It was quite the week for NFL-related errors in newspaper headlines. As you can see above, the Green Bay Press-Gazette misspelled Chicago on its front page, which is either an extremely careless error or a roundabout means of trash talk (“Geddit? Chi-COCK-O!”). This came days after an inattentive copy editor at The Times-Picayune neglected to replace the dummy text in a headline for a story about the Jets-Patriots game last Sunday.

Either that, or the paper distributes a special edition for dyslexics. This would be the version Rex Ryan bought.

The big scandal in the run-up to the NFC championship is that the game will feature Terry McAulay, the head referee of the officiating crew that flagged the Packers an astounding 18 times when the two teams played on Monday night in Chicago in Week 3. Of course, the rest of the ref crew will be different. And, if memory serves, the grand majority of the calls against Green Bay in the first meeting of the season weren’t particularly egregious. Sometimes, it’s possible that one team just committed more mistakes. There’s no rule that infractions and penalty yards need be perfectly level each week. [Gets shouted down by several thousand irate fans screaming about referee conspiracies.]

Oh, and this is pretty badass. Now I finally understand the “Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me” prize of getting Carl Kasell recording your message on your voicemail.

There’s always a towering superstructure of fail to rummage through on any given gameday, but this Garo Yepremian-like fumble throw from Brady Quinn was a clear standout on this Sunday, at least until the Bears took the field, started running fake punts up the middle on 4th and 11 (only to challenge them), and generally having a pickerceptionkkake with a side entree of sulk.

The winners, however, they can’t help but exude a certain bravado (unless it’s Eli). Take Aaron Rodgers. Statistically, he didn’t have a particularly amazing game. But he whiped out Ken’s shoryuken after his winning TD pass to Greg Jennings. That’s enough to make you think to yourself that he deserved it all along.

Even if he was being rooted on by these mutants.

[Thanks to reader Rafael for the Rodgers gif]

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