Joe, no?

Does Josh beat Burrow in this week's Game of the Century?

It’s being hyped as the Game of the Year, which means it likely won’t be. Bengals-Bills is being sold as a potential AFC title game preview, which means the Kansas City Chiefs will be playing for the Lamar Hunt Trophy on Jan. 29.

Paraphrasing Yogi Berra, “In football, you don’t know nothin’.’’

Joe v. Josh! Pinball football! Someone bring a calculator!

Or maybe neither team is able to beat the other deep. Quick bomb-strikes are defused by the Bills dropping eight into coverage, welcoming the Bengals underwhelming run game to beat them. Maybe Allen can’t make chicken salad when his best — and occasionally only — quality option is Stefon Diggs, whom the Bengals D (aka the Fighting Lous) will double to death.

Name Buffalo’s No. 3 receiver, win fabulous prizes chosen just for you.

In last week’s misleadingly lopsided W over the bad news Bears, Diggs had zero catches in the first half, quite possibly because he had zero targets. Meantime, the Bills tore up Chicago’s lousy front seven, running at will.

On the other side, lately Joe B. has been good when he has needed to be, and that has been good enough to beat the middle of the fat NFL pack. Saint Joe will need four quarters of feelgood participation if the Men are to take down Buffalo.

Allen is Ben Roethlisberger deluxe. Same size, same quality of being more dangerous outside the pocket than in. Lamar Jackson with slightly smaller wings. Uncle Lou’s men have had decent luck stopping Jackson, so. . .

Here’s where Cincinnati could have a small edge:

Joe is cooler than Josh.

Joe has learned to check down, cool his jets when the big plays aren’t obvious. Josh is still a little twitchy. The Bills get into trouble when Josh figures he has to win the game himself. He has 13 picks. He runs a lot and very effectively. That comes with fumbles. Allen has fumbled 13 times and lost five. Yikes.

Joe has Chase, Higgins and Boyd. He has Hurst and the Secret Weapon, Trenton Irwin the Touchdown Maker. Josh has Diggs, Gabe Davis and Isaiah McKenzie. He dreams of having Trenton Irwin. If I were a betting man. . .

It’s obviously simplistic to judge a game by its quarterbacks. It’s also as good a way as any. You like Joe or Josh?

I don’t feel great about this game, if only because after 7 Ws straight, the odds suggest the Bengals are due for a letdown-ish, sloppy performance. All hype aside, Monday night will be great theatre, but hardly decisive in the Big Bowl picture. Cincinnati will have to beat the Bills or Chiefs again in a few weeks. This week’s game of the century might be sequel-ed in a month.

Which provides a soft landing for Monday’s L.

Bills 27

Men 23

ALL THAT SAID, it’s very cool that Cincinnati and Buffalo are atop the NFL world, isn’t it? It’s also as good a tribute to the NFL’s economic model as exists. Imagine a World Series between the Pirates and Tigers. Baseball has killed its middle class. Football has nurtured its middle class.

Baseball’s problem is, it can never be football, economically. It does not have the massive national TV deal, and never will. What it has is huge disparities in local media revenues, which are not shared.

We’ve seen how the lux-tax — baseball’s version of a salary cap — has curbed the appetites in NY and LA and elsewhere. Not in the least.

The Bengals can afford Saint Joe and still have enough swag to be competitive. To say the same, the Reds would need divine intervention. Or billionaire ownership.

SO VERY SAD. . . Longtime Mobster and Cincinnati native Frank Abell passed away unexpectedly last night, in his sleep. NOLA Frank was a diehard Bengals guy and UC enthusiast. He spent fall Sundays in New Orleans bellied up to a bar, watching the Men, then sometimes regaling me with his thoughts afterward .

When I retired, Frank sent me a bottle of Irish whiskey. Writer’s Tears, it’s called. Very appropriate at this moment.

PELE. . . From his obituary in the NYTimes:

A national hero in his native Brazil, Pelé was beloved around the world — by the very poor, among whom he was raised; the very rich, in whose circles he traveled; and just about everyone who ever saw him play.

“Pelé is one of the few who contradicted my theory,” Andy Warhol once said. “Instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.”

Celebrated for his peerless talent and originality on the field, Pelé (pronounced peh-LAY) also endeared himself to fans with his sunny personality and his belief in the power of soccer — football to most of the world — to connect people across dividing lines of race, class and nationality.

How many athletes, ever, have transcended sports? Who, ever, has done that more completely, more globally, than Pele?

Ali and. . .

Pele brought soccer to the edge of the mainstream in America. Its professional promise has yet to be tapped fully, but its universal appeal in the US is undeniable. RIP, Soccer Man.

THIS SHOULD BE A NO-BRAINER. . . Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel posed this question in a column today, re the future of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh:

The question for the 59-year-old is what does he really want for the rest of his career?

NFL jobs are opening now — Denver just fired Nathaniel Hackett. Despite Harbaugh's promises, does he want to go back to the pros?

Run don’t walk, Jimbo.

Remember the good old days of dear old State U? Hop in a car, traverse your region of the country sweet-talkin’ high school jocks to give their all for their local football factory?

Boola-boola, kids.

Now — with NIL, the portal and the all-consuming entitlement of the kids operating within them — why would anyone want to coach big-time college football if the NFL were an option?

It was bad enough that grown men, men with wives, children, mortgages, the whole adult catalog, had to grovel at the feet of 18-year-olds who had trouble remembering to take out the trash. Or that those 18-year-olds grew into 20-year-olds with girlfriend problems, pissed they were riding your bench.

And we’re not even talking about parents calling to complain about that.

That was a picnic compared to what’s going on now, when it’s more important that a coach recruit the players he already has than to woo new ones.

You’ve gotta be crazy to want to coach college football now.

HUGE EARLY SEASON GAME FOR XAVIER, conveniently scheduled for noon, before the quasi-am football semis. The Musketeers host #2 UConn. It’s one of those games where X will be competing as much against its own potential as against the Huskies.

There’s a lot of room for optimism and growth on Victory Parkway. The pieces are there for a return to the Madness and, possibly, a couple Ws there. Every very good college team needs a very good point guard. Check. Souley Boum is arguably Xavier’s best player. (And certainly the one with the coolest name.)

Versatile big men? Check. Nunge and Freemantle are veterans who can rebound and shoot 3s.

We didn’t even mention Colby Jones. If Boum is 1, Jones is 1-A.

And Sean Miller can coach a little. That matters a lot in March especially.

Point guard, offensive versatility, veteran leadership, big-time coach. The Musketeers are one surefire Go-To-Guy from being Sweet 16. And who’s to say that between now and March, some Boum or another won’t fill that role?

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TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . The last TML of 2022. Thank you all, again. The re-launch has gone well, but the potential for much more is obvious. As for the Tune. . .

Some of a certain age liked Dan Fogelberg. As many thought his lyrics would be best poured on a waffle. I’m somewhere in between. This one will give you diabetes, definitely. But it fits the day.