By Mike Luce

This is it, people, the last weekend of the regular season. (Well, not really. The last weekend – Week 16 – is actually next weekend for the Army-Navy game, possibly the best tradition for closing out a year in any sport.) After all the jockeying, polls, rankings, and blather expended on same, we get to see how the playoff spots shake out. We will get answers to questions such as: Does Florida State merit a playoff berth just because they’ve gone undefeated? Will Ohio State have an opportunity to embarrass themselves on a national stage (again)? Will the Committee ignore a head-to-head victory in favor of the “eye test?” What does eye test mean? Does it have anything to do with tiny lines of blurry letters? Did Ohio State clone Braxton Miller in the offseason? How many yards does Melvin Gordon need to lock up the Heisman? And finally, how badly do we miss the BCS HAL 9000?

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Posted on December 5, 2014

By ESPN’s First Take

All the pieces are in place!
20/1.
Who bought it?

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Posted on December 5, 2014

By Carl Mohrbacher

We’ve gotten to that time of the season where all television networks are obliged to display a graphic detailing which teams would be playoff-bound if the season were to end during Week 13, and which teams are “in the hunt.”
This digital display usually appears near the beginning of the broadcast; right after Fox analyst Moose Johnston’s “Keys To The Game” segment.
Fox then displays it again in the third quarter. And as though you had forgotten during the last 20 minutes, once more during the fourth.
Aaaaaand lastly, at the game’s conclusion the graphic is paraded out there again with updated standings coupled with hard hitting audio commentary like “at a record of 3-9, the G-Men are going have a difficult time making the playoffs in 2014.”

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Posted on December 4, 2014

By Dan O’Shea

Many fantasy leagues starting their playoff schedule this week (Week 14 on the fantasy calendar). While you might think there is no way at this point to improve a team sitting on the playoff bubble enough to sneak into the championship round, you could very well be wrong.
In Week 13, and in recent weeks, we’ve seen a number of players trending upward at just the right time.

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Posted on December 2, 2014

By Jim Coffman

If Jim Harbaugh doesn’t coach the San Francisco 49ers next season, he better be coaching the Bears.
If Niner chairman Jed York, the marital jackpot winner whose father-in-law owned the team when Joe Montana and Bill Walsh made it great, is too foolish to figure out a way to keep Harbaugh on as coach after a contentious 2014 season by the Bay, Bears chairman George McCaskey better not choke on bringing Harbaugh back to Chicago.

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Posted on December 1, 2014