Say your prayers…
I went to bed on Sunday night while Chicago was in the midst of the mildest weather in weeks, with the temperature hovering around 50°F. The wake-up temperature was about 4°F and my car was perfectly encased in a block of ice. The running joke in Chicago (and just about everywhere else besides San Diego or Hawaii) is that if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes and it’ll change.
Similarly, when I went to bed on Thursday (Friday and Saturday too for that matter), I went to sleep believing that the Bears were actually going to make the playoffs thanks to a solid win over New Orleans. It was all set up. A Vikings loss here, a Giants win there and we’d be all set. All of that changed on Sunday like the sudden change in the weather. Everything went terribly, horribly, impossibly wrong. Now, the Bears will be lucky to have a glimmer of playoff hope next time they take the field against Green Bay a week from now.
Vikings beat the Cardinals– any time Arizona would like to stop anyone on the Vikings would be fine with me. Bernard Berrian not only bit, but chewed off and spit out the hand that once fed him with an 82-yard punt return and another long TD reception from backup QB Tarvaris Jackson. Arizona came out flat and never recovered. They looked outmatched in all phases of the game and will certainly get destroyed in their first home playoff game since 1947. Thanks for nothing Cards!
Dallas beats New York Giants – Dallas looks like the team that many people expected with a Sunday night victory over the NFC-leading New York Giants. The Dallas D sacked Eli Manning 8 times and the Giants’ offense could never really get out of neutral. Dallas still has two tough games remaining, but a loss to the Giants would have helped.
Tampa beat Atlanta. Where has Tampa’s run defense gone? Michael Turner went off for 150+ on the ground against the once-feared Bucs defense. I was hoping that Tampa would ascend to the #1 wild card spot and run the table, doing the Beloved a favor along the way. Tampa and Atlanta are now tied for second behind division-leading Carolina with matching 9-5 records. Since they both have a tie-breaker against the Bears, they’ll both need to lose out for the Bears to have a shot at passing them.
And now, we pray as our “Four-Fodders,” Da Super Fans taught us: