As the clock ticked off the final seconds of the Chargers-Patriots game it also signified the end of any hope there was for this season. As of right now the NFL has joined Major League Baseball by ending on a low note. I'm not watching the NFC Championship Game, because I hate both teams. The Patriots (A.K.A. Evil in Palpable Form) may win the Super Bowl, but the only thing I'll remember about them was that they denied a more deserving team a Super Bowl appearance (and possible victory).

Speaking of that more deserving team, the Chargers played a great game, especially considering they were without their best player. I was pulling for them, but it's hard to beat a dominant offensive team when you never reach the end zone. I'm not going to make excuses, but one can only wonder how the Chargers would've done had they had LaDainian Tomlinson. Michael Turner and Darren Sproles gave valiant efforts, but unfortunately they weren't enough. I'm at least glad they put up a good fight. I hope San Diego represents the AFC in Super Bowl XLIII. That's a team I'd remember more fondly than any Patriots team.

I know that most of the country has jumped on the "Brett Favre needs another ring" bandwagon, but I can't stand the guy or his team, so jumping on it is unthinkable to me. Even though the media has given him "demigod" status, I just don't buy it.

I suppose there is a bright side to this season being over. Now I don't have to worry about the two weeks of pointless hype before the Super Bowl. Last year my Bears were in it, and all the analysis got on my nerves after a while. It wasn't too bad, as I knew that even if the Bears lost it'd be to a deserving champion, but I still wanted my team to take home the trophy. This year I know that evil has already triumphed, so there's no storyline left for me to follow.

The NBA has been pretty bad this year, but at least there's still the NHL. Hockey, you're all I've got right now.

Now that we know the NFL's final four I no longer have to weigh the relative merits of each team or make decisions about whom to root for. I just want to see one team win it all: the San Diego Chargers. This has been one of the worst NFL seasons I can remember, and a Super Bowl victory for San Diego is the only thing left that could redeem it. Some people may have problems with the maturity levels displayed by certain Charger players, but I don't care. I feel for the true blue Charger fans who've suffered through years of incompetence with them. They've had their brief flirtations with success, such as the "Air Coryell" era and the mid-90's, but you'd have to go back to 1963 to find the last time the Chargers reigned supreme in their league. Most of their fans probably weren't even born when that happened. Despite their reputation as bandwagoners, I know there are lots of Charger fans who want a Super Bowl title more than anything, and those fans deserve it.

Why am I so dead set on the Chargers? In addition to having liked them for a long time (not as a primary team, but on the side), I despise the other three teams remaining in the Playoffs.

First there's this year's odds-on favorite, the New England Patriots. What else is left to say about them? They've gone undefeated and left a trail of enmity behind them. If they win the Super Bowl the only people who'll look back on them with love will be Patriot fans. Perhaps in 20 years kids who study the history of football will read about their success on the field and be in awe of them, but those of us who lived through their reign of terror will remember what a loathsome bunch they were.

There's been some bad blood between the Patriots and Chargers in recent years. After the Patriots won last year's Playoff meeting to end San Diego's dream season the Chargers were left with a bitter taste in their mouths. LaDainian Tomlinson even had the guts to call out the Patriots on their lack of class in victory, as several Patriot players taunted them while the clock ran out. If Tomlinson's team can avenge that loss to end the Patriots' perfect season it'll be poetic justice. The Chargers have injuries to deal with, but it's my hope that they can overcome them with a desire to win.

Coincidentally, the two teams playing for the NFC Championship also happen to be the two NFC teams I hate the most.

As a Chicago Bears fan it's part of my job to hate the Green Bay Packers, but there's more to it than that. Those fans who wear dairy products on their heads are some of the most annoying in sports. Most of them, as well as many other football fans, have been brainwashed into thinking Brett Favre is some sort of god. He does #### all the time that shows he's not the perfect guy so many make him out to be, but he always seems to be above criticism. After all, he's the "ultimate gamer" and whatnot. It makes me sick. The Packers already get all the respect in the rivalry with the Bears, and I don't think I could stomach Packer fans bragging about another Super Bowl victory.

Finally, you have the New York Giants. I've always hated the Giants just because they were from New York, although New York hasn't seemed that bad to me since the emergence of Boston as America's most annoying city. Still, I've had a special dislike for the Giants ever since I met a guy in college who was a Giants fan as well as a complete jerk. Seriously, this guy disgusted me like few people I've ever met in my life. If the Giants won the Super Bowl I'd imagine people like him celebrating. Yes, I realize that every team has its share of jerks as fans, but when you've met them personally you're more likely to associate those jerks with the team. Besides, Eli Manning spurned the Chargers in favor of the Giants, and it'd be further poetic justice if the Chargers won the Super Bowl before he did.

I know that life isn't fair and that sports will often disappoint me. Still, the more I think about it the more I'm convinced that this Chargers team needs to win the Super Bowl. They need to win it for all us fans who are tired of the NFL's glory franchises. They need to win it for all the people who've called their franchise an inherent loser. They need to win it so that this season will have a story worth talking about. Anything less just isn't enough. In fact, I won't even watch the Super Bowl unless the Chargers are in it, because my only option otherwise will be an unhappy result. Chargers, it's up to you to save this season.

As this calendar year winds down I'm starting to reflect on just how much has happened during this year 2007. It seems like such a long time ago now, but I started this blog back in January, and my first post was about how miffed I was that the Chargers were upset by the Patriots in the Playoffs. At that point 2007 was just getting started, and none of us knew what this year held in store for us. Looking back on it all, there were some sports moments in 2007 that I really enjoyed, but just about all of them ended disappointingly.

Let's start with football. I experienced something this year that I never have before: I got to follow my team, the Chicago Bears, from the first game of the season all the way to the Super Bowl. I was surrounded by co-workers who only wanted to talk about the Cowboys and Redskins, but I always stood up for my Bears in football discussions. Once the Playoffs started one of my friends told me that they'd never make it to the Super Bowl with Rex Grossman at quarterback, but the Bears did me proud by proving all the doubters wrong. Unfortunately, the Bears lost to the Colts in the Super Bowl. It wasn't an ideal ending, but the season had been a great ride and there was reason to be hopeful about the future. As it's turned out, the Bears this season have been hurt by injuries and a dismal offense. They're going to finish with a losing record, and it's clear that several changes need to be made if this team is going to return to contention. The best thing you can say about the 2007 Bears was that they beat the Packers twice.

Super Bowl XLI now looks like a missed opportunity that the Bears may not get again for some time, but interestingly enough, it was also the biggest highlight of 2007 for me. I figured if the Bears were going to lose, it might as well be to a team that deserved the title. The Indianapolis Colts were most certainly that. Despite my team's loss, I was happy for the Colts. After having a very good team for so many years they finally got their hands on the Lombardi Trophy, and they did it with class. It was also nice to see the deluded New England fans who liked to say that Peyton Manning would never win the big one and who just couldn't accept the idea that he wasn't a born loser have to eat their words. I'll admit, that part made me feel good too.

In addition to the Bears' struggles, this NFL season has been pretty miserable for me. All five teams I hate (Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Giants and Cowboys) are in the Playoffs. The Patriots are close to going undefeated, but they've had a dark cloud of contempt surrounding them from day one. I'm forced to root for one of those teams I hate in their last game of the season in hopes that the evil Patriots won't pull it off. The Detroit Lions, a true underdog that would've made a great feel-good story, started out the season 6-2 and now could finish with a losing record. The only hope left for lovers of underdog franchises is the Cleveland Browns, who still haven't clinched a Playoff spot. Ultimately though, the only teams that look like they have a realistic shot of winning anything this year are teams whose fanbases have experienced the top of the hill recently enough that they have no underdog appeal. In the end I think it's likely that several of us will be picking a team to root for by figuring out which one we hate the least.

Then there was basketball. As a Bulls fan I was pretty excited when my team swept the defending champion Miami Heat in the first round of the Playoffs. The Heat were treated like a team with some magical formula for stepping up when it counted all season, but the Bulls dispelled that notion in four games. Having followed the Bulls through the post-Jordan years I was proud of those guys. They nearly got swept in the next round by the Pistons, but they hustled their way to two wins before bowing out in Game 6. It would've been nice to see them go farther in the Playoffs, but considering the progress they'd made it was nothing to be ashamed of. Like the Bears, it gave us fans a lot of hope for next season.

We're about two months into "next season" now and things haven't gone as expected. The Bulls have gotten off to slow starts each of the past three seasons, but they've always managed to get it together before too long. This time though, they've stretched out their poor start long enough that Scott Skiles has been fired as head coach and most people already consider this season to be a lost cause. I haven't completely given up on this Bulls team, but I think it's safe to say that even if they do turn things around and make the Playoffs they don't have what it takes to go very far once they get there. It's sad to see a team that started out as a favorite to win the East possibly headed to the draft lottery.

As for the rest of the basketball world, the San Antonio Spurs won their fourth NBA Championship in 2007. The Spurs are one of the most nondescript teams in the NBA. They win championships, but they don't inspire much emotion. The Phoenix Suns, a team that has been on the doorstep of NBA supremacy in recent years, had a chance to beat them in the second round of the Playoffs, but the Spurs ultimately prevailed. It left the Spurs as the only dominant team in the Playoffs and the almost inevitable champion. While I'm not a big LeBron James fan, I was rooting for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, since they'd never been there and the Spurs had. It wasn't even close, as the Spurs swept. When the Spurs won their first NBA Championship in 1999 it was exciting, as several players got their first rings and no former ABA team had ever even made it to the NBA Finals. Every championship they've won since then has been completely anticlimactic. It's like watching a computer win a chess game against a human opponent. This season the Spurs are again looking like the best in the West, while the team that's stepped it up in the East is the Celtics, from the dreaded city of Boston. Out of nowhere they acquired two All Stars in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, giving their ever-obnoxious fans something else to boast about. The Pistons and Magic right now are looking like our only hopes not to have to see them in the NBA Finals.

Of course, there was still the greatest game in the world, baseball. 2007 brought me higher hopes than usual in baseball, only to end with me watching them get crushed successively. First there were my Cubs. They hadn't won the World Series since 1908, but all season they showed flashes of brilliance that gave the optimist in me hope the it could finally be "the year." They made the Playoffs with a mediocre 85-77 record, but as the Cardinals had proven the year before, just getting into the Playoffs is the important thing. Once you're in, anything can happen. After the Cubs fought their way into the postseason, it was as if someone suddenly cut off their supply of "heart" just before they faced the Diamondbacks in the Divisional Series. They seemed completely uninspired throughout the series, and the Diamondbacks swept. In a matter of days all the optimism among Cub fans had turned to disgust.

With the Cubs out of the picture, I decided to pull for another team that had been waiting a long time for "the year": the Cleveland Indians. They hadn't won the World Series since 1948, and they had beaten the hated New York Yankees in the first round. Unlike the Cubs, the Indians had tied for their league's best record, and they looked like they had a real shot at winning the World Series. They went up against another evil Boston team, the Red Sox. They managed to take a 3-1 lead in the series despite some struggles from their best starters, and it seemed as if destiny was on their side. Then it all came crashing down. The Red Sox destroyed them in the next three games to win the pennant and deprive the baseball world of a potentially great story. It didn't help that many members of the irksome "Red Sox Nation" showed a complete lack of class in victory.

I was pretty upset about the Indians having their title as AL Champs usurped by that evil team from America's Most Annoying City, but there was still a glimmer of hope going into the World Series. The Colorado Rockies had spent most of the season playing at a level just below contention, but they'd finished on a tear that took them all the way to the NL pennant. They'd won 21 of their last 22 games going into the World Series, and they were the only team in the NL that looked like a legitimate threat against the superior American League. I loved watching their run, as I'd considered the Rockies one of my "side" teams for years. Unfortunately, they were just starting to cool down as the Red Sox were hitting their stride. The Red Sox swept, and for the first time in my life three teams I'd really embraced lost in one postseason.

I suppose the best way to sum up 2007 in sports would be a year that teased me with the hope of great things to come and ended up as a morass of Boston egotism and the same old teams winning. I'm just glad I've started to follow hockey, as it's been my only refuge in the midst of the disastrous sports scene we're currently surrounded by. I just hope 2008 is better than 2007 was. I don't know if I can take two consecutive years like this one.

With the New England Patriots sitting at 13-0 and two of their final three opponents among the NFL's worst teams, many people are starting to see an undefeated season as a foregone conclusion (I'm not one of those people, but that's another issue). There is already talk that this Patriots team might be the greatest of all time. It's not hard to understand, given the way they've dominated this season. They've even drawn comparisons to another team that's often in the discussion for the greatest of all time: the 1985 Chicago Bears. I'm a Bears fan who loves that 1985 team, but I'm willing to accept the idea that they may not be the greatest ever to play. Still, even if this year's Patriot team is better than them, I'll take those Bears any day, and not just because I'm a fan of the franchise.

Forget about the ability to win a football game for a minute. The reason I watch sports is because I want to be entertained by a compelling story. When I see a championship I want to be happy for the players and coaches who worked hard to get there and for the fans who supported them along the way. After all, we're not watching robots compete. We're watching people who've dedicated most of their lives to their sport. On a football level the 2007 Patriots might possibly have the edge, but on a human level the 1985 Bears win hands down.

I believe it was on this blog site where I saw someone accuse the city of Chicago of being obsessed with the '85 Bears. It's true that Chicagoans still embrace that team today. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and I remember hearing about the 1985 Bears all the time. When I was in high school kids would talk about that team and wear t-shirts of that team, even though we were all too young to have good memories of them. As Bears fans we were instilled with a sense of reverence for them.

The reason that team means so much is that for a generation of Chicagoans it was the first major sports championship they'd seen one of their teams win. The last one before it had been the Bears' 1963 NFL Championship, which preceded many of their births or memories. With the 1985 team they not only had a long-awaited champion, but a team that could legitimately be in the argument for the greatest of all time. They were the culmination of a building process that started when Mike Ditka took over as head coach, which is the main reason he's still a beloved figure in Chicago sports. Compare that to these Patriots. They've already won three Super Bowls this decade, and New Englanders have also seen two recent Red Sox World Series champions. These Patriots don't mean half as much to the regional fanbase they represent as those Bears did.

There was much more drama to what the Bears did than anything these Patriots have done. Sure, the Bears issued a few blowouts, but for the most part their games were close enough to be interesting, and many of them had special meaning. There was Week 3 where Jim McMahon came off the bench to lead them to victory over the Vikings. There was Week 6 against the 49ers where they avenged their loss in the previous year's NFC Championship Game and William Perry made his debut at fullback. There were two warlike victories over the Packers. There was the Week 11 rout of the Cowboys where the Bears defeated Ditka's mentor Tom Landry. There was also the Week 13 loss where the Dolphins defended their perfect 1972 season and the Bears got a wake-up call that they weren't invincible and needed to stay focused if they were going to win it all. Most Patriot games this year have been blowouts with few dramatic moments. If you were going to read a book about each of these two teams the Bears' story would keep you engrossed much more easily.

Then you have the teams' personalities. The Bears were no doubt a cocky bunch, but you know they were having fun. They were a young team, and after everything they touched seemingly turned to gold you almost couldn't blame them for developing a swagger. That swagger was best exemplified by "The Super Bowl Shuffle," a song and video the players did for charity. "The Super Bowl Shuffle" was recorded during the season, before they'd even won anything. It was an audacious thing to do, but they backed it up by winning the Super Bowl and it showed America that they were a fun-loving group of guys. The personality of the Patriots seems to be best exemplified by their coach, Bill Belichick. He's a dour man who's treating this season as his personal "screw you" to the rest of the league. The first week of the season he thumbed his nose at Roger Goodell by having a guy film his opponent's signals in plain view after all the NFL teams had been warned about that very thing. Since his questionable ethics were made public the Patriots have been accused of running up the score on many of the teams they've faced. Several Patriot players also have reputations for being dirty and classless. They don't seem to get any joy out of the game. They just want to deny every other team the Vince Lombardi Trophy. While the Bears were cocky but lovable, the Patriots are arrogant and offputting.

There's also mystique. Another reason that specific team is so special to Bears fans is because they were a one-time deal. They had the talent to return to the Super Bowl in subsequent years, but for whatever reason it never came together like it did in 1985. It would be 21 years before they made it back to the big game. That 1985 season seems magical, like a perfect few months where the Bears managed to do everything right. The Patriots have already established themselves as this decade's "dynasty" team. If they win the Super Bowl this year it'll just blend together with the others they won. True, if they go undefeated it might stand out a little more, but the fact that they assembled this team with big-name acquisitions and holdovers from past Super Bowl winners takes away that magical feeling.

If the Patriots win the Super Bowl this year they'll rightfully belong in any discussion of the greatest teams ever to play. They might even be a better team than the 1985 Bears. No matter how well the Patriots play football though, I'd rather see a team with the human elements of the Bears. They made an infinitely better story.

As a Bears fan it's practically required that I hate the Packers. I'm no fan of the Cowboys, but in yesterday's game I had no choice but to root for them because their opponent was Green Bay. I was fortunate enough to see the Cowboys walk away with a win, but perhaps the biggest story of the game was that Brett Favre left with an injury in the first half. I didn't see the injury as I was busy watching game shows, but they talked about it plenty during the second half.

That's right. I actually have the NFL Network at my home and I chose to watch "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" and "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" instead o####ame between the NFC's top two teams. If you've been reading my blog regularly you know I'm just not feeling the NFL this season, but for what it's worth, I probably witnessed game show history last night. There was a woman who appeared as a contestant on both shows and walked away with nothing both times. There might be records we could check somewhere, but it's most likely the first time that's ever happened.

During the game they said it looked possible that Brett Favre wouldn't play again this season. This morning though, I read that Favre says he expects to start the Packers' next game. I'm sure he'll do whatever he can to play, if for no other reason than to uphold his reputation as the ultimate gamer. The problem is that I don't know what I should hope for as a Packer hater with a conscience. There are several possible scenarios.

When I found out Favre was injured a part of me hoped that it would severely cripple the Packers and put an end to any hopes they had of going to the Super Bowl this year. Then I realized that no one should be happy about an injury. Injuries are painful and can possibly have long-term consequences. On the other hand, injuries are inevitably going to happen to anyone who plays the game of football, and Favre is the type who insists on playing through them. If he doesn't let them bother him, why should I let them bother me?

If Favre does continue starting for the Packers I could hope that he's less effective and in turn hurts the Packers, but that could affect the career of another man: Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers was a first-round draft pick in 2005. This is his third season on the Packers' roster and he's still barely gotten a chance to prove himself. He showed some promise in yesterday's game, which suggests that he has the potential to be good if he ever gets a chance to play. Wouldn't it be a shame if he lost several years o####reat career because he was stuck on the bench? On the other hand, plenty of good quarterbacks have spent considerable time on the bench at various points in their careers. Look at Len Dawson. If Rodgers is truly great he'll get his chances eventually. Besides, there are worse gigs than getting paid millions of dollars to watch a football game from the sidelines.

Then there's the possibility that Favre stays out with his injury and Rodgers fills in for him. At this point I think I've found the best thing I could hope for. I can hope that Rodgers' good game was due to the Cowboys not being prepared for him and that he's actually not experienced enough to be a big-time quarterback. Heck, I could even hope that he's just not that good. In that case it would be nobody's fault that he didn't succeed in the NFL. It would be a simple case of getting an opportunity and not making the grade. It happens all the time. As long as he got a fair shot he'd have nothing to complain about.

I guess I'll just say that whatever happens I hope the Packers lose. While I wish the Packer players well in their careers, I just can't wish the team any success unless they're playing an evil team like the Patriots or something. I wouldn't feel like a true Bears fan if I did.