Conference championship weekend

Could you get 4 better teams in the conference title games? Tradition, titles, and hall-of-famers falling off the bone here:

Bears: Home of the Super Bowl Shuffle, Bill Swerski's Super Fans, and 26 members in the Hall of Fame (most in the NFL) including Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, and Walter Payton. Not bad at all.

Packers: The Super Bowl trophy is named after a Packers coach, There's about a 50 year waiting list for season tickets, 21 members in the Hall of Fame (second only to Chicago), 3 Super Bowl titles, and their fans wear cheese on their heads.

Jets: A New York team (So they'll never be as good as the media wants us to think, but we'll still hear about them non-stop) One Super Bowl title in 1968, Home of one of the craziest fans ever, Fireman Ed, A hilarious head coach, and last but not least, Bart Scott. He can't wait!

Steelers: A ridiculous 6 Super Bowl wins, One of the best football dynasties ever in the 70's, third most Hall Of Fame members, One of the league's best fan bases (tied with Green Bay as best in my book), and a quarterback looking to tie Tom Brady with 3 rings.


Packers (-3) @ Bears, Sunday 2:00 CT: The greatest rivalry in professional football right here. These teams have been playing since 1921, the longest in the NFL. 181 meetings but only once in the playoffs, in 1941 with the Bears winning 33-14. Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been playing out of this world lately, throwing for 22 touchdowns and only 2 interceptions in his last 9 games. The Green Bay defense has played even better recently, only giving up 12 points per game the last 3 weeks. The Bears dominated the Seahawks with the help of a great performance by QB Jay Cutler, throwing for 2 TD's and rushing for 2 more. However, I couldn't tell how much playing the Seahawks had to do with the big game. Cutler is only 1-4 against the Packers all-time and I think Green Bay's blitzing defense will be too much on Sunday. The Packers were my pre-season Super Bowl pick (I had them beating Peyton Manning) and I'm not turning back now.  Packers 30, Bears, 20
  

Jets @ Steelers (-3.5) Sunday 5:30 CT: Bart Scott's tirade after the Jets' win over the Patriots is an all-time great, especially after that war of words the two franchises had over the course of the week. For some reason, The Jets shut up this week. I don't know why. I get that they respect the Steelers, Big Ben, and Mike Tomlin. But the Patriots are identical to the Steelers. Why stop now, Rex? Maybe he understands Roethlisberger does nothing but win in the post-season? Tom Brady is the same way, I'm still confused. Anyway, it's going to be mighty tough for the Jets to knock off THREE super bowl winning quarterbacks in a row, all on the road no less. They've already taken out Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. I think their run stops in the big ketchup bottle on Sunday night. Steelers 27, Jets 14.