OK, normally I handle the Sports-slogging along with Brad, and my brother takes care of the Smoking Ban Updates in his crusade to never have to change his clothes after a night out boozing. But sometimes, worlds collide.

Several suburbs near Chicago that recently banned smoking in all public places, including taverns, are reconsidering because of the success of the Chicago Bears. Seems business was waaay down last week when the Bears snuck past the Seagulls. In yet another demonstration of the fact that the most effective smoking bans would be state-wide, smokers would abandon their regular haunts to go to nearby suburbs without the ban. So much for customer loyalty. If I were a bartender in one of these joints, any regular who went elsewhere would never see another free drink so long as I lived. Money quotes from two such patrons:

Smoking outside Bud’s in Tinley Park on Wednesday night, Chris Barry, 22, of Posen and Marc Melgar, 26, of Tinley Park said they need their smokes more than ever because of these Bears games.

“It’s weird to explain, you get all irritated,” Barry said. “And you don’t want to miss the game to have a smoke, but you have to.”

“The suspense kills you—especially when you’ve bet a lot of money on it,” Melgar said.

He gets jittery when the Bears are losing and that feeling intensifies when they are trying to mount a comeback.

This jitteriness might be explained by the fact that those fuckers who run tobacco companies are apparently upping the levels of nicotine, the addictive chemical in cigarettes.

Meanwhile, my prediction for Sunday: Bears 23, Saints 10. The over-under is 43, but with rotten weather and both teams talking about running all day long, it should be low-scoring. Bears are favored by 3.5, but that’s only because all of the sentimental (read: “sucker”) money is on the post-Katrina feel-good Saints. The Saints running backs’ average yards per carry plummets when they’re outdoors, and the Bears D will be ready for them. Meanwhile, Gross Rexman (as one sore loser Seahawk called him) will play conservative enough to not lose.