Here's Fort Mill, S.C. housewife and Carolina Panthers fan Julie Maloney with an unidentified friend (Julie's on the bar), the inventor of No-Pants Sunday. About three years ago, Julie discovered that, whenever she watched a Panthers game on television while not wearing pants, the Panthers won. This never failed. So earlier this season she started a web site, Eye of the Panther, and urged others to go "pants off for the Panthers." And it caught on.

"I'm from upstate New York, but became a Panthers fan because of my husband," Julie told the Charlotte Observer recently. "The staples of a football game in our house. Without getting into too much detail, one thing led to another. And then we started to notice that the days I was without pants, Carolina would win. That year, we went to the Super Bowl. The night of the big game I wore jeans because my friend watched the game with us. Carolina lost."

And when she says no pants, she means it; Julie goes commando. From her web site, an entry dated Dec. 15:

When the game was just about over I said, 'You watch, we're about to get another touchdown' and seconds later we did. It was reminiscent of our glory days. We had beer. We ate chips and salsa. We did not wear pants. This week, Delhomme was BACK! He and Smith were on fire. I'd like to formally go on record saying No Pants Sunday is NOT an easy job. I'm in Upstate NY visiting family, which is why I've been MIA for the past 2 days. Flying alone with a toddler and a baby is EXHAUSTING.

The only games the Panthers had lost in the past two years are ones in which Julie either forgot to take her pants off, or didn't watch the game at all.

"Obviously I can't go to the stadium to see a game," she said. "We have a home theater, the walls are blacked out, and we just watch the game by ourselves."

This past Sunday, the pants came off. But somehow, Kurt Warner and company prevailed (did Julie somehow not go pantsless? Does anyone have answers??). Anyway, she has not been heard from since Carolina's 33-13 loss in Glendale.

And today a lonely pair of pants flies at half-staff in front of the Maloney home.

No-Pants Sunday [Eye Of The Panther]

Didn't a certain portly sports anchor distribute several tongue lashings to underlings who ran around behind the scenes during one of his broadcasts not too long ago? I'm sorry to blow up like this but it's like no one's ever worked on TV here before? Jesus!

Showing up late and disheveled is a great way to get into Ditka's Doghouse.

Was it my imagination or were all four games this weekend just sloppy, brutal battles of attrition? Didn't this game used to be smoother, cleaner, more enjoyable to watch? Montana to Rice, Emmitt Smith finding a hole off tackle; wasn't that more fun? No? OK, sorry.

Not that I didn't watch every minute of it. Unlike this guy at Giants Stadium, who preferred his warm fuzzy 2008 dream world to the bitter cold reality of 2009. I have a suspicion we'll be hearing a bit more about the Eagles, Cardinals, Ravens and Steelers over the coming week. So for now, let us salute the losers. Sleep well, my friends. If you wake up and it's totally dark, do not be alarmed; you're merely in a trash bag in a Meadowlands dumpster.

And could someone stand by with a mop? I have a feeling that Carl's head is about to explode.

Since the Eagles will be playing the Big Blue Babyfuckers this weekend, I've generously given her the floor. Enjoy.

Well, well, well, if it isn’t Donovan McSoupcans, prime candidate for Ryan Seacrest’s new reality show, Momma’s Boys , and connoisseur of chunky stew. Ain’t he kicky? At the risk of beating a dead shitbird, I’ll only mention it briefly that Donovan, the quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles – a professional football team, by some standards – gleefully acknowledged earlier in the season that he was unaware of the overtime rules of a game that he has ostensibly been playing professionally for a decade. I’m sorry, but I have a fucking VAGINA and even I knew the overtime rules. But wasn’t it precious how simply he admitted his dimwitted confusion to the press? And then was summarily benched a few weeks later. It was a goddamned inspiration for all of us.

In other news, Andy Reid is coaching from the sidelines with what appears to be a furry ginger snatch on his face. I’m all for superstition, but I’m not sure that looking like a fat homeless guy who just got his chin vomited on by Lindsay Lohan’s cooter is exactly going to secure the win.

But, you know, as we used to say in Jersey, to each his own.

Look, I’m not going to go over every detail of why the Eagles have no chance this Sunday. Suffice it to say, the Giants were pretty much a shoe-in to make the play-offs for most of the season, whereas the Eagles sneaked into the postseason mostly thanks to a couple of other teams shitting the bed at the last minute (I’m looking at you, Tampa Bay, Chicago, and Tony Romo, personally). Also, we have home field advantage, an oversized hamhead of a running back who will smash right through your sad little Eagle faces, and an impenetrable defense that sets my girly heart aflutter. Also, we beat the freaking Patriots in the Super Bowl last year. And we’re even better now than we were then.

What do you have? You have one wide receiver who is engaged to Kendra Wilkinson (congrats on that grab), and another wide receiver who, during Monday Night Football, dropped the ball while celebrating a touchdown…before crossing the goal line. And let’s not forget Donovan McSleepypants who gets sooooo tired in the fourth quarter (poor big, dumb baby!). And, well, a major tendency to choke.

Anyway, comfort yourselves, Philly fans, at least you know that your pretty birdies will give it their best shot. And that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

Oh, Jesus. What are you gonna do, throw a battery at me?

Ed. Note: Nope. Just show the world how much of a drunken slut you are. Go Birds!

Meanwhile, Eli Manning is either looking like a legitimate starting quarterback ... or setting the stage for the most epic collapse of all in Green Bay next week. (Or both.) Either way ... next Sunday's NFC championship game is gonna look a lot prettier on TV now than we all thought it was going to.

But seriously, though: If Romo every makes a playoff game again, we hope it's in a low pressure spot, so that he does not explode into a plume of smoke.