I'm looking forward to making my picks for next week's pool the way a dog looks forward to being fixed. With four more starting quarterbacks possibly out due injury, how in heck do we figure out how their teams will do behind the backups?

Not that this week was any great shakes either. Sure, I went 10 and 4. Yes, I did move up four spots overall in my football pool (from 24 to 20), but how did I manage to lose 19 points picking Miami and the Giants to win their games? And, worse still, why did I have to lose 13 points on the San Fran-St. Louis tie alone?

I mean, I deserved better. I picked the two biggest games right. I figured the Saints would upset Atlanta to keep their playoff hopes alive and I thought Houston would figure out Chicago at least enough to win the ballgame. So why did the football gods have to punish me with the three big losses (well, two big losses and a tie)?

I'll take a big mea culpa on picking Philly to beat Dallas. I keep thinking the Eagles have too much talent (on both sides of the ball) to continue this awful play. But I didn't include in my calculations Andy Reid's idiotic decision to give up on his team even while they were leading late in the 3rd quarter, calling a fraidy-cat draw on 3rd and 17 on the Cowboys 22. Ridiculous call but I've ranted on it already (see earlier post).

What scares me now is going forward.

For example, we've got to figure out a San Francisco versus Chicago Monday night clash that might just pit Colin Kaepernick against Jason Campbell if the two teams' starting quarterbacks (Alex Smith and Jay Cutler) have to sit out due to concussions suffered this past weekend.

Sure, the game pits the league's number one defense (SF) versus the number two D (Chicago) so maybe it won't matter if Elmer Fudd started at quarterback for one of the teams but I have to feel that it's a different game with Smith and Cutler behind centre. Without them, what do we predict? A 3-0 final?

You know, as I'm writing this, I'm thinking: actually, will these quarterback injuries really make that much of a difference in Week 11? The losses of Cutler and Smith might just cancel each other out in the Monday night game; I'm not so sure Philadelphia is worse without Michael Vick (Nick Foles is playing pretty well); and I don't think the presence of Ben Roethlisberger (over Byron Leftwich -- seriously? Byron Leftwich is still in the league?) for Pittsburgh would be enough to overcome a motivated Ravens club that appears to have rediscovered its offensive rhythm and is still fairly decent on defense.

Hmmm... I guess the only thing I can do is make my picks and see what happens... but only after I've heard the latest inhury reports out of San Fran and Chicago.