KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- I admit it: I cried yesterday.

Not in a weeping way. In a two-tears-reaching-the-upper-cheek way. Some Giants did, too. As I walked off the field with New York linebacker/preacher/leader Micheal Barrow, I could see the emotion all over his face. "This for the firemen and the policemen," he told me above the din of the Arrowhead speakers after the Giants won for a city, 13-3. "We dedicated this game to them. We're dedicating this season to them."

This has been an emotional time for me, living, as I do in New Jersey, 15 miles from Ground Zero. And for most of you, I'm sure. I can't read the paper much anymore. It's just too much. For the first four or five days of the disaster, I sat at the kitchen table for two hours in the morning, devouring every word of The New York Times. (And, by the way, this great, great newspaper will need a U-Haul to carry all the Pulitzers it's going to win for its thorough, meaningful and touching coverage of the disaster. Just terrific.) But I started to come out of it last Tuesday. My daughter Mary Beth, who has become quite a little patriot in her own way, and I went in search of 100 American flag patches to affix to the front of the Montclair (N.J.) High field hockey team jerseys in time for the resumption of play on Friday. All the suppliers in New Jersey were back-ordering the things -- a buddy of mine had four complete high school football teams on hold -- and so we had to widen the scope. A family friend found a place in New York City's garment district with the flags, so we drove in and picked them up. Neat scene. El-cheapo flags on every street corner, sold by loud people in 89 different dialects. "I love America," Mary Beth said for no particular reason, and for every particular reason, as we walked back to the car. First she had to find an "I Love New York" T-shirt, with a heart in place of the word love, just because she wanted to show she loved the place.

Then, on Tuesday night, humble SI Olympics beatman Brian Cazeneuve, the Mother Teresa of sportswriters and chief of our World Trade Center volunteer crew, arranged for me to join him at the New York Waterways Ferry Building, about two miles from the attack site on the western edge of Manhattan. Walking from the parking garage to the ferry building, a football fan noticed me and asked what would become of the playoffs. Wow, I thought; people are getting back into it. The building was serving as one of the waystations for supply organization. Boxes of all different things -- gloves, work boots, foodstuffs, batteries, bottled water, flashlights -- were arriving from all over the country, and busy beavers were sorting them around the clock to send to crews on the scene. For an hour I assembled flashlights. For four hours I paired cotton glove liners in big boxes with construction gloves. All donated. One package of assorted gloves came from a family from Yardley, Pa., the Elliotts. I know that because they included a note with "God Bless You" on the envelope, a note dripping with love and good wishes from a family reaching out to touch the rescue workers.

1. Denver (2-0). Unless your name is Peyton Manning, you don't get on a roll much hotter than the one Brian Griese's on.   2. St. Louis (2-0). The score in San Francisco may have been 30-26, but it's misleading. High-flying Niners got just 232 yards on offense.  3. Indianapolis (2-0). Welcome to the NFL, Jerome Pathon.   4. (tie) Miami (2-0). Still room on my Lamar Smith bandwagon, folks.   4. Baltimore (1-1). Let's not get excited, everyone.   5. Oakland (1-1). They flew cross-country, played one of the league's best teams and got beat on a prayer at the buzzer. No big deal.   6. Tampa Bay (1-0). They played better Sunday than in Dallas in Week 1. And they had a bye.   7. Jacksonville (2-0). Say what you will about the death of the Jags, which I did throughout the offseason. But any team that holds foes touchdown-less through two games and has Mark Brunell under center looks to me like a team that'll be playing in January.   8. Philadelphia (1-1). But I do not like the sight of Duce Staley going down. Not one bit.   9. San Diego (2-0). Get your Doug Flutie bobbleheads! Step up and get your Doug Flutie bobbleheads!   10. New York Giants (1-1). On inspiration alone, they should be No 1.   11. Green Bay (1-0). Daniel Snyder among the Cheeseheads Monday night. Somehow, I think he'll be repulsed.   12. Tennessee (0-2). You know why I'm doing this? Because I refuse to believe the Bengals are better.

One of the volunteers, a construction worker from Chicago, told me he watched the TV coverage of the disaster for two nights after work. The third night, he said, he couldn't watch it anymore. He went to the bus terminal in Chicago and bought a ticket for New York. Arriving at the bus station in Manhattan at 10 p.m. the Friday after the attack, he asked a cop: "Where do you go to volunteer?" This was his fifth night working, and he wasn't planning on leaving anytime soon. Another volunteer drove from Miami the night of the disaster; when I commented on the almost unfathomable number of boxes of boots on the premises, he told me: "They'll need them all, and then some. Yesterday we sent 2,500 pair down to the site. Some of those guys are working on top of fires, and their soles just just melt off."

Another woman, Cris Carnicelli, from Jackson Heights in Queens, is the girlfriend of a city firefighter who survived. She had volunteered every day. In the very wee hours, she pulled out some mementos and placed them on the floor of the Waterways building, in between the piles of gloves and flashlights and Kellogg's breakfast bars. Upper Moreland High School in Willow Grove, Pa., sent a huge paper flag, signed by the Class of 2002, in its care package. A Holy Bible came in a supply box sent from "friends in Memphis, Tenn." The inscription read: "To the courageous firemen and police officers ... We're praying for you and your families during this terrible tragedy. Sept. 15, 2001. God bless you." Beneath was a smiley face.

Carnicelli, 31, a freelance editor in her other life, had seen and heard some bad things, gruesome things, from the firemen and guardsmen who'd come up from the disaster site. They will not be repeated here. But she knows these Stephen King-like bad things will haunt her at some point in the future. She knows she might be on a shrink's couch, for an extended run, someday soon. I asked her why she was here to help, day after day.

"I have to be here," she said. "It's the right thing to do. And it helps me heal."

I left there that night, a week after the world changed, about 2:40 a.m., feeling the best I'd felt in a week. People were banding together. People were uniting. People, a lot of them, were doing anything they could to help. Dropping $50 at Home Depots all over the country, boxing up the supplies and sending them to New York. Leaving their jobs, leaving their families. They wanted nothing, other than an answer to the question: "What can I do to help?"

My wife, Ann, who will hate being in this column (she is not the publicity-seeking type), then came up with Idea of the Week. Mayor Giuliani wants people to fill the streets and restaurants of the city, she had heard. Why not get a group from Montclair together Friday night and drive into the city and eat and drink heavily? Terrific, I said. I wanted to call the night, "Fight Terrorism ... Eat Well." We settled on "Support New York City!" We corralled 16 people and car-pooled into loud and friendly Carmine's, a family-style Italian place, on 44th, just down the street from where "The Producers" is playing. And let me just say this about the city: It was packed. Couples walking arm-in-arm. Moms with strollers. Women in theater-wear. Jumping joints with the Mets and Braves on the bar TVs. Our table, with friends ranging from five years of age to 55, passed around the Italian salad, the cold antipasto, the garlic bread, the penne with marinara, the penne with meatballs, the lemon chicken, the Salmon Oreganato. (Quite a sacrifice, I must say. But we all have to do something for the cause.)

Early in the dinner, the long table to our right was filled by 15 Buffalo firefighters and cops. We bought them a round of drinks -- only one, because, as it turns out, they were returning for night duty at Ground Zero at 11 -- and they sent us a real Buffalo police patch in return. Mary Beth and her friend Steffi were closest to them and got the scoop. These men were earning nothing for their work. And they were taking vacation time and comp time from their jobs to do it. Why? "Because," one of them said, "people were in need."

The Buffalo cops and firefighters rose to leave just after 10. As they filed by, someone at our table began to clap. Then we all began clapping. Then the next table began clapping. And the next. And soon, Carmine's was filled with whistling and clapping and hurrahs and backslaps, deafeningly so, and these humble men waved and bit their lips and looked at the floor as they walked out, emotionally stunned at the outburst. I looked back at our table and two of the women were dabbing at their eyes.

"Best idea you ever had," I told Ann.

Newark Airport looked relatively abandoned when I arrived Saturday at about 10 for an 11:30 a.m. flight to Kansas City. Armed U.S. marshals, in uniform, patrolled the Continental terminal, as did New Jersey state police; Continental gate agents, who for some reason I assume are more diligent about checking for weapons, helped man the metal detectors and X-ray machines. Michael Strahan's wife, Jean, was waiting for the flight to board when I got to the gate. Jean was a bit jittery about flying and felt better when she realized that someone she knew was coming along for the ride. I told her nothing untoward was going to happen on this flight or any other, which is something I truly believe.

Nothing did. And then the Giants went out and played a victorious, inspiring sort of snoozer. I don't recall a locker room where the players looked as fatigued. This is what mental and physical stress does to people. But it was a happy kind of tired. I asked Michael Strahan what he would take away from this game.

"After the tragedy of last week," he said, "it was tough for me to figure out, 'What is our purpose' Why are we playing football?' Then we went down to Ground Zero and people kept telling us they needed us to play. And so we came in here playing for the firefighters, the police, the EMS workers, for everybody. For a city."

It was corny, what Strahan said next, but it didn't sound that way on Sunday. Not these days.

"I'm proud to be a football player today," he said. "And I'm proud to be an American."

When Giants backup quarterback Jason Garrett went through the metal detector at Newark Airport Saturday before the flight to Kansas City, he was fine. But his bag was suspect. A nail clipper, the $1.49 job you'd find at Wal-Mart, drew the attention of the bag scanners because of the one-inch file with the sharp tip, and Garrett had to divest himself of it before getting on the plane.

Where were these security folks Sept. 11?

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Philadelphia WR James Thrash, for his 10-catch, 165-yard, two-touchdown performance in the Eagles' 26-3 rout of Seattle. Now, Peyton Manning's 421-yard passing day was a better individual day, but the significance of Thrash's performance can't be overstated. Coach Andy Reid jettisoned his veteran wideouts before the year because they weren't quick enough to get off the line of scrimmage against jamming corners. So here came Thrash, the former Redskin, in free agency, and Sunday at Husky Stadium he looked like the reincarnation of Mike Quick.

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Miami LB Zach Thomas, whose 18-tackle day (nine tackles, nine assists) keyed the 18-15 win over Oakland. Thomas was at the point of attack for a defense that held a good Raiders offense to 216 yards.

SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Denver LB Ian Gold. High-school coaches, go find the tape of the Sunday night game, watch Gold's hit on Arizona kick-returner Martay Jenkins, and teach your players to seek and hit just like that.

COACH OF THE WEEK: Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher. After the Titans fell to 0-2 -- and now, clearly, this is a team with a starting quarterback prone to injury and something definitely wrong on offense -- you'd have to forgive Fisher if he had jogged across the field, quickly shook Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin's hand, muttered "Good Game" and ran into the tunnel. Instead, Fisher embraced Coughlin and told him how glad he was that Coughlin's son Tim made it down from the 60th floor when the World Trade Center was attacked. "Jeff Fisher's a gentleman and a class act, and he showed it right there," Coughlin said.

TY DETMER AWARD: This award used to be called Goat of the Week, but I had to rename it this week. After Tim Couch beat him out for the Cleveland job, Detmer wanted to go somewhere he would have a chance to play. So he was dealt to Detroit late in camp, and the Lions handed him the starting job after a disastrous Charlie Batch game in Week 1. And the first start for Detmer came at Cleveland on Sunday. This was disaster times seven. Seven picks. Seven! Goat city, baby.

Boomer Esiason gave the eulogy at the funeral of one of his best friends last Thursday. I knew Timmy O'Brien, the Cantor Fitzgerald trader who died in the World Trade Center attack. A great man. Caring, good buddy of Boomer's. And a huge Giants fan. "He always drove me crazy talking about the Giants and asking me about the Giants," Esiason, as glum as I'd ever heard him, told me last week. And so when Boomer was asked to do the eulogy in front of 1,500 mourners, he did so in a Giants' jersey. Number 11. Phil Simms. O'Brien's favorite.

1. I think Mike Anderson is the best back in football. I think Rod Smith is the best receiver. They have two things in common, other than tremendous talent and matching toughness. One: They came out of nowhere -- Anderson as a sixth-round draft pick, Smith as a college free agent. Two: Watch them play, and watch how humbly they work, and watch them play every down like their last.

2. I think next to the word "clutch" in that Webster's on your desk is a picture of Mike Piazza.

3. I think if I were Thomas Jones, I wouldn't be putting a down payment on a house in the Valley of the Sun. What a terrible draft choice. Might even be worse than Ron Dayne.

4. I think I would like to poll the city of Buffalo right now and ask one question: "Flutie or Rob Johnson?"

5. I think Rob Johnson will never, ever learn when to take a sack and when to throw the ball away.

6. I think this is my Montclair High Field Hockey Note of the Week: As you must know by now, the girls' season was sidelined by the World Trade Center disaster for most of two weeks. Entering Friday's game at conference power Pompton Lakes, they'd played but once -- a 0-0 overtime tie with Demarest on Sept. 7. And so we journeyed up Route 23 to the football/field hockey pitch at Pompton Lakes Friday afternoon. Another classic game. This is really a wonderful sport, by the way. You get exactly what you deserve almost every game, and you get it by virtue of 60 percent effort and 40 percent skill. We are an effort team, a throwback bunch of Charlie Hustles, and I'm proud to say my little right wing, Mary Beth King, is one of them. So we scratch and we claw and we fight Lakes to a scoreless tie after 60 minutes. Now, for the second straight game, we'd pare the teams from 11-a-side to play seven-on-seven ("Never mind that," one of our tense parents said after regulation, "it's a 7-and-7 that I could use right now.") for 10 minutes. In the first minute, just to add to my dizziness, Mary Beth took a long pass and broke uncovered up the right wing toward the goal. Dribble, dribble, dribble, defender cheats toward her, pass ... to left wing Alexis Barbalinardo, who gets off a good shot and ... IT'S EIGHT INCHES WIDE! Now Lakes comes right back, working the length of the field through us and one of their girls fires point blank at our goalie, Kaitlyn Robinson. Pad save! Another shot trickles behind her toward the open goal, and our designated savior, Allison Farley, swats it away two feet from the goal line. And that's how it ended. The Mounties have now played 140 minutes of field hockey this year, without either team scoring. Boring? No. Scintillating is more like it. Demarest is 4-0-1, Pompton Lakes 3-0-1. We can't shoot straight, but we must be doing something right.

7. I think, college football neophyte that I am, that Syracuse pass-rusher Dwight Freeney is the best quarterback-chaser I've seen in the college game in a few years. Looks like he gets around the corner quicker than Jevon Kearse. One NFL scout who saw Freeney play this year told me he could get eaten up by a quick tackle. True. But I would make this point: Freeney is twice as quick as 75 percent of the tackles roaming the big league right now. He could be a good elephant end, the Charles Haley- type of freelancer getting double-digit sacks every year.

8. I think these are my random thoughts of Kansas City:

a. Had a harrowing flight in here. (You know it's harrowing when three people reach for the wax-lined bags in the seat pocket in front of them and actually use them.) Caught a downdraft 100 feet from landing and had to jet back up and around the airport. A buddy here told me that's not that rare. Well, sir, then I'm happy I don't fly in here too much.

b. Coffeenerdness: Very pleasant Starbucks experience. My barista, a young woman at the store just south of downtown, made my staple grande hazelnut latte last night and took great care in layering the foam slowly atop the

drink. I complimented her. "Good foam is an art," she said. Wow. Wish I frequented that store.

c. Be proud of your fans, Kansas City. You choked up some Giants Sunday by cheering them so heartily during the pregame. Incredibly classy thing to do.

d. Why is the airport so far from downtown here?

9. I think this is why Mike Shanahan is so good at what he does: Last Thursday, I told him he must be happy now that he hadn't traded a running back last spring or summer. Not so fast. "I was listening," he said. "I wouldn't be upset today if we'd gotten the right price for one of our backs. We could have turned around and taken a Kevan Barlow [picked by the 49ers in the third round] in the second round and been in good shape today." Even if the loss had been Mike Anderson. "No one knew who Mike Anderson was when we picked him," Shanahan said. The Denver way is that names don't win. Well-coached players do.

10. I think the Quote of the Month comes from my first-row press-box mate, Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News. "Peter," Gosselin said as the upsets rolled in with the American flag graphic in the upper right corner of the press box TVs at Arrowhead, "this is going to be a different kind of season."

Green Bay. Big. Anyone who likes Washington to be anything but cannon-fodder for the resurgent Packers must be in Daniel Snyder's kitchen cabinet. Brett Favre to Bill Schroeder tonight. Big.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL and appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN's NFL Preview. Click here to send a question to his NFL Mailbag.

 

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