Movie Season Is Over - Let's Get Serious About Football

Diagnosis Steelers - Paging Dr. House. After months of media grumbling about the Steeler's running game, the offensive line and Ben holding the ball for too long, the real problem is finally clear (assuming an 11-3 team has a real problem). With the Steeler defense, the running game and offensive line are more than good enough to win a Superbowl. The real problem is the kicking game. Net punt average of 27? Kick-offs and returns leaving every Steeler drive starting inside the twenty-five and every Raven drive starting beyond the thirty five? Even a decent running game won't work when everyone in the stadium expects run because you start three drives inside your own ten yard line. Fix the kicking game and the running game will work. Get the running game working and Ben will start looking like a great quarterback all game long instead of just on the last drive. Get Ben looking great and the running game will suddenly look even better. If the Steelers can just get kick-offs, punts and returns up to the level of the league average, watch for the Steelers to win a sixth Superbowl.

Lifetime Movie of the Week - Chad Pennington has the head, the heart and maybe even the arm of a champion. He finds early success in NY, leading the Jets to the playoffs. Then a series of injuries and regime change leave Chad out in the cold, well the warm really - Bill Parcells finds room for Chad in Miami while the Jets spend billions to sign the beloved but aging Bret Favre. An early season Jets - Dolphins game looks like the heartwarming climax to the Chad Pennington story, but the underdog Fish comeback falls short on the final drive. It turns out that was just another twist in the Chad Pennington storyline, which is now speeding like a locomotive toward a final game showdown between the Jets and the Dolphins with the AFC East title on the line. There are no easy games for the Dolphins, but with the whole roster contributing - like two sacks against San Francisco from Nate Jones - anything can happen. Jones is pictured above sacking San Francisco QB Shaun Hill, not really part of the Chad Pennington story, As Good As News just needed something to counter balance the Plaxico Burress photo recently published here.

Biggest Loser?

Cleveland Sues 21 Lenders Over Subprime Mortgages - Cleveland is going after Wall Street, using an Ohio statute to claim damages based on the creation of a public nuisance. The defendants are not the firms who originally made the mortgage loans, stretching the credit review process past the breaking point to make loans that would not be repaid if interest rates rose. No, the defendants are the bankers who set up special purpose funds to purchase the mortgage loans, thereby creating demand that may have induced the loan originators to act rashly. Interesting case. First, is this really what the Ohio legislature had in mind when they enacted a law allowing municipalities to recover damages from one who created a "public nuisance" - it sound's more like a way to go after a landowner who lets the weeds grow and doesn't clean up after the dogs. Second, should Wall Street be tagged for someone else's bad credit decisions just because Wall Street bought the bad loans and (coincidentally, of course), Wall Street is where the money is? These questions will be decided by a local judge, and possibly jury, from Cleveland, a city that is suddenly paying a lot to tear down abandoned houses and looking at empty lots that do not pay real estate taxes. They may get to hear evidence that Wall Street knew its mortgage loan purchases were creating a level of demand that could only be met with bad loans. So, is Cleveland Robin Hood, Willie Sutton or just the Biggest Loser in the subprime mess, setting itself up for another round of burning Cuyahoga humor? Stay tuned.

Running and Fighting, All to Save Her Son -She's baaaach in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Linda Hamilton created a fascinating character (remember the escape from the prison mental ward at the beginning of T-2), but the spotlight was on Arnold. Now a new TV series will focus on Sarah (played by Lena Headey, pictured). In a very promising development, NY Times gave the new show thumbs up - a lot to ask from the Times for a TV series that's derivative and low brow. As Good As News is looking forward to this - even if only so I can use Sarah's pull ups as ammunition in the perpetual struggle to switch to a channel that is not playing Biggest Loser.

NFL playoffs continue and As Good As News is asking for too much, an interception return for a touchdown by Nate Jones of the Cowboys and a Giant's win. Odds against this parlay are at least 200 to 1, but we can hope.