News & Notes

*** g r i d l i n e : wed21dec11 ***

Congrats to the Kansas City Chiefs on knocking off the Packers. Pretty good for a team with an interim coach. Those guys are still mathematically alive at 6-8 after forgetting to start the season with the rest of the league. They were outscored 89-10 in their first two games this year.

And Congrats to the Colts for getting their 1st victory. That's hangin' in there! A lot of people, including us, were expecting them to clock out.

Coaches are such strange animals. It must've been apparent to Steeler's coach Mike Tomlin that they would go down if Ben Roethlisberger played the 2nd half. But he played him and go down they did, even at the expense of 1st place in the AFC. Now, they've lost a bye and are slated to travel to the Wildcard playoffs. They can sit together on the plane. And what's with Chicago's Lovie Smith? You would think he'd have realized Caleb Hanie wouldn't cut it after going 11 for 24 in his first game, but it's been three winless games and the Bears are out of the playoffs. Now he changes QBs. Do these guys even know there's a postseason?

There was some suspense in Monday's game. Don't get us wrong, we knew the Steelers wouldn't cover well before R'berger trotted out to fumble while trailing 13-3, but there had been two power outages in the 1st half and another, more permanent one would've voided our bet. Bets are not official with our people unless they go to 5:00 of the 4th quarter. Even if you've beaten the OVER already, all bets are off. It's like that most places, but check with your guys. Bettors should know all the rules.

Remember, all the day games have been moved from Sunday to Saturday this week. Don't ask us why, it's got something to do with Christmas. We'll have an abbreviated version of our picks since time is so short. SNF remains in place, as does the Thursday niter and MNF.

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!