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A Rather good color man
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Midway through the third quarter in the Dallas Cowboys Radio Network booth nine stories above the Giants Stadium turf, play-by-play man Brad Sham asked one of his analysts what he thought the Giants would do on first-and-10 from the Dallas 34. "I think they're going long," his graying color man said. "I think they'll go for it." Kerry Collins dropped back and threw a 34-yard strike to Joe Jurevicius. Touchdown. On the next possession, three plays later, Sham wondered aloud what the Cowboys would do on third-and-7 from the Giants' 48. "Button hook," the analyst said. "Ten, maybe 11 yards downfield." Clint Stoerner dropped back. Joey Galloway streaked up the left side and curled back in, just as Stoerner fired the ball into him. Completion. Twenty-four yards.
"HE'S GOT GALLOWAY ON A BUTTON-HOOK!" Sham shouted. With five minutes left in the game and the Giants threatening to score the go-ahead touchdown at the Dallas 5-yard line, the color man said the Cowboys sure needed a turnover right now. "Dayne, with the carry ..." Sham said. "FUMBLE!" Dallas ball. In came Ryan Leaf for his first Dallas outing. Second down. Leaf fades back. "Turn it loose, Leaf!" yelled the analyst. Leaf, as if on cue, wound up and threw a deep bullet that Rocket Ismail, diving, caught. Now you know about Dan Rather's NFL broadcasting debut. "You are being wasted in news," the permanent color guy, Babe Laufenberg, said. "You've got to come over to sports!" "Can we take you to Atlantic City with us?" Sham asked. I listened to most of the Cowboys' 27-24 overtime loss to the Giants, with Sham and Laufenberg and their guest analyst, Rather, the 71-year-old CBS News anchor, on a wireless headset in the press box. And let me tell you: Rather was good. Very good. I'm serious when I say this: Dan Rather should do this more often. The credibility he brings with those pipes is already formidable. But he knows the game from couch-potatoing on most fall Sundays through the years, and he has an excellent sense of the flow of the game. He's not intrusive, and he knows when to shut up, two skills a lot of color men have never mastered. This was already a state-of-the-art broadcast team anyway. Sham, who's a Cowboys guy without being a homer in any way, has a homespun but newsy way about him. Laufenberg, a former Cowboys backup quarterback, gives a player's perspective; like Sham, he isn't afraid to knock the Cowboys when they do something dumb, like going for broke on third-and-25 when they were trying to protect a late lead, which resulted in a Clint Stoerner interception. "That's a horrible play call," Laufenberg said. "You don't put the football into Clint Stoerner's hands on third-and-25," he said. This was Rather's first football in about 45 years, he told me at halftime. "I did the University of Houston's play-by-play in the mid-fifties for four years." His $85-a-week radio job was supplemented by the $20 he got for Cougars' play-by-play. ("That was the difference in income in those days," Rather said.) Maybe he was rusty, but he fit like the three-year-old sneakers under your bed. Rather blended in, giving respect to Sham and Laufenberg while rarely intruding. But if Rather had something to say, he said it, sometimes forcefully. Late in the first half, with the Cowboys trying to add to a 24-7 lead, Laufenberg said they ought to be positioning themselves for a field goal. Rather jumped in quickly. "No," he said. "Go for the TD. Go for the kill shot on them. It's not greedy. You have a chance to put them away. Seven more points and it's adios." Ratherisms: Cute stuff. Rather also told his Texas audience what it was like to be a New Yorker these days. One upshot of the adjustment in Rather's world is that he can't get mail right now. When the Cowboys were sending him press material to study for his game broadcast, they had to express-mail the packet to a friend in New Jersey who hand-delivered it to Rather. "More pleases, thank-yous and pardon-mes have been said since September 11 than had been said in the last 20 years," he said. "How can the tragedy not have affected you in a deep and abiding way?" He paused near the top of the booth during a halftime break when I asked him, "How's your life going these days?" "Weird," he said. "Complicated. But everybody's life is, isn't it?" Which is why, when he looked out to a perfect blue sky and a full stadium on a crisp autumn day in the second half, he seemed so incredibly happy just to be there. "What a wonderful football afternoon this is," he said. For him, especially.
When the Cowboys charter made its final approach Saturday afternoon to Newark International Airport, it came in from the north, with Manhattan a mile off the left side of the aircraft. Perfect day. Despite the seat belt sign being illuminated (don't I sound like a flight attendant?), a bunch of Cowboys on the right side of the plane unbuckled and crowded the left side of the airplane for a view of Ground Zero.
OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Green Bay RB Ahman Green, who continued to show in the Packers' 21-20 win against Tampa Bay that he's one of the game's premier backs. Carries: 24. Yards: 169. His 63-yard touchdown run helped break the Bucs' backs, rallying the Pack from a 17-7 second-half deficit to the win. Green is on pace for a 1,557-yard rushing season. DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Cleveland DE Courtney Brown, playing his first game of the season for the revived Browns, had one of this season's best performances by a defender. Six tackles, one assist, three sacks, and a 25-yard fumble return for touchdown. His impact comes just at the right time for the Browns to make a legitimate drive for the playoffs. SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK: New York Giants WR Thabiti Davis, who busted through a very solid Dallas offensive line on a fourth-quarter punt attempt, sprinted up the middle and completely laid out to block a Micah Knorr punt at the Cowboys' 15. The score was 24-17, Dallas, at that point. Three plays later, Kerry Collins found Ike Hilliard for the tying touchdown. You don't make a bigger special-teams play, at a bigger time, than this block. "That blocked punt was a killer," Dan Rather said, accurately. COACH OF THE WEEK: Washington head coach Marty Schottenheimer. He was 0-5 headed for 2-14. Now the 3-5 Redskins are headed for 8-8 in the worst division in football. Marty's not the best coach God ever planted on earth, but he's also no Pepper Rodgers. GOAT OF THE WEEK: Pittsburgh K Kris Brown, who had missed seven field goals for the Steelers in this century (37 of 44) until Sunday. What a rough day he had. With the game left up to him, Brown missed from 41, 33, 48 and 35 yards. At least he was big about it, admitting to waves of reporters afterward that he personally blew the game.
Two years ago when he was a student at Midwestern (Texas) State, Dominic Rhodes, who rushed for 100 yards in the place of Edgerrin James at Buffalo, was a training camp intern for the Dallas Cowboys.
1. I think the odds of the same safety, Chicago's Mike Brown, returning a deflected pass for the game-winning touchdown in the first three minutes of overtime two weeks in a row must be longer than the odds of the Yankees hitting two-run home runs on successive nights with two outs in the ninth inning in the World Series. 2. I think, looking at the empty stands at Sun Devil Stadium -- there were 39,600 empty seats for the Eagles-Cards game -- for the zillionth consecutive Sunday, I wonder how much longer a soul in the Valley in the Sun will trust Bill Bidwill to ever put a competitive team on the field. 3a. I think if I'm Herman Edwards, I'm not putting that going-for-it-on-fourth-and-six-inches-at-midfield-with-a-16-9-lead-and-two-minutes-left call on the ol' resume. b. I think the officials in that Jets-Saints game blew it by not ejecting Jets safety Damien Robinson for trying to rip Aaron Brooks' head from his body, leading to the ugliest scene on an NFL field this year. Kyle Turley, of course, deserved to be canned for throwing a Jets helmet. NFL Charities will make a lot of money off this game. c. I think someone needs to tell the Saints there's more to NFL prominence than beating the Rams. 4. I think the Cleveland Browns will win a wild-card game Jan. 12. 5. I think I don't trust Clint Stoerner. You read it here first: Ryan Leaf starts next week for the Cowboys in Atlanta. 6. I think here are my personal items of the week: a. Montclair Field Hockey Note of the Week: The Montclair (N.J.) Mounties completed the regular season with a 3-0 victory Saturday afternoon at Dwight Englewood. We're 15-1-4 heading into the state tournament Wednesday at home with Livingston. (Come and cheer the Mounties: 2 p.m., Watchung Field, just off Watchung Plaza in Montclair. Remember last year's five-OT thriller in the playoffs with Livingston? You don't want to miss history, do you?) Reality intruded Saturday, though. Ace midfielder Marla Goldsmith, already playing with a chipped bone in her right thumb, was kneed in the throat during a late-game pileup. She struggled to the sidelines, barely able to breathe. With fear that her windpipe might have been damaged, an ambulance was summoned, and an oxygen mask fitted to help her breathe. As she was being wheeled from the field quickly by stretcher, her anxious team huddled and yelled: "One, two, three ... We love you, Marla!" Turns out she has a bruised muscle and a very stiff neck this morning. Coach Mercuro hasn't put her on the injury report yet, but I would say she's questionable for Wednesday. For a good life, however, she is probable. Very probable. b. How many people watched the Emmys last night? Six? c. Coffeenerdness: I tried to give up coffee for a month before running in the Thanksgiving Day 4.8-mile race in Manchester, Conn. (Me, running? Oh my God! Hide the women and children! I am doing this to secretly impress my competitive-runner brother, Bob, after my performance in last year's race, when I had to stop four times on the hilly course. My motto this year: No stopping. Most people have times they want to hit. I simply want to keep my legs moving for the duration. There is one other piece of motivation: Harvey Greene, the Dolphins director of media relations, has run this race, and he is quite skeptical I can do it. I feel like those players at whom I always roll my eyes, the ones who take perceived slights as silly motivation to accomplish big things.) But as the gigantic thermal travel cup of Italian Roast to the left of my laptop right now suggests, I am a weak person. Might as well mainline the caffeine. 7. I think I may have to reinstitute my preseason pick of the Patriots for the playoffs any day now. Foxboro chant: Tom Brady for mayor! 8. I think these are my Fall Classic opinions: a. Party at my house for Game 5. Guy party. Seven guys there. Ann, my wife, did an incredible job on the menu (Italian sausage encased scrumptiously for her at 3 o'clock that afternoon at Nino's in Montclair, fennel green beans, pasta with her homemade marinara, copious beers, and two of the best desserts she has ever made -- apple pie and oatmeal cookies) but by 11 she's in bed. Bottom of the ninth. Two out. Brosius up. Kim pitches. It is high. It is far. It is ... "AAAAHHHHHOOOOOOOOHHHNOOOOOOOWOWWW!" All seven of us, on our feet, screaming like Liverpudlian teens at a '60s McCartney sighting. Now that was a moment. b. Bob Costas told me the other day his only beef with the game was that his 15-year-old son couldn't stay awake until the end of all these midnightish games. "And I'm on central time," he said from St. Louis. "What about the people in the East?" He's absolutely right. What of the fans of tomorrow? It's an old issue, but one coming home to roost by the short-sighted Lords of Baseball. A generation of fans whose bedtime was the bottom of the third aren't watching this series in the numbers they should be. Neither is the current generation of young folks. c. Costas: "You know what's great about these games? Every pitch counts. Every pitch is vital." Except when Randy Johnson hurls. d. The Diamondbacks, though a two-man team, deserved it. The Yankees just couldn't hit. Who'd have ever thought the best reliever of his day, in his prime, would have blown the biggest save of his life? 9. I think Jevon Kearse has a pulse after all. Three sacks against the Jags proves it. 10. I think a whole lot of GMs are scratching their heads looking at the box scores this morning and saying to themselves: "Priest Holmes? He had 181 yards at San Diego, against a good run defense? We could have had him for next to nothing and here he is with more than 700 yards through the first half of the season? Who do I have scouting the AFC, anyway?"
Toughest game of the year to pick, because Denver's 11-1 against Oakland in the Shanahan Era and because the Broncos, like the Yankees against the D'backs at home, always find a way to win, even when it looks bleak. What's a word that means bleaker than bleak? Gannon and Charlie Garner rule the day. Raiders, 30-20. 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
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