It seems every season is some kind of comical misadventure for the San Diego Chargers. There is success followed by hope, failure followed by lost hope, and then it falls into Philip Rivers’ hands for an all-or-nothing game.
Betting
Believe it or not, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers spent the past 3½ months trying to win football games. According to coach Lovie Smith, his team will be playing to win on the regular season’s final Sunday, too. And that could be a costly mistake, if the Buccaneers actually do win.
Almost everything about this Chicago Bears’ season has been bad news, especially for the optimists who banked on their regular-season win total going over 8½. It’s a bet that has no shot.
Dazed and confused, picked off once and sacked four times, Tom Brady finally went to a knee to run out the clock as the New England Patriots escaped from New York.
Some hard-working people never get the recognition or respect that is truly deserved. It might be a maid, a mailman or a mechanic. It also could be a blue-collar quarterback such as Ben Roethlisberger.
Thirty-eight bowl games are on the schedule, and picking winners might be tougher than making Nick Saban smile. The Alabama coach is absolutely great at what he does, which is frown all the time and win a lot of football games.
The Atlanta Falcons are in position to win the NFC South, one of the most pathetic division races in NFL history. The Falcons, 5-8 overall and 4-0 within the division, sit atop the pile and stink a little less than the other three teams.
Maybe the price tag attached to Jon Lester was too high, but that’s irrelevant. It’s only money, and the Chicago Cubs have plenty more of it. Timing is what matters, and in this case it’s perfect.
All sorts of problems have surfaced for the Seattle Seahawks this season, but quarterback Russell Wilson never has been one. Even when the team was fraying around the edges, Wilson was smooth.
It’s appropriate Marcus Mariota wears green, because the Oregon quarterback is a money player. He will earn a lot of it in the NFL, where he could start for about 10 teams this weekend.
If the game is replayed in two months, the stakes will be raised, the wagering handle will set a record, and Aaron Rodgers will make the Green Bay Packers the favorites.
It was tough to take the Kansas City Chiefs too seriously last season, even when they kept devouring opponents as quickly as Andy Reid could make a stack of cheeseburgers disappear. But if Reid’s second season as coach has proven something, it’s that his team is a serious contender in the AFC.
Finally, the clumsy and dreadful version of the Dallas Cowboys we expected to see all along showed its ugly face. It was a Thanksgiving Day massacre.
Remember the first week of the NFL season? Tom Brady faded in the Miami heat, and the New England Patriots raised the curtain on their season with a weak opening act.
On the rare occasions when the sun peeks through the clouds here, it never seems to shine on Eli Manning these days. The forecast for this weekend calls for cold temperatures with about a 60 percent chance of another New York Giants loss.