[steve]

I read Bill Simmons rather religiously (his wit and style are somewhat Thompsonesque, which I love, without the loads of drugs) and came across this preview of the NFL 2006 season. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ons/060906
If you enjoyed that article, I urge you to read more from Simmons (check his mailbag, always good for laugh)

Should be a good game tonight. I've got faith in Batch filling in for Roethlisberger (stupid appendix, why is it even there?). It will be interesting to see how Culpepper plays coming off that injury. Shit...it's 10am and I'm already feeling the blood rush, gonna be a long wait 'till kick off. GO STILLERS!!

[wisedyes]

Yeah, yeah, how many more body pieces can Roethlisberger lose? Tell you what, Steve, the team formerly known as the Bungles are looking pretty scary. And I don't just mean their gawd-awful uniforms.

[steve]

Well, wisedyes, I have yet to be convinced that Palmer is good to go. I mean, he was in briefly against the Packers who are a rather atrocious team. I thought that recovery time for that injury is in the 9 month range, which puts it close to where we are now. But he has hardly been training and needs to do a lot of work to get that leg back, assuming no one else drops on it anytime soon. AFC North is looking interesting...but naturally my vote is for Pittsburgh.