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:

Giants RT Kareem McKenzie. Bill of Huntington agrees with my rather negative evaluation. Alan of NYC said that ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli calls McKenzie the best right tackle in football. Oh, go with Pasquarelli, by all means. I couldn't begin to match his expertise in the nuances of line pay.

Tim of Ottawa reminds me that many of the Bengals' problems stem from injuries on the O-line. Yeah, I know, but I've picked this team to win so many times that I'm bitter, and when you're bitter, the nutso flag is flying. Who wants to write about sane, stable things such as legitimate excuses? Thanks for what you said about my work.

Finished with "disappointment column" letters, whew. Tyler of Calgary poses an interesting question. Why not move the point at which a field goal is kicked farther back, say five yards? This would make for a longer kick, and a tougher snap, but it would also give people a harder time trying to block it. I asked a few special teams coaches this very same question when I wrote my first Thinking Man's Guide, about the same time the Brothers Karamazov came out. One of them sat me down and produced some graph paper and showed me the study he had done, to determine the ideal distance. Yeah, he said, it would be longer for the kick-blocker to run, but if he had any shiftiness he could get practically a free run at the spot, going at top speed and avoiding the blockers more easily.

Rick of Beaverton, Ore., tries to answer the question I posed the other day concerning the point at which you say that a turnover set up points for the other team. He says the dividing line is the 50-yard stripe. This doesn't really help me, because people reporting the game just write what they want anyway. How about this one? Why isn't a safety on first or second down called a turnover? I'll tell you why. Because the Elias Bureau, which handles NFL stats, decided it wasn't. Forget logic. "This is what we say and you will obey!"

Dan of Marshfield, Mass., wants to know why the Broncos and Colts (last two games) seem to have the Patriots' number. Each game is its own little story; it has its own reason. The last Patriots-Colts game was a testament to the courage of Indy. They took the big punches at the beginning, they kept getting off the canvas, and at the end their pass rushers were fresher than the guys blocking them. At least that's my very quick interpretation. Last year Indy picked apart a crippled NE secondary. We could do Broncs-Pats, game by game, but by the time I was finished, your wife would be yelling, "Danny, aren't you coming to bed? It's 3 a.m."

John of Red Bank, N.J., wonders why wideouts are such yappers. I mean they don't represent the key element of the game. It starts, it picks up, it grows until it's out of control, and it then becomes an obligation. I think all this really took hold with the Redskins' Fun Bunch in the 1980s. If someone such as me would write how much this annoys me, every columnist in the country would dust off his old high school editorials about the stodgy old timers who are taking the fun out of football.

From Rich of Shelton, Conn. -- How about a run-'n-shoot offense for Manning, or Vick, giving his receivers, "or just Crumpler," the chance to get open? Well, you've defeated your argument right there. There is no tight end in the run 'n shoot. The defense would sacrifice a series to put a heavy rush on these QBs and put 'em on stilts. Better forget it.

To Michael of Indialantic, Fla. -- Well, my man Kooch stirred things up. When he said the Dolphins had no soul I cringed, but I really should have expected this from him. When his '72 team beat the Redskins, 14-7, in the Super Bowl, Bob Kuechenberg most emphatically DID NOT join in the hilarity about Garo Yepremian's botched pass that gave Washington a TD. "There are a lot off guys working their asses off in here," he said. "They don't need a stupid play like that." So I thought it was a little harsh, what he said about this team. But something got them playing out of their minds. Could it have been this? It seems that the fans sure gave him credit.