“I’ve had to overcome a lot, more than probably one single individual can bear,” Vick said. “Take a look at what I’ve been through. You ask certain people to walk in my shoes, they probably couldn’t do it. Probably 95 percent of the people in this world – because nobody had to endure what I’ve been through, situations I’ve been put in, situations I’ve placed myself in, decisions that I’ve made – whether they were good or bad.”

Truly, Michael Vick demonstrated immeasurable courage in being paroled from prison and choosing to play football rather than slay animals. OJ Simpson, a recent recipient of the National Forensic Society’s “Gil Grissom” Award for Courage in the field of Forensic science was complimentary of Vick:

“It’s not easy to return from hard times and to thrive. I overcame the death of my ex-wife to lead a dogged search for her real killer. Michael’s done an excellent job since getting out of jail – I’m sure, given time, he will tirelessly devote himself to finding the real killer of his prized dogs.”

Certainly, many would wilt under the pressure and microscope under which Vick currently operates. His former business associate, Quanis L. Phillips, currently in  Leavenworth Prison, was awed at Vick’s accomplishments:

“I don’t know how he does it. If I was getting a pretty hefty per diem for daily expenses on top of a $1.6 million dollar salary to appear on nationally televised games with nearly twenty people assigned to follow me around to keep me out of trouble, I don’t know how I could avoid killing anything. I mean, he has the massive stress of knowing he may have to take 4 snaps every Sunday wearing down – he’s gotta be tempted to blow off some steam.”

It’s not just former and current athletes and former business associates who have spoken up in appreciation of Vick’s accomplishments this year. Waste Disposal expert Walter Jonathan Grimes of Newport News, VA, an “everyman” if ever there was one, was similiarly awed:

“Man, I’m one of those 95% of the people out there that Mike was talking about. NONE of us could deal with the stress that man has. I mean, all I have to do is clear trash for 10 hours a day and work as a handy-man in my spare time to make ends meet, and my wife has been working 12 hours a day as a maid after I got laid off from the car plant. Our kids work part-time jobs after school to chip in, and our 401K’s are worthless - but I wouldn’t trade any of that for what Vick has. $1.6 million a year to run a few wildcat plays? AND he can’t needlessly murder any animals? Fuck that.”

Chicago Football Bears injured linebacker, Brian Urlacher, recently made some comments about the state of his current team impressed the “writing” staff of a popular Michigan Football e-blog – so much so that they are trying to hunt him down and talk him in to contributing to their daily ramblings. Urlacher was quoted as saying:

“Look, I love Jay, and I understand he’s a great player who can take us a long way, and I still have faith in him. But I hate the way our identity has changed. We used to establish the run and wear teams down and try not to make mistakes, and we’d rely on our defense to keep us in the game and make big plays to put us in position to win.

“Kyle Orton might not be the flashiest quarterback, but the guy is a winner, and that formula worked for us. I hate to say it, but that’s the truth.”

In an e-mail, high school football corch and primary e-blog correspondent (name withheld upon request), expressed appreciation for Urlacher’s straightforward approach when commenting about the play of his current team. “Look Urlacher doesnt sugarcoat the facts – his team sucks @$$ and he knows it! Just layin down the facts as he sees them from the sidelines. We been wanting to add an NFL angle to the eblog for a long whiel, and he’s just what were looking for.”

I contacted Brian for a comment, but he hung up on me.

Update: Insider reporter for the eblog has been dispatched to the Halas Hall cleaning crew for recruitment purposes.

It was about, what, five or six years ago now, that I saw you profiled in a pre-season college football magazine as one of the “best” WR’s that Steve Spurrier ever had on one of his pass-happy teams. Being mildly fascinated by South Carolina, a devotee of Spurrier, and a fan of tall athletic WRs with strong hip swivel, I immediately fell in love.

You naturally, spent a career at “USC” stumbling through the growing pains of a Spurrier offense that still hasn’t hit its stride and generally being mediocre.

I understand it isn’t all your fault that Spurrier isn’t what he once was, and that he has insisted upon a revolving door at QB featuring a variety of mistake prone autistic children, frisbee tossing golden retrievers, and a 6 ft. tall version of the plastic punter/kicker/thrower from the electronic football games.

The “realists” among us will point out your multiple record setting games, 8 straight games with a TD, and SEC records. Sure, you broke Sterling Sharpe’s records, but who really gives a shit when you don’t single handedly deliver wins in games that I bet on you?

That’s why I only partially blame you for the several hundred dollars I’ve lost gambling on South Carolina teams during your tenure. I fell in love with the potential this duo showed and was burned, over and over, and over and over. That is at least partially on me.

But then we have your NFL career. Your pathetic, disappointing, completely shitty NFL career. I drafted you with one of my last two picks in your rookie season. You had, what, three catches for –30 yards over the course of the season? I chalked that up to jitters.

There you were again the next year, picking up some hype in NFL mags and blogs as a potential breakout candidate and it all came rushing back to me, the USC days, the potential, the desire to get in on a good thing before anyone else. So you made the roster again, as an early season pickup, and again you failed me miserably.

Thinking I’d finally learned my lesson, I took a pass on your sorry ass this season in favor of another perennial favorite of mine, Jerricho Cotchery. I figured that Cotchery, free from the tyranny of Favre, and you, a disappointing shell of the supposed superstar you were now under the yolk of Favre, was a better bet than yourself.

Ah, and here we are. I rotate something named Malcolm Floyd and whatever scrap I picked off the waiver wire this week in my 3rd WR spot while you amass the best season of your career and about 100 yards a week. Meanwhile, Cotchery ends up on the same team with the fleeting potential of Braylon Edwards, who also happens to be on my team, and those two assholes fight to the death over the 4 passes the Sanchize manages to throw on target in any given week.

So, yeah, a big FU to you Sidney Rice. You never won the Heisman like I bet on, you never made me look a genius, and now your making my mortal enemy Brett Favre look like Peyton fucking Manning. Bullshit. I blame you for this.

Collins, as Gruden and Jaworski suggested, influenced Young to become more of a pocket quarterback. Comparing and contrasting the styles of the two quarterbacks this season, the similarity is obvious:

Watch Collins run!

Watching Kerry Collins has also encouraged Young to work more from the pocket, as evidenced by Young’s seven rushes per game, compared to…the six…rushes…per…game that Young averaged in his previous seasons as a starter. The fundamentally sound Collins, proud owner of a 57.2% completion percentage in the time that Young “watched him play” doubtlessly played a huge role in Young’s skyrocketing accuracy, which has climbed from 62.2% before his benching to…62.9% since his return.

Many pundits also credit Collins impact on Young’s ball security. Young has also shown a marked improvement in protecting the football – yielding only 3 turnovers in his five starts compared with 22 in his prior 18 games.

“I really coached Vince up on how to protect the football from the rush, and how to read disguised coverages,” claims Collins, who has turned the football over 239 times in 184 career games.

“Vince spent lots of time in the last year training on his own, studying the playbook, and working himself back into top condition, and really worked on identifying coverages. But the topper, really, was watching a near-cripple white turnover machine play 22 games at quarterback. It really gave Vince a solid understanding of how to succeed in this league,” said coach Fischer.

Now, the actual formula I use is very complicated and involves many notebooks full of numbers and notes. I’ll provide you highlights from those scores for the elite (Top 1/4th) of the league, and just some capsules for those lesser clubs that don’t warrant your attention. But, and I promise you this, I will never reveal the full formula that goes into the Most Accurate Power Rankings In The Interworld.

#1 – Detroit Lions

I can hear you snickering. This is the truth people. Name one offense that played better than the Lions did last week? 38 points. You can’t do it. You wish you could, but you can’t. OH BUT THE SAINTS I can hear you ca-rrrrying in the background. Did they tie the Lions? Absolutely. Did their defense give up fewer points? Absolutely. Is Jeremy Shockey on their team? Absolutely. So, –30 point deduction in SWAG for the Saints because Shockey is like anti-matter SWAG. +40 for the Lions because Matt Stafford played the role of Heroic QB Who Is Injured But Not So Injured He Can’t Win The Game in Dramatic Fashion like a professional. There’s the difference between your offensive juggernauts. LIONS FTW.

#2 – San Diego Chargers

Your future Super Bowl Champs. Another team with a loss over the precious unbeaten Saints? You fucking better believe it. It is true that after a hot 6-0 start the Broncos have lost like a billion games in a row and are going down as fast as (insert slutty celebrity) at a (insert inappropriate but oddly hilarious location here), but I give the Chargers +50 in the STATEMENT Category for walking into Invesco Field and pissing in the Broncos cereal, slapping their pets, and re-arranging the magazines in the bathroom.

#3 – Kansas City Chiefs

In the words of the G.O.A.T., The Nature Boy Ric Flair … TO BE THE MAN … YOU GOTTA BEAT THE MAN … WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Well the Chiefs, along with a few others along the way, BEAT THE MAN this year and therefore climb to the upper echelon of our rankings, which have no regard for such trivial things as overall season performance. On the strength of a strong +80 in the Beat The Champs category, the Chiefs announce to the world they are one of the elite.

#4 – Indianapolis Colts

The Ponies looked solid against a good Ravens team, even though they didn’t torch their suddenly underperforming secondary as much as you might think, but the main reason they find themselves in the Top 1/4th of the rankings this week is on the strength of their +55 score for QB Is Not Tom Brady. There was a time when I was, in true Michigan Man fashion, an unquestioned slurper of the Brady. I have since SEEN THE LIGHT, my brothers. When you watch Peyton Manning, you are watching Leonardo DaVinci if he’d been born a few hundred years later. Painting is for skinny pretentious losers – football is the new Art, and Manning is the vanguard. Convert, lest ye be cast into the dustbin of history as a base slob who only appreciates gaudy Lombardi Trophies and US Weekly Covers.

#5 – New Orleans Saints

Yes, here are the precious point-a-minute Saints. Congratulations on scoring 38 against the supposed NFL caliber Tampa Bay Bucs. Woo-freaking-hoo. They did score +40 for I Still Like Their Uniforms. The Shockey Anti-Swag deduction hurt in their overall standing. Maybe if they HIT SOMEBODY IN THE MOUTH instead of passing the ball like a bunch of wannabe A-11 mincing fairies I’ll bump them up next week.

#6 – Oakland Raiders

A big bump for multiple things – +20 for Beating the Media Darlings, +35 for Nnamdi Asomugha Taking Away 1/2 The Field, and +20 for Frank Caliendo’s Upset Pick Was Actually Correct. They might have been higher but that had multiple minor deductions for Starting a MAC QB, Al Davis Owns The Team, and I Hate Your Fans. Seriously, quit dressing up like “scary” Raiders. It’s dumb. You’re like 40. You aren’t intimidating. In what pathetic mind is a fat middle aged white guy in inflatable spikes and teenage girl level facepaint “intimidating”? Do you think Cedric Benson is frightened by that?  Dude will break a 40 ouncer on your face, Raider fan.

#7 – New York Giants

Maybe those of you with “long term memory” don’t think that a 3 point escape over the ATL is worthy of a move to the Elite, but I don’t deal with your kind. I deal in the present, in the truth, in the REALITY of the situation. You deal in a world of stats and models and gingerbread cars. The Giants looked like their Super Bowl selves once again this week, and get +40 for I Don’t Like Matt Ryan And Enjoy When He Loses. The NY club is going to be tough to unseat if they stay competitive, because as the weather gets colder they have a built in +50 coming every week for Tom Coughlin Red Face.

#8 – Minnesota Vikings

Good team? Absolutely. But Brett Favre is going to throw over 9000 interceptions at some point this season, and the longer he puts it off the worse it’s gonna hurt. So despite big numbers in the APeterson and PHarvin Are Fun To Watch category, they got docked –45 in The Knife Of Inevitable Doom Dangles Uneasily Over Their Heads.

THE REST

9. Tennessee Titans

+20, Vince Young Is Much Cooler Than Most QBs

10. Miami Dolphins

+30, MIAMI DOLPHINS #1

11. Cincinnati Bengals

-20, You Lost To Oakland

12. Philadelphia Eagles

-30, Andy Reid is Fat and Fat People Are Not Attractive

13. Baltimore Ravens

+10, Ray Rice Is Better Than Mike Hart

14. San Francisco 49ers

-20, Not Enough Vernon Davis

15. Green Bay Packers

-30, Offensive Line Actually Local JV Team

16. Chicago Bears

-100, Jay Cutler

17. Denver Broncos

+50, No Jay Cutler, –30, LOLSHON LOLENO

18. New York Jets

-100, Rex Ryan, –200, The Sanchize

19. Arizona Cardinals

-75, Kurt Warner’s Wife

20. Pittsburgh Steelers

-50, You Lost To Kansas City

21. Jacksonville Jaguars

-75, Creepy Mascot, +50, Mojo Drew

22. Carolina Panthers

-75, Same Team as Jacksonville

23. Buffalo Bills

-100, Indifference

24. Seattle Seahawks

-150, Indifference x 1.5

25. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

-140, No Creamsicles

26. LA Rams

-300, Almost Bought by Rush Limbaugh

27. Cleveland Browns

-400, Mangini Sucks

28. LOLLAS LOLBOYS

-1000, Tony Romo’s Existence, –400, I Started Nick Folk

29. Atlanta Falcons

-5000, They Still Have a Franchise?

30. Houston Texans

-6000, Andre Johnson Deserves So Much Better

31. Washington Redskins

-10,000, Zorn.

32. New England Patriots

-1,000,000,000. Being New England.