's a shot, because even if this is one of those "oh god, they can't find Cutler's lower half" games, they still usually manage to accidentally score a couple times. But even as a dude who pretty much has bad feelings about any game the Bears play, this one is giving me more of them than usual.

PREDICTION: Bears 13, Texans 27.

2012 Chicago Bears: Looking for reasons to complain.

"I will destroy you and all you've ever loved! YAAAAAAAAY!"

I originally had every intention of keeping up that one-a-week pattern I've had in years past, but weird life schedules and the league's insistence on having Bears play at times when I have to be asleep because of my weird schedule have stood in the way of that more often than not. Fuck Monday Night games, Fuck Thursday night games, and I'm not gonna try to fake like I have some insight about what happened in a game I didn't watch, because no one gains anything from reading another soulless stat-based recap, which is I'm pretty sure is why Armchair Linebacker was started in the first place. That and mushrooms, probably. Also, let's face it: Things have been going really well for the Bears this year, and football fans writing about their team being awesome can only come off sounding like total assholes, and I have at least that much self-awareness that I'd know I was being an asshole while doing it. So if that's what you want, just imagine the rest of this being things like, "guys, (insert name, probably of a defensive player) is a BEAST! BEAR DOWN!" or whatever, and then don't ever come back.

And with me being a sports pessimist of almost pathological levels, I've had this weird feeling of unease ever since it started to become apparent that the Packers game wasn't going to repeat itself ten more times in a row. Like things probably aren't actually as good as the record suggests, and even if they are, it can all fall apart at any second. Like in 2006, when the Bears were briefly a team making the '72 Dolphins nervous until the Cardinals exposed Rex Grossman as a piece of shit, or last year, when the Bears were a semi-legit contender until Jay Cutler and Matt Forte were both struck down by the wrath of Zeus in consecutive weeks. And in reality, the question of whether things will all fall apart is always an if question, but in my brain that's been beaten into submission by twenty-plus years of the Bears always almost being good, but never completely, it's more of a question of when. Somehow, something's going to give, and instead of reveling in a 5-1 record, when I think about the Bears, it's always future visions of death and pain that may yet come to pass. Something is wrong with me, probably. But the warning signs and unexposed flaws are there. They're always there.


For starters, the Bears haven't really played anybody yet. The Bears have only played one team with a winning record so far, and that was the Packers, and the Bears lost that game. The Colts were bad enough to draft #1 overall last year, the Cowboys and Rams are pieces of shit, the Jaguars are huuuuuge pieces of shit, and the Lions seem to be having one of those "what the hell, I thought these guys were going to be contenders" downfalls that some team has every year. Of course the Bears beat up on the Colts, Rams, Cowboys, and Jaguars, because that's what you're supposed to do to those teams. Against a team with elements of a team that was supposed to be good and they barely escape with the win. Put them against an actual, fully-good team, and they lose. This is not what happens when a team is going to finish 15-1 with a Lombardi trophy. Starting in November, the Bears hit a six-game stretch that includes Houston, San Francisco, Green Bay and Minnesota twice. (And Tennessee, but who cares about them) If they can win at least four of those non-Tennessee games, then I might start getting excited. Until then, it's fear and lots of Tums.

And man, no one seems to notice this, but outside of The Glorious Brandon Marshall, the entire offense always looks like it's this close to becoming a complete shambles again. And you'd think that more people would be screaming about it because everyone hates Jay Cutler, but overall, the passing game really hasn't been there. Cutler has attached himself to Marshall like a goddamn remora riding a goddamn great white shark, and the end result is a whole bunch of stupid-assed throws in stupid-assed places, because the dude gets tunnel vision and sees no jersey number other than 15. So instead of this finally being the year a Bear QB finally smashes all the single-season team passing records, (that are mostly just maybe above average by most teams' standards) he's turned into a lower-tier QB who's lucky to have more touchdowns than interceptions, and if the team was 2-4 instead of 5-1 with the same performance, fat dudes with mustaches everywhere would be screaming for Jason Campbell to start, making it the first time in history that the Bears fan base has yearned for the white man to get his comeuppance. I've been the world's biggest Jay Cutler apologist for the last few years, but if he's going to have his worst year as a starter now that he finally has real receivers and no Mike Martz plotting his demise, it might be time to face the possibility that he's really not all that good.

So yeah, you've got a really good defense here that hasn't even played its best football yet, with Urlacher and the Uberklaw walking wounded out there, (Weird observation here - People keep comparing them to the 2006 team, but no one remembers that the '05 team still had Tommie Harris and Mike Brown healthy, and actually had a better defense overall. Just like no one knows that the 1986 team was actually better than the '85 Super Bowl team. TODD BELL WAS THE KEY.) and I suppose the running game hasn't been that bad. But between Jay Cutler's selective blindness, the fact that Alshon Jeffery and Johnny Knox (remember him?) are out means Devin Hester is thrust back into the awkward role as a starting wide receiver, and that fucking offensive line, this is a team that's one twisted ankle for Brandon Marshall away from going on a six-game losing streak at any second. So pardon me for not jumping with joy, spray painting the house navy blue and orange, and waving my genitals in the general direction of all the stupid goddamn Cowboys fans around here. Because we've been here before, and we know it can always fall apart, because aside from that one time when I was five years old, it always has fallen apart. Or maybe I just have some sort of brain disease, who knows.

Anyway, the Bears play the Panthers in a minute, and the Panthers are awful garbage, but for some reason, Charles Tillman is as bad at covering little tiny wide receivers like Steve Smith as he is at covering big, impossible-to-cover ones like Calvin Johnson, so it won't be a shutout. So, hell, I dunno, Bears 38, Panthers 17, and I'll get to watch this one on illegal internets for a change, so I might actually have things to say about it. I might not actually say them, but eh, what can you do.

WEEK TEN: Hope and Confusion

I know I should be angry at the Überklaw for consorting with villains like that, but all I can think of when I see this picture is that his hat is fucking sweet.

I almost feel bad for making this post. This seems to have been a horrifying hell-week at Armchair Linebacker, what with the Redskins being prison-raped by Dog-Hitler and the Eagles, and the Lions allowing Matt Millen and Daunte Culpepper to finally break out that celebratory bottle of Boone's Farm that they've been keeping on ice all these long weeks. But meanwhile, the Bears did just fine. Seriously. I know, the Vikings are kind of the NFL laughing stock right now, but seriously, this was a huge game, and nothing really went wrong. For the second week in a row, the Bears only gave up one sack, mainly because they actually made and adjustment and don't have Cutler sitting back there for thirty seconds at a time behind his high school offensive line.

Cutler is throwing the ball, and the offensive line is IN FRONT of him. And STANDING. What universe is this?

And oh yeah. That guy Favre. To sum up in a perfectly internet way, I would just type about three lines of "LOLOLOLOLOL," but I am a professional, so I'll try to form words. I'll try to not go into all that Middle-Earth glue I was sniffing last week, (For the record, my parents were big Tolkien fans, to the point where my actual real name is from one of the books. In case you didn't know, my name is Witch-King of Angmar Jackson.) and instead say this was as nearly perfect as things could have gone. I mean, Favre wasn't torn in half of brutally mutilated or anything, but you know, you don't wish harm on players, because it's just a game, and the police monitor that shit online. But to kind of steal a thought from Dan Patrick that I heard on a lunch break Monday, with that loss, the Vikings are pretty much done for 2010. And after this year, there's no way they'll bring that guy back, and after his next fake-retirement, very few teams worth playing for are going to want that guy. Brett Favre has played his last meaningful NFL game, and he ended it with a game-clinching interception. That's just like the most blisteringly perfect thing, ever. The Universe is back into alignment, and for once, all is right with the world. Fuckin' A.

PICTURED: Brett Favre's next retirement press conference.

But right now, things are strange and I don't know what to think. In some weird cosmic bullshit way, I think the Bears on-paper success has been due to the all-powerful emotion of pessimism. I have said "well, they're gonna lose this one" for almost every game this year, and the two times I picked them to win, they lost. But man, the Bills and Vikings aren't exactly the NFL elite, and the Bears didn't really blow either of them out, but there are little things going on. Things that... Give me... Hope? Maybe the coaching staff isn't so rigidly set in their ways that they can change the plan when it's going horribly awry. Maybe this team isn't filled with bullshit players, and some of the ones who were bullshit in past weeks are actually getting better. Who knows. But I've had this feeling before, and it scares me, because it always leads to a letdown. See? There's that pessimism that's helped the Bears win so far. So maybe there IS hope. Wait. Fuck.

IN A LITTLE WHILE: The Bears play the Dolphins in a Thursday night game, after a short-ass week. This would be the perfect situation to lose a game, riding high off a division win, and only getting a few days off, but the Dolphins have had the same short week, and half their team is out injured right now. They might not have Jake Long, and they're down to their eighth or ninth quarterback, and times is hard for those guys. And maybe the real key to the Bears success is that they've managed to last this long without a whole lot of major injuries, in a sense just outlasting the rest of the league. So their chances look good against a depleted Dolphins squad. Which usually means they'll lose. Which could mean that they'll win. Or, um... Fuck, man.

Bears 24, Dolphins 17.

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!"