The Joke Isn’t on NFC North

It was good, easy fodder for cheap laughs for three long months, but the NFC North can no longer be confused with Comedy Central.

Not when one NFC North team has won its last seven games and has limited eight of 11 opponents to one touchdown or less.

Not when another NFC North team has won four games in a row and five out of its last six.

Not when half of the NFC North’s teams have winning records, an accomplishment that puts the division in the same class as the once-thought-to-be-overloaded NFC East and AFC North.

The Chicago Bears defeated another NFC playoff contender on Sunday -- winning, 13-10, at Tampa Bay -- to improve their overall record to 8-3 and extend their winning streak to seven, equaling the club’s longest since 1986.

The Minnesota Vikings, the league’s laughingstocks a month ago, are now 6-5 overall and 4-0 with Brad Johnson as starting quarterback after a 24-12 victory over Cleveland.

Kyle Orton has more 2005 victories to his name than Brett Favre, Steve McNair and David Carr combined?

Johnson, a 37-year-old journeyman, has followed up his improbable Tampa Bay Super Bowl triumph with an even more unlikely accomplishment -- righting the ship the Vikings nearly capsized on Lake Minnetonka?

Orton is in the Bears’ lineup only because of a preseason injury to Rex Grossman.

Johnson is in the Vikings’ lineup only because of an October injury to Daunte Culpepper.

So that is the new road to success in the NFC North?

Injure your starting quarterback and watch your season take off?

(If so, this would explain Green Bay’s 2-9 record despite the Packers’ outscoring their first 11 opponents, 232-223. Favre hasn’t missed a start. As for Detroit, 4-7 after its Thanksgiving Day defeat to Atlanta, the problem has been keeping the backup quarterback, Jeff Garcia, off the weekly injury list. Meanwhile, everything about Joey Harrington except his passer rating remains resoundingly fit.)

With the Bears at 8-3 and the Vikings 6-5, the NFC North has two teams with winning records. So do the NFC East (the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys, both 7-4) and the AFC North (8-3 Cincinnati and 7-3 Pittsburgh).

Thanks to the Bears and Vikings, NFC North teams have a combined overall record of 20-24. That is better than the AFC East (16-28) and the NFC West (19-25), two once-proud divisions that now have much explaining to do.

Tom Brady had four passes intercepted, and his New England Patriots lost on the road to Kansas City, 26-16. Awful news for the reigning Super Bowl champions, now 6-5 and saddled with more defeats in 2005 than 2003 and 2004 combined?

Well, yes and no. At 6-5, the Patriots lead the AFC East standings by two full games over Buffalo and Miami, both 4-7 after the Bills’ 13-9 home defeat to Carolina and the Dolphins’ 33-21 road victory against Oakland.

Conversely, the Chiefs, who rang up 420 yards against New England’s injury-ravaged defense, are 7-4 and two games out of first place in the AFC West, trailing the 9-2 Denver Broncos.

In the NFL as in real estate, the key remains location, location, location.

The Seattle Seahawks know. They own the best record in the NFC, 9-2, largely because they reside in the NFC West, which means six annual games against Arizona, San Francisco and St. Louis. After five of those regularly scheduled games, the Seahawks are, as one would expect, 5-0.

In recent weeks, Arizona, San Francisco and St. Louis have had quarterbacks the likes of Kurt Warner, Cody Pickett and, on Sunday, Ryan Fitzpatrick, who was the 250th player -- out of 255 -- taken in the 2005 draft.

Fitzpatrick took his place in the NFC West’s season-long contest of Quarterback Dart Toss when the Rams ran out of non-Ivy Leaguers to run out there. First, Marc Bulger injured his shoulder. Then Jamie Martin was knocked woozy in the second quarter of Sunday’s game against Houston. In case of emergency, throw another dart, look at the board and do as it says, even as crazy as it sounds: Put in the guy from Harvard.

This was a ground-breaking event for the NFL. Fitzpatrick became the first quarterback from Harvard to throw a pass in a regular-season game. In fact, he threw 30 of them. And completed 19. For 310 yards. And three touchdowns.

Result: A come-from-nowhere 33-27 overtime victory over the Texans, who pulled off a ground-breaking event of their own, one that ought to warrant a league investigation.

Houston led this game by 21 points at halftime and 10 points in the final minute. Somehow, the Texans squandered that 10-point lead in 30 seconds, bringing on overtime and giving Fitzpatrick the chance to win the game with a 56-yard swing-pass-and-run connection with Kevin Curtis.

Intriguing subtext: Had Houston won the game, the Texans would be left with a 2-9 record, same as San Francisco, Green Bay and the New York Jets.

By losing, the Texans remained alone atop the Reggie Bush Derby at 1-10.

Not to cast aspersions, but anyone watching how the Texans handled those last 30 seconds of regulation -- especially their textbook version of how not to cope with an opposing onside kick -- had to wonder: Is it time the NFL start thinking about a draft lottery?

The Rams’ unlikely victory prevented Seattle from clinching the NFC West title before December. The Seahawks extended their winning streak to seven, also in overtime, also because of some highly fortuitous developments, 24-21, over the Giants.

Seattle accomplished this after Jay Feely, the Giants’ kicker, missed three field-goal attempts in the game’s last 13 minutes. Feely was wide left from 40 yards just before the end of regulation, then missed overtime attempts of 54 and 45 yards. Finally, Seattle kick Josh Brown capitalized by drilling a 36-yarder down the middle.

On those four kicks, Feely and Brown demonstrated the difference between winning and losing in the NFL.

Location, location, location.