Weekend Fun: These playoffs are killing me inside

January 19th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

We ought to apologize for our relative lack of football coverage this week (or coverage of any sort, really), but, see, it’s been hard on us. It’s one of those things that should be fun but that you put off forever because you’re so scared about it - you know, like moving out of your mother’s basement and getting a real job, you burnout. Day by day, it’s gotten more and more difficult to think about the NFL Playoffs. The Bears won, and I was still a Lindsay Lohan-level emotional wreck for two hours afterward. I can’t remember the last time I cried … but I was dangerously close to breaking the streak Sunday. (Don’t worry, I held off. I know, I’m just that tough.)

Anyway, the hour of reckoning is nearly upon us, so I suppose we should spend a little time trying to vitiate these two match ups to the best of anyone’s ability. Considering I thought the Colts were set to get worked last weekend, and persuaded myself that Marty could somehow prevent a playoff meltdown, my credibility is dangerously low. On the bright side, I went two-for-two in the NFC, so that’s … good, right?

Off we go …

Saints at Bears, 3 p.m. EST, Fox

Ho, boy. What am I going to do? A small part of me wants to feel bad about rooting against the Saints, but come on: the hype about a football team resurrecting a city and all of that, while nice and trite and all, isn’t really tangible in any way. I love New Orleans as much as the next guy, but the Lower 9th Ward isn’t going to even marginally improve if they go to Super Bowl. Electricity isn’t going to be reinstalled any more quickly, houses aren’t going to be cleaned out, and relocated refugees aren’t coming back any sooner. Can we agree on all of this? Can I feel OK for rooting for the Bears now? Glad we cleared that up.

As far as the actual football game (remember, that’s all it is), I’m terrified. Half-crippled Sean Alexander waddled for over 100 yards last week against the Bears - what will a healthy McAllister-Bush do to them? And with Drew Brees behind center, there’s no real way to prepare defensively for this team. Ugh.

But the Bears do have an offense of their own and a legitimate deep threat in Bernard Berrian. That’s good, because the Saints corners are some of the slower and thus most vulnerable in the league. The Bears defense isn’t what it used to be, but it might just be good enough to keep the offensive task manageable for the Sex Cannon.

I can talk myself into this further, or we can get down to brass tax: Bears 30, Saints 27

Patriots at Colts, 6:30 p.m EST, CBS

Ugh. We have to go through this again? Unless you’re a Colts or a Patriots fan (and let’s just hope you’re not a part of either wretched fan base), this is a lose-lose situation. Either the Patriots win, and we get to hear more about Belichick and Brady and their relative genius and Gisele Bundchen and GQ and Tedy Brussssssschi and walking out as a team and dancing like Shawne Merriman and - enough already! Really, we get it. The Patriots do more with less. Bully for them, but I’d prefer not to have every prominent sportswriter in the country reinforcing already commonly held tenets.

On the other hand, if Peyton Manning puts the Nokia phone away long enough to actually win this game, those same sportswriters that would have beaten Gisele to Brady’s knob will be all over Manning’s, wrestling like a thousand snakes fighting for one tiny, shriveled rat. (How’s that for a visual image? Beat that, Capote!) If Manning wins, we will be subjected to an unstoppable array of Manning-related fellatio. And I can’t stomach that.

So here’s the solution: The Colts win, but Manning plays horribly again. Peter King might go out on a limb for him, but at least the cascade of praise will be reasonably limited. This route also prevents any Patriots-fan gushing, and should stunt most of the media week nonsense. So even though most Colts fans I know are dicks, here goes nothing: Colts 22, Patriots 13

That hurt me way more than it hurt you.