Ok kids, it's the most wonderful time of the year...inspired by Andy Rooney.

The BCS is a mess and the NFL playoff picture is clear as mud.  Welcome to my favorite time in football.

The Heisman Trophy is still up for grabs; all we hear of are players from Top Ten teams.  Find someone else this year, please.  Media pundits name the QB of the most recent big Saturday night game as the front runner.

Tom Brady will play for team XXX in 2009.  What a terrible thing to have two Pro-Bowl caliber Qbs!  Remember how Brady got his current NFL gig.  Franchise tag anyone?  "Gee kid, we're slapping the franchise tag on you and guaranteeing you $14million.  Hope you're not upset."

The NFC North is its usual cauldron of stewed pieces and parts.  No team has stepped up, except for Detroit who took a step back the first game of the season.  Buh-Bye Lions.  Even your Thanksgiving game is a terrible thing to watch.  Put the "L" in the book against the Titans now.

Donovan McNabb will play for the Vikes or whom next year?  His +$10million salary in 2009 probably says he's gone after the past two years of bad team play.  The same happened to Culpepper, yet people cry how McN is being disrespected.  Please disrespect me for that kind of money.

Texas and Oklahoma have the pleasure of waiting for the Big XII Championship Game berth.  If tied, the highest BCS ranked team advances.  After OU's slaughter of TxTech, it's up in the air with the computers making the decision here.  In north Texas, plenty of families are cross-bred with Okies and Texas fans.  That should make for some fun Thanksgiving meals and a few shootings.  Look for the coaches to do their own lobbying.  If OU looks good against Okie State, I bet OU will advance.

T.O. is happy.  How couldn't he be after he played a private track meet gig against the Niners.

In Indianapolis, a 14 year old girl wants to play baseball, yet the Indy high school officials say the rules prohibit her from playing since softball is available.  Let her play.  Then again, any time  boys want to play field hockey or any other sport on the girl's play list, the guys get to play.

Emmitt Smith is beyond painful to listen to from the ESPN booth.  How did he escape college or the great U of F without a basic understanding of the word, 'be.'   "They be, he be, they gots to..."   AHHHHHHH!!!

Lendale White's(TN Titans) internal punk showed during a post-game interview and whining session about carries.  The best part was how he was playing with his earrings during most of the idiotic discussion.  This kept popping into my mind. "Coach treats us like men and lets us wear earrings."   Well, that and did the USC alumni buy the earrings?

Bama and Florida,conqueror of The Citadel, will play for the BCS berth.  Why haven't we been seeing Bama games this year?  Whassupwidtdat?

Notre Dame lost to a team without a head coach.  (Insert joke here.)  Ok, it's not cool to make fun of the footballically challenged teams.

The NBA has had no high profile arrests this season.  This makes me wonder, knowing the past police blotter activity.

Bill Snyder has agreed to come out of retirement to coach the mighty Kansas State f'ball team.  Bill who, you say?  This guy turned around one of the worst football programs, retired and got bored.  Joe Pa told him he'd be bored at 69.  The dude has a stadium and highway named after him and still he can't stay away.  Two words Bill...Las Vegas!

Joe Paterno is going to have hip surgery.  The words "hip" and "Paterno" shouldn't be in the same paragraph, unless it's about surgery.

I just saw Suzy Kolber, of ESPN, on HDTV.  That makeover intervention paid off!  If Joe Namath could only get her alone again.

Mark Mangino, coach of Kansas f'ball, is still wider than my HDTV wide screen!

That's my time.  Lisa H is up next and will sing "Born To Be Alive" with Patrick Hernandez.

The best news coming from the NFL Free Agency Signing Period came this morning as Brett Favre announced his retirement after 16 years of service to NFL fans.

The cries of agony resonate from Green Bay.  This has been more than offset by the cries of ecstasy in Minneapolis, Chicago and Detroit.  The Black and Blue division is up for grabs in 2008.  No team has a starting QB worth an empty Grain Belt can.

Amazingly, the happiest party to the Favre retirement is Aaron "Chico" Rogers, Green Bay QB heir apparent.  

This Vikings fan living in Cowboys country has nothing but respect for the gunslinger, Favre.  Always a great watch, Favre was either going to toss a spectacular, game winning touchdown or an interception.

Brett, now that you're retired and have time, slide on down to the county courthouse, plunk down $165.00 and fill out a name change petition.  Spell it like you say it, Mr. Brett Farve!

Some free advice, Brett:

Wrangler commercials are Ok, but don't pull a Peyton Manning with commercials.

If I see you in a Viagra commercial, I will hunt you down and beat you with a yardage marker, got it!

Have a nice retirement and I hope to see you in the booth.

Here we are after a full season of NFL football.  The playoffs are over and we now have the most exciting possible matchup of the New England Patriots vs. What the $%&@!

This is a great matchup if you're a Patriots fan or extreme optimist from the Meadowlands, NJ.  How did this happen to us.

I'm setting the over/under on "that's why they play the game" cliches at three per half hour preview show.

The big winner today was New England.  They may  will finally win a Super Bowl by more than three points.  I imagine an opening Vegas Line of 14 points.  I'll be watching the Super Bowl for the commercials again.   Tabasco may have something new.  I loved that mosquito going up in flames.  Monster will waste millions on a bad ad.  That's always amusing.

The network has to love this captive television audience matchup.  Yawn!

Hey, who wants to take up bowling, crochet or maybe go skeet shooting for the next two weeks?  We don't have to spend our time arguing about the Super Bowl.

Goliath must go down and he must go down hard!  Go Giants!

I love those Budweiser clydesdales.  We could talk about what commercials Bud and Pepsi should do.  AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

This is so wrong.  I'll be watching the Fox Soccer Channel soon.

Below: Sports reporters and Bloggers react to the Super Bowl matchup.  Oh the humanity.

What do these numbers have in common?  89, 60, 39, 67, 73, 35, 33, 81

Add 55 to end the game.

These are the distances of Touchdowns in today's game.  I followed the game on Fox GameTrax.  Thanks Fox.

         PLUS           

= OFFENSE

The average Touchdown distance was 60 yards.

Hester and Peterson ran wild.  Griese likely had a poor QB rating.

Fittingly, the game ended on a long, 55 yard field goal.

Hey Gogo, I forgot this before.
If you're a Chi town lifer, even it's only 14 years, here's the skivy on Chicago from outside Chicago.

Non-Chicago sports fans regard Chicago as the crazy uncle of sports towns.  No overall love or hate of the teams .  We just accept you, since sportswise, Chicago is rarely threatening to our teams.  Jordan and his pushoffs have retired.  The Bears will probably slide south in 2007.   The teams are good enough without sucking like the Islanders or Az Cardinals.  We don't pity you.

Chicago did give us the Blues Brothers and mini-Ditka.  Enough reason to love your town right there.  I'll even add John Candy.  Chicago is the big, friendly dog of towns. 

Everybody loves big, friendly dogs.
(If I said big, fat, friendly guys, someone would have been offended, so there.)

On the other hand, the oversaturated, overrated Cubs are constantly thrust at us like your wingman shoves his recent date's 'nice personality chick friend' on you at bar closing time...and you have no intention of smacking face with her or walking home.  (Hold on I gotta take a breath after that phrase.)

Real men work and can't go to daytime games, so the Cub fans are therefore, hippies,  rich or twelve.  Some are all three, curse them to heck.
The Cubs leave a poodle feeling with their yuppie, bandwagon, 'Cubbies'  name and "Woo hoo, we don't have tickets, so let's stand outside the stadium and get on TV." 

Get jobs, hippies.  Pay some taxes.

Add the positive and negative together and you have..."Ok, I don't like or hate Chicago, they're kind of in the middle, like where they are on the east/west map."

If you're 14 and need an explanation, ask your dad.  Dads are cool, you won't figure that out till you're #### #### broke and out of college.

Dad'll gladly explain. 

Ask about the birds and bees now vs. when you knock up Eliziabeth Elaine Szczpanski in high school, after your 'first' time.
Trust me on that.

 
I need a martini...
Better yet, ask Ozzie about this Chicago thing, just be prepared to bring a Spanish/English dictionary when he cusses you out. 

Watch his hands, too.  He's pretty demonstrative.  You might just get smacked.
Check him for a shiv, too.  Got a metal detector?
Last thing.  Don't take Elizabeth Elaine with you when you go to meet Ozzie.
One of those #### Sox players will take her away from you.