The NFL season is 3/4 over, sad I know, and we've learned a few things for sure. The Packers are better than everyone else right now, the Colts are worse than everyone else, and God loves Tim Tebow more than anyone else. But as the final quarter of the season begins this weekend, there are a few interesting stories to follow. In no particular order:

The NFC East - This division race is going to go down to the wire. Before the season, everyone was predicting that the Eagles would run away with the division title. But to say Philly has struggled would be an understatement. Mike Vick has thrown as many interceptions as touchdowns and has missed a number of games due to injury. Leading reciever DeSean Jackson has been benched, accused of quitting during games, and may not be on speaking terms with any of his teammates. And, coach Andy Reid might be getting fired. Other than that, their season hasn't been that bad. So, the division is going to come down to the 7-5 Cowboys and the 6-6 Giants. What makes this even more interesting is that the Cowboys and Giants play each other twice in these last four weeks (this weekend and in the final week). I predict exciting, close, and poorly played games. The Cowboys have a recent history of choking late in the season including an overtime loss to the Cardinal last week when their coach iced his own kicker on a game-winning attempt before the Johnstown Jet Larod won the game. The Giants, on the other hand, have beaten exactly 1 team with a winning record all season and have lost 4 straight games. Neither of these two look like they want to win the division, but one of them has to. I think it's going to come down to who sucks less when they play each other twice in the next 4 weeks.

Steelers-Ravens - Of course the AFC North is going to come down to these two. They're currently tied at 9-3 atop the division, but the Ravens hold the huge advantage of having beaten the Steelers twice this year. Any tiebreaker goes to the Ravens, so the Steelers are going to need Baltimore to lose a game while winning out to get the division crown. Winning the division is going to be important because it just seems like we can't get a playoffs where they won't play again, and the division winner will get to play that game at home. The Steelers should have 1 tough game remaining on the schedule when they travel to San Francisco. Besides the 49ers, Pittsburgh has Cleveland twice and the Rams. The Ravens have the winless Colts, the struggling Chargers, and the terrible Browns before finishing up with the Bengals. Both teams should win out, but both could lose 1. Either way, I hope they meet in the playoffs to settle this whole thing once and for all.

When you're playing like Rodgers,
you can grown any kind of facial
hair you want.

Perfect Packers - Green Bay is 12-0 and have a real shot at finish the season undefeated. They would be just the 3rd team in NFL history to finish the regular season undefeated. The 1972 Dolphins did it, and continued on to win the Super Bowl. The 07-08 Patriots did it, but lost the Super Bowl in one of the biggest upsets in league history. If the Packers can do it, and go on to win the Super Bowl, they will go down as one of the greatest teams ever. A sidenote to this pursuit of perfection: Aaron Rodgers might be having the greatest season a quarterback has ever had in the NFL, and I'm not exaggerating. Take a look at his numbers so far this year. He's already thrown for 3,844 yards. He's completing 70% of his passes, which is ridiculous. He's averaging 9.4 yards per attempt which is almost a full yard better than second place. He's thrown 37 touchdowns to just 5 interceptions, and his quarterback rating of 125.3 is the highest of all-time.

The Colts - What's interesting about an 0-12 team? Well, the fact that in the seam year the Packers could go undefeated the Colts could be completely defeated is impressive. The fact that the loss of Peyton Manning, despite having almost the entire rest of the team back from last year, turned them from a division-winning playoff team to the worst team in the league is amazing. But the most interesting aspect of this whole thing is what the Colts will do with the first pick in next year's draft. Stanford QB Andrew Luck is considered the best player in the draft and the best QB prospect since Manning. Luck is considered ready to play in the NFL immediately, but Peyton wants to keep playing once his neck heals. He doesn't want to groom his replacement because he's not ready to be replaced. Luck probably doesn't want to sit behind Peyton. Peyton's dad said on a radio show this week that he doesn't think Peyton and Luck should be on the same team. If you're the Colts, do you stick with 35-year-old Manning and trade the first pick? Or do you ignore their feeling and draft Luck anyway and hope they can co-exist for a few seasons? Or do you do something that sounds crazy, like trade Peyton Manning and just go with Luck? This is going to be very interesting, and I don't think it's going to go well for the Colts.

This guy is the Texans' 3rd string
QB next week.

Texans, Bears & Injuries - If the season ended today, the Texans would have the AFC's #2 seed and a first round bye while the Bears would grab a wild card spot in the NFC. The problem for both these teams is that they are losing players, important players, at an alarming rate. The Bears are going to be without QB Jay Cutler and their leading rusher/reciever/best player Matt Forte. Their backup QB, Caleb Haine, is so bad he has Bears' fans begging for the days of Cade McCown. The Texans might be in worse shape. They lost starting QB Matt Schaub and backup Matt Leinhart, so they're down to some rookie named T.J. Yates (I don't know). For depth at the QB position, they've signed Jake Delhomme and Jeff Garcia. Seriously, Delhomme and Garcia. They have a combined age of 77. I'm not kidding. Both were retired before the Texans called them up. If Yates gets hurt, I hear their next call is going to be to Terry Bradshaw. I mean Jake Delhomme and Jeff Garcia? They should be playing in the seniors division of the YMCA flag football league not the NFL. Along with their QB troubles, start wideout Andre Johnson is hurt again, and their best defensive player, Mario Williams, is out for the year. Both the Bears and the Titans are just trying to hold on and sneak into the playoffs.

Tebow - Tebow Tebow Tebow. Everyone on TV is talking about Tebow. I am fascinated. Is he good? Does he suck? Somewhere in between? I don't know. He looks terrible. He wins every week. He took over a Broncos team in last place a month and a half ago and has them in first place right now. If the season ended today, the Steelers would be traveling to Denver for a playoff game against Tebow and the Broncos. Can you imagine if Tebow keeps this thing up, gets Denver into the playoffs, and wins a playoff game? God forbid, what if Tebow gets the Broncos to the Super Bowl? ESPN would explode. Would the NFL experts on TV even be able to form comprehendable sentences? Would church attendence skyrocket? Did Tim Tebow just cause be to write a 10 line paragraph where I used 9 question marks? Yes, yes he did.

AFC Wild Card - The Pats have the AFC East. The Ravens and Steelers have the AFC North and a wild card. Despite the injuries, the Texans should hold onto the AFC South. Tebow or the Raiders will win the AFC West. That leaves the last wild card spot to the Jets, Bengals, Titans and the loser or Broncos/Raiders. All of them are currently 7-5. Four teams will be fighting for 1 spot. Every game is going to count, and it's going to be entertaining. My guess is either the Jets or Bengals will sneak into that last spot, and then get blown out in the first round of the playoff while either Mark Sanchez or Andy Dalton has a confused look on his face.

Sidenote for tonights game Steelers vs. Browns: Cleveland is full of losers. The Steelers should win big. So you want a sidenote to watch for? Pay attention to how many times the Steelers throw a 1-yard pass to Hines Ward so he can reach 900 catches. It'll be funny and a little pathetic.

Manly Man of the Week - Albert Pujols
I'm naming Pujols this week's Manly Man of the Week simply because of the obscene contract he signed this morning. 10 years $250 million??? What? There's nothing more manly than getting yourself a ton of money. Thrown in the fact that he got someone to pay him that much for that long to hit a ball with a stick and it obvious that Albert is one sly dog. Also since he's from the Dominican or somewhere weird like that, he must be 47 years old right now, and he just tricked a team into paying him to play baseball until he's almost 60. It's even more manly if you tricked some poor sap into giving you a ridiculous amount of money.