Another football week (the bulk of it, anyway) has come and gone. Swears were voiced, opinions advanced and many fantasy teams didn’t. So let’s wrap it all up in a nice oblong ball tonight. But first-

Fallout:

-CE-H apparently has a high ankle sprain and xrays show nothing else. He’ll likely have a nice little break to get healthy and rejoin the Chiefs as they march towards the AFC Championship Game-can’t see ’em losing before then.

-BUT STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED. Like yesterday’s unlikely final that now puts the Jags in the catbird’s seat with respect to getting Mr. Lawrence. The mathifiers say they’ve got 75% dibs on The Wavy-Haired Wunderkind.

-Somebody won a power struggle. Matt Rhule has been angling to be in charge of most things football in the Panther universe and he got his wish. The scuttlebutt during talks with the Giants was that in addition to the monster salary he wanted control over the draft, trades, the whole shebang. A certain GM Gettleman naturally pushed back hard.

-Congrats to the Fins (and Tua) for their win over the Pats. The times are a changing in AFC East Land and now Miami, by virtue of that W, owns their own destiny as far as the playoffs are concerned.

TO THE GAME!

Steelers/Bengalis:

-All Signs Point To No: One can likely forget about that upset magic happening again here tonight. Pitt has won 11 in a row and Finley has been asked to take them down.

Finley has a 52.6% completion rate and a 0-2 TD/INT number. I can see a ton of dumpoffs to the rb’s in his near future if he doesn’t want to get crushed by the blitz-forward Steelers D. If things go completely south there’s something called Kevin Hogan waiting on the sideline.

-The Cracks Are Showing: Big Ben is getting a bit of flack for the way Pitt is playing but his rb’s and wr’s are playing oopsy with the ball. They’ve had 14(!) dropped passes in just 3 weeks.

-Part Two: That running game. Guh. They’re averaging 89 yards per tilt, the line can’t run block and Conner is always hurt. If it takes 45 passes from Ben to win this game, just pencil them in for a second-round loss.

-Hell, as of this afternoon Draft Kings didn’t have a rushing prop for either Connors or Snell. That’s brutal.

Enjoy what’s on offer this evening.