Gehlke Bros.' favorite son wins another round at the polls

Given the historic proportions of the presidential election that takes place Tuesday, nothing in the NawFuL could possibly compare... but because this is Gehlke Bros. Football and not CNN, we won't torment you with more political punditry beyond our collective prediction that Barack Obama will score the game-winning touchdown on Election Day.

Instead, we will focus on another sort of landslide that appears to be taking place in our weekly standings. While the presidential hopefuls have been picking up swing states, Ben has made it routine fare to pick up swing games at the rate of one or more each week. He's done it five weeks in a row, and now leads his closest competition — Dad — by an impressive 8 games. How he accomplished that in Week 9 is almost as miraculous as the gigantic lead itself.

Ben rode the tiger to victory, becoming the only one of our prognosticators to pick heretofore-winless Cincinnati to end its 8-game losing streak. The Bengals capitalized on the lackluster performance of visiting Jacksonville to emerge with a 21-19 triumph. It might be the only victory the Bengals get all season, and Ben was the only one who believed in them on this historic day. He also soared to victory on the arm of Brett Farve and the New York Jets as they beat mistake-prone Buffalo 26-17.

History will remember less fondly that this was a tough week for the Junior Bro, who not only fell three games further behind his nephew, but also lost a pair of splits to his older brother. Glenn won on the road with Arizona's 34-13 triumph in St. Louis, and then took a 23-6 Monday night victory as the Steelers doused the previously hot Redskins. The Senior Bro now has a 4-game advantage for second place.

It was another bye-shortened week that saw Ben fatten his season lead with an 12-2 record. Glenn posted a strong 11-3 mark to finish second, while Sean was third at 9-5. We all voted for the eventual victors in Chicago, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Tennessee, N.Y. Giants, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Indianapolis. The one game-day surprise (that surprised us all, at any rate) was Miami's win in the Mile High city. Denver's mascot is the Broncos, but there were no dark horse victories for the woeful AFC West leaders.