Black eyes for everyone

SEA GIRT, N.J. -- I first saw the abomination of the season in Bill Parcells' living room, where I'd gone Sunday to inquire about His Tunaness' coaching prospects for the future. We stared at his TV, with twin poinsettias on top, watching the replay of the highly questionable Tim Couch -to- Quincy Morgan completion. Then the botched Couch spike, then the aborted call for replay by ref Terry McAulay, then the reversal of the play that should never have been reversed. Then, of course, we were blown away by the highlights of the idiots in Cleveland littering the field with bottles and whatever else they could get their paws on, then listened to Mike Ditka on the NFL Today say this would be the death knell for instant replay.

Let Parcells handle the replay debate. I'll take the Browns' reaction to it.

"Here's what I say," Parcells said at last from the easy chair across from the 35-inch TV. "After having the whole game with replay in the hands of the coaches, why do they take it out of their hands in the final two minutes of each half? On a play that big to the outcome of the game, the guy upstairs can't necessarily see it in time to call for the replay. But the Jacksonville coach knows what a big play it is, and he could call for the replay. He could throw his beanbag out there and stop the play, or buzz the official. I guarantee you'll hear from the league: 'We buzzed the officials in time.' But when the offense is hurrying to the line, they can't accomplish it in that time frame. The point is, if replay is in the hands of the coaches all game, it should be in their hands when the game is on the line."

1. St. Louis (10-2). Marshall Faulk, this one's in your hands tonight.  2. Pittsburgh (11-2). What a Super Bowl this would be. I'm getting fired up just thinking about Rams-Steelers.  3. San Francisco (10-3). I would be fired up about 49ers-Steelers, too.  4. Oakland (10-3). I hear they'll fight Jon Gruden, even after the season, if he tries to take the Notre Dame job.  5. Chicago (10-3). If the Saints beat St. Louis, the Bears take the inside track toward NFC home-field edge over the Rams. That makes Monday night pretty darned important for the Rams.  6. New England (9-5). Bill Parcells said Sunday's game in Buffalo was their toughest the rest of the regular season, tougher than Saturday's AFC East championship game at home against the Dolphins.  7. Green Bay (9-4). In one sordid afternoon in Nashville, the Packers went from contenders for home field in the NFC to contenders for a road wild-card game.  8. Philadelphia (9-4). Never thought the Iggles would have wrapped up the NFC East with three games left.  9. Baltimore (8-5). All that saves them is Cincinnati and Minnesota in two of the last three games at home.  10. New York Jets (8-5). Get those trainers to work on Santana Moss, Coach Edwards. You need to stretch the field with him.  11. Miami (9-4). Two scoreless Sundays in the last month leave us all thinking it's going to be a very short January for the Dolphins.  12. New Orleans (7-5). Did you know Aaron Brooks entered the weekend with more passing yards than Jeff Garcia and Rich Gannon?

Not that Parcells thinks replay should be in the coaches' hands; he just thinks the system should be the same for 60 minutes. "I'm for replay. I'm for an eighth official in the booth. What's the objective of replay? To get the play right. Suppose I see five things wrong in the course of the game and I have two challenges. Am I supposed to get only two of the five right? Have an eighth official in the box. Make him a part of the crew."

Now for the mayhem. Last week, I was in Minnesota. I listened to Vikings owner Red McCombs gloss over Randy Moss' total lack of effort on 39 percent of the plays in the game against Tennessee -- which is an incredibly under-reported disgrace, and an overlooked sham by the coaches who allow it to happen week after week -- and I listened to him say Moss' statements, about trying when he feels like it, were regrettable. Regrettable but not worthy of confrontation. And as I listened to Cleveland owner Al Lerner and club president Carmen Policy downplay the behavior of their fans in a press conference Sunday night, I felt like I was listening to McCombs all over again. The three of them, men of great responsibility, chose to shirk their responsibility as adults. McCombs excused the behavior of a great football player letting his team down. Lerner and Policy, the latter in particular, excused the behavior of punks.

The backdrop: Cleveland, still tenuously in the playoff chase at 6-6 entering the game, was down to Jacksonville 15-10 with just over a minute left. Couch threw to Morgan on fourth-and-two, and the officials ruled a completed pass on the Jags' 9. Out of timeouts, Couch ran to the line and spiked the ball with 48 seconds left. Then the officials huddled. In the final two minutes of either half, as Parcells mentioned above, the replay review is in the hands of the replay official sitting in a booth in the press box. If the eye in the sky feels a review is warranted, he basically pages the official on the field, causing a pager on his belt to vibrate and buzz. Replay official Bill Reynolds said he was 100 percent certain he had buzzed McAulay before Couch's spike. McAulay called for a replay review of Morgan's catch. He emerged from the review saying Morgan had not caught the ball. First down Jacksonville. Game over. Browns' playoff hopes over. Now the bottles, coins, batteries and at least one cupholder ripped from the back of a stadium seat came flying on to the field.

"I'm not criticizing the fans at all," said Policy. "I think people's hearts have been ripped out from this ... I've seen snowballs flying in New England. I've seen snowballs fly at Giants games in the Meadowlands. I don't think Cleveland will take a black eye over this ... I like the fact that our fans care that much."

Carmen, that last sentence will haunt you for as long as you work in the NFL.

The beer bottles that flew onto the field -- hundreds of them, by the count of Akron Beacon Journal beat man Pat McManamon, my correspondent in Cleveland -- were, in Policy's words, "plastic bottles. And I don't think they carry much of a wallop."

When they're thrown full or half-full from the upper deck they do, which is what McManamon told me had happened.

Said Lerner: "It wasn't pleasant. I wouldn't suggest anything like that. But it wasn't World War III ... We didn't have the most stable people in the world sitting in the stands. People reacted. Nobody for one second is condoning that, nor do we think they should plug in the electric chair as soon as they find each of those people."

Here's the message: We got jobbed. We're ticked off. The fans are ticked off. And we're going to react emotionally, just like the fans did. Hey, what's wrong with throwing a few bottles?

Three points to make here:

1. I have serious reservations about whether the replay official notified McAulay in time. You can't see any reaction from McAulay about stopping Couch's spike before the spike. As soon as an official is buzzed, it's incumbent on him to immediately wave the play dead. McAulay did nothing of the sort. How can he say he was buzzed, and how can the replay official say he buzzed him, when there is no evidence of the buzzing, except that Reynolds swears he did so in time? Having said that, if Reynolds did get to McAulay in time, there is no way the spike should count. And the only people who know if the buzzing occurred on time are McAulay and Reynolds. (Pretty important, considering that, even though it's a longshot, the act of buzzing may have cost the Browns the sixth seed in the playoffs.)

2. The Browns hired a former director of the Secret Service, Lew Merletti, to oversee stadium operations and security and team security. He has had a nice year. The rights to fifth-round draft pick, linebacker Jeremiah Pharms, had to be renounced the week after the draft because of his alleged involvement in a drug-related assault. (Pharms entered a modified guilty plea in November and will be sentenced Jan. 11.) Two players, Mike Sellers and Lamar Chapman, were charged with cocaine possession. Tight end O.J. Santiago was implicated in a marijuana bust. And first-round draft pick Gerard Warren faces a charge of carrying a concealed and unregistered loaded gun. Now this. Merletti's running a pretty tight ship from what I can see.

3. If the Browns had any guts, they'd ban the sale of alcohol in the stadium. Permanently. Now that we've seen that their fans can't handle their liquor, why endanger the health and welfare of the people in the stadium?

Judging by Policy's reaction, I doubt anything corrective will happen.

The Dallas Cowboys have had five head coaches. Two (Dave Campo, Chan Gailey) have never lost to the Washington Redskins.

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Seattle RB Ricky Watters, who returned from a broken shoulder to rush for 104 bruising yards on 28 carries, and caught a team-high five passes for 34 yards in his return to the Seattle starting lineup, keying a 29-3 win over Dallas.

On Friday, he'd told me he'd been so fired up in practice all week that he had to settle himself down and save something for the game. The downside: He sprained an ankle late in the game, and he could miss even more time now.

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Giants linebacker Jessie Armstead, whose 16 tackles in a 17-13 win over Arizona are a testament to his red badge of courage. Armstead has played much of the season with a partially torn hamstring, and to watch him fly around the field on a leg and a half is to watch a profile in courage.

SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Baltimore PR Jermaine Lewis, whose clutch second-half 61-yard punt return should have put Baltimore in great position to win Sunday night's game. But the offense, down 13-7 at the time, taking over deep in Steelers territory, frittered away the chance and got no points out of it. Lewis doesn't talk about much, but he's one of the game's most exciting players.

COACH OF THE WEEK: Pittsburgh offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey, for making a formerly clueless offense so efficient, and for his fourth-quarter play call that stunned everyone in North America -- but worked. Fullback Dan Kreider, a second-year guy from that George O'Leary powerhouse, New Hampshire, had touched the ball three times all season. Third-and-goal from the Ravens' five. Kreider in the backfield, the ultimate blocking back for whatever Mularkey had in mind for Kordell Stewart. Kreider took the handoff and went untouched into the end zone. I mean, how many times does a Ravens defense give up a five-yard touchdown run? How many times untouched? Just another example of a very smart man using his talent as well as any coordinator in the league.

GOAT OF THE WEEK: Arizona K Bill Gramatica. Now, I am all for exuberant players showing happiness on the field. But Gramatica and his brother Martin, the Bucs kicker, have turned routine field-goal celebrations into Super Bowlesque burlesque. And finally, it cost one of them more than embarrassment. Bill Gramatica kicked a 42-yard field goal midway through the first quarter to give Arizona a 3-0 lead over the Giants at Giants Stadium, and he followed that by leaping in the air and wrenching his right knee. Gramatica struggled to kick the ensuing kickoff to the Giants' 19. The Cards then had to have Pat Tillman boot two wounded ducks the rest of the day on kickoffs, and had to bypass field-goal tries because this silly man Gramatica had a bum knee.

I was on the phone in the Giants Stadium press box when Gramatica hurt himself on his celebration, and the guy on the other end of the phone said to me: "If our kicker ever hurt himself like that, I'd go over and boot him right in the ass."

The guy on the other end of the phone: Brett Favre.

1. I think these things about the Sunday night intense-fest:

a. I have never seen officials whistle such a ludicrous and ticky-tack penalty as the second-half taunting call made by Tom White's crew.

b. Elvis Grbac is doing everything in his power to get run out of Baltimore on a rail. He is nothing like he was a year ago in his 4,169-yard Kansas City season. And how about his turning away from Shannon Sharpe's sideline tirade in the second half? I said this on the Sunday morning CNN NFL Preview show, and I believe it now more than ever: Grbac holds his future squarely in his hands, and if he blows it over the next month, I could see the Ravens going after Drew Bledsoe in the offseason.

c. AFC wild card games, assuming Pats conquer Fish Saturday, look like Jets at Pats and Ravens at Dolphins. Well, look on the bright side, Ravepeople: You had to win three road games to get to the Super Bowl last year, and you'll have to win -- in my scenario -- at Miami, Pittsburgh and Oakland in successive weeks. Doable. Also very hard.

d. Pittsburgh's special teams looked pretty unspecial in the second half. That could cost men of Steel big-time over the next few weeks.

e. Any questions about the new Kordell Stewart? He's so good, so proficient, such a leader, that I'm actually thinking of voting him Comeback Player of the Year over Garrison Hearst. I probably won't, but what a turnaround Stewart has made.

2. I think the Chunky Soup people didn't do Donovan McNabb many favors with that commercial blanketing the airwaves. He sounds like Neanderthal Man with these memorable lines: "What did I do?" And, "More is good." And, "Ouch. That's a lot of beef."

3. I think no quarterback in recent NFL history has had lousier mechanics than Tony Banks. He looks like a train wreck throwing the ball.

4. I think these are my other Bill Parcellsisms picked up after four-and-a-half hours in the neighboring easy chair Sunday afternoon:

a. On Priest Holmes: "This guy's having a Marshall Faulk season. Leading rusher in the league, 495 yards receiving ... What more can the guy do? He's amazing."

b. On golf: "I played nine holes this morning. I like it, but I'm no addict."

c. On Matt Millen: "You ever talk to Matt? If you do, tell him he's a little too visible."

d. On Corey Dillon getting a dislocated finger taped while his team was on the field for its last drive of the game: "Get in the game! They need you now! It's like I used to tell our doctor, Dr. Warren, with the Giants: 'I don't need him in five minutes. I need him now.'"

e. On the Miller beer Christmas commercial, with the horse-drawn sleigh: "I like that commercial. Where was that filmed?"

5. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:

a. Montclair High Bowling Note of the Week: The Mounties have had a solid 2-1 start to the winter season at Bowler City (isn't that a classic name for bowling lanes?) in Hackensack, N.J., beating Paterson Eastside and Paterson Kennedy, and losing to Paramus Catholic. Sophomore Mary Beth King got a turkey against Paramus Catholic in a 160 game. I didn't know what a turkey was when she told me. "Three strikes in a row," she said. It seems Mary Beth celebrated a bit too much when she hit her third in a row, and coach Cebowla (his name is Tony Cedola, but Mary Beth likes to call him Ce- bowl -a; get it?) told her: "Better work on your poker face a little bit."

b. Coffeenerdness: I'm full time on the eggnog lattes. Starbucks has the formula down right now, I believe. In fact, I'd like one right now.

c. All systems are go for the Polar Bear Five-Miler Asbury Park, N.J., two weeks hence. I did five miles on the treadmill in 49:12 Friday.

6. I think I might be a charter member of the Mike McMahon Fan Club. I know he makes one mistake for every positive play, but is there a young quarterback other than Vick or Brees with the upside of this dynamo?

7. I think Terry Glenn, suddenly, looks like a gamer. Couldn't have anything to do with him showcasing himself for 31 other teams, could it?

8. I think this is Minnesota's nightmare: The Panthers and Lions are 0-23 when not playing the Vikings, 2-1 when playing the Purple.

9. I think I need to go back to college to understand the Capital One commercials on ESPN. Either that or the ad agency that invented this campaign is staffed by morons. You make the call.

10. I think the Houston Texans would be wise to do their homework on disappointing Jets backup quarterback Chad Pennington right now. Which they're doing.

The Rams have lost three of the last four to the Saints, and they're playing this one in the Superdome, and Kurt Warner has made a mountain of mistakes recently against New Orleans. "The biggest thing for me is I don't want to change what I'm doing," he told me a few days ago. "I give them credit. They've made some plays against me. They've made more plays than I have. The key for me is I have to make more plays than I make mistakes. I've made too many errors. But can they stop us? Can they beat us if we're on top of our game? I don't think so." I mentioned to him that Saints safety Sammy Knight told me one of the keys to playing Warner is to think like an offensive player, to get back in coverage and act like a receiver, because he knows deep balls are going to fly, and he has as much chance to catch them as the Rams receiver he's covering. Weird, but it has worked to the tune of four picks in the last two games. "There's something to that. They're very smart," Warner said. I say the Rams play ball-control more than they have in recent games with the Saints, put the ball in Marshall Faulk's hands and win 29-17.

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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