Z mail (cont.)

This spot in the Mendocino Headlands would make the perfect setting for a proposal. Linda Zimmerman Dr. Z's Mailbag Dr. Z will answer select user questions each week in his NFL mailbag. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

• Whew, I'm getting worn out. What now? Oh. my. This one has reduced my wife to ... my God, she's got a tear in her eye. And she's mailing in a photo she took at ... can it be? Yes, it's the Mendocino Headlands, one of our favorite places in the world. I need a moment to get myself together. This is in answer to a very gentle, very sentimental e-mail from Matthew Fee from San Francisco. He and his girlfriend are moving from San Francisco to Denver. It is time to propose. They both love Mendocino.

"Do you have suggestions for where one might propose?" he asks. Of course, he's my E-mailer of the Week, and all that. I knew the answer right away, but just to double check I proposed the question to The Redhead, who, if you didn't already know, is a photographer of considerable skill, and she ran and got this view of the great Headlands and put it on the Z-Express to Dominic. And here it is.

You go down Main Street, which is the main drag in town, past the hotel, heading for the ocean, turn right when you can't go any more, turn left at Lake St., keep going to the end and you're at the Headlands, stretching to your right. We walk there every morning when we're out there. Very few other people are around ("Once they get a look at you," says the Redhead. Come on now, honey, this is deep.) It is one of the most wonderful and most romantic places on earth.

• "With all due respects," writes Rob of Toronto, "how can you not know that Michael Roos is quite possibly the best left tackle in football?" The rest is a litany of Michael's great deeds this year, once again reminding your faithful narrator that he really is somewhat of a fool, as if he didn't know that already. When I mentioned the anonymous nature of possible Pro Bowlers on the Titans, I was referring to players not easily identifiable by the great mass of the public...you know, folks who get their expertise from ESPN. I know all about Michael Roos. His dossier is in front of me now.

Sorry, but I didn't see him against Mario Williams and the Texans. A so-so day against the Vikings. Jared Allen beat him for a forced incomplete. Allen is having a strange year. Sometimes tackles get help with him, sometimes they take him on alone. It wasn't like that last year. He's into the wide rush now and doesn't come down off it the way he did last season. Don't ask me why.

Tennessee's running game, and Roos' drive blocking, against the Vikings, was nowhere ... 76 yards and a 2.3 average. They scored 21 points off turnovers.

Against the Ravens he had a good day pass blocking, against Terrell Suggs or Trevor Pryce or Marques Douglas. The alignments constantly change. Roos got stuffed for a loss on a running play, and again the Titans' ground attack was ineffective, 21 carries and a 2.1 average. Stewart, the tackle on the other side, is a better drive blocker anyway.

Is Roos one of my possible Pro Bowl tackles? Too early to tell. The Patriots' Matt Light was the best LT I saw early in the year. Flozell Adams of Dallas, whom I picked last year, is a strange player. Sloppy techniques, but effective in nullifying the guy he's playing against. I don't usually select linemen like that. I can't shake my old world preference for the booming drive blockers, but that's just me.

• More rankings now. From Brian of Toronto: "What have the Pats showed you to rank them higher than the Toronto Bills?" Nothing. I'm leaning too heavily on past performance and image. It's a mistake we tend to make. I could add something referring to a future adjustment, but there's one dude out there who would get mad at me. Toronto? Toronto? I really don't like to see American businesses outsourced this way, Brian.