the off-season (or, that's the way uh-huh uh-huh I like it)

Time for a football update! Ladies, shield your eyes.

First I'd like to point out that this is a LIVE blog post. I'm sitting here typing in front of the TV. San Diego is playing Denver. It's half time. Score is 21-7, Chargers' favor.

Now, I'd like to start off by giving you San Diego's current season standings. They're 5-5. For the uninitiated, that means that SD has lost five games and won five games so far, meaning their win-loss ratio is 50%.

By ordinary standards, that would be abysmal.

By the 2010 National Football League's standards, that's actually about average.

This is a weird season, folks. It's all topsy-turvy. Teams which have customarily been terrible have been kicking big-name teams' butts. Teams which previously were best in the nation have been...well, for lack of a better term, gargling balls. (Dallas anyone?)

Yeah, let's take Dallas. They're 3-7. Three wins, seven losses. Two of those wins were garnered just in the last couple of weeks. For the first months of the season the Cowboys racked up an impressive string of losses. Not that I took pleasure in any of it, of course (yeah, right, I was doing handsprings in the living room), but it was still a surprise. Dallas is unofficially known as "America's team." They are/were THE big name in football, one of the most recognizable teams, and their record was nothing short of stellar. Oh, sure, they've had off-seasons before. But this takes the cake.

Or look at the Vikings. Minnesota's usually done pretty well. They've never won a Super Bowl, but they've been to several. (Like Buffalo, only, you know, not as embarrassing.) But this season they're in the same boat as Dallas, 3-7, undergoing a pathetic collapse. In my humble opinion, Brett Favre should've called it good when he retired (for the first time) in 2008. He should've gone out on a high note. He should've ridden his legendary career with the Green Bay Packers into comfortable old age. He shouldn't have tried to relive his glory days. He shouldn't have vacillated. He shouldn't have signed with the Jets, and then the Vikings. He should've just quit when he was ahead. But no. He stayed in. And now he's showing his age. Sunday's disgraceful 31-3 defeat against Green Bay (oh, the irony) has sealed coach Brad Childress's fate, and almost certainly Favre's as well. It's almost painful to watch.

On the other hand...

Baltimore has been kicking ass this season, defeating such doughty opponents as Miami, New York (the Giants and the Jets), and Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, for crying out loud! What's the world coming to? The Ravens are ordinarily a B-team at best, but John Harbaugh has set them against comers, despite some minor dust-ups in their offensive line. We'll see how they do in the coming weeks, when they face Tampa Bay, Houston and Pittsburgh (again).

Speaking of kicking ass...

I just wanted to let you know that, as of now (four minutes into the third quarter, 7:35 p.m. Western Daylight Savings Time), the score is 28-7, San Diego's favor. YES!!! Eat that, Denver!

This is what I like to see. San Diego playing like they mean it. It's not a shutout, but we're not choking or dropping the ball or turning over incessantly, either. I like the way the Chargers are playing tonight. The defensive line has been on the ball (literally), we've made a sack or two, and we had a respectable turnover in the first half. On the offensive side of things, Darren Sproles is working his usual magic, the running backs are finding all the holes, the receivers are actually catching the ball, and Phillip Rivers's passes are (as usual) dead-on.

This is one of the NFL's biggest mysteries, in fact. Rivers has the most passing yards of any QB in the league, with nearly 3,000. (Denver's Kyle Orton is right behind him.) Rivers's career passer rating is 96.9, number one of all time. Nobody can figure out how San Diego can possibly be losing games when Rivers is throwing so many deep passes on-target...least of all me.

Indeed, the only black spot on tonight's ledger is the fact that San Diego is, as has previously been mentioned, 5-5.

If we win tonight, we'll be tied for second in the division (with Oakland, BOOOOOOO). If we lose...we're in last place.

'Course, it doesn't look like we'll be losing. I don't know what Denver's problem is, but they're dropping balls and running head-on into our defensive line. That makes me happy, of course, but this is something nobody expected to see from the Broncos, who have traditionally done well. It's a balmy 58 degrees at Qualcomm Stadium right now, so it's not like Denver can blame the weather.

There's six games left: Indianapolis, Oakland (BOOOOOOO), Kansas City, San Francisco, Cincinnati, and Denver again. Let's see how we do. All we have to do is come out top in the division (AFC West). To do that, we've got to beat Denver tonight (signs point to yes) and Kansas City in Week 14. It's a home game, so I'm fairly confident. We (ahem) lost to the Chiefs both in the preseason and in Week 1, but...let's not talk about that right now.

I can dream of a Super Bowl, can't I?

P.S. It's the fourth quarter now and Rivers just threw a beautiful touchdown pass to Jacob Hester. Score's now 35-7. Marvelous, folks. That's the way (uh-huh uh-huh) I like it.