MAILBAG Dr. Z will answer select user questions each week in his NFL mailbag. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

Thanks to Mark of Rochester, Minn., for giving me a neat catchword to use. He calls my Dave Rayner opus a "road-less-traveled" column. Yeah, I like that. "So what do you do, sir?" "Oh, I walk a road less traveled."

OK, eat your cauliflower and then you'll get the rest of your pot roast. Rankings. Sub-section Steelers. From Rob of Carlsbad: "The Chargers beat the Super Bowl champs and you still rank them eighth. You've got a lot of Charger fans thinking 'East Coast bias' again." Yeah, the Jaguars, ranked 11th, also beat the Super Bowl champs. And so did the Bengals, ranked sixth. The Steelers are like Primo Carnera at the end of his career, when he became a sideshow attraction. Come watch our boy knock the hell out of the big guy!

Terry J. of Pittsburgh, after setting me up with some really nice family stuff, hits me with this toughie: Who would you bet your life savings on, straight up, the Steelers or some of the teams you ranked ahead of them, such as the Jets, Chiefs or Bills? Steelers, but that's not the way the rankings work. You reward achievement, as reflected in the record so far, and I've been propping up the Steelers too long, based on what they were and what they might be. The 1-3 has the loudest voice. And now that you've heard from Dr. Grumpo, let me tell you that Linda was positively captivated by the Bruce Springsteen reference to Red-headed Woman ... "with their mint green eyes, they can see every cheap thing you've done ..." A comment, Linda, this calls for a comment. Her comment ..."especially if she's a Scorpio, but we won't get into that." Oh yes, she qualifies. On Nov. 18, a tiny red-headed flamer was ushered into this world. Sorry, can't tell you the year.

Here's a switch. Jim of Ann Arbor congratulates me on having the courage (except that wasn't the word he used) to rank them as low as I did (22nd). But then the true Steelers fan came out: "Do you think they'll ever get out of this slump, and has Big Ben lost his mojo?" The former is dependent on the latter. Big Ben's strength seems to have waned, like Samson's did after the haircut. Add to that the fact that he's got no one to throw to downfield, with Hines Ward still not at full speed. They need another bye week. Maybe two of them.