NFC defies logic

You'll have to take my word for it when I tell you I don't bet. And after watching what's been going on in the NFL this season, I am more pleased than ever that I am not of the gambling persuasion.

I'm hardly the last word on NFL matters. There were plenty of years in the '70s and '80s when I was immersed in covering basketball and was not zeroing in on the World's Greatest Football League until the playoffs. So for all I know there may have been a season or two back then rivaling this one for sheer zaniness. There may have been a season or two when so many different teams had such violent, shall we say, mood swings, when so many teams looked good for a couple or three weeks and then went straight to Antarctica (or at least Tasmania), or when there were so many inexplicable individual results.

And I know there have been many, many seasons in this wild-card era when a whole lotta teams went into the final game with at least a chance, however remote, to lurch into the postseason.

So while I'm not a certified "NFL guy," I know plenty of people who are, including people who make their living right here at the Globe. These guys pay real close attention, if only because they must put their reputations on the line every Friday in the form of picks. I'm talking about colleagues Ron Borges, Chris Gasper, Greg Lee, Jim McBride, and Mike Reiss. Entering Week 16 (this past weekend), the only one of them with even a sniff at .500 in a season of picking against the spread is McBride at 111-106-7.

I point this out not to embarrass or ridicule the others, but to illustrate just how utterly wacky the 2006 NFL season has been. If guys as savvy as Borges and Reiss have this much trouble trying to figure out what's going to happen, then someone like myself would have had zero chance of negotiating that forecasting jungle. I'm sure I would have done better picking them out of a hat than selecting the winners on the basis of study and -- you should pardon the expression -- logic.

Of course, the No. 1 big-picture story of NFL '06 is not the week-to-week unpredictability, per se. The real story as we enter the final weekend of the regular season is the truly shocking ineptitude of the NFC. C'mon, aren't we all rooting for the ultimate train wreck in the form of a 7-9 NFC team playing on wild-card weekend while as many as four 9-7 AFC teams stay home?

Well, I am.

But that's asking for a bit too much. The sixth and final NFC playoff team to join Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Dallas almost undoubtedly will be an 8-8 team, and isn't that special?

Given the structure of football, there is no reason there should be such an imbalance of power between the AFC and NFC. There's a draft. There's a hard salary cap. If anything, the advantage always should be with the NFC, which has much bigger markets. Is it simply that, somehow, some way, the AFC has come up with smarter executives and coaches, and thus better players? And, if so, why?

I have no idea.

But seriously folks, can anyone figure out the NFC? The Bears are 13-2, but who outside Chicago believes in them? Can you imagine how the tongues were wagging out there last Sunday after the Bears struggled to defeat the 2-13 Lions and coach Lovie Smith replaced Rex Grossman with Brian Griese midway through the third quarter? I realize it might have been a good idea to scrape a little of the rust off Griese, just in case, but in so doing Smith was playing with the minds of the Bears' faithful, few of whom believe Rexie will come up big in January. And it's pretty evident the lost-for-the-season Tommie Harris is an irreplaceable component in the Chicago defense. The Bears probably will beat Green Bay Sunday to become the least-respected 14-2 team in NFL history.

A short while ago the Cowboys were the flavor of the week. How do you like 'em now, after they've lost two out of three, to New Orleans and Philadelphia, in games they happened to be outscored, 65-24? Remember, please, that the Tuna called it on Tony Romo, cautioning people not to get out what he called the "anointing oils" for his new QB after a few early successes. The lad has looked quite mortal of late, with pedestrian numbers such as his 14-for-29, 142-yard, two-pick performance in last Sunday's 23-7 loss to the Eagles. Meanwhile, Romo is Pro Bowl-bound and Tom Brady isn't. 'Nuff said.

Some think the Saints are the NFC's signature team. Well, yes, they have a high-powered offense, and they are lovable. They are also capable of losing to the Redskins at home, and don't try telling me you called that one, my friend.

Right now the Eagles are the chic team. The Jeff Garcia saga makes you get all misty. I know I bailed on them when Donovan McNabb went down. But does anyone think the Eagles may pull what the Steelers did last season and run the table now through Feb. 4? Didn't think so.

Down there in that playoff muck we find the likes of Green Bay, St. Louis, Carolina, and Atlanta, and do we really care? No. But there is one juicy story out there.

C'mon, is there a better team soap opera out there than the Giants? The story actually goes back to last year's playoffs, when, following a loss to the Panthers, self-appointed team spokesman and Matt Lauer-to-be Tiki Barber said he felt that, among other failings, the team had been "outcoached."

So the season basically started out as a plebiscite on Tom Coughlin, only to detour midway through the season into a career evaluation of retiring general manager Ernie Accorsi (the man who wrote the Colts football quiz in "Diner" for Barry Levinson), whose entire reputation now rests on the play of Eli Manning, a player he had maneuvered to get and for whom he exchanged picks with San Diego that have turned out to be Philip Rivers and Shawne Merriman. Let's just say Eli didn't exactly help his ol' rabbi by going 3 for 19 for 14 yards in the final 3 1/2 quarters of the Giants' Sunday whuppin' at the hands of the Saints.

All the rest of those NFC stiffs are gonzo and kaputski if the Giants defeat the Redskins on the road Sunday. It's simple. The Giants win, and they're in. They don't, and it's get out the slide rules and the strength-of-victory tiebreakers.

Light a candle that they all lose. If there was ever a year in which a 7-9 team should be in the playoffs, this is it.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.