Are you ready for some overeactions?

There are only 16 regular season games on each team’s NFL schedule. Only 16. That means unlike baseball, where there are 10-times that many, or basketball, with about five-times as many games, there is no waiting in the NFL. No adjustment period for new acquisitions to get comfortable, no time for a rookie to learn the playbook, no time to complain about injuries. With only 16 games, every Sunday is important.

And that actually is the best thing about the NFL. The limited number of games means that each week, there are matchups with playoff implications. As a fan, you can’t miss anything, because there’s only four months of actual (regular season) football compared to the seven months of football hype. Each game feels like a movie on limited release in theaters - there’s only a little bit of time to see it, so make sure not to skip it.

Having only 16 games is also the worst thing about the NFL. Because each game is an event, fans, coaches and the media take every little thing that happens and magnify it to Terrence Cody size. Overreactions are as normal in professional football as Brad Childress time management mistakes. It’s the reason team’s are either written in as Super Bowl contenders or written off as horrible failures so early in the season, and too often, these harsh predictions are confused with actual fact.

Take the Bears for example. Last week they laid an egg with an embarrassing loss at Cincinnati. Maybe the worst game of the entire Lovie Smith era. No excuse for that. But based on what people have written or said in Chicago this week, you’d think that the Bengals game officially ended the Bears season. One person I spoke with on the train said the Bears were set to lose four of their next five games. Another said the team would eventually get eclipsed by the Lions in the NFC North standings.

Did I miss something? Do games in southern Ohio now count for 16 games instead of one? Do the Bears still have 10 games to go - six of which are at home? Is the team still 3-3 with wins over the defending Super Bowl champs and on the road in Seattle? Yes, the Bears played like a middle school team last Sunday. Jay Cutler and Matt Forte couldn’t get anything going on offense, and the defense made Cedric Benson look like the player the Bears drafted with the fourth pick in the 2004 draft. It was 31-0 before halftime and everybody associated with the team should be embarrassed.

But it’s impossible to say that this game ends the Bears season. There’s just too much time left to play. Remember the 2006 Indianapolis Colts, the team that ended up beating the Bears in Super Bowl XLI? In a week 14 game at Jacksonville, Indy was absolutely shredded, losing 44-17. The Jaguars ran for 375 yards on 42 caries, an average of about nine yards per rush. Three Jacksonville players ran for more than 70 yards and the Colts allowed four rushing TDs. It was clearly a bad loss for Indianapolis, and afterward, analysts and fans alike all said there was no way the Colts could win the title because their run defense was too poor.

Then safety Bob Sanders returned to the lineup after an injury, and in four playoff games that season, the Colts never allowed more than 100 yards on the ground. Run defense - and Rex Grossman - were the reasons the Colts dominated the Bears in the Super Bowl. In week 14 Indianapolis was left for dead, and by week 19, they were the champions of the world.

Now I’m not saying the Bears are going to win the Super Bowl. Maybe the faults they showed in the Bengals game will persist all year long and the team goes from a very promising 3-1 start to a dreadful 6-10 finish. Perhaps Lovie loses his job (Ron Turner has to go as well). But before that happens, the team has 10 more games to play. Yes, there’s only ten left. Then we have to wait all the way until next September for more football. So lets try and enjoy it.


Here are my Week 8 picks, with winners in bold.

Houston at Buffalo

Cleveland at Chicago

Seattle at Dallas

St. Louis at Detroit

San Francisco at Indianapolis

Miami at New York Jets

New York Giants at Philadelphia

Denver at Baltimore

Jacksonville at Tennessee

Oakland at San Diego

Minnesota at Green Bay

Carolina at Arizona

Atlanta at New Orleans

Last Week: 7-6
Season to Date: 70-33