Well that was a close one...

Wifeypooh, who doesn't get herself all worked up over football, likes to say that the Patriots give you your money's worth; a Patriot's game always lasts 60 minutes and the outcome is usually in doubt for most of the time.

And the Chicago Bears are a quarterback away from being one of the best football teams I have ever seen. Even with Rex Grossman, the Bears are one of the two teams I think could be the NFC representative in the Superbowl. The drama in Dallas, with Romo playing Tom Brady to Drew Bledsoe's, well, Drew Bledsoe, creates the other viable storyline to satisfy the football gods.

Every Patriots game is like watching Saw and Saw 2 back to back. They seem on the verge of losing every game, and find new and exciting ways to cough up the ball and snatch near-defeat from the jaws of easy victory.

But this is always how they've been; the three Superbowls in four years were won by a total of nine points. And yesterday was no different.

They bears came to town to play on the new rug (not bad looking), and punched the Patsies around. And the Patsies punched back. Ten turnovers between the two teams weren't because of wet balls or inept play, rather two very aggressive and opportunistic defenses playing their hearts out.

It was another costly game for the Patriots; two weeks after losing Rodney Harrison to a broken shoulder, Junior Seau left the field with an arm looking appallingly like Harry Potter's after Gilderoy Lockhart "fixed" it. It jiggled.... Ugh. Couple more weeks like this and I'll get to suit up for the hometown team. Heck, I am younger than Vinny Testaverde...

As you may recall, there was a friendly wager on the game, with me proposing to RW and Gino, two Chicago supporters, that we put our respective blogs where our mouths were, and have the losing teams supporter(s) write nice things about the winning team, and winning team supporter(s) blog.

Well, RW was a good sport about the whole thing and wrote a wonderful post acknowledging the dual greatnesses of Kal's World and the New England Patriots, although it is possible that he might, just maybe, have been a little sarcastic with some of his praise. "A portly intellect"? Hmm...

The way the game was going I had started thinking of superlatives for RW and Gino by half-time. I spent the entire second half watching from the kitchen, as every time I ventured into the living room bad things happened to the home town 22 (we Irish are a very superstitious people...)

But thanks to Asante Samuel's (man, is he a hot dog... just shut up and play man...) third pick of the night, the honor of Kal's World was preserved.

Here's to hoping we can renew this bet come February in Florida.