And here are some reasons why:

1. Division Races: Non-Existent: Only two divisions were still up for grabs in the season's final two weeks: the NFC North (Packers, Vikings) and NFC South (Seattle, St. Louis). I couldn't care less about either.

2. Inconsistent Teams Kill Anticipation: How many matchups this year did you look forward to and think, "That's definitely gonna be a good game." For me, it was like three: Pats-Colts, Steelers-Patriots and Steelers-Eagles. Everything else was "I think this will be a good game" or "I hope this will be a good game, but I have no fucking idea because 90 percent of these teams suck balls one week, then play great the next ... against a team that was great a week ago but now sucks balls."

3. Week 17 Was a Sham: The Broncos cruised into the playoffs with Peyton Manning safely tucked away on the opponent's sideline. The Seahawks contended with Matt Schaub, not Michael Vick, in clinching its division and a home game next week. The Jets backed in. The Vikings backed in. The Panthers lost at home favored by more than a TD. So did the Bills against a Steelers team with nothing to play for. John Madden said it best last Monday after the Eagles played chicken in a loss at St Louis: "I don't even know what we saw tonight." You said it, Bus Boy. Whatever it was, it wasn't worth watching.

4. Scheduling Prime-Time Games Is Impossible: Monday Night Football is supposed to be a showcase of the week's best matchup. Yet, three of the league's best teams — Pittsburgh, Atlanta and San Diego — were not on MNF at all this year. The reason? Those three teams had a combined 15-33 record last year. This year: 38-10. That's the NFL for ya.

5. The Giants Sucked: I'm sure my favorite team's inadequacies had something to do with my lack of appreciation for the season. Thank god the G-Men won that last game. That would have been one long, long, long offseason for Eli Manning. At least now there's some promise than they can beat 10-loss teams. But the way the NFL is these days, I don't even hate the Cowboys. How can you hate anyone? You know every team's gonna suck at least once in the next three years. How does Kansas City go from being undefeated at home one year to not even a threat for the playoffs the next, with basically the same team? The Chargers go from 4-12 to 12-4 with the same QB, RB and coach. (What, is Antonio Gates worth 8 wins?) I'm telling you, it's getting ridiculous.

The PK.com.com Pool:

I, and so many others, had a great time this year with the first-ever 50-person PK.com Yahoo! pool. The top five finishers were:
1. Chico's Bail Bonds: 132
2. Paul Katcher: 130
3. gigglechick: 129
4. NoVikingChance: 125
5. Georgia Trouser Trouts: 125
Group Home | Full Standings

All of the top-five finishers (except me) will get their choice of some crap laying around my apartment, things that wouldn't even get a bid on eBay. We're talking books I found in the halls at TIME magazine, CDs you can download for free online, "unused" pre-Chyna Playboys (that was the last straw with my subscription) and much more. Hey, I'll even autograph 'em for ya, with some smart-ass comment.

But seriously, this NFL season sucked so hard it was nice to have so many people vying for top honors as they played a weekly game of "I don't so much like the team I'm picking as much as I trust the Saints/Rams/Broncos/Browns/49ers/Giants/Dolphins/Vikings/Raiders/Cowboys/Redskins/Cardinals to lay an egg."

My NFL Preseason Predictions:

So I had the Chargers finishing last. Who didn't? I really made only one bold pick, with the Redskins winning the NFC East. Oh, well. At least I didn't pick Jake Plummer to win league MVP, as Peter King did.

Other NFL Thoughts:

• Obligatory ESPN Sunday Night Football critique: Mike Patrick rattles off stats on Kurt Warner's final four starts, in which he got sacked at least six times in each. Paul Maguire interjects that those sacks were the fault of the quarterback, not the offensive line. Three seconds later (I swear this is true), Eli Manning is buried under a blitz. Joe Theismann says Eli had no chance.

• If I see any season reviews stating that Peyton Manning "shattered" Dan Marino's TD pass record, I'll laugh. He beat it by one, 49-48. Peyton played only one series Sunday, but five TDs in the Colts' last four games wasn't exactly what we'd expected. What he did destroy was Steve Young's record for QB rating in a season, finishing with 121.1. Manning's lowest rating in any game this season was 94.1, against the Ravens. By comparison, Tom Brady's season average was 91.9, the highest of his career.

• Seeing Vinny Testaverde play what could have been his final game brought a tear to me eye ... as I thought about Week 8, when he threw for three TDs and rushed for another (his first in six years) against both of my fantasy football teams. Gotta be up there with one of the greatest fantasy screw-jobs ever. (I'll do an entire column on that someday. E-mail your tales of woe.)

• So in Philly, Reggie White was loved, in part, because he didn't show up opponents. And Terrell Owens is loved, in part, because he adds excitement to the game. Just wondering how Philly fans might think of Peyton Manning if he did a choreographed dance after each of his 49 TD passes, then made a prepared speech on how homosexuals have "problems" that he would like to "minister" and how white people "know how to tap into money pretty much better than a lot of people do around the world."

Other Sports Ruminations:

• Carmelo Anthony, who is 20 years old and is worth tens of millions of dollars, has decided to settle down and marry MTV veejay La La Vasquez. As a Syracuse man myself, I would like to have just a couple of minutes to talk with the young man, a chance to ask, "Melo, are you fucking insane? You haven't even scratched the surface of NBA groupies yet!"

• Have you found yourself asking, Is there any limit to what the Yankees can spend on players? The answer is yes, but may be higher than you think. According to an AP column on the Yankees' 2005 payroll: "The Yankees had revenues of roughly $315 million in 2004, taking in about $130 million from ticket sales alone. Boston, which had the No. 2 payroll at $130 million, estimated its revenue at $220 million." I don't know if that includes revenues from the YES network, the Yankees' own cable channel in New York. I have this idea for Yankees-themed restaurants in NYC, though I think I need to get more aggressive, 'cause the idea doesn't seem to come to fruition with me getting drunk down the street.

• How 'bout that over/under line of 79(!) in the Liberty Bowl between Boise State and Louisville, both of whom were ranked higher than Florida and Miami, who played later that night? The final score: 44-40, Louisville. If you put money on "under 83," you lost!

• Has Bill Simmons jumped the shark? The author of this op-ed, Bob Cook, pretty much sets it straight: Simmons has become so popular that it's time for the inevitable backlash. True enough, but I wonder if a lot of the Simmons backlash stems from online sportswriters who are a tad jealous. He parlayed a self-published website into writing gigs for ESPN.com and Jimmy Kimmel Live, and I can't hate on that. I love his sportswriting. Whenever there's a water-cooler event, like the Pacers-Pistons brawl, I know he'll come up with some observations no one else has.

But the adoration is spooky. I used to call him The Couch Guy. Why do people care so much about having an e-mail answered by a guy who can rattle off every moment from The O.C. and Saturday Night Live, which I haven't seen live since I was 15? Secondly, why is he hands-down the top ESPN.com personality — dominating the Page 2 landscape and getting his own dot-com cartoon — yet there's like two pictures of him and he's kept off the TV airwaves? I don't know, just some things to think about.

And I can guarantee you that if Page 2 doesn't get a guy in there to write from a Yankees perspective, to balance out the 2,000 articles on the site from Jim Caple, Simmons and a lot of other unabashed Yankees-haters, people are gonna start to tune out after awhile. So, Page 2, with Randy Johnson and Carlos Beltran on the way, how 'bout a LSYF (Long Suffering Yankees Fan) column to even out the score? I've got a guy in mind for that gig.