There is not a worsetime in professional sports than the week before the Super Bowl.

We have to listen to all the lame radio and television “experts” give us their opinion of who is going to win the game and who is going to lose the game and why.

Personally, all I want to hear about are the match-ups and the injury reports.

I could care less about the latest line in Vegas because I don’t bet on the Super Bowl and neither do a lot of regular sports fans.

Moving the Pro Bowl to the Sunday between the championship games and the Super Bowl was one of the dumbest ideas the National Football League ever had.

Let’s face it, if you are a die-hard fan and actually watch the entire Pro Bowl, you are getting robbed by the NFL because a lot of the good players are not in the game because they are suiting up the following Sunday evening.

At least they moved it back to Hawaii where it belongs. I can’t imagine how the players who are actually competing in the game felt last year being in the shadow of the Super Bowl the entire time.

I have more bad news for those rabid football fans, there are only two games left in the 2010-11 season.

Soon you will only have the NFL Combine and the draft to look forward to until this coming summer when mini camps and training camps open up.

It’s been an interesting NFL season. The Bears were good again and the Lions showed some signs of life.

Indianapolis wasn’t as good as they have been in the past, but considering the injuries and who played on Sundays for the Colts, it wasn’t a terrible season.

Detroit appears to finally be heading in the right direction. They have a coach that seems to be pretty solid and a management team that knows real talent when they see it.

Now if the Lions could only get Matthew Stafford healthy and able to play an entire season.

More work needs to be done on the defensive side of the football and along the offensive line. If Detroit can may a few more moves and draft smartly this year, I think they have a shot at making the playoffs.

For you Bears fans, you better hope that Jay Cutler finds a heart during the off season and the team trades for or drafts a quality back-up quarterback.

If not, the Bears will only remain pretenders instead of contenders for a Super Bowl championship.

Scott Novak is sports editor of Leader Publications. He can be reached at scott.novak@leaderpub.com