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Posted: Thursday October 28, 1999 04:15 PM
Click here to send your NFL questions to SI's Peter King. Before I start with the questions, let me give a very big thank you to Bill Gates . Yes, that Bill Gates. Last Saturday at a Cystic Fibrosis Foundation dinner, Gates handed CF officials a check for $20 million. The donation was not lost on the father of America's most famous CF patient, eight-year-old Gunnar Esiason . "This," Boomer Esiason said when I called him, "is one of the greatest days of my life. This is a home run for CF research. No, not a home run, but a Super Bowl victory." Esiason has helped raised $6.5 million for CF research since Gunnar was born. Knowing Esiason pretty well, I can attest to the fact that he's beaten quite a few bushes raising that money. That is why a donation of $20 million is such an incredible gift in the eyes of Esiason, who believes that a finite amount of money -- maybe $400 or $500 million -- will allow scientists to do enough gene-therapy research to find an actual cure for this disease. "I've been praying for years that someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Ted Turner would pick up the CF cause, and this is that kind of tremendous gift," Esiason said. "Now I've started to think that the potential for Gunnar to become almost normal is phenomenally close." Now you know why you're glad you bought all that Microsoft stock. On to the questions:
Do you think that the Rams would be 6-0 if they played in a real conference such as the AFC East? And do you think that their cupcake schedule will actually be a hindrance to them when they get to the playoffs? My feeling is the tougher the schedule, the tougher a team will be when playoffs come around. Do you agree? Mark, don't look a gift division in the mouth. You are absolutely right: The Rams will enter the playoffs untested, and that probably will hurt them in some very difficult mid-January game. I know when I used to cover the Giants in the '80s for Newsday that Bill Parcells and Joe Gibbs always talked about how the difficulty of the NFC East schedule made those teams much better come playoff time; they were calloused to tough games. So if you're a Rams fan, you definitely should have concern that playing one of the easiest schedule I've ever seen will hurt the team come playoff time. However, the flip side is that the Rams are on a fast track to getting home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs and a bye in the first-round game. So, looking at a logical path that the Rams would have to the Super Bowl, I see them sitting home on Jan. 9, resting for a game on the weekend of Jan. 15 against the wild-card survivor like Dallas; then facing maybe Tampa Bay or Washington at home in the NFC Championship Game, if they can go that far. So even though they haven't faced a very difficult schedule, it's advantageous to get home field rather than play a tough schedule and be on the road in January.
Pete! Love your column. Great insights. Outstanding info. What do my Bucs have to do? Is it Trent Dilfer? Is it the receivers? Mike Shula's play calling? When will the Doug Williams Voodoo Curse wear off? It's Halloween every weekend with the Bucko's. They are scary to watch. How about the A-Train, Mike Alstott? Fun to watch, isn't he? A ray of hope in stormy Tampa Bay. Happy Holidays!!! Thank you, Paul. Tony Dungy did the only thing common sense could dictate after watching Trent Dilfer flounder around behind center for six years. In benching Dilfer and inserting Eric Zeier -- who probably isn't the long-term answer but certainly gives the Bucs a better chance to make the playoffs -- Dungy has done the best thing for his team, on the field and off. Believe me, there aren't a lot of guys in that locker room who believe that Dilfer can lead this team to anything more than a wild-card loss. Dungy is also doing the right thing in the backfield, where Alstott is a much better 20-carry-a-game alternative than Warrick Dunn . In your Week 7 Review, you named Buffalo Bills' Kicker Steve Christie the Special Teams Player of the Week (for being the first player you've ever seen recover his own onsides kick).
Now, I don't want to call you a liar, but I think that there's a good chance you might have been watching the 1993 AFC playoff game between the Houston Oilers and the Buffalo Bills. Christie pulled the same play, called a "suicide" onsides kick (since it is kicked from a normal kickoff formation and the kicker is really the only guy with a chance to recover the ball). The play helped spark the Greatest Comeback in NFL History, as the Bills went on to win in overtime. But I guess its understandable that you turned off the game after the start of the third quarter, when Houston went up 35-3. John, how could I have ever forgotten? I was at that game and I remember that suicide onside kick. That was one of the greatest games I've ever seen. Christie is probably the best guy in the league at making an onside kick because he kicks it kind of like Pedro Martinez throws his changeup: you have no idea he's about to try it. Thanks for pointing it out.
Is there a formula you can use to determine which Dallas Cowboys are going to show up and play well on Sundays? Chris, I wish that you could go to graduate school somewhere and take a course in the Advanced Study of the Dallas Cowboys. Then, perhaps, you could educate me about how in the world to ever predict how that team is going to play. I sympathize with you as a Cowboys fan because some weeks I wouldn't be surprised to see them playing in late January, and some weeks I think they have no prayer to make the playoffs. My opinion is that when Chan Gailey decides to open things up a bit and let Troy Aikman throw the ball down the field, they're a lot better off than playing the conservative and way they showed against the Eagles and the Giants.
Deion Sanders' punt return for a touchdown yesterday notwithstanding, teams are successfully punting away from him. In order to get the ball in his hands more often, why don't they let him return kicks, like he did in Atlanta? I know that would require more practice time, but it can't be more than when he was playing offense. The reasoning behind not letting him return kicks can't be because of fear of injury, because punt returning is widely regarded as being more dangerous. I know they put him back there at the very end of the Philadelphia and New York games, but why not on a regular basis? I think the Cowboys are trying their best to keep Deion healthy for the next three months. If Sanders was a guy who didn't have much injury history and was a durable player on defense and special teams, then I think it would be logical for him to return kicks regularly. The problem is Deion just gets hurt too much. And for the Cowboys to make their investment back on the guy, they've got to try and keep him healthy. I think if Jerry Jones ever saw Deion go down on a kickoff -- like the Giants' Jason Sehorn did last year -- he'd never forgive whoever made that decision. During the second half of Sunday's New England-Denver game, Denver scored a touchdown to bring the score to Patriots 24, Broncos 19. At the time, my son Andrew (who is a high school senior football player) and I presumed the Broncos would go for a two-point conversion, since being behind by only three points is obviously much better than either a 4- or 5-point deficit. Mike Shanahan (and, presumably, his staff) didn't appear to hesitate, however, and kicked the extra point, making it 24-20. Although we are staunch Seahawks fans and were supporting the Patriots in this game, Andrew and I looked at each other somewhat incredulously and both remarked about how that decision could come back to haunt the Broncos. Sure enough, the Broncos later kicked a field goal and, as everyone knows, they ended up losing by one, 24-23.
Is there something I'm missing here, or did the Broncos coaching staff commit a major gaffe in this instance? It never ceases to amaze me that, with the size of coaching staffs these days, there should be at least one member of the staff who anticipates these situations and communicates the options to the head coach in advance of them happening. Even though I'm not a Broncos fan, it would be unfortunate for any team to miss out on a playoff spot because of a lack of coaching awareness in a situation such as I've described. Sam, I've got to agree with you and your son. I didn't watch the game; I heard about this but didn't really know the facts until I looked up the play-by-play on NFL.com. Forty-five seconds into the fourth quarter, the Broncos scored to make it 24-19 in New England's favor. A two-point conversion would have made it 24-21; Denver chose to take the automatic one. I would say you're right on the money: in the fourth quarter of a game, when a team can get within a field goal or a touchdown by going for two, they definitely should do it. All I can think of is that Denver has no confidence in Brian Griese making a two-point play and figured that with 14 minutes left in the game, surely the offense would get two or three more chances to score a touchdown. The Broncos had two shots -- they kicked a field goal on one and missed a field goal on the other. So clearly the right choice would have been to go for two.
What is the deal with Joey Galloway? Has he talked at all with the Seahawks lately? Do you think he will sit out all year? Jeff, as I report in the magazine this week, Mike Holmgren had a conversation with Galloway two weeks ago to try to jumpstart his stalled contract talks. This effort failed. Galloway remains insistent that he should be paid a $10 million signing bonus and a contract that would make him the highest paid receiver in the game. I think this is folly. Galloway does not have the pelts on the wall to be the highest-paid receiver in football. I still think there's a pretty good chance he'll come in before the end of the season because if he sits out the entire year, he loses an entire year of service to become a free agent.
As a fan of Boston, both you and me, I am surprised the Patriots are not in your top 10. You have Tampa Bay (3-3), and they are not going anywhere with their offense. The Pats could be 7-0 if they played a little harder. May Legal Seafoods serve you a bowl of "bad fish" chowdah! (That was a reference to Miami, who will not make the playoffs.) Steve, you're right. I blew it. I meant to put New England in a tie for ninth with the five other teams and simply forgot. My apologies to all the chowderheads. However, I'll bet you a year's subscription to the Boston Globe that Tampa Bay is playing later in January than the Patriots.
What is the status of Norv Turner? And what was the 33-minute meeting he and the owner had after the Dallas Game about? Duke, Norv Turner's status with the Redskins is very simple. If he makes the playoffs, he gets to stay. If he doesn't, he gets fired. As far as his meeting Sunday with the new Washington owner goes, I have exclusively obtained a transcript of their conversation. This is what Daniel Snyder said to Turner: "Gee, coach, I'm very disappointed in this awful loss. Do you think there's any way we might be able to get these fellows to play a little better on defense?"
Send a question to Peter King, and check back Thursdays for his latest NFL Mailbag.
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