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Pendulum swinging faster than ever

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Posted: Wednesday September 29, 1999 04:00 PM

Week 3 Awards | Top 10 Teams | 10 Things I Think I Think

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SAN DIEGO -- Actual conversation Saturday afternoon at the Marriott Mission Valley Hotel in San Diego, home of the Indianapolis Colts this weekend ...

Man in Green Bay Packers sweatshirt gets on the elevator. Man in Chargers cap says: "What's wrong with your Packers?"

"They got old," Packers guy says. "And the guys who didn't get old got hurt."

"Crazy year, huh?" Chargers guy says.

"Yup," Packers guy nods.

"Nothing wrong with that, though. That's the way it should be," Chargers guy says.

Then the door opens, and they part. They have, unwittingly, summed up something so many NFL-o-philes seem to be missing. What is so wrong with the Detroit Lions and St. Louis Rams confounding the world and winning as many games already as some thought they'd win all year? What's so wrong with the San Francisco 49ers falling to earth, if that's what they're fixing to do?

I met a Niners fan in Nashville last week who was so funereal talking about his lifelong team that I had to remind him: "God, they've been good for 18 years! Appreciate that. It doesn't happen in sports today, and it sure as heck doesn't happen in the NFL."

What's so wrong with last year's Super Bowl teams starting 0-6? Weird, yes. Wrong, no.

So many of you whom I hear from, it seems, long for the days when two or three teams prevailed over all. A media buddy of mine said the other day: "I miss the days when Pittsburgh, Dallas and Miami dominated. There were good teams then -- Houston, Cincinnati, Kansas City -- and they played competitive games. That's what's missing now. Seems there aren't enough teams playing solid, competitive football consistently."

I'd agree with that, but I think that inconsistency has as much as anything to do with the bad quarterbacking -- and worse, backup quarterbacking -- these days. Look at the inconsistent teams with some talent. Tampa Bay. The Giants. Seattle. Pittsburgh. What do they have in common? This: You have no idea from one week to another what kind of game you'll get out of their quarterbacks. If Trent Dilfer completes 65% with two picks or less, the Bucs ought to beat anybody by 14. But we too often glorify the days of yore, even when the yore is only 20 years ago. When the Steelers and Cowboys were so good, free agency and some of the '90s mega-parity factors weren't so prevalent. And, having grown up in Connecticut, I know how bad the Giants were for all of my youth. I was sentenced to a childhood (1965 to '75) of bad football.

Today, I think you can blame the shorter cycles of good and bad that teams go through for what seems like poorly played football and the yo-yoing of teams between good and lousy. Those cycles would take a book to explain, but one new reason has gotten scant attention. As I said on Sunday's CNN/SI NFL Preview, over the next five years, I think a new and important factor for staying on top will be the success of a team's pro scouting staff.

Free agency is changing. Great players are stripped from the market before they ever get to the market. Look at the defensive end crop: Seattle's Michael Sinclair , Baltimore's Michael McCrary , and, most expensively, the Giants' Michael Strahan . None of these premier sackers will see free agency. Their teams chose to sign them this year, thus avoiding losing them on the market and avoiding the players' wrath by not having to name them franchise players.

That's happened with increasing frequency in the past couple of years. So when, say, a team like Cleveland, which will be desperate for a great receiver and great back in free agency next February, goes shopping, the top candidates just might be Jacksonville running back James Stewart and Chicago wideout Curtis Conway . Not exactly impact fellows. Cleveland and the rest of the have-nots will have to scout superbly and make chicken salad out of chicken feathers.

More on what could have been chicken feathers ... I also raised the name of K.D. Williams on CNN/SI. He's the outside linebacker cut by Kansas City and Dallas who was working as a skycap at Tampa International Airport when the Raiders signed him last winter. Smart move. Williams earned the starting strongside linebacker job in Oakland, and he's probably been the Raiders' best linebacker early in the season. So scouting will be invaluable, and maybe some of the grunts who've been marginally paid (by NFL standards) over the years will gain some significant value by finding some minimum-salary guys who can produce. The Jets and 49ers, just to name two teams, will begin 2000 more than $15 million over the cap apiece. Will their pro staffs be good enough and diligent enough to find a bunch of overachievers?

That could be the difference in contending and pretending.

Week 3 Awards  

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK : St. Louis QB Kurt Warner , whose 17-of-25, three-touchdown-pass, one-touchdown-run performance helped knock off Atlanta by four touchdowns. And in so doing, Warner makes MMQB history. Celebrate, Kurt. You're the first guy to be MMQB player of the week twice in one month. But any quarterback who walks in from the Arena League and NFL Europe, comes in cold off the bench for a team fighting for its coach's survival and lights up another good defense (Atlanta's, 35-7) deserves this totally fabricated honor. He's not only playing smart and cool football. He's throwing deep, as he did yesterday to Torry Holt for one of his three TD passes. In eight quarters, Warner has made the NFL world question what scouts look for in a quarterback and propelled St. Louis into the brutally weak NFC West pennant race.

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Denver DE Neil Smith . I don't like to give awards for milestones, unless they happen at meaningful times. Smith's 100th career sack yesterday -- he became the 16th player to get 100 since the league began keeping the stat two decades ago -- came with the Broncos' season on the line. Denver, 0-2 entering play, was down 10-7 at Tampa Bay, with the Bucs driving to take a commanding halftime lead. On second down at the Bronco 17 with 13 seconds left, Smith burst through the line to sack Trent Dilfer. Suddenly, a looming 17-7 deficit against the best defense in football was a Martin Gramatica field goal and a 13-7 halftime deficit, meaning Smith left the Broncos in position to contend for the win in the final 30 minutes. Of such plays, redemptive seasons are made. Then, in the fourth quarter, with the Bucs up 13-10 and driving again, Smith snuffed out a drive with his 101st sack. Nice day for an old man, even in such a devastating loss. Apologies in this category go out to the entire Green Bay secondary, because at one point late in Sunday's joust to the death with Minnesota, Randy Moss had exactly one catch.

SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK: San Diego safety Michael Dumas , whose blocked punt of the Colts' Hunter Smith in the second quarter yesterday was recovered by Darryll Lewis for a touchdown. Smart, smart play by Dumas. He lined up as a middle linebacker on the play and didn't even begin to rush until he saw a gaping hole between center and guard in the Indianapolis line. Here he came, enveloping Smith, smothering the ball and pushing it toward the end zone.

COACH OF THE WEEK: Washington coach Norv Turner . I'd like to know the record of guys who coach against Bill Parcells when The Tuna has an Armageddon Game. I do know Parcells is pretty good in games he absolutely has to win. The Jets came in 0-2 with an impossible schedule facing them. The Redskins, on the road, didn't have nearly the motivation, and Turner, though the offense was quite mortal, had Washington ready to go toe-to-toe with a desperate heavyweight. Washington won, 27-20.

GOAT OF THE WEEK: New York Jets CB Ray Mickens . The Jets were up 17-13 on Washington in the fourth quarter ... absolutely, unequivocally judgment day for the Jets. They lose and they go 0-3, with Denver, Jacksonville, Indy and Oakland -- and no Vinny Testaverde -- staring them in the face. Jets were playing stout. Mickens draws a pass-interference penalty to prolong the drive. Mickens draws a second pass-interference penalty to give the Redskins the ball inside the 10. Stephen Davis rolls in for the go-ahead TD, and Washington rolls 27-20. Yes, it was THAT Ray Mickens, the guy who just signed a three-year, $6 million extension with the Jets. Yesterday, he might have been the right hook that knocked them out of the playoff hunt.

The Top 10  

Now, before I give you my MMQB Week Three top 10, a few words about You Faithful Readers and your Internet-ly violent reactions to my selections of the first two weeks. Entering Sunday's games, I liked Tampa Bay because the Bucs have the best defense in football. Plus, sooner or later, Trent Dilfer will either be competent or replaced. I was skeptical of Washington because of its porous defense, and I had been skeptical of Dallas because I think there have been extenuating circumstances in both of their victories.

Exiting Sunday's games, I like Washington's defense a little bit, particularly in light of Champ Bailey holding Keyshawn Johnson to one catch for two yards in the first half, and Tampa Bay's defense did nothing wrong. On the third Sunday, Dallas rested. Having said that, here goes:

1. Miami (2-0)
2. Green Bay (2-1)
3. Minnesota (1-2)
4. Jacksonville (2-1)
5. Tennessee (3-0)
6. New England (3-0)
7. Tampa Bay (2-1)
8. Indianapolis (2-1)
9. Kansas City (2-1) -- But only playing at home. I'm serious. The Chiefs come to San Diego next week, and the Chargers will win.
10. Buffalo (2-1)
(tie) St. Louis (2-0)

The 10 Things I Think I Think This Week  

1a. I think any high school coach who wants to teach the linebacker position to a young player ought to get his hands on the end zone tape of San Diego's Junior Seau . Focus on No. 55 in the dark jersey. Seau put on a clinic. He had his usual nonstop motor and made his usual number of plays (4 tackles and one assist), but two things didn't show up unless you looked hard. It was Seau's bob-and-weave at veteran Indianapolis center Roman Fortin that caused Fortin to snap the ball out of the end zone for a second-quarter safety. And it was Seau's presence behind a couple of outstanding defensive tackles, John Parella and Norman Hand , that continually flustered the Colts' offensive line and made them miss countless assignments. "You have no idea how much better he makes the people around him," Parrella told me.

1b. I think San Diego's defense is the genuine item.

2. I think Stephen Davis is the genuine item, speaking of genuine items.

3. I think the Weird, Bizarre, I-Could-Be-On-This-Planet-Six-Hundred-Years-And- Never-Figure-This-One-Out Stat of the Week is this: Each NFL visiting team is allotted 500 tickets to sell to its fans or players. And the Browns had to turn back 200 of their tickets for the game at arch-rival Baltimore the other day because they couldn't sell them. And scalpers in Baltimore said late in the week they were selling game tickets for less than face value. I'm a Red Sox fan. This Browns thing, to me, is like the Sox and Yankees playing a playoff game and Red Sox people only being able to sell 300 tickets to it. Insane.

4. I think, speaking of Tampa's defense, that the Bucs put an exclamation point on an outstanding month in shutting down the Broncos. Entering the game, they'd gone 185 minutes without allowing a touchdown -- since Dec. 19, 1998, in Washington -- causing Mike Shanahan to say: "I haven't seen a defense like that for a long time." Poor Brian Griese . He's entered the league against Miami, Kansas City and Tampa, probably three of the top six or seven defenses in the league.

5. I think of all the X-and-O improvements to the game in the 15 years I've been covering it, the most polished may be the ability of quarterbacks to sell the play-action. A few years ago, Boomer Esiason made a living faking to the tailback, then throwing to suddenly open guys upfield. Watching the games yesterday, I saw Brad Johnson do it perfectly against the Jets. Charlie Batch is getting the hang of it. Even Kurt Warner had the Falcons falling for it. Peyton Manning 's already a pro.

6. I think Colin Montgomerie ought to shut up, stop glaring at the crowd and play golf. The Ryder Cup was fun to watch, but Montgomerie was a wuss throughout. What is so horribly unsportsmanlike about a crowd that is rabidly rooting for the home team and cheers when a foe misses a putt? Golf is so ridiculous about these things. Imagine Yankee Stadium, after Roger Clemens strikes out Chipper Jones in the World Series, being silent. Join the real world, Monty.

7. I think the journalism line of the week belongs to Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock , who wrote of the ESPN Sports Century list which included six baseball players in the top 20 and two football players: "Who put this list together, George Will?"

8. I think the Giants are as bad offensively as ever.

9. I think the Patriots are intriguing, and Drew Bledsoe can play on my team any time.

10. I think I'd better hustle if I want to make my plane home.

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