No Christmas miracles

A smattering of Week 16 upsets was not enough to put a dent in the Senior Bro's huge lead, which in fact grew by another game. Sean had been hoping last week to generate some winnable splits to tighten up the Gehlke Bros. Football season standings, but when that didn't work out he resorted to the thing all football prognosticators hope for near the end of the season: The Christmas miracle.

It would need to be a pretty huge miracle, granted, as most of the games on this week's schedule looked fairly clear cut and Glenn stuck mostly with the stronger teams. Still, the Bros managed three splits. The first went the Senior Bro's way, as San Diego demolished Tennessee 42-17 on Christmas Day. So much for the Christmas miracle. Sunday brought more gifts to Glenn as the Steelers held off the rival Ravens 23-20. Sean did salvage the weekend's final game, when Chicago defeated Minnesota in overtime, 36-30. Apparently Brett Favre was out of Christmas miracles, too.

Glenn won the week with an 11-5 mark and extended his lead to 11 games with 16 games left to decide the Surfy. Sean and Ben tied for second at 10-6. We all correctly picked winners Atlanta, Cleveland, New England, Arizona and San Francisco. None of us predicted the upsets by Houston or the Jets, who handed the Colts their first loss of the year. (No Christmas miracles for Peyton Manning and company either in their bid for a perfect season.)

NEXT WEEK: Nothing but Sunday action. Just the way pro football oughta be.