• But look on the bright side, Mike Tice. Another few weeks (and losses) and nobody's going to care if you wind up scalping a few Super Bowl tickets. Then again, you really won't be getting any Super Bowl tickets any more.

• Now that Minnesota has been exposed as a first-degree fraud, who on earth is going to win the NFC North? We checked with the league and somebody has to.

Even though the season is only two weeks old, all four teams already have been roughed up pretty good at least once: Minnesota by both Tampa Bay and Cincinnati, Green Bay by Detroit, Detroit by Chicago, and ... hey, wait a minute, what about the Bears? Chicago lost 9-7 with honor at Washington and drilled Detroit at home on Sunday.

In this division, that makes Lovie Smith's hard-luck guys a prohibitive favorite to wear the crown.

• All kidding aside, as bad as the Vikings have been, they're not dead because no one in the North is ever going to be more than two games off the division lead.

• Did Peyton Manning go out Saturday night and tie one on or something? Or is the Jaguars defense that good? The first notion is laughable. The second is more legitimate every week.

• That does it. I'm convinced the Steelers may never lose another regular-season game. Ever. Or least until the Patriots come to Heinz Field next week.

• Welcome to butt-kicking Sunday in the NFL. The Bengals embarrass the supposedly Super Bowl-ready Vikings. The Bears lay waste to the Lions. The Eagles shoot holes in San Francisco's balloon and the Steelers take no prisoners in Texas, against Houston.

Then again, it seems like about two-thirds of the league has been humiliated at least once already. In this year's NFL, pride is the first casualty.

• Said it before and I'll say it again: the Bengals' fab four of Carson Palmer, Chad Johnson, T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Rudi Johnson are rapidly rising to the ranks of the elite as a unit. How smart does Mike Brown look now (now there are some words that have rarely been written) for re-signing both Rudi Johnson and Houshmandzadeh this offseason?

• Weirdest statistical line I've seen in a long time: At Tennessee, Baltimore running back Jamal Lewis had nine yards on 10 carries, with a long gain of 13 against the Bengals. That would qualify as a stoning by the Titans defense. Baltimore never could pass and now it can't even run the ball.

• With Pitt off to its first 0-3 start since 1984, and Nebraska not exactly lighting the world on fire, maybe we've been looking at this college-versus-NFL coaching debate backwards all along. Maybe longtime NFL coaches can't win in college any better than college coaches have done taking the step up to NFL head coaching in recent years.

Dave Wannstedt has folks at Pitt already pining for Walt Harris. At Nebraska, Bill Callahan is no Frank Solich. OK, I'll give you Pete Carroll at USC, but shoot, even Charlie Weis lost a game on Saturday.