Quote of the Week I

"They're a good team. I wouldn't say they're the best.''

-- Dallas wide receiver Terrell Owens, after New England, not the best team in his eyes, put 48 points up on his club, the formerly 5-0 Cowboys, at Texas Stadium on Sunday. What a weird, weird dude.

Quote of the Week II

"Tom Brady is unflappable. Tony Romo can be flapped.''

-- King Kaufman, of Salon.com, on picking the Patriots to beat the Cowboys before Sunday's match of unbeatens.

Quote of the Week III

"Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz look like high school seniors playing in the Little League World Series.''

-- Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy, on the men in the middle of the Boston Red Sox lineup. They have come to bat 46 times in four postseason games this year and reached base 33 times, for an on-base percentage of .717.

Quote of the Week IV

"That's the longest game-winning kick in NFL history -- 106 yards.''

-- Dallas wide receiver Terrell Owens, after Nick Folk had a game-winning 53-yard field goal negated by a late Buffalo timeout last Monday, then kicked a second 53-yarder straight and true to beat the Bills, 25-24.

Quote of the Week V

"I learned from Bud Grant that every coach needs three things -- a loyal dog, a faithful wife and a heck of a quarterback. Finally, we've got a guy giving us good, consistent play.''

-- Tampa Bay coach Jon Gruden on Jeff Garcia, a 67-percent passer with zero interceptions through six weeks.

Stat of the Week

Sacks can be a misleading statistic. Good pass-rushers often decry, with some validity, the emphasis the media places on sacks and wish more emphasis were placed on how many bona fide pressures good rushers get. (Though I never hear a guy who's being celebrated for having a 16-sack year complain about the attention, or say it's misguided.) Having said that, there's a strange situation with sacks in the league right now.

In the span of 46 minutes of the Giants' 16-3 victory over Philadelphia on Sept. 30, New York defensive end Osi Umenyiora had six sacks.

No NFL player has more sacks through six weeks than Umenyiora had in those 46 Meadowlands minutes. The four highest-paid defensive ends in football, in fact, combine to barely eclipse it. The numbers:

Umenyiora has a league-high seven sacks entering tonight's game in Atlanta. His salary-cap number is just over one-tenth of the composite compensation of the four above players: $4.23 million.

MVP Watch

1. Tom Brady, QB, New England. Brady was a big 49ers fan growing up, and the game he played in Dallas reminded me of the game Steve Young played in shredding San Diego in the Super Bowl. Remember Young's six-TD day?

2. Peyton Manning, QB, Indianapolis. A well-deserved day off. He'll need to heal up with the physical Jags coming up.

3. Brett Favre, QB, Green Bay. "It's been a long time since I got beat up like that in a game,'' said Favre on Sunday. He emerged from the game against the 'Skins with a bum ankle and knee. But don't worry. The streak will not die.

4. Tony Romo, QB, Dallas. Mulligan.

5. Devin Hester, WR/KR, Chicago. Bears at Philly this week. Does Andy Reid dare kick to Hester?

Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me I

When Indianapolis punter Hunter Smith needs treatment for any of the maladies that befall him, he comes under the care of Indianapolis trainer Hunter Smith.

Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me II

Vinny Testaverde was nine-days-old when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Book Corner

Don't Bet Against Me: Beating the Odds Against Breast Cancer and in Life (Tyndale House), by Deanna Favre, with Angela Hunt.

Not only has Deanna Favre written a self-help handbook for women trying to cope with breast cancer, but she's also given a gloves-off look at dealing with a family member demonized by drug and alcohol addiction. There's a load of play-by-play from Favre, a breast-cancer survivor, about what happens to a woman during diagnosis, treatment and recovery phases. Did you know, for instance, how much the head and scalp hurt when one's hair is falling out? "Nobody ever told me my head would hurt, but it was killing me,'' she said.

The football news in the book, about her husband, is a compelling read. We all know about Brett Favre's addiction to Vicodin and his 1996 stay in a Kansas drug-treatment center. But Deanna Favre reveals the Packers quarterback went back into rehab for alcohol abuse in 1999, when she was on the verge of going through with her plans to divorce him. She writes that it came to a head after a weekend of hard drinking surrounding Brett's brother Jeff's wedding in 1999, and when he came home to Hattiesburg, Miss., on Monday morning. She writes:

"I had all his belongings packed and waiting in the courtyard of the house. I'd become so desperate that I'd called a divorce attorney ... He came into the house and begged me to let him stay, but I was firm. 'If you're not going to quit drinking, you can leave,' I told him. 'I'm not going down that road again; I'm done. I've already spoken to an attorney.' ... The attorney called while Brett was begging me to reconsider, and Brett heard me tell her I was ready to file; that I was done and there was no changing my mind ... [Later] I told Brett that if he didn't get out of my house, I would call 911. I called his agent [Bus Cook], and Bus came to pick him up. Brett told Bus to take him to the airport, because he was going to check himself into rehab again.

"Brett realized if he wanted a life with me and the children, he couldn't drink again. He gave it up completely, and it's been eight years since he's had a drink.''

Last week, I asked Deanna why she'd chosen to air such a sensitive time in their lives -- for the first time it's been made public. With the approval of her husband, by the way.

"No, it's never come up, and we never talked about it publicly,'' she said. "It's hard dragging that stuff up. It hurts. But I want people to know how hard it was with us, because people who are way down want to know it's possible to overcome addiction and stay together.''

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