Football Roundup

How bad can your QB be?
Bill Simmons writes of the Ravens:

Very good defense, crummy offense. We've been here before. We'll be here again.

and then the Bears:

I'm a big believer that you can win the Super Bowl with a great defense and a mediocre QB. You can even win with a great defense and a streaky QB. But you can't win with a bad QB. It's never happened before.

Here's my take -- the QB has to be good enough that the team can credibly believe in him, and have enough charisma that the team wants to believe in him.

A guy like Jeff George had the talent, but the teams didn't really want him to succeed, so his career never really took off.

For the Bears, Grossman is fast getting to the point where it is hard to credibly believe in him. The team might like him; they may want him to succeed, but it's hard to put forth maximum effort when this guy might piss it all away.

For the Ravens, Steve McNair may not be the same QB he was before, but the team trusts him. They think that if the work hard enough to put him in a position to win, he'll come through. For them, that's enough.

Jags defeat Colts
The Colts are officially in trouble now. They've got a huge weakness, and the Jags showed how to take advantage of it.

Saints thrash Cowboys in Big D
I guess the Saints are for real now. They've got to be considered a contender to get to the Super Bowl now.

Eagles move to 7-5
Guess they're not dead yet -- we'll see how they do tonight.

Bears/Rams tonight
I wouldn't bet on either starting QB finishing this game, and I think the Bears roll.