Your 2005 AFC North Champions!

For the first time since I liveblogged the NFL draft, I got to spend a football Sunday over at the Goat's. That means I got to enjoy the NFL in all it's DirectTicket goodness. Obviously, the first part of the day was spent mostly on his Seahawks and the second part of the afternoon on my Bengals. Still, it was a lot of fun to bounce back and forth among games and keep tabs on all the Week 15 craziness. After working every Sunday since March, it was nice just to sit my keester down in front of the tube and actually cheer on my team with other people in the building.

I've been pretty brutal on the Bengals for the last couple months. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I've been blogging about the game as it's been going on or immediately following the game. Last year, I broke down the game the following Monday so I had time to fully absorb the game and take in some perspective. Not so, this year. Kneejerk reactions, away! Another reason is that all of the games since Week 3 have been too tight for my tastes. Today, the Men in Stripes finally got a big lead on an inferior team and held them down.

I mean, this Lions team has enough bad things going on. The last thing you want to do is give them a little ray of sunshine. Let them wallow in their problems. Go up on them by four touchdowns in the fourth quarter and get Special K some snaps so he's not rusty if you need him in a pinch.

So, glad to see the division officially in the bag. The focus is now on trying to catch Denver for the AFC's #2 seed. The final home game of the regular season is this Saturday against Buffalo and then head to Arrowhead for a match-up with the Chiefs that may or may not mean anything to either team. Anyway, let there be partying from Westchester to Florence, the Cincinnati Bengals are back in the playoffs!

"This child is a theory, not a fact."