Chargers look good, but no one wants the No. 2 spot

I'm perilously close to the Tilt button on NFL games, and that lineup of slop that calls itself Thursday Night Football is the reason why. The final verdict isn't in, but I'm perilously close to skipping Pittsburgh-Cleveland entirely, or what's even worse, watching it "recreationally," which means minus charts and stopwatch and notebooks and all the other trappings of lunacy.

Come on, can you really get it up for San Francisco at Seattle next week, or Minnesota at Green Bay the week after? They're over-dosing us, folks. They're giving us a diet of too much pie and not enough pure protein. I mean things are so bad around here that after we get by San Diego in these good old rankings, I can't even find a team that's worthy of the No. 2 spot.

NFL Power Rankings Rank LW Team 1 1 San Diego Chargers (10-2) No one ever will admit this, but I think Shawne Merriman's four-game suspension worked in the club's favor. They won all four while he was gone, and when he came back against the Bills, he was rested and raring to go. So what did he do? Two sacks, two forced fumbles, four pressures and a pass knocked down. 2 2 Indianapolis Colts (10-2) No, I'm not wild about them in this spot, either, after they lost to Tennessee, but who do you like in this position, the Bears or Patriots, who played miserably but won? The Cowboys or Seahawks, who are fairly hot right now but are still two games behind Indy? Come on, let's hear it. Who? 3 4 New England Patriots (9-3) Bill Belichick found himself with a team on the verge of getting dysfunctional after five turnovers against the Bears. He had the choice of whipping them or babying them, and he chose the whip. On Wednesday after the Bears game he sent his guys out in full pads. No visitors. Lockdown at four o'clock. No contact with attorneys. So what happened? They nearly lost to the worst team in football, the Lions. Three turnovers in the fourth quarter saved their butts, after they had committed the same number themselves. From my vast experience, when I see a good team on an extended blah streak at this stage of the season, it means one thing to me. It's tired. 4 5 Chicago Bears (10-2) More dysfunction. With boos still ringing through Soldier Field after their QB stunk it up against the Vikings, Lovie Smith faced a hostile press and gave his "perception vs. reality" speech ... you know how it goes, "the reality is that we're 10-2," and the rest of the accompanying nonsense. But in another area, offensive coordinator Ron Turner was calmly and professionally addressing the major problem on this team, Rex Grossman. "He's thinking too much," Turner said. "but seeing things that aren't there. You just have to react, and that's what I talked to him about. React. Go back to what you were doing early in the year; you were just playing football." What worries me about this scenario is an upcoming announcement from the head coach that from now on all assistants will be off limits to the press. 5 6 Dallas Cowboys (8-4) Am I the only person who felt that Tony Romo, under fairly consistent pressure from the Giants' rush, was not particularly sharp? I am? Well, come here a minute, I'm going to give you a rare look at one of my charts, the "bad pass" chart. I keep it during the period in which the game is still competitive. The last few series of a blowout, for instance, are not recorded. I'm not a tough grader. I don't issue a bad pass mark if the guy is severely forced while throwing, but I'll occasionally give one even on a completion, if the receiver has to make a circus catch out of something that should have been easy. A QB who's had a fine game might get one or two BP marks. I've graded some Peyton Manning games in which he had none. Eli, against the Cowboys, had what I consider an excellent game. He had two BP marks and no picks. Romo had 10 and two. No good, Tony. I mean really no good. 6 3 Baltimore Ravens (9-3) Seems as if that Thursday nighter against Cincy was about two weeks ago, doesn't it? If I were a Baltimore fan I'd worry a lot more about the loss of return man B.J. Sams than the loss to the Bengals. He was a game-changer. 7 9 Seattle Seahawks (8-4) A very odd affair, that Sunday nighter against Denver. Looked as if both coaches were doing everything they could to keep the game out of the hands of their QBs. OK, Mike Shanahan was worried about his rookie, but how many times did Mike Holmgren run the ball on third-and-medium? So when will this situation become critical, if it persists? Not until the postseason. The Hawks are in a division with the Three Stooges, don't forget. 8 10 Cincinnati Bengals (7-5) Where's all that good defense coming from? How about the little known safeties, Dexter Jackson, who can play in the box and jam things in close, and the pair of Madieu Williams and Kevin Kaesviharn, who have good range and ball awareness. Usually I'm a little foggy on safeties, because I don't know what their responsibilities are on a given play, but it's pretty obvious, the way these guys fly around the field making plays. Oh yes, Kaesviharn generally is the nickel back, but he'll relieve Williams on occasion. 9 11 New Orleans Saints (8-4) One never tires of belaboring the obvious. Reggie Bush, 168 total yards, four TDs. Mario Williams, the No. 1 pick in the draft, two tackles, no assists. Ten years from now we'll still be doing this, except that his tackles probably will be up to about four by then. 10 12 Jacksonville Jaguars (7-5) Breakout game for 6-foot-6 wideout Matt Jones, who runs the 40 in the 4.3s. Six catches, career high 128 yards. Now he's off and running, they say. OK, do it in three games in a row and I'll begin to believe. Maybe.