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:

Steve of Scarsdale, N.Y., and I thank you for the sentiments you expressed, says that with all the brainpower and high tech innovations of the NFL, why do they continue to give us "that stinker of a game each year?" and he's talking about the Pro Bowl. Football is a game of intensity. Take away the intensity and you've got, well, a Pro Bowl. The pay is low, considering ... the motivation is minimal, the preparation a joke. So what do you expect?

Chris of NYC wanders 39 years down memory lane, back to Jets-Colts in Super Bowl III. If Johnny U. had played the whole game the Colts' would have crushed 'em, he says. And as a follow, he asks if the '58 Colts-Giants title game really was greater than the Chargers-Dolphins double-O playoff. Oooh, a lot on the plate here. Unitas was too banged up to have gone the whole way, I believe. A game's greatness is in your own eyes. It's purely subjective, the idea of which game holds the most meaning for you. For me, one of my favorites was the 1980 Super Bowl, Steelers vs. Rams. For many reasons, I just loved that contest. The end of an era. The old war horses hearing the bugle for the last time.

Tim of Dover, Del., wonders when Eli Manning will receive the official "bust" label. "When do we fans and you media types call him out?" he asks. Now I don't want to be resentful, after you said such nice things about my work, but honestly, I'm not in the business of calling people out. I try to evaluate what I see on the field, but I know what's bugging you, the idea of high draft "savior" types getting the benefit of the doubt far too long. Manning is a scatter-passer. It's time for him to get his gunsight in place. Another up and down year and...well, a bust? I don't like that word...how about a "burst?"

Nathan of Tampa, and thanks, Nate, for your comments about my work, says that the sad thing about players who go the miscreant route is that they tarnish, by association, the really good guys in the league. I agree. You spend time around someone like, say, Curtis Martin, and you're left wondering why all of them can't be like that.

From Clay of L.A. What made Jerry Rice the best receiver ever? Great conditioning leading to great longevity, hence unmatched numbers.

Look at his contribution to the game. Twenty seasons of averaging 77 catches per. Coming up for the draft, the knock on him was that he was too slow. Then as a rookie he had a reputation of dropping the ball. So he worked on every part of his game and turned it into a polished gem, through effort. Many receivers are known as greatest ever for a particular pattern: Lance Alworth for the deep post, Don Hutson for the deep corner pattern, Raymond Berry for the timed square-out, Paul Warfield for the quick-I, or slant.

Rice ranks with Warfield for that in-route, but I also think he was the greatest ever at running the cross, which requires a lot of courage. He'd go into his pattern, whether it was a cross or a slant, with a kind of athletic arrogance, and you never knew whether or not it would go for six or break for 50. He was also incredibly smooth in every aspect of his game.

Ryan of Castro Valley, Calif., reminds me that when I said Sid Gillman never coached a scrambling QB, I was forgetting that he had Steve Young on the L.A. Express of the USFL in 1984. Yeah, but he wasn't the head coach, he was the coordinator. In other words, he didn't sign one and develop one himself. And thank you, Ryan, for your pledge to buy 500 copies of the book when it comes out. Is that right? Wait a minute, make that one copy. I have trouble with numbers.