Devin Freakin Hester.  The Windy City Flyer as Jeff Joniack calls him.  He’s a monster.  I’ve never been so excited for a team to kick the ball to us.  If you watch, not only has he run back 6 returns this year, but just about every time he starts to return a kick, you feel like he might take it all the way.  He’s not only making the pro bowl in his rookie year, but if he runs one more back before the year is done, he should be highly considered for rookie of the year talk too.  Not only that, but the Bears may have the Defensive rookie of the year too in Mark Anderson (10 sacks so far, and he’ll probably get a few more).  Wouldn’t that be crazy if the Bears had the offensive and defensive rookies of the year and they didn’t even have a first round pick?  If that happens, I’m taking back everything I’ve said about Jerry Angelo.  I already need to take back most of what I said, but that would clear it entirely.

So in wrapping up the game against St. Louis:  Special teams is by far the best in the league, Defense is who they are (although they seem to be getting a little weaker every week, and will even more so if Tank Johnson has escalating legal problems), and Rex wasn’t great, but was good enough.  And really, we don’t need Rex to be anything more than average, and we’re in the Super Bowl.  If he throws for 200 yards and 2 TDs every game, that’s more than enough to put the Bears in the Super Bowl.  However, that doesn’t make me feel any more confident.  But I suppose that’s always the case with being a Chicago fan.

Oh and one more Bears thought, Benson is good.  I didn’t like him from the start because of all the holdout crap, however, I’m wondering if he would have been playing this well a lot earlier if they would have just put him in.  He can just blow through the line with a lot more force than Thomas Jones can, and assuming he keeps that up and gets better, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him fully take over as early as next year.  In the meantime, though, they have to use them in tandem, because the two of them combined makes for a very impressive running game, and even Adrian Peterson is solid too.  Almost makes me think we should have been running the ball a lot more, rather than giving Rex opportunities to blow it.  Wait, someone’s said that before.  (just for the record, it was me)

By the way, for all of you who print off my predictions and have them in front of you as you watch football on Sunday (one at a time, one at a time!), you may have noticed that all the games that I was second guessing myself on turned out the way I was saying they would (in other words, with me being wrong).

FANTASY UPDATE:  Oh, and a quick moment of silence as both of my teams died this past week.

….. okay.  I lost McNabb, Ronnie Brown, and LaMont Jordan ended up being a huge bust, and thanks to that, one of my teams basically dropped like a brick.  However, I put up the second most points in the league, and just barely lost (thanks to Holt’s one handed catch with about 3 minutes to go in the Monday night game) in the first playoff game, with Sammy Morris and Anthony Thomas as my starting running backs (believe it or not).  Even without considering that, I had an amazing last week.  So I definitely put up a fight.  However, I would have been crushed this week if I had won anyway (Morris and Thomas are still my best two options this week too), but I would have knocked my friend Steve out of the playoffs, and that would have been wonderful.

Oh and my other fantasy team pretty much sucked it up the whole year, and I made quite a few bad coaching decisions.  Dead last in the league.  That was embarrassing.
Last Week Record:  7-9
Season Record:  118-90
San Francisco @ Seattle

Well I already got one wrong.  Man the NFC sucks.  Just use Seattle and Carolina as the top two examples.  The AFC equivalents of those two teams (standings wise) would probably be Jacksonville and the Jets, both of whom would probably beat Seattle or Carolina straight up.

Dallas @ Atlanta

I’m hearing rumors of Atlanta possibly starting Michael Vick as a running back?  He’s a freakish athlete who’s so untrainable and unpredictable that he turns your team into a circus.

Tampa Bay @ Chicago

Should be like 49-3, but who knows really?  I’m praying for Hester to have three TDs in this one.

Pittsburgh @ Carolina

However, this could really go either way.  Basically the two most disappointing teams this season.  Except maybe Miami.

Miami @ Buffalo

Speaking of which.  My two top fantasy RBs against each other.  And neither of them are Ronnie Brown or McGahee.  Yikes.

Jacksonville @ Tennessee

Unfortunately Vince Young is probably going to beat out Hester for rookie of the year, and I can’t say he shouldn’t.  He’s just good, good, good.  Wow, I’m just blown away at how dumb Houston was.

Cleveland @ Baltimore

I like Cleveland, I really do, but they’re a couple years off, and that’s assuming they aren’t incredibly stupid in those two years, which is certainly possible.

Washington @ New Orleans

Man, NO is good.  Actually good.  I don’t think anyone quite believed it until this past week.  Way to go.

Houston @ New England

NE is really not playing well right now, especially at home (which is weird), but Houston?  I doubt it.

NY Jets @ Minnesota

So Greenie from Mike and Mike picked Minnesota to edge into the playoffs.  What?!  Has he watched this team at all?  They’re really really not good.  Sure their D is pretty good, but they have an immensely pathetic offense.  So they beat Detroit this past week, who wouldn’t?  If they make it in, that would be so utterly ridiculous that I might disown the NFC entirely (apart from the Bears of course).

Detroit @ Green Bay

What’s Morgan’s rule?  Never take Detroit, that’s right.

Denver @ Arizona

Cutler vs. Leinart!  This is actually more interesting than I originally had thought.

St. Louis @ Oakland

Oakland is actually favored in this game believe it or not.  That seems ridiculous.  If you’re in Vegas, take the points!

Philadelphia @ NY Giants

One team that’s underperforming against a team that should be dead, but is still hanging around.  I guess I’ll take the underperformers.

Kansas City @ San Diego

Yeah.

Cincinnati @ Indianapolis

I want to see if they can break 100 points between these two teams.  This is probably the best opportunity for that to happen.  I could have used this game last week for fantasy purposes (Wayne and Housh).

Well, continue to go Bears!