Sorry for skipping last week, gang. In all the excitement over T.O. attempting to Hendrix himself, I got a little distracted. Every time I sat down to hash out the week, something else came up and got in the way. That’s my bad, since I know how much you all look forward to my long-but-funny recap.

Week Four (or Week 4) continued what has been a pretty significant football trend over the young season. Eight of the week’s 14 games were decided by a touchdown or less, including Sunday’s overtime game between the Redskins and Jaguars. Despite the NFL’s terrible overtime system, in which the coin flip basically decides the game, the League has been really entertaining. There’ll be blowouts, sure, but with professional football and parity, you’re more likely going to see tough contests than you’d see at the college level. When every game counts, everyone steps up their games.

Unless, of course, you’re an Oakland Raider.

The Hot Shit: Chicago Bears—The offense has finally gotten in sync with the Bears vicious defense. Instead of simply playing no-mistakes football, Rex Grossman is playing like he wants to be the MVP. The hallmark of recent Bears teams has been a killer defense and a killed offense. Perhaps Rex Grossman has been the missing ingredient all along. Well, not “missing” so much as “critically injured” given how often he’s spent entire seasons in physical therapy for various shredded and broken body parts.

Bears fans should not be resting easy. They’re one big sack away from putting Brian Griese under center, and nobody wants to see that. Except for maybe opposing defenses. Given his unceremonious exits from Denver, Miami, and Tampa, Bears fans better hope Rex stays in one piece. In today’s NFL, you mostly need a quarterback to not make stupid mistakes. Brian Griese has lost starting jobs to Jake Plummer, Brian Griese, and Chris Simms.

I rest my case.

Cold, Frothy Diarrhea: San Francisco 49ers—The Niners unfortunately crashed back to earth after playing way over their heads through the first four weeks of the season. Despite coming into week 4 with a losing record, the Niners have played feisty all season, battling with the Eagles, pushing the Cardinals, and besting the Rams. As a 49ers fan, it was nice to see the team playing well, or at least competitively, for awhile. Sadly, injuries on the offensive line, a broken leg for potent rookie weapon/TE Vernon Davis, and nagging injuries to both Frank Gore and Maurice Hicks took their toll on the team. Combine that with an insane game from everyone’s second-favorite Huard Brother, Dante Hall being Dante Hall, and Larry Johnson’s return to form and you’ve got a recipe for a drubbing.

Sure, I could’ve picked the Seahawks for this position, and really, these two teams are like 1A and 1B in terms of stinking the joint up in Week 4, but the Seahawks got clocked by Chicago, and Chicago’s defense can make any team look bad, especially a team without its Pro Bowl cover boy running back. There’s no excuse for being zonked by one of the worst defenses in the league. Even an NFL Europe team could score on the Chiefs, for the love of God.

---

1. Morten Andersen—Here’s a special guy. His age is his field goal range, which means anywhere from 46 and in he’s pretty much automatic. He hit five field goals on Sunday for the Falcons, from 34, 40, 36, 26, and 28 yards. In other words, he outscored the Packers, Seahawks, Titans, Dolphins, 49ers, Bengals, Cardinals, Vikings, and Chargers by himself.

2. Donovan McNabb—Donovan McNabb once again shows Michael Vick how a running quarterback can succeed in both aspects of the ball. He ran well, with 6 carries for 57 yards and an important 2 TDs, and passed even better, tossing the rock for 288 yards and another 2 TDs. Not bad, old man.

3. The Atlanta Option, Again—Maybe it only works against shitty teams, but I still like it. Vick broke 100 yards on the ground and broke 150 through the air, and Jerious Norwood busted out an impressive 106 yards and 1 TD on SIX carries, with a jaw-dropping 78-yard scoring run. That, my friends, is sick. Dengue fever in India sick. Enjoy it while it lasts, because I’m expecting to see a lot of 8-man fronts in Hotlanta’s future.

4. Santana Moss—Four catches isn’t very impressive, but when 75% of your receptions end in touchdowns, that’s pretty damn good. Add in 138 yards and a victory over the fierce Jacksonville Jaguars, and you’ve earned a spot in the top 5, even if you are just a receiver. Add in the fact that he scored the winning touchdown in overtime, and you’ve put yourself together a game.

5. Brett Favre—If his receivers could have caught the ball, he might’ve made a game of it. Instead, Brett threw two interceptions and looked like a gunslinger. No, not accurate and deadly. I meant reckless and dumb. As the Monday Night Football crew said, a game with Brett Farve is always exciting…for the opposing defense. You can never tell just how many interceptions he’ll throw, and if you’re lucky, a green-and-gold present will come falling into your arms, from Santa Brett to you!

---

1. Jamal Lewis—I think Jamal Lewis’ lousiness over the past two seasons has been a condition of his parole. He can’t score touchdowns because he might snort the goal line, and that’d be a violation of his parole. Then again, consorting with known felons is also a violation of his parole, so I don’t see how he can play in the NFL. At this rate, he won’t have to worry about that problem much longer.

2. Edgerrin James—You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shitt, no matter how good of a running back you might be. The Cardinals are chicken shitt, and Edgerrin’s just another corn kernel in the white splatter. Apparently you can’t run for big gains when you have to try to run around the offensive linemen that are being pushed backwards into your grill. Bet you miss being Peyton’s towel boy now, huh?

3. Alex Smith—Somebody needs to kneecap Marty and Doc Brown, because apparently they kidnapped Alex Smith and took him back to 2005. Somebody call up Dr. Who so we can get this fixed, pronto.

4. Andrew Walter—If Andrew Walter’s Week 2 was bad (10 27, 162 yards, 3 interceptions against the Ravens), his Week 4 was worse. 9 23 for 68 yards and a blowful 43.6 quarterback rating against the defensive powerhouse Cleveland Browns. You expected him to look bad against the Ravens, but when your bright spots are only 1 interception, only being sacked 3 times, and a 12-yard scramble you know you had a bad night. To his credit, he did throw 1 touchdown. Must’ve been an accident.

5. Albert Haynesworth—You see a downed offensive lineman. He’s helpless, and his helmet has been ripped off. Why in the fuck does it take you two tries to successfully curbstomp him?! He’s just laying there, gasping for breath! One shot, one kill, Albert. If you’re going to do one of the most heinous things I’ve ever seen outside of a Takeshi Miike movie, then don’t fuck it up once, then ask for a re-stomp. Christian Laettner only needed one shot at Aminu Timberlake.