Bob Cook

Looking at who is left in the NFC playoffs, New Orleans would appear to be the favorite. That’s because the Saints are the only team with a quarterback whom anyone would trust to win a game.

Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck, completing 50 percent of his passes and throwing two interceptions against Dallas, is not to be trusted to win a game. Philadelphia’s Jeff Garcia, having completed slightly more than 50 percent of his passes and throwing no interceptions against New York, can maybe be trusted not to lose a game, thus earning him the Trent Dilfer Memorial Trophy.

Chicago’s Rex Grossman, at this point, is not to be trusted to win a coin flip, much less a game. Not only would he make the wrong call — in part because he didn’t do any pre-flip study to figure out heads from tails — but the coin also would be intercepted on the way down.

But New Orleans’ Drew Brees, he of the 4,626 passing yards, 64.3 percent completion rate, and 27 touchdowns with only 11 interceptions — now there’s a quarterback you can count on.

If only picking a winner were so easy as picking the best quarterback.

In that case, we wouldn’t be talking about when Peyton Manning is going to win his first Super Bowl, would we?

Every NFC team left has some sort of major flaw (or flaws) that leads you to believe that this side of the playoff ledger is merely a formality to see whom the AFC Super Bowl representative will blow out.

The winner of each game will be the team that does not lose it — which means Philadelphia and Seattle can’t be counted out on the road.

It would seem like the longest of long shots for Seattle, one of the most uninspiring division winners ever, to beat the top-seeded Bears at Soldier Field. But Seattle is coming in feeling like they’ve caught playoff magic — or, more accurately, that Tony Romo dropped it.

Meanwhile, the Bears and their fans are the most miserable 13-3 group ever. If there is such a thing as home field disadvantage, Chicago has it.

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Now, these days homefield isn’t what it used to be, with skyboxes putting the loudest upper-deck fans somewhere in the troposphere, and the lower deck full of expense-account showoffs, thus making playing in an opposing stadium as intimidating as eating in an out-of-town Applebee’s.

But in Soldier Field, it doesn’t matter who you are and where you sit.

The moment Grossman does anything other than complete a pass, you are booing at the top of your lungs. The fans didn’t wait until the end of the first half in the regular-season finale, a 26-7 loss to Green Bay, to boo Grossman’s dismal five-completion — two to his receivers, three to the opposition defense — "effort." (Grossman admitted after the game he didn’t prepare for it.) They booed him upon his first incompletion.

Grossman’s up-and-way-down performances the second half of the year have Bears fans antsy enough. But a banged-up defense that is no longer intimidating, not after Tampa Bay scored 31 points on it, is hurting Chicago, too.

Seattle might be able to exploit these problems. That is, if Hasselbeck doesn’t make mistakes, a difficult task against a Bears defense that may have lost some mojo, but is still aggressive. Grossman has thrown 20 interceptions in 16 games, but Hasselbeck has thrown 17 in 13 games, thus outpacing the much-maligned Grossman, 1.3 interceptions per game to 1.25.

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Hasselbeck has struggled with injuries, and with the injuries and performance dropoff of Shaun Alexander, who against Dallas needed a late 20-yard sprint to gain a still-anemic 69 yards on 24 carries. Seattle was the only one of the four first-round NFC teams that did not have a 100-yard rusher. Repeatedly, Alexander tried to run sweeps to the left, and the spot where Steve Hutchinson used to be was filled by a Dallas defender. No team has missed a left guard so much as Seattle did this season.

In theory, Grossman should be able to have some success against Seattle.

The Seahawks this season have only 12 interceptions, including none against the Cowboys, and the secondary looked good against the Cowboys mainly because Romo was throwing short bounce passes of a quality not seen in Dallas since Steve Nash left the Mavericks. Seattle’s starting corners are guys who a few weeks ago were a strong safety and a loan officer. And Seattle’s rush defense allowed 2,029 yards on 4.6 yards per carry in the regular season, and Julius Jones could rush up the middle almost at will in the Dallas game. Julius’ older brother, Thomas, may well be able to do the same for Chicago on Sunday.

And yet, the fact Seattle comes in feeling much better itself could indeed make a big difference. This was a team that went to the Super Bowl last year, with a coach, Mike Holmgren, who at Green Bay regularly beat the Bears. Seattle doesn’t have much of a pass rush, but Grossman often holds the ball as long and lovingly as Romo did on Saturday (if you could read lips, Dallas coach Bill Parcells, after Romo fumbled near his own end zone on a sack, politely informed his quarterback to "throw the bleepin’ ball away." Except, of course, Parcells didn’t say "bleepin’.")

The Bears might be able to pressure Hasselbeck into mistakes, but Seattle can do the same to Grossman. And when Hasselbeck makes the slightest error, he won’t be booed.

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In New Orleans, Brees is going to face an extremely welcoming home crowd that will view a Super Bowl run as not only a great event for a historically woebegone franchise, but also a great event for a currently woebegone city. The fans in the proletariat (for the NFL) Superdome should be at jet-engine volumes.

But that might not make a lick of difference. The Saints have had wildly passionate fans all year, yet they stink at home. They are 6-2 on the road, and 4-4 at home, working on a three-game Superdome losing streak.

Perhaps the Saints feel too much pressure to deliver to a crowd that needs any ray of hope it can get.

Or maybe the problem is more basic — the Saints are a wildly inconsistent team. They started 5-0, then lost three out of their next four, then won three straight, and then finished the regular season losing two out of their last three. The inconsistency does not come from Brees, for the most part. Instead, New Orleans has had a tendency, during its bad streaks, to shoot itself in the foot with dumb penalties, fumbles, dropped passes or defensive lapses.

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