Week 14: Fried chicken and fries all around

No game-by-game to offer this week. Christmas shopping is going down to the wire. My son officially transitioned from "baby" to "toddler" and yet, paradoxically, has started acting like a bigger baby than ever. Some douchebag hit my car in the Menards parking lot. And I'm scrambling to get work done before we travel to D.C. for Mrs. Down and Distance's graduation from the Ph.D. program at the University of Maryland. (So that's Dr. Down and Distance to you.) With all this hanging over my head, my only solace is a sparkling 13-3 finish in the picks league.

Th only two games I feel compelled to comment on are Colts-Ravens and Saints-Falcons. (I can't possibly have anything original to say about the wisdom of a certain Steelers backup safety wrapping his dick in bacon and sticking it through the bars of the lion's cage. Just not smart.)

Last week, after the Ravens gave the Patriots the toughest four quarters New England had seen all season, I asked why the hell couldn't Baltimore get it together like that every Sunday. We soon had our answer: Because rather than spend the week building on their strong showing, the Ravens chose to piss and moan and accuse the officials of being in the tank for the Pats and whip up a pointless controversy over whether one of those same officials (a black one) called a player (also black) "boy." No wonder they came out flat and totally overmatched. Bonus observation: As happens every time Indy played Baltimore, NBC ran a montage of footage from 1983, when the Colts skipped out of Maryland in a fleet of moving vans in the middle of the night. Al Michaels then expounded at length about how the city still hasn't forgiven the franchise or the city of Indianapolis. And of course he never once mentioned that in the 1990s the city of Baltimore turned around and stole someone else's team, thus exposing a decade's worth of protestations as the worst kind of opportunistic, hypocritical horseshit.

The next night, the Falcons hosted the Saints -- just hours after Michael Vick was sentenced to two years in prison. Every television network, every sports-radio show, every news- and sports-related website was All Vick All The Time. By game time, there was almost nothing that could be said that hadn't been. And yet, there was Tony Kornheiser to say it all again. Totally narcissistic: "Yes, we've been talking about it all day, but you haven't yet heard what I have to say." He added nothing, provided no insight. God I hate Monday Night Football.

CORRECT PICKS

N.Y. Giants 16, Philadelphia 13
Cincinnati 19, St. Louis 10
Dallas 28, Detroit 27
Jacksonville 37, Carolina 6
San Diego 23, Tennessee 17 (OT)
Green Bay 38, Oakland 7
Buffalo 38, Miami 17
Minnesota 27, San Francisco 7
Seattle 42, Arizona 21
Denver 41, Kansas City 7
New England 34, Pittsburgh 12
Indianapolis 44, Baltimore 20
New Orleans 34, Atlanta 14


INCORRECT PICKS

Washington 24, Chicago 16
Houston 28, Tampa Bay 14
Cleveland 24, N.Y. Jets 18

PICKS
THIS WEEK: 13-3
SEASON: 140-68 (67.3%)
(2006 through Week 14: 125-83, 60.1%)
(2005 through Week 14: 145-63, 69.7%)

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KA-POWER RANKINGS AFTER WEEK 14
Down and Distance's exclusive KA-POWER RANKINGS are back for their third year. The product of a simple formula, the rankings have predicted 10 of the last 17 Super Bowl winners. Further, 14 of the last 17 Super Bowl winners finished the regular season No. 1 or No. 2 in the KA-POWER RANKINGS system. Unlike with other, lesser rating systems, no opinion is involved in formulating these rankings. None. Teams are ranked on a centigrade scale, with 100 representing the NFL's strongest team and 0 its weakest. Don't like where your team is ranked? Blame science. (Key: W14 = This week's ranking. W13 = Last week's ranking. POW = KA-POWER centigrade score)

W14	W13	TEAM	POW		W14	W13	TEAM	POW
1	1	Patriots	100.00		17	15	Titans	38.66
2	3	Colts	83.32		18	13	Cardinals	38.24
3	2	Steelers	78.42		19	20	Redskins	37.37
4	5	Packers	75.89		20	22	Lions	32.50
5	4	Cowboys	74.17		21	21	Bears	31.43
6	6	Seahawks	66.54		22	27	Broncos	30.10
7	9	Jaguars	63.91		23	19	Raiders	27.40
8	10	Vikings	59.31		24	28	Bills	23.17
9	8	Chargers	58.26		25	25	Jets	22.77
10	7	Bucs	55.49		26	24	Ravens	18.98
11	11	Giants	48.22		27	23	Panthers	18.43
12	12	Eagles	45.45		28	26	Chiefs	12.87
13	16	Saints	44.70		29	29	Rams	11.95
14	14	Browns	43.78		30	30	Falcons	6.69
15	18	Texans	39.50		31	31	Dolphins	6.17
16	17	Bengals	39.26		32	32	49ers	0.00

Teams eliminated this week from Super Bowl championship consideration (what?): Bucs. Teams previously eliminated: Dolphins, Rams, Jets, Falcons, Bengals, Texans, Raiders, Bears, Vikings, 49ers, Broncos, Cardinals, Eagles, Ravens, Chiefs, Panthers, Saints, Bills, Chargers, Redskins, Titans, Lions, Browns.