Ship righted

Impressive win at Buffalo puts the Eagles back on the postseason track

James Thrash (80) had three catches for 47 yards as the Eagles won at Buffalo for the first time since 1984. John Biever/Sports Illustrated

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- I have news for you.

If you don't think the Eagles will make the playoffs, you're nuts.

Here they came, 0-2 and walking into a den of 73,000 wild and well-lubricated, crippled defensively and uncertain about every single thing they do offensively, and they waxed a pretty good Buffalo team, 23-13. (Although no one in this town will call the Bills a pretty good team right now.)

The Eagles earned the victory against Drew Bledsoe and Eric Moulds with what I will charitably call a patchwork secondary. Already without star defensive backs Bobby Taylor and Brian Dawkins (foot sprains) and three other nominal starters defensive starters, Philadelphia lost cornerback Troy Vincent to a strained hamstring on Buffalo's first offensive series. Vincent's injury left the Eagles with an all-green (no pun intended) secondary: 2002 draft choices Lito Sheppard and Sheldon Brown at corner and Michael Lewis at strong safety, and Arena League product Clinton Hart -- a college baseball player whose first post-high-school football experience came in 2001 with the indoor Tallahassee Thunder at free safety. Combined career starts among the Eagles' starting defensive backs entering the game: seven.

These guys wreaked havoc in the Bills' backfield all day on a variety of blitzes, with Brown forcing a drive-killing Bledsoe fumble as the Bills struggled to get back in the game during the third quarter. By the time the Eagles had built a 16-0 lead through three quarters, a battered defense had held a good offense to five first downs and 134 yards. The Bills made it interesting during clock-bleeding time, but with the game was on the line, Philly made enough plays to win.

The Eagles did it with a much-maglined (and deservedly so) receiving corps. On maybe 30 other NFL personnel boards, James Thrash and Todd Pinkston are second and third receivers, or even third and fourth receivers. In Philadelphia, they're 1-2. Sunday, they caught nine Donovan McNabb passes for 107 yards and no scores, a 11.9-yards-per-catch average. An OK day. While preparing to write about McNabb for this week's Sports Illustrated, I talked to Warren Sapp about what he saw wrong with McNabb and the Philly offense. "McNabb ain't got no weapons, Peter," Sapp said. "What are James Thrash and Todd Pinkston? I mean, really. What are they?" That was the refrain I heard last week from people who scout and watch the game.

I do agree they're not classic go-to NFL receivers. I haven't measured them, but Pinkston has what look like the skinniest legs in NFL history. Thrash is thin, too, but he's durable and gutty. There's something about Thrash I like. I saw it late in the game Sunday when he came up big. With the Eagles up 16-13 and 2:32 remaining in the fourth quarter, Thrash made the play of the game.

Third-and-seven, ball on the Eagles 23. Thrash is split right. He's supposed to be the second option on this play. He's supposed to run a short incut, maybe eight yards, just beyond the sticks. When he got to the line of scrimmage, McNabb looked at Thrash and Thrash looked at McNabb. The Buffalo corner (I didn't write down who it was) was shading Thrash to the inside. Obviously, with the potential for a blitz, going inside would be dumb. McNabb gave Thrash a wag of his head, saying, in effect, go outside. Thrash acknowledged it. If the Eagles fail to convert this play, Buffalo gets the ball around its 35 with maybe 2:25 left. Plenty of time for Bledsoe to complete three passes to get the Bills in field-goal range, or maybe even in the end zone.

The ball was snapped.

"Right away Donovan's first option was out, because the fullback [Jon Ritchie] slipped on the play," offensive coordinator Brad Childress told me.

So now the QB had to look for Thrash, who ran out eight yards and cut right and a little up the sideline, just trying to find an open patch of fake turf. McNabb threw the ball. It was high. It hung up and Thrash leaped to catch it. No way, I thought; McNabb's overthrown him. But Thrash got up higher than I thought he would. He kept climbing, and he got both hands on the lower half of the ball, and he gathered it in, stumbling for a 14-yard gain up the right side. Ballgame. Two plays later, Brian Westbrook took it 62 yards to the house, and it was 23-13.

I said to Thrash after the game that his catch reminded me -- not in importance certainly, but in its form -- of the famous Dwight Clark end-of-the-fingertips catch from Joe Montana in the huge playoff win over Dallas. I was hoping Thrash would talk about the mechanics of making a catch on a ball that's drilled over his head. Or, more specifically, how he could get his hands on the bottom of what looked like an uncatchable ball and reel it in. But he just said: "Thank you. That's very nice of you to say."

He wouldn't bite on the Sapp comment, either. "I don't respond to things like that," he said. "I play for God." There was a copy of Man's Devotional Bible on Thrash's locker bench.

I told Pinkston what Sapp said. "Sapp's gonna talk," Pinkston said. "We know what we got here in this locker room. If coach [Andy Reid] didn't have any confidence in us, he'd have gotten somebody else in here. If he didn't think we had enough weapons to win on offense, he'd get some weapons in here."

But if the Eagles don't win this year, it'll be interesting to see if Reid adds to his running back or receiver cache. "I think Donovan's biggest problem is he needs more good quality people around him," Patriots corner Ty Law said last week. "Give him Terrell Owens to throw to and then see how accurate he is. Give him some more weapons and see what he does."

Maybe. Getting back to this year, though, I repeat what I said earlier: The Eagles will be one of the six NFC teams playing during the first weekend in January.

Offensive Player of the Week

Minnesota QB Gus Frerotte (with apologies due to Peyton Manning, who tossed six touchdown passes against the Saints). By the time the Vikings built a 35-7 lead against the 49ers in the fourth quarter, Frerotte had made every fantasy-league owner in America sick for not making the backup a last-round draft choice in August. At that point, Frerotte, who I believe has been on every NFL team except the Providence Steamroller, was 16 of 20 for 267 yards, with four touchdown throws and no picks. Quite a day for a guy ejected from Cincinnati.

Defensive Player of the Week

Kansas City cornerback Dexter McCleon, for his pair of interceptions in the Chiefs' 17-10 win over Baltimore. The second one was gorgeous, and a game-clincher, as the Ravens drove for the tying touchdown. McCleon was on Todd Heap -- the Ravens are so hungry for receivers that they put their tight end split wide left in crunch time -- and as they left the line of scrimmage, McCleon got a step on Heap. As Kyle Boller lofted the pass, it looked like McCleon was the intended receiver. He caught it neatly and stepped out of bounds. Game over.

Special Teams Player of the Week

Philadelphia K David Akers, for a couple of things. One: With the Eagles just having silenced the Buffalo crowd and taken a 7-0 lead on the game's first drive, Bills kick returner Antonio Brown got sprung on the ensuing kickoff. At the Bills' 46, Akers dove head-first at Brown and got him right at the ankles, sending him stumbling down at the Eagles 49. Clearly, Akers saved seven points. Two: His 26-yard field goal late in the first quarter gave the Eagles a 10-0 lead, his 34-yarder with nine seconds left in the half made it 13-0 (that was his 91st field goal as an Eagle, tying him for the franchise record with Paul McFadden), and his 22-yarder with 26 seconds left in the third quarter provided Philly with some insurance.

Coach of the Week

Minnesota defensive coordinator George O'Leary, whose unit has now held foes to 14.5 points a game over the Vikings' first four unbeaten weeks. His defense made Jeff Garcia look pitiful in the 35-7 blowout of the Niners, and he's found a way to get production out of a no-name front seven even when Chris Hovan, the latter-day John Randle, is double-teamed, which happens on most plays. Nice little rehab for O'Leary, who pretty soon is going to convince some G.M. or A.D. that he's not such a heinous person and and deserves another shot at being a head coach. Somewhere. Maybe it's this year, but probably not. The Vikings should be thrilled to have him.

"We have talent equal to or better than anything out there.''

--New York Jets owner Woody Johnson on his 0-3 team five days before Sunday's game with Dallas.

My question: Is this man the heir to the Johnson & Johnson empire, or is he a drunken fan calling all-sports WFAN in New York?

Interesting week, with quickie observations.

Wednesday: New York City subways, going to and from the HBO Inside the NFL show. How many George Clooney-ogling-Catherine Zeta-Jones'-cleavage posters can there be in the No. 7 train?

Thursday: Hanging with the Eagles in clamped-down Philly. Great bobblehead collection in PR aide Bob Lange's office, complete with my personal favorite -- Touchdown Jesus, fully uniformed and padded, wearing No. 1 (of course) with eye black. "Only one I ever paid for," Lange said proudly.

Friday: Packed into a Continental sardine can on the last Newark-to-Burlington (Vermont) flight of the night, taking high school senior daughter Mary Beth to a college visit at Middlebury College. Memo to Continentalfolk: Can you make the puddle-jumpers any smaller? Please? I live to be compressed on tiny airplanes where you can't stand up.

Saturday: Middlebury College. Wow. On the eighth day, God created this place. I've never seen a college -- and I have visited them all, I think, over the last five years as two kids prepped for college -- so well-prepared to address every need a kid could have at school. On a partly sunny, wind-whipped morning and afternoon, with the leaves just starting to change, I can't remember a prettier day ever on a college campus.

Sunday: Orchard Park, N.Y. Last day of Indian Summer. Blustery, nice. And as I walk through The Drinking Capital of the World -- the Bills' pregame parking lot -- I realize how much this franchise means to these people. And for some reason, I think of Ralph Wilson, the owner who could have taken this franchise any number of place any number of times, and I think: The 73,000 people who flood this place on this day have a pretty nice godfather. Of course, I thought that before the Bills' loss. After the defeat, I think the 73,000 who stumbled out were thinking: "Take this horsecrap team, Mr. Wilson, and move it to Flint."

Donovan McNabb's interviews are set up by the efficient Rich Burg of the Eagles' PR staff. Burg and McNabb have become pretty close over the past four years, and so when McNabb was set to marry a fellow Syracuse Orangeperson, Roxi Nurse, this offseason, Burg thought: What do I get a couple who could buy anything they wanted on the planet? Nurse was a basketball player at Syracuse. Finally, he thought of something. He asked the makers of a recent McNabb bobblehead doll to make one for the McNabb nuptials of the quarterback and his bride, in their Syracuse uniforms, together, holding hands, as a compound bobblehead. Of course, the McNabbs were wild about it.

Attorney Alan Milstein, who last week brought Maurice Clarett's lawsuit against the NFL. Milstein and Clarett are seeking to force the league to overturn its rule that players must be three years removed from their high school graduation to enter the NFL draft.

MMQB: This strikes me as a suit where an injunction could be the key element. The NFL will obviously try to delay and delay this case. Can you get an injunction?

Milstein: This is not a very complicated case, really. We filed the suit and there shouldn't be much discovery, so I think this could be resolved in a short time. If we're up against the April [draft] deadline, I could see [trying for an injunction]. But there is no doubt in my mind we'll get this resolved before the draft. I'd like to get it resolved before then, so Maurice could work out at all the combines.

MMQB: You know the league will argue that Clarett, and the young players coming out of high school, are not physically ready for NFL combat. Your response?

Milstein: Did you know that when Maurice plays his first NFL game in September 2004, he'll be two weeks shy of his 21st birthday? There will be guys in NFL camps next year who are no older than Maurice Clarett.

MMQB: Are you ready for your 15 minutes of fame?

Milstein: I've had a lot of high-profile cases in society -- cases a lot bigger than Maurice's. We have to remember: This is just football.

I'm disappointed in you people. Where's the anger? Where's the let's-slap-Peter-around-a-little anger of season past? Come on! Bring it on!

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IS TRYING TO BURY YOU, KING. From Jim Nolan of Drexel Hill, Pa.: "Why were you in Arizona for Week 2 and in Cincinnati for Week 3? Don't you want to go to good games, or is there a power struggle between you and SI? Are they trying to get you to quit?''

That's what I'm talking about! Start some controversy! For the record, I was in Arizona to write about the up-and-coming Seahawks, which looks like a pretty good assignment now that they are 3-0 , and I was in Cincinnati to write about Joey Porter, the linebacker who returned to the Steelers just 21 days after suffering a gunshot wound. But hey, I like the power-struggle angle. Let's go with it.

SIT, SAPP, SIT. From Lee Hughes of Grove City, Pa.: "There are at least 100 other defenders in the NFL who are capable of lining up at tight end, running into the end zone, and catching a simple flip from the QB. The fact that Jon Gruden lets Warren Sapp do it, or needs to do it to keep him happy, is more of a sign that Sapp is a 'me, me, me' player, more than a sign of any special athletic ability he possesses. Personally I think Gruden should let the fat tub of goo rest on the sideline when the Bucs have the ball -- especially if we are going to be subjected to any more of those hideous celebrations.''

Lee, what's wrong with Gruden trying to keep a high-profile player happy and interested? Especially when that player is getting the job done at the same time?

I BET PHIL HAS A REALLY GREAT HOUSE. From Phil Greathouse of Joplin, Mo.: "I have two daughters, ages 3 and 1. The story about your oldest daughter calling from Italy made me laugh, until I could be in your position in 15 years. Pass the valium. My question: Would Bill Parcells have any interest in Kurt Warner if the Rams give up on the quarterback, or will Mike Shanahan beat him to the punch if Jake Plummer flames out?''

My feeling is that Quincy Carter is getting a little bit of a grip on this job. Dallas is among the league leaders -- and I know it's early -- in average passing yards per game, and if Carter can play the way he has in Dallas' first three games the Cowboys won't be in the market for a quarterback. But let's say Warner pops free after this year, and Carter is struggling. If so, you're absolutely right. Parcells and Warner would be a good match.

THE PACKERS MIGHT BE IN A LITTLE TROUBLE, FOLKS. From Kevin of Dayton, Ohio: "I'm a lifelong Packer backer. What's your take on Brett Favre and offensive coordinator Tom Rossley? I thought Rossley needed to go last year. And Brett needs to take a lesson from John Elway -- learn from your mistakes and play within your limits. I hated Elway, but I sure respected how he played to his strengths as he got older.''

Very, very good question, Kevin. I think the Packers have become too focused on Ahman Green in the red zone, and Rossley has been more conservative than Mike Holmgren ever was. I think Rossley has to put the ball in the hands of his gunslinger more and trust that he'll make enough plays to win the game.

WELL, THEY ARE GETTING A LITTLE MORE ORNERY AFTER ALL. From Mark of Toronto: "What the hell's in your water? You have the Raiders ranked at No. 4 in your Fine Fifteen, above my Vikings and the ugly-uniformed, well-playing Seahawks? Did you see Oakland get beat up by Tennessee in Week 1, or scrape by against the Bengals, who really should have won the game in Week 2? You have waaayyy too much respect for this over-the-hill team.''

Not after last Monday night, Mark.

1. I think these are my quick-hit thoughts of the NFL weekend:

a. You didn't do much with your big chance, Joe Burns.

b. The Bills' second and third receivers, Josh Reed and Bobby Shaw, killed them Sunday

c. One last Billsism: It's been a long time since I've seen a good team play that badly.

d. It's a little too early to be cocky about my Jake Plummer-for-MVP pick, but I'm pretty happy with it this morning. You'll have to check my math here, but I believe he never completed 16 passes in a row in Arizona.

e. I don't consider the Barret Robbins comeback story a warm and fuzzy one yet, because it'll take more than one sober start to convince me he's well again, but I am happy for the guy.

f. Steve McNair, you can quarterback my team anytime.

g. Jeff Fisher, you can open a school for quarterbacks anytime. How remarkable is that thought, especially considering that no one previously considered Fisher a good developer of QBs? But look how patient he was with McNair during the Houston and Memphis days.

h. Be proud, Archie Manning.

i. LaDainian Tomlinson is the man. Wow.

j. See what you're missing in Stephen Davis, Coach Spurrier?

k. You know, the Lions are not horrible anymore. They play hard, they play close and in 2005, God and Matt Millen and salary cap willing, they'll be a wild-card team.

2. I think this is why I have such admiration for Tiki Barber the person. The other day, I asked him what the last book he read was. "Founding Brothers," he said. "It's a collection of tales of some of the most notable events during the post-revolutionary years, including the Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton duel, and the tumultuous relationship between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and how their rift started today's political parties. It is superbly written, and a very insightful loit ok at well-known, but sometimes misunderstood, events that shaped our country.'' Now you know why this man could tutor Mary Beth for her upcoming SAT II: American History and Social Studies test this fall.

3. I think the Saints ought to go to the bathroom this morning, collectively, stick their fingers down their throat, and find the nearest commode. That was one disgraceful performance last night, and I don't want to hear one scintilla of an excuse like "we were missing five starters." Teams always miss starters in this league. Backups play. It's a novel concept called "good depth.''

4. I think this is a novel way to look at Maurice Clarett's draft-eligibility fracas : In April 1994, Jamir Miller was 20 years, five months and seven days old when the Arizona Cardinals made him their first-round pick. On draft day in April 2004, Clarett will be 20 years, 5 months and 27 days old.

5. I think these are my picks for the 2003 baseball awards:

AL MVP: David Ortiz, 1B/DH, Boston. I am going strictly by what I saw, and I watched maybe 70 Red Sox games (or parts of them) this year. If you believe the word "valuable" should be the key to this award, then Ortiz had the most clutch hits of any player on any American League contender. Runners-up: Texas SS Alex Rodriguez, for his sheer continued brilliance; Minnesota OF Shannon Stewart, because he was terrific down the stretch as he pulled the Twins to a division title.

NL MVP: Barry Bonds, LF, San Francisco. He may have missed 30-plus games this season because of grief and injuries, but he changes every game he plays in. Runners-up: St. Louis OF Albert Pujols, who will win three of these awards before he's through; Los Angeles P Eric Gagne, because the Dodgers are one of the worst-hitting teams ever to contend for a playoff berth up until the last weekend of the season, and because, other than against Hank Blalock, L.A.'s closer has been lights out for 14 months. Without exception.

AL Cy Young. Toronto right-hander Roy Halladay, for winning 16 in a row and going 21-7 on a team that foundered near .500. Runners-up: Seattle left-hander Jamie Moyer (20-7, 3.27), who I admire more than any player in baseball because he thinks (a lost art to many athletes), and, although he doesn't even have a rookie league fastball, he keeps making sluggers look silly with incredibly accurate junk; Boston right-hander Pedro Martinez. A homer call, maybe, because of a 14-4 record. But shouldn't the ERA leader (and second-leading strikeout man, by a single whiff to Esteban Loaiza) be in the top three in Cy Young balloting? His bullpen blew four wins for him (or was it 14?) and at 2.22, he won his fifth ERA title by a half-run.

NL Cy Young: Gagne. He was 55 for 55 in save opportunities. Runners -up: Chicago's Mark Prior, who, with 18 wins and a 2.43 ERA (despite often pitching at hitter-friendly Wrigley field), showed he'll win a few of these before he's done; San Francisco's Jason Schmidt for a 17-5 record and a 2.34 ERA. Shoot, it wouldn't be an injustice if he won it.

AL Rookie of the Year: Kansas City SS Angel Berroa. Runners-up: Cleveland outfielder Jody Gerut, who looks like he has a Nomar-type swing, only left-handed; and Texas 1B/3B/OF Mark Teixeira. All those at-bats will pay off next year, Buck Showalter. [Note: Count me among those who thinks it's dumb to vote for Hideki Matsui, as much as I admire his game, because he came over from another major league, not a minor league, in Japan.]

NL Rookie of the Year: Milwaukee OF Scott Podsednik. Shame on you if you've never heard of a guy who hit .314 with nine homers and stole 43 bases . Runners-up: Arizona P Brandon Webb, Florida P Dontrelle Willis.

6. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:

a. Coffeenerdness: My compliments to the latte manufacturer at the juice bar in the basement of McCullough Hall at Middlebury College. Rich, good espresso quality, excellent foamy cap.

b. Montclair (N.J.) High School Field Hockey Note of the Week: Four games, four wins. Collective score: Mounties 18, Foes 0. The latest win came on the road Thursday at Northern Valley/Demarest High, where the Mounties prevailed 5-0. Now the coaches and parents of these hard-trying young women just want them to play at home sometime before 2006. The team was scheduled to have its home field rebuilt with FieldTurf, and construction was originally scheduled to be finished by Aug. 15. But that date has been pushed back twice now, and us parents are so ticked off we can't see straight. Friday at practice, on a field that would better equipped to be a cow pasture, the girls arrived to find that one of their goals had been vandalized. "They have never complained once,'' says coach Mary Pat Mercuro. "They inspire me."

c. Excellent first West Wing episode of the season, but could someone please tone down the cowboy in new temporary president John Goodman? Man, no one's that cold.

d. And so Boston clinched the wild card. I want to feel good about their chances in the postseason, as do all of the hoping-against-hopefuls out here in Red Sox Nation. But there still isn't anyone in that Boston bullpen whom I trust to get a living soul out in the eighth or ninth innings. I'm almost on the verge of saying Grady Little ought to hand the ball to Bronson Arroyo, for crying out loud, in the late innings against Oakland. Well, it's good to have the Sox still in it, anyway. And a pox on those who criticized them for celebrating too much after clinching the 'card. How stupid. You're telling me a bunch of fun-loving guys (which most of those players are) can't jump up and down and celebrate the team's first playoff appearance in four years? It's a bad thing that three of them ran down Yawkey Way and into a bar next to Fenway and started buying beer for the house? This is great! This is fan-friendly! Sheesh.

e. My compliments to the Ralph Wilson Stadium chef, for the first steamed zucchini and potatoes au gratin halftime spread in NFL history. That's good eating.

f. It might be time for ESPN to pull that John Mackovic/Tony Robbins ad.

7. I think I had to laugh at something Curtis Martin said after the Jets' 17-9 loss to Dallas, when he lost a big fumble that stunted the New York momentum and led to the winning Dallas touchdown. "That's something I really enjoy. Not fumbling." Sometimes players must say things in front of cameras and reporters and then want to blurt out, "Hey, I just said that in a really dumb way. Could you roll the tape back and let me start again?"

8. I think I knew I was living right last night when I noticed I'd beaten Brent Jones in the my fantasy football Guru League with a lineup that was strictly built on hunger: Jeff Blake, Tyrone Wheatley, Jamal Lewis, Doug Jolley, Peter Warrick, Justin McCareins, Charles Rogers, Donald Driver, Adam Vinatieri and the Titans' defense. When I drafted, I forgot to look at bye weeks, leaving me with a ninth-inning, spring training lineup. I'm 3-1. Imagine how well off I'd be if I actually knew what I was doing.

9. I think Texans coach Dom Capers absolutely made the  right call, and I would say that even if Houston had lost to Jacksonville. Here's why: If you're at the one-foot line, and you have any confidence in your offensive line at all, particularly against a so-so defensive front, what are your chances of sneaking the ball over the line? Maybe 70 percent, 75 percent? OK, say you kick the field goal and go to overtime. Now it's 50-50 that you win the toss. You may never see the ball in overtime, under the dumb NFL rules that do not call for a minimum of one possession per team in the extra period. And if you do get the ball, you're going to have to drive it some distance to be in field-goal position. In short, Capers did what any thinking person would do.

10. I think Bill Parcells has exactly what he wants in Troy Hambrick, assuming the running back doesn't fumble. Big guy, hungry player, knows he's unloved and thus has to prove himself every week. Now we'll see if he's durable.

1. Tampa Bay (2-1). On Friday of his bye week, Jon Gruden did a bunch of media interviews for his new book, written with NFL.com's Vic Carucci. A bunch? A million is more like it. (By the way, whenever you hear that a coach or athlete wrote a book with someone, what it generally means is that the coach/athlete spent about 10 or 12 or 17 hours talking into a tape recorder, answering questions out the wazoo from the writer, and then sat back and did mostly nothing.) Well, I saw Vic in the Buffalo press box Sunday, and he told me Gruden was a bit more than a disinterested subject. He was a downright micromanager. Carucci made 10 trips to Tampa and interviewed Gruden at the coach's family retreat in Redington Beach, Fla. "We did the revisions by phone after I finished the transcript,'' said Carucci. "Jon changed quite a bit, something on almost every page. He changed wordings of chapter titles. On about the 40th page of revisions, he heard me sigh. You know, not like I was angry, but like, wow, this guy is making a lot of changes. And he said to me: 'Well, you're the one who wanted to work with a bleeping grinder.'

The interviews Gruden did Friday in New York: several ABC radio affiliates from 6-7 a.m., the Today show at 7, FOX-TV at 8, ESPN radio at 8:30, ESPN radio/New York in mid-morning, 40 minutes on WNYC (public radio ), WFAN, Jim Rome by phone, NY1 cable, Mitch Albom's radio show, two ESPN TV interviews, Best Damn Sports Show Period, and one more ESPN radio spot. On Saturday, he did a book-signing in Tampa. Having a nice, relaxing bye week, coach?

2. Kansas City (4-0). Dante Hall for President.

3. Carolina (3-0). At some point, you people are going to have to start admitting this team is really, really good.

4. Indianapolis (4-0). You can't tell me that last night wasn't one of the five greatest nights of Peyton Manning's incredible life.

5. Minnesota (4-0). I can just see it now: April 4, 2006, 8 p.m., on E!: The George O'Leary True Hollywood Story. Talk about your stories of stock going up.

MAILBAG MAILBAG Peter King will answer your questions each week in Monday Morning Quarterback: Tuesday Edition. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

6. Tennessee (3-1). Steve McNair went 15 of 16, with three touchdowns and no picks in the Titans' 30-13 win at Pittsburgh.. Sorry about the Player of the Week snub, Steve. I'll make it up to you.

7. Denver (4-0). This Sunday's Bronocs-Chiefs matchup will be the the most anticipated game between the rivals in years.

8. Miami (2-1). During their bye weekend, Dave Wannstedt massaged Ricky Williams for 27 hours.

9. Seattle (3-0). During their bye weekend, the Seahawks increased their lead in the NFC West to 2.5 games over the 49ers. What a weird league.

10. Philadelphia (1-2). Redskins visit the Linc Sunday. Think there wil be a few ducats scalped?

11. St. Louis (2-2). I'm still waiting for them to play a complete game, but what I like is holding a team (a bad one, but still a team, the Cards) to 0 for 8 on third downs and 161 totals yards.

12. N.Y. Giants (2-1). During his bye weekend, my guess is Jim Fassel did not read the papers.

13. Washington (3-1). Three times Sunday New England had the ball in 'Skins territory and came away with zilch. This will be a game Steve Spurrier will look at in Decembe and say: Boy, glad we got that one. Could have gone the other way, dadgumit.

14. Pittsburgh (2-2). I'm not really sure why the Steelers are here, other than I just can't believe their offense is as inconsistent as it's been the last couple of Sundays.

15. Buffalo (2-2). See No. 14.

How can anyone on the planet like the Bears in this game? I agree that it's almost as hard to like the Packers, coming off their Debacle in the Desert. The Packers have won nine straight road games in this series, and tonight they'll make it 10. It'll be Brett Favre's first win in a spaceship. Packers, 27-19.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Monday Morning Quarterback appears in this space every week.