OK, Andrew, unlock the gate and let in all those people with the Down With Fox signs.

Phil of Colorado Springs, Colo. -- "What about the other stupid things Fox does?" He mentions blocking live action with the scoreboard update banner. It's funny. Last weekend the Redhead was watching me watch the game and she started laughing. I asked her why and she did an imitation of me, craning my neck to try to look around that thing to see the game, then trying to sweep it away with the back of my hand. Neither maneuver worked, incidentally.

Frank of Bel Air, Md. -- "I'm not an old fogy and I want those lineups, too. Now, if we could just get you to come around on Art Monk for the Hall of Fame, you'd be 100 percent." Take heart. I'm softening my position on Art.

Paul of Travis Air Force Base, Calif. -- "They do not want to clutter up the game with starting lineup graphics, but they sure as fire will run a ticker across the bottom of the screen with all that fantasy football stats crap." This should be obvious to you. Desire for promotion, a.k.a. profit, trumps desire to provide information every time. And I thank you, Paul, for what you wrote about your memories of Deuce McAllister's toughness and your impressions of my recent column about the tough runners.

Jim of Indiana -- "The only way I eventually figured out who was injured and not playing was going to the numbers off my laptop two series later." I never thought of that. Problem is that I'm so inept with that thing that it probably would run me through the timeout and cause me to miss plays. Hmmm, then again, I could get the Redhead to do it. You've given me an idea here, Jim.

Clinton of San Jose, Calif. -- "I agree. I sometimes get annoyed when they have the players introduce the lineups because they always seem to take too long to go into the next play, but not telling the viewers who is on the field is crazy." Yeah, it drives me nuts, too ... "And lining up at strongside linebacker is a man who needs no introduction, but years ago in the Orient he learned the hypnotic power to cloud men's minds so that they cannot see him ... " (Anyone remember Lamont Cranston, otherwise known as The Shadow?).

OK, we've had our fun. Now we're going to get serious. The Trap Formula of Handicapping. Here's a sociological observation. The good, honest e-mailers who obeyed the rules and punched in the little thing the Web site recommended didn't have much to say about this system of mine that took up so much space in my Rankings column. But the sneaks, the closet bettors and gambling degennies, figured out a way to penetrate the in-house Sports Illustrated e-mail, and that's where the bulk of the queries about The System came from.

Being a liberal democrat, I will answer all questions from healthy and unhealthy alike. So my rather lengthy explanation of The Formula, which I have done, oh maybe a dozen times in the last decade, will be dedicated to the following: Aaron Sokolow (last name given because no location listed ), Matt Ventresca (ditto), Stefan van der Abeelen of San Luis Obispo, Calif. (used the last name because I like the ring of it so much), Anthony of San Antonio, or maybe it's Antonio of Saint Anthony's, and finally little Mary Sue of Parsippany, N.J., who has eight cents she took from her mother's coat pocket and is undecided about laying it on the Jags plus-three.

The basis of my theory is that the oddsmakers in Vegas, who know more than all of us, set traps each week -- games that look so enticing, regarding the line, that the bulk of the gambling public is suckered into betting a certain way. I call those games Trap Games, and when I spot one that looks like one of them, I go against every yutz in the barbershop that's rushing to bet on what they feel is an easy choice, and pick against them, or with the smart guys, figuring that the mass of the public usually is wrong. My theory could also be called the Ugly Team theory. I love unpopular teams, ugly ducklings.

My reasoning is as follows: When you look at those handicapping boxes in the papers, why is the consensus so often below .500 for the season? I mean half a dozen old ladies with hatpins are going to hit the guessing average of .500. Why can't the so-called experts? Because I believe that they have the same mentality as the suckers in the barbershop, raised a few degrees. None of them, or myself, are/is as smart as the guys who set the price. Everyone out there will tell you that bookies make their money off the vig, the vigorish, the juice ... the 10 percent that gamblers have to pay on losing bets, but I feel that the real money is made on traps.

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