Okay, so I’m officially terrified of the Phillies winning the World Series.

It’s a 1-in-8 chance, I kept telling myself. They’ll never do it. Sabathia’ll shut ‘em down. Manny is waay too hot to lose right now. The Rays are awesome.

All wrong.

I must be prepared to face the inevitable: the Phillies will be the 2008 World Series Champions. I will be reminded of this fact for 19 long games next season, and probably ever single time I encounter my Phillie Phan Phriends with their stupid little curly P’s and their obnoxious Jimmy Rollins T-shirts. It’s going to be awful. Possibly even worse than in 2000, when I was forced to live in a neighborhood full of Yankees fans immediately after becoming the final victim of their latest dynasty. At least in 2001 the Yankees played in a different league…

Yes, life as me is tough.

Even the NFL couldn’t cheer me this past weekend. The Pats and Bills won, Brett Favre looked like Ray Lucas, and Laverneus Coles, my favorite player, got a concussion. Oh, and the Jets lost, in overtime, to the Raiders, the team I despise most in the whole world that doesn’t where pinstripes or the color red!

These events have left me (as is usual for Mets, Jets, and Knicks fans) in a terrible sports mood. Only one thing to cheer me up, I thought, before the Jets take the field today to face good ole Herm Edwards and the hapless Chiefs: let’s look at how many more points the Jets will score on KC with Favre instead of Pennington. Bashing Chad Pennington always makes Jets fans happy!

Uh-Oh. Wait a minute….take a quick look at these numbers.

Yds: Favre, 1321; Pennington, 1396

Yds/Attempt: Favre, 6.77; Pennington,  8.12

TD/INT: Favre, 13/8; Pennington, 6/3

Sacks: Favre, 15; Pennington, 10

Com. Percent: Favre, 68.2%; Pennington, 68.6%

What’s happening?! Why is Pennington putting up better numbers than Favre?! Why did my team release a quarterback who is more impressive by almost ever single metric, and trade for a more expensive, older, not quite as good QB?

Well, for one, I probably shouldn’t make too big a deal out of raw numbers from the quarterback position. They certainly do not tell the whole story. But they do say something. Pennington is beating Favre in Yds/Attempt but with a similar completion percentage? Smells funny to me. The fact that Favre, a quarterback known for his strong arm and reckless style is looking more like Chad Pennington than Chad Pennington is beginning to annoy me.

And it’s not just in the numbers. It was evident in the game last Sunday. The Jets rushed for over 200 yards against an incompetent Oakland team, and yet couldn’t muster more than 13 points, even with a miraculous last second field goal. They had 3 points late in the fourth! To me, there seem to be one of two possible things going on here:

1) The Jets are coddling Favre. Teaching the lifetime Packer a new set of terminology and a new set of plays, the Jets coaching staff is trying not to overwhelm Brett with too much information in the short time he has been with the team. As a result, he is working with a limited playbook, and is only throwing short easy routes and is building up his repertoire each week.

or 2) Brett Favre isn’t a good fit with the Jets’ system and the Jets organization made a huge mistake letting Pennington go. His many interceptions (second highest total in the NFL, I believe– only J.T. O’Sullivan is worse at not throwing interceptions) indicate that he is not at home in the offense and is trying to do too much. Or that Brett Favre loves throwing picks. He has the most all time, after all.

At the beginning of the year, I was completely willing to go with theory number one. Give him a few weeks, I thought. That first month might be a rough one for the O. Lots of bubble screens, I envisaged. But then it would all be okay. Favre would get stronger with each week. And the Jets’ O might be dangerous.

I know it’s only Week Seven, but I’m losing hope. I think the Jets might have made the wrong decision. Favre might not be the guy. Yes, yes, I know. He threw 6 TD’s against Arizona. There, he looked good. But the Jets’ D caused Kurt Warner to fumble 43 times in the second quarter of that game. A lot of those TD’s were gimmies. And that may be the only time Favre has looked remotely comfortable all year. Look at the games against Cincinnati and Oakland. He, and the offense, is getting worse, not better.

Favre still, obviously, has time to turn it around. It’s early. And far better Jets teams have lost in Oakland before.  But the initial numbers for Brett and Gang Green are disturbing. With Chad Pennington more than holding his own on a largely putrid Miami team, I’m definitely wondering what might have been with Chad at the helm this season…