THE AWARDS SECTION

Offensive Player of the Week

New York Giants RB Tiki Barber. First 10 carries in the first game of the Post-Mara Era: 57, 3, minus-1, 7, 5, 1, 1, 2, 2 and 59. In the game for first place in the NFC East, Barber carried 24 times for 206 yards and let Tom Coughlin know it's not a very smart strategy to hold Barber to 15 carries a game. He's got to be the dominant back.

Defensive Player of the Week

Cincinnati cornerback Deltha O'Neal, who should keep the balls from his two picks of Brett Favre for a long time. Those two interceptions helped the Bengals beat the Pack 21-14, in Favre's last trip to the Queen City.

Special Teams Player of the Week

St. Louis linebacker Drew Wahlroos, who had all of 10 tackles in 12 NFL games before Sunday. The second-year kid from Colorado burst through the Jacksonville line on Chris Hanson's first punt of the day and blocked it cleanly. Teammate Brandon Chillar picked the ball up and rambled 29 yards for the first points of the day.

Coach of the Week

Tom Coughlin. There aren't many weeks in a coaching career when a team has the emotions swirling around it like the Giants had last week. However he did it, Coughlin had his team as ready to play against Washington as any coach has had his team ready this year.

Stat of the Week

The Houston Texans had not held a lead in the 2005 season until 12:09 p.m. Central Standard Time on Sunday, when David Carr threw a 34-yard touchdown pass to rookie wide receiver Jerome Mathis, giving Houston a 7-0 advantage over Cleveland.

The Texans' first lead came 4:04 into Week 8, on Day 52 of the NFL season.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I think this is the hardest job in sports.''

--Yankees GM Brian Cashman, after signing a new three-year contract with the team.

Without wanting to sound too disrespectful, Brian, ARE YOU HIGH?!!!!!!

First, I respect the job you do, and I respect you a lot more for going to Wellington Mara's funeral the other day. Very, very nice, and you always represent the Yankees with class, which I'm sure is not easy.

But let's get real here. You don't play quarterback, you don't have to hit a Roger Clemens' splitter. You get to spend seven times as much in payroll as another team in your division, Tampa Bay. Every player worth his salt wants to play for the Yankees. You have the greatest manager, Joe Torre, the greatest leader, Derek Jeter, and the greatest closer, Mariano Rivera. You know how many general managers would trade jobs with you in a New York minute?

Now I know your boss can be a tyrant. You probably get abused. Cry me a river. You're making $1.7 million a year. You manage the biggest and best franchise in a sport that is America's pastime.

Do yourself a favor, Brian. Deny you ever said this.

FACTOID THAT MAY ONLY INTEREST ME

There was a basset hound trotting down New York Route 8 in the southbound lane just outside of Deposit on Friday morning. Cars didn't disturb the oblong fellow. He would just jog over to the side when a southbound vehicle approached, continuing to pad along. He would ignore the slowing northbound traffic.

Cute. Just like the sign at the restaurant in Norwich, N.Y., that advertised: "Pumpkin Pie in a Glass.''

AGGRAVATING/ENJOYABLE TRAVEL NOTE OF THE WEEK

This is the all-time quirkiest travel note of my life.

On Saturday, for the second straight year, I sat drinking a Heineken in the Syracuse Airport Terminal B bar, with my Apple PowerBook G4 open, working, while the University of Cincinnati cheerleaders, administrators and football team walked by, on the way to their charter home from a football game at Syracuse.

Two years, two fall weekend visits to daughter Mary Beth at Colgate, two late-day Saturday escapes to an NFL game the following day. Last year it was the first half of Dartmouth-Colgate, then a 50-minute jog to the Syracuse airport, northwest of the bucolic Colgate campus in Hamilton, N.Y. Destination: Nashville. This year, the first half of Colgate-Lehigh (a frenetic, fun 27-27 halftime tie in the Chenango Valley), then off to Houston via Chicago.

This year, I got the quizzical, what-are-you-doing-here look from Dave Sims, the esteemed Big East/Westwood One broadcaster. "Family Weekend, Colgate,'' I said. Dave loved it. His son is a high school senior and Dave is excited about the future, as he should be. He was on the way to St. Louis for the radiocast of Jags-Rams.

By the way, three quick comments on Colgate:

1. There is no more beautiful fall destination campus in the United States. I was mesmerized by its beauty and the King family is fortunate to have Mary Beth enjoying Astronomy, Photography and Intro to Religion in the great environment of central New York. We met her Astronomy prof on Friday afternoon, and I gee-whizzed my way with the guy on how wonderful it must be to study the sky on clear nights away from megalopolis -- Mary Beth's class occasionally meets at the observatory at 10 p.m., instead of during daylight hours, to take advantage of Hamilton's pristine night skies.

2. Snow. The first October snow I've ever experienced, which is saying something coming from a southern New Englander. Three inches of it on the farms alongside the rural roads outside of Norwich, N.Y., near Hamilton.

3. Now I'm going ridiculously far afield, but I don't remember the last time I had so much non-sporting fun as at the a cappella concert of the three vocal groups at the Colgate chapel on Friday night. An SRO crowd saw these incredible kids belt out classics and classic rock. I had to buy the Swinging Gates (16 women, with voices to die for) CD afterward. I cannot get their tremendous version of Man in the Mirror out of my head now, more than two days later.