Here's another thing: The Bears vaunted D has been on a downward slide and I saw no suggestions of a reversal, did you? As they have been playing, the Bears D is not particularly better than the Saints D, which is equally mediocre. The comparative defenses are a wash.

On the other side of the ball, the Saints do have an offense and it is clicking nicely. They have Brees and they have lots of weapons. Meanwhile, the Bears have Rex. Advantage: Saints.

Then there are the much vaunted intangibles. In the Bears favor, a domed team has never won a playoff game outdoors, and we are likely to have particularly nasty weather at Soldier Field.

The Saints, for their part, have fans who infamously wear profane t-shirts. How many fans with F*ck Da Bears shirts will be in the crowd on Sunday? Normally I would have said none, because they would all be dangling by their necks from the "L" before they got near the game. But it turns out Maxim is searching for the girl who wore the F*ck Da Eagles shirt on national TV, so there will almost certainly be a throng of imitators willing to risk getting tossed into Lake Michigan for their 15 minutes.

Okay, maybe not. But they do have the whole we-are-the-saviors-of-New-Orleans thing going on. I think it's maudlin and overplayed, and while I'd bet no one on the South Side is ready to cut the Saints any slack because of it, it seems to give some people a heartwarming glow. We'll call intangibles a wash, too.

While I'm thinking of it, can we outlaw anything remotely heartwarming in football from now on, please? Where is Lawrence Taylor telling his teammates to "go out there like a bunch of crazed dogs"? That's the football I want to see. F*ck Da Heartwarming.

Anyway, the Saints are the better team. Unless the Bears D from the first half of the year returns and/or Good Rex shows up and/or the weather totally cripples them, the Saints should take this one. Currently New Orleans is getting 2.5 points which means groupthink believes the Saints are the better team other things equal but the Bears get the nod based on the home field. As with the AFC game, that's not out of whack enough to bet. Neither would I bet the rather meager +120 money line on the Saints.

So my latest prediction is Pats over Colts, Saints over Bears, and the Pats over Saints for the Big Prize. Now I'm outta here until the Super Bowl; for real this time.