Week 17: My Condolences on Your Groin Pull

The results are in!

Ryan 20-11-1

Jason 20-12

Randie 19-13

Lenny 7-25

I will let bag bet veterans put this year's photo finish in its proper historical context, but I can't imagine a season ever delivering a more nail-biting final weekend than this one. Second place overtaking first place in the year's final weekend to win by a half-game, to say nothing of three people entering the weekend with a chance to win - wow! Historians will be poring over box scores and statistics for generations to come, trying to understand exactly how this went down.

From my perspective, I would say that like all great sports comeback stories, this one was about heart, or really lack of it. Jason's Bears are a classic no-heart team that became a lock to lose once a playoff bid was on the line. The Bears defense managed to fall apart completely against a Houston team with absolutely nothing to play for. Then my Eagles faced off against a team with possibly even less heart - the Cowboys - and delivered a historic drilling. Has a team as good as Dallas ever brought less to a game with everything on the line? Former Boston College QB Matt Ryan, a perfect package of heart and talent, appropriately finished the comeback job for my bag squad.

Matt Ryan, by the way, will never be mentioned as part of a bag bet write-up again - this guy is absurdly real, like a Dan Fouts / Doug Flutie love child. I know that scientists say it's not anatomically possible to make a baby through the back-door, but if there are two guys who could make a baby via copious anal sex, my money is on Doug Flutie and Dan Fouts.

For the record, Randie had a nice close-out week with the aforementioned Texans, along with a big step-up by Baltimore to push themselves into the playoffs. And the Dolphins' historic turn-around is a wallop of a consolation prize for Randie, and a reason for me to care about the NFL playoffs for the first time in years. Really, Randie is the biggest loser in all this - normally, you're feeling great with an 11-5 bag team and another at .500. Not this year.

Lenny... simply abysmal. A classic draft day boner in selecting his favorite team turned out just as poorly as expected. And then amazingly, in an era of complete and total NFL media over-saturation, the awfulness of the Rams is actually an under-reported story. Maybe because they won their one nationally televised game, or maybe because every NFL writer on the awfulness beat has been focused exclusively on the Lions, the Rams really haven't gotten their due. This team lost 10 in a row to close out a 2-14 season - ouch.

Still, even as we shake our heads over Lenny's draft day decisions, we still have to give him some props, because Lenny's foolishness ultimately was rooted in the deepest kind of love. I'm not talking about the Dan Fouts on Doug Flutie type of love (strong as it very well may be), I'm talking about love of team, the purest and strongest form of love that can be found anywhere in nature. And of the Raiders, no less! But foolishness is foolishness, and everybody knows a fool and his bag are rarely parted.

Look for details to come on Bag Payoff 2009. Gonna be hot like Bristol Palin and cool like Dan Quayle.