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Affiliate follies frustrate NFL fans
By Gregg Easterbrook
Page 2 columnist

On Sunday the nation's capital, where TMQ lives, did not see Miami at New England -- the consensus five-star matchup of the day, essentially a playoff contest and, as it turned out, among the most dramatic and exciting NFL games ever played. The local affiliate of CBS, which had the rights to Miami-New England, showed instead the meaningless Jax at Indianapolis collision.

Why this ludicrous result? Miami-New England was a 1 p.m. ET kickoff, and the sold-out Cowboys at Persons game was airing on the Washington Fox affiliate at that time. League rules forbid either CBS or Fox from showing any game while a sold-out home game is airing on the opposite network. The meaningless Jax at Indy collision kicked off in the late slot, the only time the league would allow Washington's CBS affiliate to show a game this Sunday.

Think about the rule: if a home date is sold out, the other network is forbidden to air any game at the same time. In effect, this penalizes the home city for buying all the tickets to a game. Only the NFL could come up with a rule that penalizes cities for selling out their stadiums. And once again the NFL goes to unlimited expense to create a fabulous product, then prevents the public from seeing it, for the sinister purpose of -- what? Miami-New England surely would have drawn better ratings for the local CBS affiliate, even across from the home game, than did the meaningless Jax at Indy contest.

Greg Aiello, the league's spokesman, told TMQ the rule that kept the fabulous Miami-New England game off the tube -- and has kept other fabulous games off the tube in other cities, while losing home teams play meaningless contests on the opposite network -- exists because, "Our emphasis has always been on the interests of the home team." So the league has an interest in protecting the home team from competition? If the home team is playing on one channel, and there's a better game on the other channel, why can't fans decide for themselves what to watch? The home team would need to be protected from channel-switching competition only if it was so bad that home fans didn't want to watch. If the home-team game was desirable, fans would switch to it of their own accord. The rule exists, in other words, to compel viewers to watch woofer games. Ye gods.

To top it off, CBS switched much of the nation to the final two minutes of regulation of the Miami-New England game -- then switched off the overtime. Fox had the doubleheader (late game) slot for the day, and another inane league rule says that CBS or Fox must turn off an early game that goes into overtime when the doubleheader game starts on the opposite network. That is, both networks are required to turn off overtimes, the most exciting moments in pro football, in order to show the first few minutes, the least exciting moments in football, of other games.

So the year in which the NFL renewed the DirecTV monopoly on Sunday Ticket, denying the chance to watch any game to the majority of the U.S. taxpayers whose taxes fund the stadiums that make NFL profits possible, concludes with the NFL denying the nation's capital permission to watch one of the most dramatic NFL games ever. (DirecTV fans, please don't bomb me with more e-mail. I have nothing against DirecTV, which is terrific if you can get it. The problem is that only about 10 percent of Americans get it, and millions cannot receive the DirecTV signal at any price, for technical reasons).

Adam Vinatieri
While Adam Vinatieri celebrated his game-winning field goal, some NFL fans could only wish they saw such a thrilling finish.
How is it that pro football remains the nation's most popular sport despite the constant, diligent, undaunted efforts of the league front office to prevent the public from seeing the best games? At least now we enter the playoffs, when the U.S. taxpayers, who are taxed to build the stadiums that make NFL profits possible, are at last set free from the NFL's inane rules designed to prevent the best games from being seen; all playoff contests are nationally televised.

In other football news, I love New York! (Which is, for NFL purposes, located in New Jersey.) The Giants and Jets staged back-to-back monster home games that propelled each team to improbable playoff slots. Has any stadium ever before played host to contests on consecutive days in which the home teams both won and both made the playoffs in so doing? One-hundred fifty-seven thousand five-hundred and fifteen people were standing throughout most of the length of both games. Surely among the 157,515 combined attendance must be at least someone who went to both games and that person, medical experts report, will be hoarse until Valentine's Day.

Miami Collapse Point No. 1: Leading by three, the Marine Mammals had first down on their 4-yard line with 2:42 remaining in regulation and the home crowd of the defending champion Patriots making so much noise you couldn't have heard an F14 catapulted off an aircraft carrier. The Dolphins spent an entire year preparing for exactly this moment -- when you must power-run in bad weather late in the year. Ricky Williams, acquired to give the Dolphins that ability, to that point in the game had carried for 177 yards. What did Miami do? Incompletion, incompletion, scramble on a busted pass, punt.

Dave Wannstedt said afterward that he knew the Patriots would be crowding the line and didn't want Williams stuffed for no gain; it's a fair concern. But the two incompletions stopped the clock, allowing New England time to get into position for the last-minute field goal that forced overtime. Even if Williams had simply run up the middle for no gain for three straight plays, the Patriots would either have expended their time-outs, or gotten the ball back with most of the clock expired. Ye gods.

Miami Collapse Point No. 2: The kicking-game errors that catch the eyes of sports bobbleheads are blocked kicks, missed figgies or fumbled returns. But subtler events can be killers, too. The reason the Marine Mammals were mired on their 4 with 2:42 to play was that return man Travis Minor spent several crucial seconds staring at a New England kickoff, doing nothing. Miami had its return team up, in case of an onside; New England kicked away. The ball bounced around close to the goal line and Minor seemed confused about whether it was a punt -- returners are coached never to touch punts inside the 10 -- or a kickoff, a live ball. As Pats descended to dive on the live ball, Minor finally woke up and fielded it, but was buried at his 4. Had he simply fielded the ball like any normal kickoff, the Dolphins would not have been mired near their goal line.

Dave Wannstedt
Dave Wannstedt ponders the many reasons for Miami's collapse.
Then, following the perplexing all-passing series, Miami punted from its 11 with 2:18 remaining in regulation. Mark Royals shanked a hideous 23-yard punt, putting New England in business at the Mammals' 34. After the figgie that forced a fifth session, the Pats won the toss. Olindo Mare kicked off out of bounds, putting New England in business at its 40. Combined, these kicking-game blunders handed the Patriots about 50 yards of field position in the game's closing moments, about the same as New England itself gained.

Miami Collapse Point No. 3: The Mammals missed the playoffs when their defense, ranked third in the league, could not hold fourth-quarter leads in consecutive weeks, including an 11-point lead with three minutes to play against New England.

Worst Stationary Packer No. 1: Game scoreless in the first, the Packers had Jersey/B facing second and eight. The Jets called a fly to Laveranues Coles on the right sideline. Packers corner Mike McKenzie simply let Coles go by, McKenzie being busy making the high-school mistake of "looking into the backfield" trying to guess the play. The play was a pass to his man, completed for 43 yards. The Jets score a touchdown two snaps later and suddenly the heavily favored Pack has a problem.

Worst Stationary Packer No. 2: Now trailing by that touchdown, the Packers had third-and-goal at the Jets' 4 late in the second quarter. The play was a roll-out right. Inexperienced Pack receiver Robert Ferguson cut across the end zone from the left and his man fell down; Ferguson came to an all-stop halt and stood waving his hand. Brett Favre, meanwhile, was scrambling on the right. When the quarterback is scrambling, the rule for receivers is that they either come back toward him or break deep for the end zone. Since you can't break deep toward the end zone when you are already in the end zone, Ferguson should have come back toward Favre. Instead he stood like a statute and by the time the pass was launched his way, a Jersey/B defender had reacted and managed to knock the ball down. Green Bay had to settle for three and suddenly the heavily favored Pack looks shaky.

Worst Stationary Packer No. 3: Wayne Chrebet of Jersey/B cooked the Packers' goose by twice catching touchdowns on third-and-12. Both times he was covered by corner Tod McBride. Both times he ran the spin-Z-in (spin-Zed-in to Canadians). Both times McBride, who was backed off, just stood there watching Chrebet, not even moving until the reception had been made and the small green gentleman was headed toward the end zone.

Cindy
Honestly, Cindy, you're too principled for acting or advertising.
Cheerleader of the Week: We can't bid adieu to the high-aesthetic-appeal Miami cheer-babes till next summer without honoring one more, so the TMQ ESPN Cheerleader of the Week is Cindy of the Dolphins. According to her team bio, Cindy has nine years of ballet training, including at the Joffrey in New York. She aspires "to become an actress or work in the field of advertising." Cindy reports that she is ethnically Hispanic, likes Thai food and the one thing she can't stand is "dishonesty." But she wants to go into acting or advertising?

Future historians will pour over the Marine Mammals' ultra-serious Cheerleader History page, which among things recounts how over the years the Miami cheer-babes first had, then discarded, and now have again go-go boots.

Why Are You Punting? Trailing 6-0 in the late third, Chicago faced fourth-and-seven on the City of Tampa 38. Go for it? Hoist a 55-yard field goal attempt with a strong-legged kicker who earlier this year hit from 53? Bears coach Dick Jauron decided to punt; the punt rolled into the end zone for a touchback and a laughable net of 18 yards; emboldened by Chicago's mincing fraidy-cat play, the Bucs staged a 16-play drive that put the game out of reach. The 4-11 Bears came into the night with nothing to lose. Trailing, they punted from the opposition 38. Aye caramba.

Why Are You Kicking? Trailing 20-0 with 27 ticks remaining in the half, the Bengals faced fourth-and-goal on the Buffalo 2. Cincinnati coach Dick LeBeau decided to kick the field goal. Now he's only behind 20-3; whoopee! The 2-13 Bengals came into the game with nothing to lose. They're behind by 20 points. Trailing big you've got to take some chances, and there aren't going to be many chances more attractive than a snap on the opposition 2-yard line. LeBeau seemed more concerned with avoiding a shutout than trying for victory. Aye caramba.

They Once Were Kings No. 1: The Ravens defense, just two years ago allowing the fewest points ever, had the Steelers at midfield, nine seconds remaining in the half, Pittsburgh out of time outs. The Steelers can either Hail Mary or throw a deep out hoping for field goal position. Since the Ravens know these are the only options, there's no way Baltimore will allow a Pittsburgh receiver to get to the sidelines, right? Deep out to Plaxico Burress, who immediately steps out of bounds at the 25, stopping the clock; the Ravens DB looked like he had absolutely no idea this was coming. Field goal on the next snap and the Ravens trail 20-14 at the half. Yumpin' yiminy.

Antwaan Randle El, Lee Mays
Antwaan Randle El, left, celebrates after burning the Baltimore defense.
They Once Were Kings No. 2: "One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand, five one-thousand, six one-thousand, seven one-thousand, eight one-thousand." That's how long TMQ counted as Tommy Maddox scanned the field before heave-hoeing the winning pass to Antwaan Randle El in the fading moments against the Ravens defense, which just two years ago allowed the fewest points ever.

'Tis Better to Have Rushed and Lost Than Never to Have Rushed at All No. 1: Leading by a touchdown with 6:08 remaining in the fourth, San Diego got the ball on its own 24. On the possession the Bolts, the league's seventh-ranked rushing team, ran once and passed six times. Four of the six passes were incompletions, stopping the clock. After the punt, the Seattle Blue Men Group staged an 18-play drive to score with five seconds remaining and force overtime, during which San Diego lost. Had the Chargers simply rushed up the middle for no gain on every snap of their possession, Seattle would have run out of time.

'Tis Better to Have Rushed and Lost Than Never to Have Rushed at All No. 2: In terrible conditions at Not Bankrupt Yet Coliseum, Kansas City passed 13 times and rushed eight times while the game was close in the first half; Oakland passed 11 times and ran 28 times through the same period. Sure, the Chiefs did not have Priest Holmes. But how could they possibly have thought passing was going to work in a downpour?

Stats of the Week: Kansas City, the league's highest-scoring team and the league's second-best in turnover differential, finished last in its division.

Stats of the Week No. 2: In the past two seasons, San Diego has started a combined 11-3 and finished a combined 2-16.

Stats of the Week No. 3: In the past two seasons, New Orleans has started a combined 14-7 and finished a combined 2-9.

Stats of the Week No. 4: In the past two seasons, Chicago has gone on streaks of 13-3 and then 4-13.

Stats of the Week No. 5: The Giants won to make the playoffs despite fumbling seven times at home.

Stats of the Week No. 6: Miami lost and missed the playoffs despite a 140-yard edge in rushing yards and being plus-two in turnovers on the road.

Stats of the Week No. 7: Before this season, no defending Super Bowl champion had ever allowed three opponents to exceed 200 yards rushing. New England allowed four.

Stats of the Week No. 8: San Diego's season finished on a downer when its defense could not hold a 14-point lead at home with seven minutes to play.

Stats of the Week No. 9: Since the moment two years ago when the tastefully named Gregg Williams junked the cautious, position-oriented scheme of Buffalo's perennially high-ranking defense in order to install the gamble-everything-for-takeaways "46," the Bills have recorded the fewest takeaways in any two-year period in franchise history. They finished second-last in takeaways in 2001 and last in takeaways in 2002.

Stats of the Week No. 10: Former Cowboys coach Dave Campo was 5-1 against the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons and 10-32 against all other teams.

Stats of the Week No. 11: The Boy Scouts collapsed to miss the playoffs by dropping their final three to Minnesota, Cincinnati and Carolina -- three losing teams which finished a combined 15-33.

Stats of the Week No. 12: Jersey/B, Seattle and Tennessee opened a combined 4-14 and finished a combined 23-7.

Shawn Barber, Tiki Barber
Of the league's top rushers, only Tiki Barber is still running.
Stats of the Week No. 13: Just one of the top-10 rushers, Tiki Barber, will appear in the postseason. Ricky Williams, LaDainian Tomlinson, Priest Holmes, Clinton Portis, Travis Henry, Deuce McAllister, Jamal Lewis, Fred Taylor and Corey Dillon will watch on television.

Stats of the Week No. 14: The City of Tampa defense allowed only 10 touchdown passes while making 31 interceptions.

Stats of the Week No. 15: Marvin Harrison bested the single-season receptions record by almost a fifth, finishing with 143 catches; the previous mark was 123.

Stats of the Week No. 16: Rob Johnson of Tampa attempted 43 passes in the season's final two games and was sacked 10 times. This rate of one sack per 4.3 attempts was much worse than the sack rate of David Carr, who went down once per 5.8 attempts. Had Carr gone down at the same rate per attempt as Johnson, he would have been sacked 103 times.

Stats of the Week No. 17: Starting the last nine games for the Blue Men Group, Matt Hasselbeck finished on a pace to break the NFL all-time passing yardage record, with 5,288 yards. The season record, held by Dan Marino, is 5,084 yards.

Matt Hasselbeck
Look out, Dan Marino. Matt Hasselbeck's gunning for your yardage record.
Stats of the Week No. 18: At 12-33, Dick LeBeau managed to compile the worst coaching record in Bengals history -- .266 versus .267 for the previous title holder, Dave Shula.

Mega-Babe Professionalism: In driving rain and a kickoff temperature of 50 degrees at Not Bankrupt Yet Coliseum, the high-aesthetic-appeal Raiderettes came out in cutoff jackets and hot pants. The football gods, impressed, rewarded their team with victory. The entire Kansas City coaching staff wore full-body rain suits with rain pants and hoods, dressed to crew a trawler headed for the North Atlantic to take cod. The Oakland sideline wore windbreakers and baseball caps. A football-gods-appeasing double for the Raiders!

This Week's Marty Mornhinweg Forehead-Slapper: Early in the fourth against the Vikings, the Peugeots scored a touchdown to make it Minnesota 35, Detroit 30. Mornhinweg went for two, clang. Later Minnesota kicked a field goal, then with 16 seconds left the Peugeots scored to make it Minnesota 38, Detroit 36; this time the home team had to go for two and again clang, game over. Had Detroit simply kicked the singleton on the earlier touchdown, it could have forced overtime with a singleton at the end. Though technically Mornhinweg's decision conformed to the TMQ immutable law, Take One Till the Fourth, TMQ reiterates that unless the hour is very late or you're trailing big, you are almost always better off with a 99 percent likelihood of one than a 40 percent chance of two.

The New Threat to Marino Is Matt Hasselbeck? On Saturday at 8:08 p.m. ET, Dan Marino lit a cigar as the Raiders game concluded with Rich Gannon pulling up shy of the season passing yardage record. It'll sit on the Marino mantelpiece quite a while longer, TMQ thinks.

Jeremy Shockey
Two words for you, Jeremy Shockey: Brian Bosworth.
Memo to Jeremy Shockey: You're hot, but you are also dancing on every catch, throwing a fit on every zebra call, spiking the ball after short gains and when you snagged the touchdown against Philadelphia, you screamed boasts of prowess into the face of Pro Bowl safety Brian Dawkins, who has done a lot more at this level than you have. Oh ye mortals, trifle not with the football gods. The sort of behavior Shockey is exhibiting can only lead to woe.

Stop Me Before I Blitz Again! Leading by seven in the second quarter at Not Bankrupt Yet Coliseum, the Raiders go for it on fourth-and-five from the Kansas City 27 -- weather conditions ruled out a figgie attempt. Big-blitzing on such a down is totally predictable in the NFL. It's a big blitz! Completion to Tim Brown for the first, and the Long Johns score a touchdown three plays later. (To be fair to the last-ranked Kansas City defense, in the third quarter the Raiders faced fourth-and-seven again on the Chiefs' 27 and again went for it. This time Kansas City rushed three, completion to Jerry Rice for the first and Oakland scored five plays later.)

But Verily, Football Gods, How Doth Thou Explain Denver? The Broncos finished third in total offense and sixth in total defense -- best in the league in combined yardage efficiency. (Pittsburgh was second by this yardstick, fifth in total offense and seventh in total defense.) Yet Denver didn't make the playoffs. True, the Broncs' turnover differential was a negative five, but Cleveland, Indianapolis and the Jets, all playoff teams, also had negative turnover differentials. And it wasn't the kicking game, as Denver did well on field goals and returns and about average on kick defense. So how could the Broncos be the best combined offense-defense team in the league and not make the postseason? TMQ can't explain it either.

Since It Was a Bengals Contract, He Was Required to Throw Those Interceptions: Had quarterback Jon Kitna played six more downs in the Buffalo game, he would have hit a contract performance milestone and earned a $1.6 million bonus. With 3:19 remaining, Kitna threw an interception. The Bills promptly fumbled the ball back. With 1:37 remaining, Kitna threw another interception.

Worst Coaching-Staff Failure to Read TMQ No. 1: Lately this column has repeatedly warned against throwing regular passes close to the goal line, where regular passes are hard to complete because the defense has so little territory to defend; at the goal line only runs, roll-outs and play-fakes are effective. Eagles 7, Giants 0 and Jersey/A faces second and goal at the Philadelphia five. Run! Or play-fake! Regular pass, interception.

Worst Coaching Staff Failure to Read TMQ No. 2: And lately this column has repeatedly pointed out that several NFL offensive coordinators, including in Buffalo, Houston and Oakland, have developed the peculiar habit of having their quarterbacks sprint backward in goal-to-go situations.

Late in the third, the Moo Cows trailed the Flaming Thumbtacks by six and faced second-and-goal at the Tennessee 6. David Carr -- who to that point in the game had not been sacked -- sprinted backward. Sack, loss of 8. One third-and-goal, Carr sprinted backward again. Sack again, loss of 10. The Texans ended up kicking a field goal on fourth-and-goal from the 24!

When you're close to the house, power-run, play-fake or roll out. Don't sprint backward More proof of theorem, though Detroit games may not count. Needing a deuce conversion to force overtime with 13 seconds remaining, the Peugeots came out in a shotgun, and on fielding the snap the already far-from-the-line Mike McMahon immediately sprinted backward. Incompletion, game over.

James Thrash
TV announcers reversed their double-reverse call about James Thrash's touchdown run on a reverse.
Best Booth Reading of TMQ: Philadelphia handed off to an end going around right; he handed back to James Thrash going left, and Thrash ran for six. This is the very play, executed by the Eagles previously in the season, that TMQ cited a few weeks ago as the exemplar of the action that announcers describe as a double reverse, but is actually a single reverse. The ball started in Direction A and came back in Direction B. That's one reverse, not two.

How did the announcers call it? "It's a double reverse!" Joe Buck shrieked. "Wow, a double reverse!" Chris Collinsworth seconded. As these bobbleheads gushed over the replay, four times the phrase "double reverse" was used. Cut to commercial. Coming back, Buck and Collinsworth both pointedly called the play a "reverse" without noting they had previously called it a double reverse. During the commercial, one of the booth guys must have whispered into their earpieces, "TMQ is going to have a field day if you keep calling this a double reverse."

What Really Matters About Sport: Thirteen-year-old Grant, a Marine Mammals aficionado and an Official Child of TMQ, was inconsolable after the Dolphins' collapse at Disposable Razor Field. Reason: he got a Ricky Williams jersey for Christmas and, he explained, "Now I have to wait a whole year, till they win the first time next fall, to wear it to school. If I wear it now, the guys will make fun of me." What can a parent say to that?

Playoff Coaching Watch: It's money time, which means that on the field we separate the men from the excessively pumped XY-chromosome individuals. And it means that we separate the mojo coaches from guys who merely schedule practices and toss out balls.

One Tuesday Morning Quarterback immutable law of the NFL is that the farther a team goes into the playoffs, the more important game plans and psyche-ups become. During the regular season, coaches who just schedule practices and toss out balls may be enough for a talented team to get Ws. As the postseason advances and the pressure ratchets, game-plan details and psyche tactics become paramount.

Note, for example, that during the same period when the Buffalo Bills were losing four Super Bowls to teams from the NFC East, the Bills pasted the NFC East during the regular season, through the 1990s compiling a 14-2 record against that division. The regular-season Bills of that era beat the Cowboys in Dallas, beat the Giants in Jersey, beat the Persons in Washington (when they actually played in Washington); when postseason rolled around, they lost to these selfsame teams. Although Buffalo had an admirable Hall of Fame coach in Marv Levy, he was a toss-out-the-balls type. Levy's practices were known as Club Marv; he disparaged the importance of game plans and often said it was up to the players to prepare themselves psychologically. During the regular season, this laissez-faire approach sufficed. During the playoffs, Levy was consistently outcoached.

For the remainder of the year, TMQ will hyper-analyze with special emphasis on whether the coaches can take the pressure.

Brandi Bragg, Jewell Whittaker, Andrew
Powerball jackpot winner Andrew "Jack" Whittaker Jr., center right, made like an NFL player and got as much cash as he could up-front.
Next Powerball Prize: Billions of Shares of WorldCom! "West Virginia Man Wins $314.9 Million in Powerball," headlines read across the country. Except he didn't win $314.9 million, he won $170.5 million by the organization's own accounting. Now, $170.5 million is heady enough. The fictional claim of a $314.9 million was achieved by Powerball offering to space the payments out over 29 years as an annuity, making the sum in question appear almost twice as large as it actually was.

Today's money ("discounting to present value") is always what really matters. The West Virginia winner, who seems to understand economics better than the TV talking heads who were screeching about $314.9 million, wisely chose to take the entire $170.5 million immediately. If your salary was $100,000, and your employer offered you the option of $185,000 paid over 29 years, would you fall for that?

Many state-run lotteries -- whose primary function is to trick the poor and working-class into throwing their money away, but that's a separate argument -- use calculations of drawn-out payments plus interest to inflate the apparent prize. Which is one means to trick the poor and working-class into throwing their money away, but that's a separate argument. The national media invariably play along, breathlessly reporting the fictional future value of lottery prizes rather than their actual present value. These are the same journalists and talking heads, bear in mind, who constantly get wrong financial details about corporations, lawsuits and the federal budget, and who hyped tech stocks as gold mines.

Best Line Play: The Jets' skill players made the flashy plays, but the Jersey/B lines on both sides of the ball had a fabulous day against Green Bay. And the William Green 64-yard touchdown run as the afternoon light was fading over Oranges Stadium, putting the Cleveland Oranges (Release 2.1) into the playoffs, came behind fabulous line blocking. You could run 64 yards too if no one touched you.

Though Anything That Gets Halle Berry Into a Bikini Can't Be All Bad:This recent story, headlined US RECEIVES WARNINGS FROM NORTH KOREA, says Pyongyang has warned Washington of "uncontrollable catastrophe" if the United States makes any move against the North's nuclear program.

Pyongyang threatens Washington? This causes TMQ to think that North Korean diplomats have spent too much time watching the new Bond flick "Die Another Day," in which a rogue North Korean colonel almost brings the world to its knees using a satellite death ray.

One must suspend disbelief on many Bond premises like death rays, of course. But what drove TMQ crazy about the rogue North Korean colonel in "Die Another Day" is that he is depicted as phenomenally ultra-rich. He lives in extreme opulence; mansions, race cars, private armies of henchmen. He builds from scratch a four-star luxury hotel in remote Iceland just to call a meeting of some celebrities he wants to impress, then as soon as the meeting is over, destroys the hotel. He's got an airborne hideout in a modified Antonov-225, the largest plane in the world. And he controls a super-advanced satellite capable of taking over the world.

How could a North Korean colonel afford all this stuff? North Korea is one of the world's poorest countries, with a GDP of just $22 billion, 50 percent less than the GDP of the state of Rhode Island. Nobody in Rhode Island can afford a death star capable of controlling the world, so how can a North Korean?

NASA's International Space Station -- see how many seconds it has been in orbit -- weighs about 500 tons; TMQ scientifically estimates that the huge death star depicted in "Die Another Day" would have to weigh at least half that amount. To launch 250 tons to low-Earth orbit would require about 10 flights of the largest United States, Russian or French rockets. The launch costs alone would exceed $2 billion, and 10 heavy-lifter launches (or even one) would be impossible to conceal from the world intelligence community or from NORAD. Then there's the cost of the object itself. Even assuming the death-star technology were licensed free, the rule of thumb is that the manufacturing expense of space payload is about $100 million per ton. So construction of the rogue North Korean colonel's death star would cost perhaps $25 billion -- more than the entire GDP of North Korea. How could a rogue North Korean colonel afford all this stuff?

There is some brief babbling about him profiting from the sale of African "conflict diamonds," but in the movie's only diamonds scene the rogue colonel is buying diamonds, not selling them. At any rate since the global retail diamond trade is about $56 billion per annum, and wholesale represents about a third of that, the rogue North Korean colonel would have had to take over the entire world diamond business for more than a year to raise the money to fund his death star, and don't we think the Israelis and South Africans might have had something to say about that?

Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry
Buddhists, bellies and Berry: Pierce Brosnan gets cozy with Halle in "Die Another Day."
Satellite note: the rogue colonel's satellite is depicted as using a huge mirror to collect sunlight into a pulsating death beam. A few years ago Glavkosmos, the old Soviet space agency, unfurled a large mirror satellite named Znamya to see if it could be used to bring sunlight to the parts of Siberia that experience endless night in winter. Znamya turned out to reflect, into a small area, less light than that of a full moon; calculations suggested a mirror satellite would have to be thousands of feet across just to collect enough photons to simulate weak daylight. Can any physics-avid TMQ reader perform an incredibly scientifically advanced calculation of how large a mirror satellite would have to be to collect enough sunlight to power a death ray? Use the link at Reader Animadversion, below. Assume a perfectly efficient death ray. And if you can provide detail on how it would work, you and I could rule the world together from an airborne command post.

Raging Buddhists note: South Korean crowds have rioted against the showing of "Die Another Day" because they contend it defiles Buddhism by depicting Bond and Berry having sex in a Buddhist shrine. Shouldn't a real Buddhist be able to let go of such concerns? Attachment to the symbols of the world can only cause sorrow. At any rate, Bond and Berry are not depicted having sex in the shrine. She's laying on the ground distressingly over-clothed, and he's putting diamonds into her navel. This is what passes for erotic in contemporary Hollywood.

Bond sex note: Elsewhere in the movie, a Chinese mega-babe masseuse comes to Bond's elegant hotel suite. Using his acute double-oh instincts, Bond senses the Chinese secret service has set up a hidden camera to film him having sex with the masseuse, in order to use the pictures for blackmail. How could you blackmail James Bond with pictures of him having sex with a mega-babe? You'd blackmail James Bond with a film of him not having sex.

By the Hammer of Grabthar, He Was Avenged! Mark Fields, cut by New Orleans two seasons ago shortly after he had returned from representing the city in the Pro Bowl, now plays for Carolina. When the Boy Scouts went for it on fourth-and-seven from the Panthers' 30, trailing by four with three minutes left and their playoff invite on the line, Fields sacked Aaron Brooks.

Canny Management Note: On the above sack, Saints all-boasting left tackle Kyle Turley blocked air, standing and watching as Fields shot by. Recall that last season, Willie Roaf was the Boy Scouts' left tackle. The same New Orleans braintrust that waived Fields unloaded Roaf to the Chiefs for a middle-round draft pick. Roaf proceeded to make the Pro Bowl, while the Saints had all kinds of offensive line problems during their December fade.

Miami Collapse Point No. 4: All-boasting Cris Carter, brought in by the Marine Mammals at midseason, dropped a touchdown pass that would have won Miami's Week 16 game and put the team into the postseason, then had zero catches in the New England showdown. TMQ warned the week that Carter was signed that his yapping, me-first attitude would introduce a virus into the Dolphins' bloodstream, jeopardizing their reputation for winning with average talent because they are one of the league's team-oriented, high-character squads.

Evidence of the virus was seen when Miami, leading 21-13 with eight minutes to play, intercepted a Tom Brady pass and seemed positioned to ice the game. Jason Taylor, normally a high-character team-oriented player, staged a Jeremy-Shockey-like tirade, screaming boasts of prowess into Brady's face. TMQ cannot recall, under Wannstedt, ever seeing a Dolphin lose it like this -- until Carter joined the team. For the remainder of the afternoon, as the Dolphins collapsed and their season imploded, Taylor was a nonfactor -- his name does not appear in the Game Book until New England's second-to-last down, when Taylor had an assist as the Pats reached the Miami 17, whence they lofted the winning overtime kick. Cris Carter contributed nothing to the Dolphins except urging players to think me-first. Miami would have been much better off without him.

Darrell Green
Drivers wanted: Darrell Green had a fahrvergnugen career.
Creaking Old Guy Highlight No. 1: TMQ's favorite Darrell Green anecdote: he used to drive a Volkswagen Beetle of the old, 1960s variety. Why? Because, Green said, he liked the fact that he could outrun it.

Creaking Old Guys Highlight No. 2: On what might have been Emmitt Smith's last carry as a Cowboy, he was dropped for a loss by Bruce Smith.

Cleveland Release 2.1 Makes Playoffs; Download Patches Immediately: The Cleveland Oranges (Release 2.1) staged a monster stand in the closing seconds to stop Atlanta's second-and-goal at the 1. Inexplicably, both the final Falcon plays were handoffs to 180-pound scatback Warrick Dunn, though enormous fullbacks T.J. Duckett and George Layne were available. On the key snap, third-and-goal, when the play called for Atlanta's Brian Koslowski to pull right and trap at the hole, Koslowski inexplicably jumped into the air to avoid the defender he was supposed to block. TMQ watched the replay four times and has no idea what Koslowski may have been thinking.

Buddhists Know That Time Is An Illusion, Except When You're Rioting Against a Bond Flick: Trailing by three and their playoff fate in the balance, the Nevermores had the ball and the two-minute warning during which to regroup. Lining up out of the two-minute warning, Baltimore quarterback Jeff Blake called time. That's right -- in a two-minute-drill situation, Blake called time when time was already out! Ye gods. Baltimore ended up on the Pittsburgh 11 with 18 seconds remaining and a field goal forces overtime; Blake appeared visibly shaky because he now lacked a time out. The gentleman threw into double coverage, INT, game over.

Lord Voldemort Watch: Brad Johnson, whom Lord Voldemort (Dan Synder) benched and then released in one of his first canny decisions during his evil reign over the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons, finished with 22 touchdown passes and just six interceptions. Jeff George, whom Lord Voldemort started over Johnson, did not play for anyone this year but did warm the Seattle Blue Men Group's bench.

Got a Question About Your Files? Please Call 1-800-I-Luv-KGB Speaking of NORAD, its annual track-Santa map just closed for the year. NORAD was once a super-duper-ultra-classified organization designed to search for signs of a Soviet missile attack -- this is the outfit buried inside Cheyenne Mountain, Colo., and often used by Hollywood as the model for An Agency Far, Far More Secret Than The CIA. How can we be sure the Cold War has ended? The command now offers a toll-free number that is 877-Hi-NORAD. Check out the current NORAD/USSPACECOM master plan here.

TMQ Plans an NIH Grant Application: TMQ can normally put on weight just by looking at sweets, yet over the holidays consumed an estimated 500 Christmas cookies without gaining a pound. Two possible reasons:

1. God loves us and wants us to be happy.
2. The variable contaminant theory.

TMQ would certainly like the answer to be (1), which readers may recognize as Benjamin Franklin's explanation of why beer exists. The variable contaminant theory must, however, also be recognized. This holds that your body punishes you more for feeding it the same contaminants all the time than for alternating contaminants. Thus if you consume the same types of deli sandwiches, chips and cookies on a regular basis -- not that I do, this is speculation -- your body objects by gaining weight. An annual foray into Christmas sugar cookies and snickerdoodles, on the other hand, varies the contaminant and is not penalized; though if you ate Christmas sugar cookies all the time, this would backfire.

A corollary is the hypothesis of rotating shampoos. TMQ has encountered more than one female individual convinced that if you use the same shampoo all the time your hair loses luster, whereas rotating brands of shampoo results in healthy hair. Researchers, how about a controlled experiment?

Cady Huffman, Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick
Wait'll the Chinese government deciphers "Springtime for Hitler" from "The Producers."
Note to Chinese Secret Service: Please Confine Your Activities to Mega-Babe Masseuses: According to this news report, Beijing has been sending agents to Manhattan to study the success secrets of Broadway musicals.

Aside from imagining the hilarious competition for this assignment -- "Say, comrade, would you like to leave our pollution-choked dictatorship for a few months to gawk at chorus girls in New York at the people's expense?" -- TMQ worries about Broadway secrets falling into the wrong hands. The chi-coms may have a sinister plan to use Broadway musicals as a tool of world domination. Hey, there's the next Bond movie plot.

Besides, there's nothing about Broadway you can't figure out merely by glancing at the roster of the last 20 hit shows. Here are Broadway's innermost secrets, as learned by Tuesday Morning Quarterback Enterprises in development of the upcoming TMQ musical, "Ten Million Bucks Worth of Scenery":

1. Use a well-known story, preferably a remark or a movie adaptation. 2. Swelling crescendos.
3. As little dialogue as possible. Ideally no dialogue, just costumes and special effects.
4. Numerous chorus girls in states of undress.
5. Never, ever, ever challenge the audience to think.

That's everything the People's Musical Comedy Collective or whatever it is called needs to know.

Development note No. 1: Tuesday Morning Quarterback Enterprises also is working on a science-fiction movie treatment, "Godzilla Versus MotoFoto."

Development note No. 2: Tuesday Morning Quarterback Enterprises also is working on a television series treatment, "365," in which you watch Keifer Sutherland every single day of the year.

Savvy Crowd Response: During the Cincinnati-at-Buffalo game, the Bills crowd cheered warmly whenever Bengals linebacker Takeo Spikes made a play. Why cheer someone for plays against your team? Spikes will be an unrestricted free agent this winter, and the Bills are expected to make a run at him.

Once Again, TMQ Thanks the Football Gods the NFL Is Not the NBA: Seven NFL teams finished at or above .500 but did not make the playoffs. This is a healthy sign!

Consider that last season, eight NBA teams finished at or above .500 by a comparable fraction, and six of them made the playoffs. It's a shame that an NFL team can go 9-7 and not advance, and it's a shame there are only a total of 11 NFL postseason games. (That's all that remains of the season -- count 'em and weep.) But because the NFL postseason is so hard to enter, this means almost every NFL regular-season game is important. In the NBA the majority of regular-season games mean nothing, and don't get me started on the NHL.

If the pro football playoffs weren't so hard to join, regular-season games would lose significance. TMQ thinks it is this fact -- that almost every regular-season NFL game really matters -- that, more than anything else, creates the air of excitement that separates pro football from all other sports.

Running items department
Seneca Wallace
Iowa State QB Seneca Wallace plays it blue for Humanitarian reasons.
Obscure College Score of the Week: This item snuggles into bed for a long winter's rest, as all collegiate teams performing from here on out are pretty well known.

Depending on when you read this column, be sure not to miss TMQ's favorite holiday game -- the Humanitarian Bowl, which will be in progress on ESPN when this column posts. The Humanitarian Bowl features people slamming into each other in the name of world peace. And they do their slamming on blue turf. Don't you think that if all artificial turf were blue, the world would be a more humanitarian place?

Stop Me Before I Blitz Again! Bowl Special: Trailing by seven with a minute remaining, Wisconsin faced fourth-and-10 on the Colorado 29. The Badgers had just 137 yards passing in the game to that point. TMQ thought, "As long as Colorado doesn't blitz the game is over." It's a blitz! Six gentlemen cross the line, 28-yard completion to the Colorado 1, Wisconsin scores on the next play and wins in overtime. Ye gods.

Double-X Bowl Special: In the Las Vegas Bowl, Katie Hnida of New Mexico became the first woman in NCAA Division I-A football history to have a kick blocked; or, to play.

Katie Hnida
We wouldn't make up a story about New Mexico kicker Katie Hnida.
Having women attempt placement kicks in major-college football games seems to TMQ basically a stunt, and one wonders what the point is of this stunt. Since women have shown themselves equal to men in almost all endeavors -- doctor, lawyer, fighter pilot, corrupt CEO etc. -- why stage stunts that pretend women and men are the same in the one arena, physical strength, where they obviously are not? If there is ever a women who can play major-college or pro football on her own merit, then of course she must be allowed to do so. (Note: TMQ hopes not to meet that woman.) But making special deals to get a 140-pound woman on the field for the purpose of a publicity stunt mocks the 99 percent of circumstances in which men and women really are the same. No 140-pound male kicker who couldn't get the ball over the line would be granted special permission to play.

TMQ urges future historians to study The Associated Press photo of Hnida watching her kick clang backward. She's wearing a helmet, pads -- and eyeliner! Unless she's really confused about how to put on the lampblack.

New York Times Final-Score Score: The Paper of Guesses returns to its habitual 0-16 in its triumphant attempt to predict an exact final score, bringing the New York Times Final-Score Score to 1-775 since TMQ began tracking.

Stacy Keibler
Cheerleading led Stacy Keibler to the big time.
Reader Animadversion: On the vital public-policy topic of NFL cheer-babes who have gone on to greater things, such as actress Charisma Carpenter, a reader suggests Stacy Keibler, formerly of the Nevermores cheer squad, and now a presence in the WWE. Stacy's claim to fame is exceptionally long legs, which can be gawked at here, a photo we can link to be not show for thong-based reasons. In haiku,

Stacy's ringside now;
hottest former cheerbabe. Why?
Forty-one inch legs!
Lawrence Benedetto, Chicago

Apropos the Ravens' cheer squad -- which includes ripped cheer-hunks as well as buff cheer-babes -- Jim Breuckman of Farmington, Mich., conducted a close textual analysis and found the Baltimore cheerleading roster contains a Napoleon and a Josephine.

Mike Hamilton of Newark, Del., was among many readers who pointed out that the Eagles have also joined the odious monochrome uniform fad, bringing the total to nine: Arizona, Buffalo, Chicago, Jax, Jersey/B, Miami, New England, Philadelphia and Seattle. Only two made the postseason -- surely an omen from the football gods! TMQ advocates uniform amnesty. All teams will be given a one-time opportunity to return to last year's uniforms without penalty, no questions asked.

Jim Miller of New York points out that NFL announcers have begun to refer to mass confusion at the line of scrimmage as a "scrum." But a scrum is a relatively orderly event used in rugby to put the ball back into play after an infraction. Mass chaos in rugby, Miller notes, is properly called a "maul" or a "ruck."

Stacy Keibler
Now you can see more of Keibler ringside than on the sidelines.
Many readers including Aaron of Washington, D.C., wrote to note of the huge Braun billboard at Disposal Razor Field that Gillette owns Braun. Also, Aaron notes, while Gillette says it makes razors, Braun asserts that it makes only "shavers." This reminds TMQ of Boeing's longstanding contention that it does not make airplanes, rather, "air frames."

Got a comment or a deeply felt grievance? Register it here.

TMQ Challenge: None this week either, as Tuesday Morning Quarterback intends to watch bowl games, not read mail, on New Year's Day. The Challenge will resume next week with incredibly tough single-elimination playoff-caliber questions.

Posted by tien mao in TMQ at 5:09 PM

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NFL's 88 percent solution
By Gregg Easterbrook
Page 2 columnist

The Pro Bowl squads are out, and congratulations to the honored gentlemen, whom Tuesday Morning Quarterback thinks should be called the 88 Percent All-Pros. TMQ continues to be dumbfounded that Pro Bowl balloting by coaches and players, which determines most of the outcome, is held with two weeks remaining -- that is, when only 88 percent of the season has been played. Why don't the last two games count? Why does playing well in Week 2 or Week 11 matter toward earning a free plane ticket to Hawaii, while playing well in Week 16 or Week 17 is irrelevant?

Announcing Pro Bowl honorees with two weeks to play creates an opportunity for some to take a bow before the home crowd. But TMQ thinks the selection of Pro Bowl players when the season isn't finished represents yet another instance of publicity trumping performance. It's assumed that whoever has gotten most buzz to this point must be best, regardless of what happens on the field in the final games. Picking the Pro Bowl honorees with two games remaining is like picking the president the week before the election, based on who's doing best in the polls (technical note: this might be a more reliable system) or picking your favorite mezzo-soprano based on the first two acts, disregarding the signature aria due in the third. The Pro Bowl should be a reward for how players perform for the entire season, not just in the first 88 percent.

Each year when the Pro Bowl names come out, TMQ has recurring complaints: that offensive linemen make it on rep, that defensive backs make it on interceptions and that the "fullback" usually isn't a fullback. Two of the three apply to 2002.

The NFC "fullback" is Mike Alstott of Tampa, a below-average blocker who lines up as a tailback. It's ridiculous that Alstott will once again fly to Hawaii as a "fullback" when he doesn't play fullback, and when, in the NFC, true fullback William Henderson of Green Bay has had a true Pro Bowl year. Or at least, 88 percent of a Pro Bowl year.

Once again this year, offensive linemen have made it on rep. Orlando Pace makes the NFC squad though he has been hurt most of the season and an average player when on the field; Ruben Brown of the Bills makes the AFC squad though he's been a slightly-above-average player on a line that is second-last in the league in sacks allowed. Derrick Deese of the Squared Sevens is much more deserving than Pace at NFC tackle, while Mike Compton of the Pats and Jamie Nails of the Marine Mammals had better seasons at AFC guard than Brown. (Nails has been the best run-blocker in the league this year; it's no coincidence that red-hot Ricky Williams suddenly looked human against the Vikings with Nails out injured.) Pace and Brown made it because they always make it; Pace has been picked three of the last four years, Brown seven straight. The fact that OLs make the Pro Bowl on rep, regardless of who's been best, shows that even NFL players and coaches don't pay much attention to offensive linemen and couldn't really tell you who's good.

Orlando Pace
Orlando Pace, who has played just nine games this season, makes the Pro Bowl on name recognition alone.
At least this year the DB selection was not based on interceptions, as is usually the case. At the 88 percent point, the highest interceptor in the league had just six picks, so voters had to choose based on coverage rather than picks, making the defensive-back selections more accurate than usual this year. Last year, in contrast, Deltha O'Neal made it as a CB based on nine interceptions; but he got the picks by gambling relentlessly and giving up big plays. Not only was O'Neal not Pro Bowl in his overall game, he was not as good as his own more cautious, and thus less interception-happy, teammate Denard Walker.

Scanning the Pro Bowl roster, researchers find that 48 of the gentlemen were No. 1 draft picks. They're all impressive. But the players TMQ has always admired most are the ones who perform well despite being unwanted. Thus my contribution is the annual Tuesday Morning Quarterback All-Trash All-Pros.

To qualify for the All-Trash All-Pros, a player must have been waived, gone undrafted, been exposed in an expansion draft or left as a free agent when the original team making no bona-fide effort to retain him. (Free agents whom their original teams really tried to keep do not qualify.) Here are the Tuesday Morning Quarterback All-Trash All-Pros, with an asterisk indicating those who have been shown the door more than once:

QB: Rich Gannon,* Raiders.
RB: Priest Holmes, Kansas City; Ahman Green, Green Bay.
FB: Lorenzo Neal,* Cincinnati.
C: Kevin Mawae, Jersey/B.
T: Lincoln Kennedy, Raiders; Derrick Deese, Niners.
G: Jamie Nails,* Miami, Mike Compton, New England.
WR: Joe Horn, New Orleans; Jerry Rice, Raiders.
TE: Ken Dilger, Bucs.

DE: Simeon Rice, City of Tampa; Brady Smith, Atlanta.
DT: La'Roi Glover, Cowboys; Pat Williams, Buffalo.
LB: Shawn Barber, Eagles; Hardy Nickerson, Green Bay; Donnie Edwards, Bolts.
CB: Aaron Glenn, Houston; Dewayne Washington, Steelers.
S: Lance Schulters, Flaming Thumbtacks; Brock Marion, Miami.
Kicker: David Akers, Eagles.
Punter: Chris Hanson, Jax.
Returner: Chad Morton, Jersey/B.
Special teamer: Tommy Hendricks, Miami.

Coach: Marty Schottenheimer,* Bolts.

This roster might beat the formal Pro Bowl team, given that waived gentlemen might have more incentive. Reserves for the All-Trash All-Pros would include Jeff Garcia at quarterback; Garrison Hearst* and Antowain Smith at running back; Ed McCaffrey, Rod Smith, Shannon Sharpe* and Frank Wycheck at receiver; Roman Oben, Corbin Lacina, Jeff Christy, Mark Dixon and Tom Nutten at offensive line; Ted Washington,* Sam Adams, Daryl Gardener, Gary Walker, Greg Spires and Eric Hicks at defensive line; Jessie Armstead and Derek Smith at linebacker; Donnie Abraham and Rod Woodson* at defensive back; Brian Moorman, Joe Nedney, Dante Hall and Fred McAfee* on special teams.

Note that both defensive ends for City of Tampa -- Rice and Spires -- were guys nobody else wanted, and now start for the league's No. 1 defense. Note that the entire Denver receiving corps of Smith, McCaffrey and Sharpe are guys nobody else wanted, and now start for the league's seventh-rated passing attack.

In other football news, you could practically see Dolphin players chortling as 43-year-old waiver-wire gentleman Gary Anderson lined up for an improbable 53-yard last-second kick to grant the Vikings a huge upset. A few seconds later, the football gods did the chortling.

Gary Anderson
Gary Anderson gets the last chortle.
In the spirit of the All-Trash All-Pros, TMQ loves the fact that Anderson, the all-time leading NFL scorer, has been waived five times. Here are the kickers that general managers kept instead of the all-time leading NFL scorer: Nick Mike-Meyer, Norm Johnson, Chris Boniol, Wade Richey and Doug Brien. Johnson had a terrific kicking career, but none of these gentlemen will, like Anderson, be the second kicker ever to give an acceptance speech at Canton, Ohio.

They Once Were Kings The Ravens defense, just two years ago allowing the fewest points ever, had the Cleveland Oranges (Release 2.1) pinned on their own 8 with 2:18 remaining, trailing by six, holding no timeouts and the Baltimore home crowd thundering at jet-afterburner decibels. Baltimore let the low-voltage Oranges go the length of the field to score for the win with 38 seconds showing. Ye gods.

The Football Gods Smile on the Courageous Before the above-cited drive, the Ravens faced fourth-and-two on the Cleveland 35 with 2:31 remaining. Go for it and certain victory? (The Oranges had no timeouts.) Have Matt Stover, one of the league's best kickers, try for a field-goal and a touchdown-proof margin? Baltimore punted.

Hidden Play Often games turn on snaps that don't show up on highlight reels, but sustain or end drives. Game tied at 13 with 7 minutes left, Cincinnati faced third-and-five against the Boy Scouts, after just having an apparent first down called back by penalty. You know the Bungles will fold now, right? New Orleans certainly thought so. Thirteen-yard completion to Ron Dugans for the first. Cincinnati keeps marching, gets the touchdown just inside the two-minute warning and there is major panic on the New Orleans sideline.

Hidden Player On the above-cited drive, unknown 267-pound fullback Nick Luchey broke New Orleans' back by rushing eight times for 45 yards -- including six consecutive carries, beginning at the Boy Scouts' 36 and concluding when he punched it across.

Nick Luchey
We know it's embarrassing to be a Bengal, but TMQ has blown Nick Luchey's cover.
Who Was That Masked Man? The "NFL 2002 Record and Fact Book," the league's source authority, calls Cincinnati fullback No. 30 "Nick Williams." On Sunday as No. 30 was scoring twice against New Orleans in the fourth quarter, the NFL's official game center listed the touchdowns by "N. Williams" and rushing yards by "N. Williams." (The game center page has since been changed.) By Sunday evening, sportscasters were calling the gentleman "Nick Luchey," and that's how news accounts of the game read on Monday morning. Yet on Sunday the official NFL index of players had a Nick Williams, but no one named "Luchey"; the name did not appear until Monday morning.

What gives? In September, Nick Williams changed his name to James Nicolas Williams Luchey. No one had noticed because until Sunday, he hadn't carried the ball and anyway, he's a Bengal.

Who Was That Masked Man? No. 2 Marc Boerigter, who caught the 99-yard pass, is such a who-dat that the NFL.com website does not post his picture on Boerigter's bio page.

Cheerleader of the Week This week's TMQ ESPN.com Cheerleader of the Week is Acacia of the Minnesota Vikings, a University of Minnesota student studying education and hoping to be an elementary school teacher. Yes, she's yet another cheerbabe-teacher unlike any teacher you or I ever glimpsed in school. Acacia has 18 years of dance experience and one of her hobbies is "competitive running;" TMQ bets she could beat all the washed-up ex-jocks in the ESPN empire in the 100 meter, 1,000 meters or the relay. Her team bio also says she "enjoys volunteer work and being involved in the community." Acacia, I'm a volunteer coach of county football and basketball teams, which is community involvement, and I could really use an assistant, though there would be a lot of late-night strategy sessions.

Acacia
We admire Acacia for her altruistic features.
According to the Vikings' cheerleaders' audition information page, in addition to not being paid to dance, aspiring cheer-babes are charged $15 for auditioning! TMQ repeats, if Hubert Humphrey were still around, this labor abuse would not be taking place. Squad members must also attend, without pay, a weeklong training camp. Considering that Vikings owner Red McCombs is one of the richest men in the United States, this seems astonishingly cheapskate on his part -- McCombs makes millions and flies everywhere in a private jet, but his cheerleaders are supposed to work for a week without pay? That's exploitation. (TMQ is concerned about financial exploitation of cheer-babes; the cheesecake exploitation part is fine.) From the Vikings website: "Crop tops and hot pants will be required during training camp." And you're not broadcasting this on pay-per-view!

Busted Play of the Day Trailing 17-13 against Jersey/A, the Lucky Charms went for it on fourth-and-inches. An off-tackle dive; Giants linebacker Brandon Short came through the Colts line untouched by human hands to stop the play in the backfield. TMQ watched the tape four times, and has no idea what the Colts line could have been thinking. No one made any attempt to block Short -- and he was at the point of attack!

Sweet Play of the Day On the big play of the Oranges' winning drive, running back Jamel White caught a dump pass at midfield and motored to the Nevermores' 27, where Chris McAlister hit him late out of bounds in a Dwayne-Rudd-class move, advancing the ball to the Baltimore 13. (Dwayne Rudd himself, watching from the Oranges' sideline, must have been pleased.) To the untrained eye, this seemed just a lucky play; actually, the Oranges set it up. Raven Peter Boulware had been all over Tim Couch, and had two sacks to that point. During the fourth quarter, Cleveland moved White to whichever side Boulware was on, and had White double-team him. Before this snap, White moved to Boulware's side; the defenders assumed he was setting up for yet another double-team. Instead White immediately sprinted for the pass that Couch threw on his third drop-set. No Raven bothered to cover White.

Best 99-Yard Play Trent Green to rookie Marc Boerigter, Hasting alum.

Marc Boerigter
Even after Marc Boerigter's 99-yard pass play, we still can't see his face.
Mega-Babe Professionalism It was 22 degrees and snowing at the kickoff, yet the Vikings cheer-babes came out in Santa's-naughty-elf numbers that, as the columnist Dave Barry would say, "Just barely meet the legal definition of clothes." OK, so the game was played indoors at the Metrodome. Nevertheless the football gods were pleased, and rewarded Minnesota with victory.

Now that most NFL coaches have wised up to TMQ's immutable dictum that the overdressed coach's team always loses a game, cheerleader professionalism appears increasingly to determine cold-weather victory: Professionalism in this case meaning skin, or at least skin-tight. More proof; a 56-degree at kickoff at Not Bankrupt Yet Coliseum, yet the high-aesthetic-appeal Raiders babes came out in two-piece numbers with cleavage, bare midriffs and miniskirts. The football gods, very impressed, handed their team victory.

Converse proves the rule: kickoff temperature 50 degrees at Empty Stadium in Tempe -- Arizona is on a pace to be last in the league in attendance yet again -- and the Cardinals cheerleaders wore bulky, frumpy Santa overcoats that left everything to the imagination. Needless to say, their team lost.

Reverse Psychology: Leading by one with 2:31 remaining, the Lightning Bolts saw the Chiefs go for it and succeed on fourth-and-one. San Diego coach Marty Schottenheimer challenged the call, though the runner appeared to have made the yardage and at any rate the spot of the ball is a judgment call; replay rarely reverses judgment calls. The challenge cost the Bolts their final timeout. Kansas City got a figgie on the drive to lead by two. San Diego found itself at midfield with 50 seconds left, needing a figgie to win and one of the best pressure kickers ever, Steve Christie, at the ready. But without a timeout, the Bolts' drive was discombobulated and excessively hurried. Reche Caldwell, looking nervous, fumbled on the Chiefs' 45, ending the game.

In a Similar Fake, Trent Lott Said He Favored Affirmative Action: Against the Marine Mammals, the Vikings ran the flea-flicker -- running back takes a handoff and starts up the middle, then turns and flips back to the quarterback for the deep pass. Randy Moss was by himself at the Miami 15, and would have had six had not the pass been badly off target. Why did the setup work so well? At the snap, Moss lackadaisically leaned against the defender in front of him: doing what Moss does on every running play, refusing to block. Moss' non-block was so realistic it convinced Miami the play had to be a run, and no one paid heed when Moss took off deep.

Best Real Block: In Week 15, Minnesota knocked off New Orleans on a Daunte Culpepper run for the deuce on the game's final snap; the key to this play, as TMQ pointed out, was a fabulous pull block by Vikings guard Corbin Lacina. As Minnesota knocked off Miami, the hidden play was a Culpepper 3-yard run on fourth-and-two to sustain a last-minute Vikings drive. Once again, the key was a fabulous pull block by Vikings guard Corbin Lacina. Culpepper also got fabulous blocking on his 60-yard completion to Moss in the early fourth. TMQ counted "one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand, five one-thousand, six one-thousand" before the ball was away, giving Moss the opportunity to run a time-consuming deep Z-in. (A deep Zed-in to Canadian readers.)

Drew Bledsoe, Vonnie Holliday
Vonnie Holliday and the Packers were a few steps ahead of Drew Bledsoe in the red zone.
Worst Failure to Read Tuesday Morning Quarterback Twice TMQ has run items about the Bills passing too much at the goal line -- especially regular drop-back passes, which rarely work in compressed goal-line space, as opposed to play-fakes -- and about Drew Bledsoe sprinting backward in goal-to-go situations.

Game scoreless in the first at Lambeau, Buffalo faced third-and-goal on the Packers' four; the Green Bay Achilles' heel is the league's 26th-rated rushing defense. Did the Bills pound the ball, and either get six or then settle for three and the all-important first points when playing on the road? Regular pass from a regular set; Bledsoe sprinted backward 7 yards before throwing off his back foot, interception. Trailing by a field goal in the third, Buffalo faced third-and-goal on the Packers' five. Did the Bills pound the ball, and either get six or then settle for the tie? Regular pass from a regular set; Bledsoe sprinted backward almost 10 yards before being sacked, the suddenly longer figgie into the wind missed. Ye gods.

Stop Me Before I Blitz Again! No. 1: Trailing by three with 10 minutes remaining and the home crowd thundering at afterburner decibels, the Patriots had Jersey/B facing third-and-nine. Since the average NFL pass attempt yields 5.9 yards -- anyway, it's a blitz! Six gentlemen including a CB cross the line. Thirteen-yard completion for the first, Jets score a touchdown two plays later and suddenly the defending champs are on the ropes. (In the first half, the Pats also had the Jets facing third-and-six; New England blitzed, Jersey/B converted and scored on that possession too.)

Stop Me Before I Blitz Again! No. 2: Trailing 14-0 in the second, Denver had Oakland facing third-and-five on the Broncos' eight. It's a blitz! Touchdown pass to Charlie Garner split wide left, and the rout is on.

Stats of the Week: Cincinnati won at home for the first time in 357 days.

Stats of the Week No. 2: In the Jersey/A-Lucky Charms game there were 731 passing yards and 153 rushing yards; the football gods winced.

Stats of the Week No. 3: San Francisco has not been shut out in 401 games, by far the longest such streak in league annals.

Stats of the Week No. 4: San Francisco just barely won despite advantages of 174 yards of offensive, seven first downs and nine minutes time of possession; turnovers were even.

Rich Gannon
Rich Gannon needs a huge game in the season finale to break Dan Marino's single-season passing record.
Stats of the Week No. 5: The Atlanta-Detroit game was close until 3:49 remaining in the fourth despite Falcon advantages of 325 yards of offense, 15 first downs, 17 minutes time-of-possession and plus-one in turnovers.

Stats of the Week No. 6: Trailing by a field goal in Green Bay, Buffalo staged a 15-play, 9:42-minute drive that resulted in no points.

Stats of the Week No. 7: In his last three games, Drew Bledsoe has thrown for one touchdown and six interceptions, while losing four fumbles.

Stats of the Week No. 8: Because the Raiders finally played a game in which they ran more times than they passed, Rich Gannon is on a pace to miss the NFL record by throwing for 4,917 yards The season mark, held by Dan Marino, is 5,084 yards. Gannon must throw for 475 yards in the season-ender to break the record.

Stats of the Week No. 9: Of the 31 games Butch Davis has coached for the Cleveland Oranges (Release 2.1), 18 have gone down to the final play.

Stats of the Week No. 10: Indianapolis lost despite scoring 14 points in seven seconds. (Touchdown, onside kick recovered, touchdown.)

Stats of the Week No. 11: In its last three games, the Pittsburgh defense has surrendered a total of 303 yards and 22 first downs.

We're All Professionals Here: In the Chicago-Carolina game, there were 21 punts and seven fumbles.

Buck-Buck-Brawwwccckkkkk Trailing 17-0 at home on the first possession of the second half, City of Tampa faced fourth-and-one on its 36. Sure fourth-and-one is a gamble, but down by 17 points you've got to take a few chances and a fourth-and-one chance is about as good as they come, since most fourth-and-one tries succeed. The Bucs punted. The football gods, disgusted, sent them on to defeat.

Charisma Carpenter
Charisma Carpenter ascended from cheerbabe to "Buffy," and her character ascended to a higher plane.
This Week's Chargers Cheer-Babe Item: Reader Ryan Bowers of Annapolis, Md., has conducted a close textual analysis of the San Diego Chargers cheerleaders site and concluded, "None of them can match one-time Charger cheer-babe, and now actress, Charisma Carpenter. I hope this will provide an opportunity for the ESPN.com art department shamelessly to place a photo of her in the column." TMQ agrees that Carpenter was one of the most scrumptious sights on television. Why the prodigious babe output of San Diego? Must be something in the water.

Carpenter had a good recurring comic role, first on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then on its lethargic spinoff Angel, as a vain high-school girl who grew into a vain aspiring actress, and was so outlandishly self-obsessed as to become realistic by Los Angeles standards. Then in last year's season finale of Angel, Carpenter's character was chosen by a mystical being to ascend to a higher plane of existence. Supposedly this happened because she had become enlightened, but TMQ assumes Carpenter wanted release from her contract and her character had to be written out of the plot. At the moment Carpenter is off the tube, so far as TMQ can determine.

Buffy note: Now there's an all-new Sunnydale High School, built on the site of the old. Inexplicably, no one at the new Sunnydale High appears to know what happened to the predecessor a mere three years ago. At the graduation ceremony of the old high school, Sunnydale's mayor turned into a 50-foot-long serpent demon in full view of hundreds of witnesses. The enormous serpent devoured the old high school's principal in full view of hundreds of witnesses, then was led back into the old high school by Buffy, who trapped the serpent there and escaped with seconds to spare as the old high school exploded in full view of hundreds of witnesses.

Sunnydale High
Sunnydale High has been as resilient as David Carr.
Now it's three years later and no one in Sunnydale has the slightest recollection of any of these events. No parents seem worried about sending their kids to a school built on a site that was recently attacked by a 50-foot-long serpent, and then exploded. Buffy wanders into the new high school and its new principal says something like, "Oh yeah, I heard about you," while appearing to have no clue that the previous principal and the entire high school were supernaturally destroyed in front of hundreds of witnesses.

NFL Knows Aliens Better Than Steven Spielberg: Wow, five-time Pro Bowl quarterback A.J. Feeley sure looked at the top of his form dissecting Dallas. What's that you say? It was only his fifth NFL game?

Not only is Feeley an unknown who was cut by the Eagles in preseason, then later called up from the practice squad when injuries struck Donovan McNabb and his backup -- Feeley didn't even start in college! He spent his university days at Oregon holding the clipboard for Joey Harrington; Feeley attempted just 13 passes as a senior. Now he's won four straight as an NFL starter and played with poise and precision. Feeley also won the season-ending game for the Eagles in 2001, rendering a guy who didn't start in college 5-0 at the pro level. Apparently the extraterrestrials who had previously been using their neutrino transference array to assist "Kurt Warner" are now training their equipment on "A.J. Feeley." What the sinister alien purpose is, TMQ wishes he knew.

A. J. Feeley
A.J. Feeley proves that those old stories about little green men aren't just Hollywood fantasy.
TMQ's Perfect Evening: Genny Cream Ale Served by Tall Danish Blonde in Swimsuit Last week's item on the mysterious Copenhagen-to-Buffalo flight listed by Scandinavian Airlines -- SK925/SK8979 in your travel agent's computer -- speculated that Danes seeking a holiday wanted "someplace cold and desolate, with good beer." Comes now reader Shari Gerber, who lives in Norway, to protest that Denmark's Tuborg is better than any U.S. brew and to insist, "no American beer is regarded as imbibe-able by any Scandinavian, except under the direst of circumstances."

TMQ would stack Genesee Cream Ale, a Snow Belt brew and two-time gold medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival (only a bronze this year, sadly), against any continental beer. But it's true that Tuborg is fine stuff; the Tuborg once made under license in the United States was swill compared to the real thing as poured in Europe. Weirdly, the Tuborg website encourages customers to post bad pictures of themselves. Before sending Tuborg a bad picture of yourself, be sure to read the 531-word disclaimer, which cautions, "There are times when we may collect personal information from you."

Worst Crowd Response As their team trotted off at halftime trailing Jersey/B by 17-10, the home crowd loudly booed the Patriots. Sure you guys won the Super Bowl last year. But what have you done for us lately?

Note on the Pats' lovely new Gillette Field: it has a large advertising billboard from Braun razors.

Further Proof of the Decline of Western Civilization Going into Sunday, the Baltimore Nevermores and the Cleveland Oranges (Release 2.1), each with records of 7-7, were still alive for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

'Tis Better to Have Rushed and Lost Than Never to Have Rushed at All: Trailing by a touchdown, New Orleans took over on its 26 with 1:37 to play and a timeout. Plenty of time to call anything in the playbook, including any running play. Instead incompletion, incompletion, incompletion, incompletion, game over.

Darrell Green
Darrell Green should go out in style Sunday, if Dobby the Elf actually has a conscience.
Free Darrell Green! Sunday will mark the final time in pads for the remarkable Darrell Green, a certain first-ballot Hall of Fame entrant. His coach, Dobby the Elf, has said Green will get the courtesy start before the home fans, then trot back to the bench where he has spent the year, handing the position back to the legendary Fred Smoot.

Attention Steve Spurrier: the only meaningful thing about the 'Boys-at-Persons season-ending contest, matching two eliminated clubs, is Darrell Green's final game. The fans are not paying to see Fred Smoot. No one cares a fig about Fred Smoot. If you don't play Green the whole game, Dobby, you will not only be screwing the team's fans, you will be cementing your growing reputation as a gentleman who has no detectable idea what he's doing.

Free Emmitt Smith! Weirdly, San Francisco seemed actively anxious to be rid of Jerry Rice two years ago when he was no longer a superstar and merely a certain first-ballot Hall-of-Famer who had spent his entire career with the team. Weirdly, Buffalo seemed actively anxious to be rid of Bruce Smith three years ago when he was no longer a superstar and merely a certain first-ballot Hall-of-Famer who had spent his entire career with the team.

And weirdly, Dallas now seems actively anxious to be rid of Emmitt Smith when he is no longer a superstar and merely a certain first-ballot Hall-of-Famer who has spent his entire career with the team. Against the Eagles, in what might have been Smith's final game in the stadium with the big white star, Emmitt carried eight times for 30 yards, then was offered a seat so that the legendary Troy Hambrick could carry six times for 4 yards. The game meant nothing to long-since-eliminated Dallas. The fans were not paying to see Troy Hambrick. No one cares a fig about Troy Hambrick. Why, exactly, is Cowboys management trying to show Smith the door?

He Didn't Even Grab His Flag! The Panthers trailing by a touchdown, Steve Smith caught a short slant in front of Bears DB Williams. Inexplicably, rather than tackle Smith, Williams simply touched him with both hands -- exactly what you'd do in a game of two-hand touch. Smith looked stunned for an instant, then took off for a 69-yard gain; Carolina scored on the next play and never looked back.

The Play's The Thing: Jersey/A fortunes have veered upward since Jim Fassel took over playcalling duties at midseason; Sunday's 44-point outburst on the road against the Colts, who went into the game with the fifth-ranked defense and badly needing to win, was remarkable. Playcalling was as sharp as TMQ has ever seen -- which usually does not mean calling lots of long passes but means, as it did in this game, calling plays that are different from the week before, and varying the attack to take advantage of whatever the other side was conceding. The Giants also reached into last year's playbook. Leading 10-3 on the first snap of the second half, Jersey/A had the ball at its own 18. Tiki Barber took the handoff right, then fired a throwback lateral to Kerry Collins, who heave-hoed to Amani Toomer for an 82-yard touchdown and the rout was on. What made this play was not so much that it was flashy but that it was different from what the Giants have been running.

Fassel has always had a knack for playcalling, having made one of the best pressure play calls of all-time. Going into the 2000 NFC Championship Game against Minnesota, the Giants had a play -- fullback fly pattern along the sideline -- they were sure would work, and were debating whether to call it early to get on the board, or save it for crunch time. Jersey/A scored on its first possession, then the Vikings fumbled the kickoff. As the Meadowlands crowd thundered at afterburner decibels, Fassel screamed, "Use it now!" to his offensive coordinator. Fullback fly along the sidelines for the touchdown, Minnesota trailed 14-0 just minutes into the game and the Vikings were already broken.

Making smart play-calls under gametime pressure is among the NFL's underappreciated arts. Buffalo's Bledsoe-led offense has disappeared in the second half of the season, for instance, because Bills offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride keeps endlessly calling the same handful of actions -- mainly quick outs and deep fades -- from the same formations on the same down-and-distance situations. Defenses have learned to take away the Bills plays that were working in the first half of the year and are offering other opportunities, such as the deep post. But Gilbride has made no adjustments, endlessly calling the same things.

Squared Sevens Warning Lately, TMQ has not liked what he sees when the Niners take the field. Two weeks ago they just barely beat the 'Boys, whom Philadelphia this weekend used for target practice. A week ago they lost at home to Green Bay, making mental errors on their final drive. Saturday they just barely beat the awful Arizona (CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN FOOTBALL-LIKE SUBSTANCE) Cardinals and did not look sharp. Leading by 10 with 7:48 remaining, San Francisco faced third-and-nine on its own 22. Arizona came out in the American Ballet Theater Defense, with seven DBs, three DLs and one LB. This lightweight alignment fairly begs to be run against; TMQ was sure the Niners would audible to a draw. Instead Jeff Garcia forced the ball into double coverage, INT, Arizona gets a quick touchdown and suddenly the Niners are fighting to survive against a team that couldn't beat Mount Union. (See below.) Tuesday Morning Quarterback gets a bad feeling about this.

David Carr and his Moo Cows also came out in a third-and-seven to find the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons in the American Ballet Theater Defense with three DLs and seven DBs. Did Carr audible to a draw? He also forced it into double-coverage, interception.

Marcel Shipp
Marcel Shipp and the Cardinals should dread the red.
For female and nontraditional male readers: ABT principal dancer Jose Carreno.

Tommy Hilfiger Must Be Advising These Teams: Arizona became the eighth team this season to sport a monochrome jersey-pants combo, joining Buffalo, Chicago, Jax, Jersey/B, Miami, New England and Seattle. To TMQ, all these revisionist unis look like malfunctioning screen savers. Couldn't we please just return to the uniform status quo of last season?

The Football Gods Smiled: David Carr was sacked for a record 73rd time -- most any quarterback has ever gone down in a season -- by Bruce Smith, who still has a chance to end his career with most all-time sacks.

This Week's Science Fiction Complaint: The Steven Spielberg sci-fi marathon "Taken" is finally over, and what a relief. So far as TMQ could tell, everything in this series was recycling of clichés. The alien who manifests as a Kansas farm wife offering lemonade and cookies was all but identical to a Star Trek scene. The large group of average people who feel called to assemble where a UFO will land was identical to the final action of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." The involvement of the aliens in World War II, the look of their ship and the suspended bodies on which experiments have been performed were identical to scenes from a BBC miniseries called "Invasion: Earth." The master plan of the aliens, to hybridize with humans, was identical to "The X Files." The wisecracking band of commandos wearing eyepiece cameras so the control room could watch their every move was identical to the movie "Aliens." The Agency Far, Far More Secret Than The CIA that was inexplicably covering up for the aliens was identical to the old series "Dark Skies." And of course there were the endless scenes of people walking toward blinding white lights, copied from too many movies and television shows to count. Twenty hours produced by Spielberg and not, so far as TMQ could tell, one single original minute. Aye caramba.

Joel Gretsch
If they're going to recycle clichés on "Taken," then we'll recycle this photo.
Beware the Curse of Parcells Bill Parcells has postponed his election to the Hall of Fame for at least another year by flirting with 'Boys owner Jerry Jones, who continues to remind TMQ of vacuum-cleaner impresario Dave Oreck. Coaches aren't supposed to be tapped for Canton until they have left the game on a bona-fide basis. Parcells' flirtation with City of Tampa kept him from being chosen last January. No matter what happens with the Cowboys job, the private-plane meeting with Jones will keep Parcells out of Canton this January too.

Parcells is a crackerjack coach but has a peculiar obsession with shafting employers. After winning the Super Bowl for Jersey/A, Parcells resigned in April, when he knew it would be too late for the Giants to find a top-shelf replacement; his post ended up in the hands of the forgettable Ray Handley, and mediocrity descended. In some weird way, Parcells seemed to want his resignation to ensure the Giants would have a couple of losing seasons, since this would make it seem as if the Tuna was irreplaceable.

Then, during the run-up to the Pats' 1997 Super Bowl appearance, Parcels shafted the Patriots by openly discussing his desire to leave; New England's Bowl moment ended in distractions and defeat. Jumping to Patriots' rival Jersey/B, Parcells semi-shafted this club by staying only three years, then doing his best to queer the agreement that Bill Belichick would replace him. In both cases Parcells seemed again to wish ill for his previous team, hoping it would decline so that people would wax on about how the Tuna was irreplaceable. Finally Parcells quasi-shafted Tampa by openly discussing Tony Dungy's job on the eve of a Bucs playoff game, which ended in distractions and defeat, only to walk away once the damage was done.

In sum Parcells the coach is totally self-centered and appears to enjoy leaving those who trusted him hurt and angry. The perfect fit for Jerry Jones!

Jerry Jones, David Oreck
Similarities between Jerry Jones, left, and David Oreck go beyond appearances: Both of their products suck.
Need a last-minute holiday gift? Try these incredible Dave Oreck air purifiers which offer "the same technology that U.S. Navy submarines use." Nuclear technology in an air purifier?

What Alcor Is Actually Freezing Is Assets: News reports say the children of Ted Williams have resolved their dispute and now agree to keep his body frozen at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz. This maintains the macabre possibility that Williams' genetic material will someday be used -- possibly on orders from a MLB marketing firm -- to create a clone. Though it should be kept in mind that the result would only be a physical clone. Since environment and experience determine personality, clones will be entirely different people from their "parents," just as identical twins, who are physical clones, are often entirely different otherwise. A clone of Ted Williams might have no interest in baseball.

Officially, the Williams children want their father kept in cryogenic deep-freeze against the chance that future medicine cures the disease of which Williams died. Officially, this is why Alcor exists: in case "future advancements in science and technology will be developed to allow the scientific means to repair the ravages of diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or the effects of aging, thereby potentially restoring the individual back to good health," its site declares. There's just one problem with all this: Williams is dead. If a cure for his disease is someday developed, this will mean nothing to Williams, because he will still be dead. There is zero possibility of "restoring the individual back to good health" when the individual in question has died.

Alcor's claim to offer "life extension" is complete hooey. The lives of the living may be extended; the lives of the dead have concluded. All bodies being held in cryogenic tanks at Alcor, at a cost to their bilked relatives of a $120,000 fee, are corpses of the dead -- the freezing itself is lethal -- and will still be corpses no matter what cures are discovered in the future. Suppose someone died, and five minutes later a medical researcher rushed into the room screaming "eureka!" and holding a vial of medicine that cures the disease in question. That would not help the person who had died five minutes before, because he would still be dead. This is the situation for all the frozen corpses at Alcor, which is a swindle targeted at grieving relatives of the rich.

Orlando Pace Wins National Book Award: The Pro Bowl voting coming with only 88 percent of the season played is nothing compared with the National Book Award. Each year this prestigious prize -- check the current laureates here -- is announced in mid-November when, judged by weeks, only 88 percent of the publishing season is complete. Harmonic convergence? Hardly, because in order to be considered for the National Book award, nominations must be received by July 15 while the books themselves, or galleys of same, must reach judges no later than Aug. 19. This means the National Book Award should really be called the National Award for Books Published Between January and August. If your book comes out in the fall, you're toast.

One author whose book came out between January and August, and ended up a very deserving finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction, is Official Friend of TMQ Steve Olson, a former writer for the National Academy of Sciences. Steve's book, "Mapping Human History," is an extraordinarily well-documented account -- he traveled all over Africa, China and, at great personal hardship, Hawaii -- of what science has learned about the genetics of race and who's related to whom. Basically, Steve concludes that our DNA proves all human beings are much more closely related than generally assumed; in terms of what's in our chromosomes, the differences among an African, an American and an Asian are about the same as the difference between a blonde and a brunette. "Mapping Human History" also presents the evidence that modern travel and movement are causing people to mix at such an historically unprecedented pace that within a few centuries, the whole concept of "race" will lose meaning. This excellent book is becoming a word-of-mouth bestseller; buy it here.

Tradition Carried On Two weeks ago, TMQ declared there had not been an actual double reverse in the NFL since the 1978 Super Bowl, mainly because a double reverse requires three exchanges of the ball and that in turn creates a high chance the play will end, as it did in the 1978 Super Bowl, in a fumble.

Many readers including Julie May of Coronado Island, Calif., have written in to note there was a play -- though not a double reverse -- with three exchanges of the ball in the Bolts-at-Bills contest. Drew Brees gave to LaDainian Tomlinson running right; Tomlinson handed to Tim Dwight coming back left; Dwight flipped the ball toward Brees, who was supposed to throw deep. Result of the play? Fumble.

On Monday night, Pittsburgh tried a similar three-exchanges action. There was a handoff right, followed by a reverse left, followed by a flip back to the quarterback. Result of the play? Incompletion.

If Rix Is Ineligible for Missing an Exam, Why Isn't Price Ineligible for Being a Hypocrite? Oh, That's Right, the NCAA Does Not Penalize Hypocrisy: Hard on the heels of Dennis Franchione walking out on his commitment to Alabama, Washington State coach Mike Price pulls a Chuck Fairbanks by walking out on his commitments just before a postseason game. Price leaves the Cougars to take the 'Bama job two weeks before Washington State is to play in the Rose Bowl, which TMQ readers call The Invesco Bowl at Rose. Like Franchione, Price lied to his players by saying he was staying, then bolted the instant the money was right.

TMQ finds it hard to believe Price the promise-breaker will be allowed on the sidelines when Washington State takes the field for The Invesco Bowl at Rose; a man to whom grabbing cash is more important than his commitments should be kept far, far away from players and for that matter from grandmothers with money to invest.

Once again TMQ wonders why it is that coaches and other tie-wearing sports management types can break any promise and depart any team the moment there's money in it for them, but players are roundly denounced if they seek new pastures. And TMQ notes to Alabama what he noted to Texas A&M when Franchione slithered the Aggies' way: What 'Bama is getting is the kind of coach who cares exclusively about himself. The perfect fit for the Alabama program!

Donald Driver
Mark your calendars. It's not often that a beefcake shot of Donald Driver will run in this space.
Beefcake -- Run for Your Lives! Carrie Schmidt of Carol Stream, Ill., is among many female readers who have asked that TMQ leaven its cheesecake with beefcake from the Green and Gold Calendar, a pinup production of Packers shirtless and flexing. Carrie, your wish is my command. Here, for female and nontraditional male readers, is her favorite flexing shot, of Green Bay receiver Donald Driver. You can buy the calendar here.

TMQ's Christmas List: Besides, of course, the San Diego and Miami cheerleader swimsuit calendars, and the Eagles cheer-babe lingerie calendar, what I hope Santa brings me is a gift certificate to Christmas Sleigh, the new Christmas shop just opened in Middleburg, Va., by Linda Tripp.

Wasn't Linda telling sob stories about her heartrending poverty -- where does she get the money for cosmetic surgery, then to open a store in one of the most expensive towns in the world? (Middleburg is a celebrity hang-out, like Sag Harbor.) TMQ assumes she must have received hefty checks from right-wing sugar daddies. Checks to thank her for these achievements: betraying a friend and creating a pointless faux-scandal that kept the president of the United States from paying attention to what should have been the three big issues of the late 1990s, namely al Qaeda, Saddam and corporate lying. Great work, Linda! (Note: Linda Tripp says her favorite coaches are Mike Price and Dennis Franchione.)

Anyway if you buy a gift at Linda's store for heaven's sake don't tell her who it's for. She will immediately call the person and spoil the surprise.

Was It a Ranch-Style or a Bungalow Modest Castle?The Times obituary of Warwick Charlton, an eccentric English entrepreneur whose life's work was to build an exact duplicate of the Mayflower, contains this remarkable sentence: "He lived in a modest castle in Ringwood, Hampshire."

Hidden Indicator: Pass-wacky New England rushed 23 times, for a 4.2-yard average per run, and passed 37 times, for a 3.1-yard average per attempt. This is the kind of hidden indicator that is essential to an insider's understanding of the game. In this case, everyone knows what it means.

Running items department
Big Red
Western Kentucky's Big Red celebrates the Hilltoppers' Division I-AA national championship.
Obscure College Score of the Week: Western Kentucky 34, McNeese State 14 (Division I-AA championship). Located on a hilltop overlooking bucolic Bowling Green, Western Kentucky is one of those schools with a campus that could be used as a movie set of a college campus. Check Western Kentucky's incredible organization chart. Note that the "government relations" office -- meaning the school lobbyist -- reports to the president only and on the chart is more important than any academic division. Note the College of Education & Behavioral Sciences has a "talent search" division. Note that like many universities in the Title IX world, Western Kentucky has women's volleyball but not men's. Memo to all parents with tall teenaged girls: there are scholarships for women's volleyball.

Bonus Obscure Score: Mount Union 48, Trinity of Texas 7 (Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl - Division III championship). Located in Alliance, Ohio, Mount Union has sent its football team to six of the last seven Stagg Bowls, has won 96 of its last 97 games and boasts an NCAA-best 42-game winning streak. Basically, Mount Union is a football factory without scholarships. Check out the "Bracy webcams" to watch construction of the school's new science hall from four angles. Trent Lott would still be majority leader if he had only attended Mount Union's annual Multicultural Retreat.

New York Times Final-Score Score: The Paper of Guesses returns to its habitual 0-16 in its triumphant attempt to predict an exact final score, bringing the New York Times Final-Score Score to 1-759 since TMQ began tracking.

Jade H.
I think it's broken, Jade.
Reader Animadversion Many readers have asked for a chance to gawk at cheer-babe Jade H. of the Ravens, whose team bio says that her favorite thing to do in Baltimore is ESPN Zone. Jade, you have marvelous good taste! She's studying to be a radiologist. How come no medical professional who ever examined TMQ looked remotely like this?

Got a comment or a deeply felt grievance? Register it here.

Last Week's Challenge The Challenge was to propose a slogan for the new Department of Homeland Security.

Mea Davis of Chicago suggested, KNOWING YOUR BUSINESS SINCE 2002.

Myk Zagorac of Tallahassee, Fla., suggested the musical, EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE, EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE, WE'LL BE WATCHING YOU.

Many, many readers including Kimberly Mathews of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., proposed, WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.

David Manning of Fairfax, Va., suggested ARE WE THE NEW KGB? NYET!

Carlos Goenaga of Houston proposed, ROUNDING UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS.

Chris Jones of Atlanta, obviously a close TMQ reader, proposed, WE WOULD LET YOU HAVE NFL SUNDAY TICKET ON CABLE, BUT IT WOULD INTERFERE WITH THE CAMERAS WE'RE PUTTING IN YOUR HOUSE.

Hanson Tipton of Knoxville, Tenn., suggested, SOMEDAY YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CONSTITUTION BACK.

Robert Borg of Denver suggests, AT LEAST WE'RE NOT THE DEPARTMENT OF FATHERLAND SECURITY.

Rachel Taft of Portland, Ore., proposed, PRETTY FUNNY CONTEST, TMQ. WOULD YOU MIND STOPPING BY OUR OFFICE?

TMQ his ownself proposes, paralleling the British Home Office slogan noted last week, BUILDING A TENSE, NERVOUS AND PARANOID NATION.

And the Challenge goes to Jeffrey Cook II of Baltimore, who proposed, OUR SLOGAN IS AT AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION.

This Week's Challenge No Challenge this week because TMQ has no intention of reading the mail on Christmas Day.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback sends holiday wishes to all football enthusiasts, space aliens and mega-babes. Bells are ringing all across the local star cluster!

Posted by tien mao in TMQ at 4:41 PM

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NFL talking heads stuck in reverse
By Gregg Easterbrook
Page 2 columnist

"It's a double reverse!" No, it's not. Chances are it's not even a reverse.

Of the many annoying football-announcer verbal tics -- and the total hard drive capacity of the entire Web combined prohibits listing every one -- the worst is shrieking "it's a double reverse!" on plays that are actually a single reverse or aren't even that. This is a equal-opportunity blunder, committed by all announcers on all networks at all levels of the sport. And it is time this problem were fixed.

In the first Dallas-Philadelphia game, Donovan McNabb gave to a gentleman running right; the gentleman handed off to James Thrash going back left, and Thrash ran for 32 yards. "It's a double reverse!" Pat Summerall cried. No it wasn't. It was a single reverse.

In the Seattle-Minnesota game, Daunte Culpepper faked up the middle then gave to a receiver coming around. "It's a reverse!" Mike Patrick cried. No it wasn't. It was an end-around.

In the Baltimore-Indianapolis contest, tight end Todd Heap took a handoff moving right and ran for 15 yards. "It's a reverse!" cried Brent Jones, who himself has run this play, and ought to know better. It was an end-around.

Blue Man Group
Like their Seattle counterparts, the Blue Man Group is hard to figure out.

In the Blue Men Group-Mouflons contest, Marshall Faulk lined up in the slot; there was a fake up the middle, and Faulk carried coming around. "It's a reverse!" cried Tom Jackson -- who himself has had to stop this play, and ought to know better -- of the highlight on NFL PrimeTime. No it wasn't. It was an end-around run by a slotback.

Summerall, Patrick, Jones and Jackson are merely mirroring current football culture, in which everybody gets this wrong. Many readers including Michael Bourn of Nashua, N.H., have written in asking TMQ to set this record straight.

A "reverse" occurs when the ball starts left or right, then comes back in the opposite direction. But the ball must start left or right.

Almost everything announcers call a "reverse" is actually an end-around or slotback-around, in which the ball was simply handed off to a receiver or slotback moving left or right parallel to the line. The result is a guy running from side-to-side but not on a reverse, because there was no initial motion to reverse. True, defenders yell "reverse!" to each other when they see this action, but only because it is cumbersome to yell "slotback around!" Announcers should use correct terminology.

A "double reverse" occurs when the ball starts off going left or right, then comes back in the opposite direction, then changes course a second time to end up traveling in the original direction. Almost everything announcers call a "double reverse" is actually a single reverse. Consider the Philadelphia play. The ball was handed to a gentleman running right; that's the initial direction. He then handed to Trash running left, making the play a reverse. But a single reverse: the ball started right, then went left. To cause a double reverse, Trash would have had to hand to a third gentleman running back right again.

The easy way to distinguish among the end-around, single reverse and double reverse is to count handoffs. On an end-around there's only one handoff, from the quarterback to the guy sprinting left or right. If there is only one handoff, it cannot be a reverse. (Slight exception -- when the quarterback sprints out in one direction then gives to receiver coming back the opposite way, as in the college veer-option flip reverse, there can be a reverse with only one exchange of the ball. This is the only exception.)

On the single reverse there are two handoffs: first to the man going in Direction A, then to the man coming back in Direction B. On the double reverse there must be three handoffs, first to the man going in Direction A, then to the man coming back in Direction B, a third to yet another man going in Direction A again. If you think you've beheld a double reverse, count the handoffs. Unless there were three exchanges of the ball -- and almost certainly there were not -- you didn't see a double reverse.

The reason teams usually run the end-around instead of the reverse, and almost always run the single reverse instead of the double reverse, is to reduce exchanges of the ball. Every time the ball changes hands is an opportunity for a fumble, especially when the gentleman doing the handing off is not a quarterback. And against ever-quicker NFL athletes, the true double reverse takes so long to develop that by the time the third gentlemen gets the ball, players from games held the previous week will be closing to make the tackle.

TMQ hasn't seen a true double reverse in the NFL since there were antenna-pointing control boxes on the tops of televisions. So far as TMQ knows, the last true double reverse in the NFL was called by Tom Landry in the 1978 Super Bowl. Fittingly, it resulted in a fumble.

In other football news, the Heisman Trophy winner is announced this Saturday on ESPN. This award's full name, TMQ believes, should be the Heisman Trophy for the Division I-A Quarterback or Running Back Who Receives Most Publicity.

The idea that the Heisman goes to "the outstanding college football player in the United States" is a total fiction. Sixty-one of 67 winners have been quarterbacks or running backs, although those positions account for just 14 percent of gentlemen on the field. (To make it sound as though more positions are recognized, the Heisman preposterously lists "running back," "halfback," "tailback" and "fullback" as four different positions.) No linebacker or offensive lineman has ever won, and just two defensive lineman and one defensive back were Heisman honorees. The last non-glory-boy to hear his named called was defensive end Leon Hart in 1949, half a century ago.

Joey Harrington
Harrington's boosters fell victim to the ink-equals-Heisman theory.

Though all Heisman laureates are good, awards are clearly decided with publicity first in mind. Oregon was smart two years ago when it paid $250,000 to have that giant mural of Joey Harrington painted near the Downtown Athletic Club, sponsor of the Heisman; this did as much for Harrington's chances as any play on the field. Charles Woodson's surprise victory in 1997 as the first defensive Heisman winner since Hart came about mainly because Woodson received an extraordinary amount of press attention. Though Woodson was worthy, it was the ink that swayed voters.

Publicity-as-the-measure-of-all-things prohibits Heisman voters from even considering players from beneath Division I-A, though it is at the small-college level that the true spirit of competition for its own sake is honored. If the Heisman is an award for best quarterback or running back, by a huge margin the dominant running back in college ranks this season was Ian Smart of C.W. Post, who ran for 2,203 yards and 30 touchdowns while finishing his career fourth all-time in collegiate rushing and first all-time in collegiate scoring. Ian Smart is the highest scoring college player ever, yet he'll be brushed aside by Heisman voters because he was not hyped.

And by a huge margin the dominant quarterback in college this season was Curt Anes of undefeated Grand Valley State, who has thrown for 3,331 yards and 44 touchdowns; his two-year total is a phenomenal 93 touchdown passes vs. just eight interceptions. Anes will be brushed aside, too.

John Heisman
Heisman wouldn't even be considered for his award today.

Today the Heisman actively mocks the memory of John Heisman himself, who was a tackle in college and then spent most of his career coaching teams now below the Division I-A level -- Akron, Penn, Washington & Jefferson. John Heisman himself would not be considered for the Heisman Trophy! This statuette should be promoted for what it is, an award for receiving hype at a big school.

"Wow" Plays: Terrell Owens' leaping one-hand touchdown catch and Quincy Morgan's game-winner were doozies, but the best was the Dantzler kick return. Former college quarterback Woodrow Dantzler, trying to hang on with the Cowboys as a special-teams player, was hammered and knocked sideways four separate times on his 84-yard touchdown return against the Squared Sevens, and each time recovered his balance to keep running. This man wants a job!

Once They Were Kings: On his game-icing 6-yard touchdown run, Deuce McAllister went straight ahead through the once-mighty Nevermores defense untouched by human hands.

Sixty-Minute Men: The Cleveland Oranges (Release 2.1) trailed the entire game, taking their first lead on a conversion attempt after time expired.

Where Was the Defense? No. 1: It was Jax 20, Oranges 14 with Cleveland exactly at midfield, 11 seconds remaining and no timeouts. Everybody knew the Hail Mary was coming; Morgan made the improbable catch. But check the tape, where was the defense? Cleveland had to get across the goal line, yet a mere two Jacksonville defenders were in the end zone. Three were rushing, one was near the line of scrimmage and five were clustered around the 20-yard line. Why was Jax defending the 20-yard line? In a Hail Mary situation, most defenders should spot up in the end zone, for the reason that is obvious to everyone except, apparently, Jaguars coaches.

Proof of the rule: The Jersey/A-Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons game ended in an identical situation, the Persons trailing by six with the ball at midfield, 10 seconds left and no timeouts. A Hail Mary, of course. Seven Giants defenders were clustered in the end zone, where the pass clanged harmlessly to the ground.

Terrell Owens, Jeff Garcia
Happy about the touchdown, or laughing at the 'Boys D?

Where Was the Defense? No. 2: Trailing by three with 15 seconds to play, the Squared Sevens were on the 'Boys 8-yard line. Let's see, Terrell Owens leads the league in receiving touchdowns. He'd scored earlier in the game, on a play from close to the Dallas goal line. Hmmmmmmmmm. Oh who might San Francisco throw to? Yet Dallas left Owens single-covered -- singled by underwhelming nickel back Dwayne Goodrich -- while the Cowboys triple-covered tight end Eric Johnson. Three defenders on the legendary Eric Johnson and one guy on the biggest receiving threat in the league! Owens even ran the same pattern as on his previous touchdown, a simple down-and-in. Dallas coaches appeared shocked that the pass went to Owens. Ye gods.

Where Was the Defense? No. 3: Game scoreless in the first, the Marine Mammals faced third-and-3 on the Chicago 5. Jay Fiedler faked a pitch left, rolled right and threw for the touchdown to backup tight end Jed Weaver, who had brush-blocked then cut into the end zone. No one covered Weaver. Sure, sometimes the tight end slips past uncovered on a play-fake on first-and-goal. But on third-and-3? Aye caramba.

Miami cheerleaders
The American work ethic in action.

Mega-Babe Professionalism It was raining and the wind was snapping flags Monday night in Miami, but the high-aesthetic-appeal Dolphins cheerleaders came out in their skimpy two-piece numbers. Seeing this professionalism, the football gods rewarded their team with victory.

Since TMQ began writing about the overdressed-coach factor three years ago, word seems to have gotten around the league, and it has become rarer for one coach to wear significantly more than his opposite number. In cases where neither opposing coach overdresses -- as was the case in Miami, Dave Wannstedt and Dick Jauron both sporting light windbreakers -- the onus of propitiating the football gods shifts to the cheerleaders. Miami's cheer-babes rose to the challenge.

Contrast to the Indianapolis at Denver game last month, when the equally high aesthetic appeal Broncos cheerleaders came out in such heavy parkas and bulky snow pants they looked like Michelin Men, and their team was denied victory.

Thus comes the time to add a corollary to TMQ's immutable law of the sideline, Cold Coach = Victory. The corollary: If Coaches Equal, Cheerleader Professionalism = Victory. In this usage, professionalism means skin or at least skin-tight.

Low-Gear Drive of the Week: Taking possession at their 24 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, leading 20-7, the Oakland Long Johns (see below) staged a 14-play, eight-minute touchdown drive that ended the Bolts' hopes. Everything on the drive was a run or an under pass, the longest gain being 15 yards.

Marty Mornhinweg
It's OT Marty, not rocket science.

The Happiest Man in America: Marty Mornhinweg of the Lions, when Arizona won the overtime coin toss.

The Unhappiest Man in America: Marty Mornhinweg of the Lions, when his charges committed penalties on three of the first four plays of overtime, including a flag that wiped out a Detroit interception returned to the Cards' 11-yard line. Arizona kicked a figgie to win a few plays after the penalty-nullified interception.

We're All Professionals Here: Three successive downs in the New Orleans-Baltimore game: blocked punt, turnover, turnover.

Fraidy-Cat Play of the Day No. 1: In the first Buffalo-New England contest, the tastefully named Gregg Williams waved the white flag in the third quarter on a play TMQ calls the Preposterous Punt: trailing by 10, facing fourth-and-2 on the Pats' 32, Williams punted. Pumped up by the Bills' mincing timidity, New England drove for a touchdown and never looked back.

In the third quarter Sunday, Buffalo trailed New England 20-0 and this time faced fourth-and-inches on the Pats' 8. Surely Williams learned from his mistake at this point the last time. You must, if you are anything but a disoriented former high-school coach who's in way over his head, go for it. In came the field-goal unit. TMQ thought, Got to be a fake. The figgie launched, TMQ lamented, "Aaaiiiiiiiiyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeee!". Only possible explanation: an onside kick would follow. Regular kickoff.

Thus the tastefully named Gregg Williams followed up the Preposterous Punt with the Fraidy-Cat Figgie. Both times Williams would have been better off going for it and failing -- but sending his team the message that he was challenging them to win. By kicking, he sent his team the message he expected to lose and was in too far over his head to do anything about it.

There are numerous examples of gentlemen who were solid assistant coaches -- Williams was a successful defensive coordinator at Tennessee -- but flops as head coaches because they lack leadership, game-day skills or ability to perform under pressure. Game-day skills are an especially overlooked factor. Head coaches aren't just standing there, they make the key decisions and are looked to by players for inspiration. Twice at critical times this season, Bills players looked to Williams and saw that, far from providing inspiration, he was signaling that he couldn't take the pressure. Before getting the Buffalo helm, Williams' sole head-coaching experience was in high school. Drew Bledsoe deserves better than a high-school coach.

Fraidy-Cat Play of the Day No. 2: Leading 27-24, Dallas faced fourth-and-1 at the San Francisco 28 with 2:21 remaining. That's a 47-yard field-goal attempt and the 'Boys field-goal kicker, Billy Cundiff, is having a shaky year -- among qualifiers, second-to-last in the league in kick scoring. If the attempt misses, the Squared Sevens get the ball at the 37. Even if the field-goal hits, a touchdown still wins it for the Niners. Most important, San Francisco is out of timeouts. The Cowboys gain a single yard the game is over: kneel-downs will exhaust the clock. And the Cowboys can't make the playoffs anyway, why not go for it and play to win? In came the field-goal unit. TMQ thought, Got to be a fake. The kick launched, TMQ lamented, "Aaaiiiiiiiiyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeee!". Clang, Niners' ball and you know the rest.

Dave Campo is auto-fired as of Dec. 30 anyway, so no need for a coaching analysis on this one.

Laura
It's a shame it's so cold up there.

Cheerleader of the Week: Minnesota might be having a cover-your-eyes season, but everything is going swimmingly for the TMQ ESPN Cheerleader of the Week, the scrumptious Laura of the Vikings. According to her team bio, Laura is a student at the University of Minnesota who has 16 years of dance training, whose career aspiration is to work in the fashion industry for a well-known designer and whose "favorite memory as a Viking cheerleader is putting on the uniform for the first time." Considering her swimsuit pose, hundreds of guys will think their favorite memory is Laura removing her uniform for the first time.

According to the Vikings' cheerleader FAQs page, Minnesota cheer-babes aren't paid, receiving only two game tickets and a parking pass. TMQ recommends they unionize and demand a fairer deal; if Hubert Humphrey were still alive the Vikings cheerleaders would be union-shop and filing grievances about their eyeliner allowance, that's certain. The FAQs page further explains that all Minnesota cheerleaders "lift weights and participate in numerous cardiovascular activities in order to improve our endurance," the primary test of that endurance being watching the Vikings this year.

Best Schemes: Touts are buzzing about how City of Tampa stopped Michael Vick by having Derrick Brooks "spy" him -- having Brooks ignoring normal responsibilities to mirror Vick's every move. It worked, but only a top-ranked defense with a pure-athlete as fast as Brooks will be able to get away with this.

Michael Vick
Vick was without his schtick when he faced the Bucs.

Tampa's offensive schemes were also impressive. The Bucs went "bunch" on key plays, but varied the bunch each time. Game scoreless in the second, first-and-goal on the Falcons' 10, Tampa lined up a tight end with a receiver directly behind him in a slot split on both sides, plus a back set right. The back ran to the short right flat, drawing up the Falcons defense; the right-side tight end ran to flag, dragging out the safety; Joe Jurevicius, the receiver behind the end on that side, ran a quick down and turn-in for the touchdown.

Two possessions later, leading 7-0, the Bucs had first-and-goal on the Falcons' 13. This time they bunched three in a slot split right and put the back and a receiver on the left side. The right-side tight end ran to the short right flat, drawing up the Falcons defense; the right-bunched receiver ran to flag, dragging out the safety; and you'll never guess what pattern was run by Joe Jurevicius, the left-bunched receiver on the right. Quick down and turn-in for the touchdown.

Worst One-Man Olé Block: Eagle N.D. Kalu got to the Seattle Blue Men Group punter so fast he didn't even have to block the punt; he simply tackled the punter, who had received a good snap. How did Kalu get there so fast? Blue Men up-man Heath Evans, assigned to block anyone breaking through the line, stepped aside to let Kalu pass untouched by human hands.

Worst Group Olé Block No. 2: Runner Corey Dillon was tackled five yards deep in the end zone for a safety after the entire right side of the Bengals line was driven backward by assorted Panthers. The play started on the Cincinnati 3-yard line! Ye gods.

Worst Group Olé Block No. 3: Trailing by a touchdown, San Diego went for it on fourth-and-1 from the Oakland 31 on the opening possession of the second half. The call was sweep left, and TMQ hates slow-developing plays on short yardage. LaDainian Tomlinson lost three yards when the entire left side of the Bolts line was driven backward by assorted Raiders. Several San Diego players, including left tackle Damion McIntosh, simply stood watching, making no attempt to block anyone. It was the defining play of the Bolts crash-and-burn.

Dobby the Elf
Spurrier! Get off the bed!

Hey, It Used to Work Against Western Carolina: Facing third-and-2 against Jersey/A, Dobby the Elf (Steve Spurrier) sent his charges out in a flag-football trick-play formation with the center, quarterback, a running back and two guards in the middle of the field; a tackle and two receivers split wide on each side. The back ran straight ahead for the first, but you could almost hear Giants coaches saying to each other, "Spurrier is starting to lose it."

Stop Me Before I Blitz Again! Leading 17-7 with 45 seconds left in the half, the Detroit Peugeots (see below) had the Cards facing third down. It's a blitz! Seven gentlemen cross the line; touchdown pass to Nate Poole, and the Arizona comeback is on.

The Sort of Offense That Rolls Up 47 Yards: Facing third-and-1 with three minutes left in the half, Houston not only didn't run, David Carr sprinted backyards 10 yards before throwing the ball away; punt. Sprinted backwards 10 yards on third-and-1.

Worst Heave-Ho: Brian Griese's game-ending interception at the Jets' goal line with Broncos trailing by six was a pass forced into triple coverage. And it was first down from the 23 with 1:32 left, plenty of time and downs to throw the ball away and try anew. Plus Brian, if there are three guys on the man you are looking at, what might your instinct tell you about the other receivers?

Stats of the Week: Kansas City has won its last two games by a combined 98-10.

Stats of the Week No. 2: Kansas City, the league's highest-scoring team, is in last place in the AFC West. (The Chiefs are tied for last in record, but trail in tiebreakers.)

Stats of the Week No. 3: Houston beat Pittsburgh by 18 points despite compiling just 47 yards of offense and three first downs. The Steelers lost despite advantages of 375 yards of offense and 21 first downs.

Stats of the Week No. 4: San Francisco just barely won despite advantages of 144 yards of offense, 16 first downs and leading in takeaways.

Stats of the Week No. 5: Despite being the sole team in the NFL that uses the gamble-everything-for-takeaways "46" defense, Buffalo is last in the league in takeaways. Its defense has failed to force a turnover in 10 of 13 games.

Stats of the Week No. 6: Despite using three top-10 draft picks on defensive linemen in the past decade (Simeon Rice, Eric Swann and Andre Wadsworth) plus several No. 2 picks, the Arizona (caution: may contain football-like substance) Cardinals are last in the league in sacks.

Stats of the Week No. 7: David Carr of the Moo Cows was sacked 26 times in September, 18 times in October, 15 times in November and so far has been sacked nine times in December. He is on a pace to be sacked an all-time record 84 times. (Randall Cunningham holds the record at 72 sacks absorbed in a season.)

Stats of the Week No. 8: San Diego is 8-5, but has lost three games by a combined 127-32.

Rich Gannon
Come see Gannon before his arm falls off.

Stats of the Week No. 9: Rich Gannon is on a pace to throw for an NFL-record 5,175 yards. The season record, held by Dan Marino, is 5,084 yards. And despite a league-leading 546 heave-hoes, Gannon has been sacked just 26 times.

Texas A&M Would Have Fired Dwight Eisenhower; World War II Victory Margin Not Large Enough: Texas A&M showed the door to coach R.C. Slocum, whose record at the school was 123-47-2 and who never had a losing season. But this year the Aggies were 6-6, get him out of here!

This tells you that Texas A&M administrators and boosters are spoiled little ingrates whom the football gods will now punish. This also bares the shameful secret of the football-factory universities -- namely, that it's assumed an orangutan could go 6-6 coaching Texas A&M, Miami, Georgia or any similar school.

At the football-factories, an annual winning season is nearly guaranteed owing to recruiting advantages and the scheduling of weak innocent-bystander schools having no chance of victory. How often in recent decades have any of the teams currently in the Top 25 had a losing season? Remember how shocking it was last year when Penn State actually finished below .500? It might seem impossible that the football-factory universities can all have winning seasons every year when they also play each other; the explanation is their annual guaranteed-win dates against cupcake teams.

At the football-factory level, it's hard to win a national championship but falling-down easy to have a winning season. That is why when a football-factory coach goes 6-6, he is perceived as having become a loser -- everyone knows he starts the season with built-in victories. (Louisiana-Lafayette and Baylor in Slocum's case this year.) It is also why when someone like Steve Spurrier jumps from college to the pros, he is stunned to discover that instead of half of the year's games being walkovers and only three or four being really contested, every game is contested. Coaches who go in the other direction, from the pros to the football factories -- like Al Groh jumping from the Jets to Virginia -- are making the safe move. Groh is all but guaranteed of being a winner every year; Spurrier, once a guaranteed-winner, now flounders; Slocum lost favor for failing to do that which is perceived to automatic, finishing above .500 at a football factory.

Dennis Franchione
When the goin' gets tough, the tough apparently bail on their contracts.

To Exact Their Vengeance on A&M, the Football Gods Sent Franchione: After cashiering Slocum, the Aggies hired Dennis Franchione of Alabama. Set aside that Franchione had five years left on the contract he casually broke; set aside that he'd urged 'Bama players to stick with the school through its NCAA probation, then cleared out the instant someone offered him cash, breaking his word to his charges; set aside that he showed up at A&M to take the new post without having the guts to tell the 'Bama players he merrily screwed; set aside that Franchione's own website was declaring just a few days ago "Coach Fran has stated repeatedly" that Alabama "is where he wants to be." (The site, coachfran.com, just disappeared; Franchione's promise to stay was found here. Just remember, Texas A&M, what you getting in Dennis Franchione -- a liar who walks out on his commitments. The perfect fit for your program!

Why, TMQ wonders, can coaches take a hike the instant it benefits them, but when players want to leave a team for greener pastures there is anguished outcry? TMQ is reminded of 1978, when Chuck Fairbanks of the Patriots agreed to a job with the University of Colorado in December, the NFL season still in full swing and his club just having made the playoffs; the subsequent distraction screwed New England's postseason.

Fairbanks didn't care, all he cared about was the money Colorado gave him. But why didn't Colorado stop to think about what it was getting -- namely, the kind of guy who walks out on his commitments. That message didn't stay hidden long. Fairbanks arrived at Boulder promising to "turn this program around." He sure did! His predecessor had been 35-21; Fairbanks lead the school to its worst three years in history, 7-26, before being jettisoned. How long, A&M, till you're wishing you had Slocum back?

Halle Berry
Cars, gadgets, blah, blah, blah -- bring on Halle!

TMQ: Official Column of James Bond: OK, so James Bond drives Aston-Martins and Thunderbirds and has his own an action game. But when Norelco became the electric razor of 007 -- get your Limited Edition James Bond Spectra razor here, limited, surely, to the number they can sell -- this went too far. Not so far, of course, that it can't be used as a cheap, flimsy excuse for the ESPN.com art department to append the Halle-Berry-in-the-Ursula-Andress-bikini shot from the new Bond flick "Die Another Day."

Local Affiliates Outrages of the Week: Wow! Look at the monster games on the Sunday card -- Atlanta at Tampa, Oakland at San Diego, Indianapolis at Tennessee, Buffalo at New England. Which of these USA Today five-star contests were shown in the nation's capital, where TMQ lives? None.

Nationally, less than half of the country saw Atlanta vs. Tampa -- forget how it turned out, this was clearly the headliner of the day's card -- while the one-star Vikings at Packers matchup was beamed to entire United States.

Not every local affiliate drops the ball. As reader Joe Ghory of Concord, Mass., reports, affiliate WJPR in Roanoke, Virginia, aired the Bucs-Falcons game despite normal regional affection for the hapless Persons; San Diego affiliate XETV showed Bucs-Falcons after numerous viewers protested its initial plan to air the two-stars Cowboys at Niners. Forget that Cowboys at Niners turned out to be the better game; Falcons at Bucs was clearly the headliner of the card.

The NFL simply must put Sunday Ticket on cable, so viewers can make up their own minds about what to watch. It's absurd that the league produces such fabulous games and then prevents most of the country from seeing them, offering viewers a steady diet of stinkers and clunkers as the five-star pairings go unseen. After all, it's not like the Atlanta at Tampa game increases in value if unseen. It only has worth to fans, or economic value, in the moments it is being played.

If nothing else, preventing fans from watching the best games cannot be in the NFL's long-term financial interest. Economically it constitutes taking two accounts receivable -- ad revenues from viewing of the top games, and fees to Sunday Ticket -- and hurling them out the window.

'Tis Better to Have Rushed and Lost Than Never to Have Rushed at All No. 1: From the moment at end of the third quarter when Minnesota took a nine-point lead over the Packers at Lambeau, to the beginning of the Vikings' last-second desperation drive, Minnesota called seven rushes and 10 passes. Had the Vikings simply kept running up the middle for no gain but not stopping the clock with incompletions, Green Bay probably would have run out of time for its score to take the lead with 1:111 left.

'Tis Better to Have Rushed and Lost Than Never to Have Rushed at All No. 2: At Kansas City last month, Buffalo lost by repeatedly passing on short-yardage downs. The Bills threw on a critical third-and-inches; incompletion, punt. Reaching first-and-goal at the Kansas City 5, the Bills threw three straight times, all incompletions, then settled for the field goal. They were defeated by one point.

Drew Bledsoe
If you ask Pats fans -- they'll say it was classic Drew.

On Sunday, Buffalo had second-and-goal at the New England 1-foot line, trailing by 17. Did the Bills pound, pound, pound for 99-percent-likely touchdown? A pass-wacky roll-out on which Drew Bledsoe sprinted backwards 15 yards -- 15 yards backward on goal-to-go from the one-foot line - interception, overall team collapse promptly follows. It's hard not to think the Buffalo sideline is more concerned about getting touchdown-pass stats for Bledsoe than about winning games.

Reader Haiku Matt Grau of Richmond, Va., was among many who noted that the Chargers' official site froze for a yet third time last Tuesday afternoon owing to TMQ's link to Bolts cheer-babe swimsuit photos. Another reader proposes a solution to this dilemma.

Charles Moylan of Arlington, Mass., noting the Raiders have no TMQ cognomen, proposes they be known as the Long Johns -- as in Silver, and pirates. Me likey! Two readers propose new TMQ cognomens in haiku, and a third proposes that the Ravens/Nevermores, named for Poe, yield to Baltimore native John Waters.

Proceeds from sale of
Bolts' cheerleader calendar
fund server upgrade?
-- Charlie Zegers, Tuckahoe, N.Y.

Logos, track records
identical: I give you
the Detroit Peugeots!
-- Doug Gillett, Birmingham, Ala.

Need a new nickname?
The Pittsburgh Hypocycloids.
Hint: It's their symbol.
-- Keith Hart, Triadelphia, W.Va.

Baltimore Ravens
should nod to Waters, not Poe:
Baltimore Divines.
-- Joe Gindhart, West Bridgewater, Mass.

OK for guys is
Catherine Bell half-naked:
Equal time, where's Harm?
-- Sue Bogumil, West Seneca, N.Y.

Rams to UFO:
Thanks for the quarterbacks, but
fingers don't fit right!
-- Eric Zasada, Rochester, N.Y.

7-1 in day.
Are Broncos solar-powered?
0-5 in dark.
-- Matthew Jacobs, Pittsburgh

With Mammals defense
playing Gannon week 15,
Dan's record is safe.
-- David Campomizzi, Toronto

Normally thirty,
TMQ extends my lunch
to fifty minutes.
-- Eric Klooster, Ann Arbor, Mich.

TMQ's Christmas List: The first item on my list this year is the Evolution 2100 roof-top carrier, which will enable you to haul around an extra 21 cubic feet of cargo -- if your SUV doesn't have enough room for all your stuff!

Official Child of TMQ Christmas List: My 13-year-old boy was writing his Christmas list when I thought I heard him ask how to spell "cologne." I replied while thinking, Oh man, this is starting early. Later he handed me the list. One entry: "For Game Cube: Star Wars Attack of the Colognes."

Gil Bellows
Gil Bellows, who takes career advice from David Caruso, stars in "Second String".

And You Thought "Lord of the Rings" Was a Fantasy: The premise of the upcoming made-for-TV movie "Second String" is that the Buffalo Bills finally win the Super Bowl. Oh -- so it's science fiction!

TMQ Question of the Day No. 1: Aaron Glenn's first of two long interception returns for six against the Steelers came when he "jumped" a simple three-step slant by a receiver and cut in front. Since NFL teams run short slants constantly, why don't more DBs step in front?

TMQ Question of the Day No. 2: Why will Jennifer Lopez pose nude for GQ but not for Page 2? Don't say nobody's told her about the free bobbleheads!

I'd Rather Be Playing Attack of the Colognes: TMQ continues to be driven crazy by the Star Trek "prequel" serial Enterprise, which is set 100 years before the old Captain Kirk episodes, yet contains plot elements inexplicable in light of what happens 100 years later. The official excuse is that the invention of time travel has altered continuity in the Star Trek universe. Yet any time-travel-altered events would have occurred in the past relative to Captain Kirk, who would have known about them. The whole thing still makes absolutely no sense.

For time-travel nonsense, nothing tops the preposterous TNT summer series "Witchblade," now thankfully in remission. The show's second-season premiere began by declaring that, owing to time-travel, the entire first season never happened. The second season was presented as a remake of the first season. That's some kind of postmodern record.

In the first season, New York City police detective Sara Pezzini, bearer of the ancient, magical witchblade, sees her partner Danny killed in the pilot episode; Danny becomes a guiding ghost. In the second season, he's fine because Sara went back in time to rescue him. (Danny must have scored well with audiences in Q-testing.) In the first season, the Ian character was secretly protecting Sara while she battled the evil industrialist Irons; in the second season, it's the same events all over again but Irons immediately dies while Ian is now trying to kill Sara. (To scriptwriters "evil industrialist" is a conjoined phrase, like "fading hippy" or "fugitive financier." Won't it be fun to see a kindly industrialist in any Hollywood product?) In the first season, Sara extensively explores the powers of her witchblade; in the second season, it's the same events but Sara barely knows how to use the magic device. And in the second season -- Sara is now the reincarnation of Joan of Arc!

Witchblade
You don't often hear, "Did anyone tape Witchblade?", at the office.

Read the preposterous Witchblade narrative summary here. Check the official description of Sara's partner: "Danny does not know about the Witchblade and its powers, but he often questions Sara's erratic behavior and might suspect that greater forces are at work in her." She's just used time travel to raise him from the dead, and he "might suspect" she has unusual power. Man, this guy is a natural-born detective!

The subplot of the "Witchblade" second season is that An Agency Far, Far More Secret Than The CIA is killing people left and right with total impunity for no clear reason and, inexplicably, has an unlimited budget without anyone in Washington knowing about it. The ghost of JFK appears in one particularly excruciating episode to warn Sara she is humanity's last hope to stop the Agency Far, Far More Secret Than The CIA! As a kicker, the ghost of JFK reveals that he was assassinated not by Oswald but by the Agency Far, Far More Secret Than The CIA. Apparently Witchblade has used time travel to steal this gimmick since the old television show Dark Skies also had as its subplot that JFK was actually assassinated by An Agency Far, Far More Secret Than The CIA.

Why do so many television shows and movies, produced by people who live in freedom and luxury owing to the American system, relentlessly present the United States as a place of runaway evil government agencies? Sinister U.S. government conspiracies are even a standby of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies! ("Eraser," "Collateral Damage," etc.) And if An Agency Far, Far More Secret Than The CIA is scheming to destroy the country, how come almost everything is getting better for almost everybody?

Donald Trump's Legacy: The Eagles put Sean Landeta on injured reserve. That leaves just one former USFL player still dressing for NFL games, Doug Flutie. TMQ's favorite Flutie moment came in 1998, when this gentleman was making his NFL comeback. The Bills were at Indianapolis, and the 6-foot-5 Peyton Manning had a pass batted down. "He's too short!" Flutie screamed from the sidelines.

Daniel Snyder
Snyder has cut more people than a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.

Synder Files Protest Against League Rules That Forbid Firing Coaches During Games: Last week, Lord Voldemort (Daniel Synder) cut another kicker, James Tuthill, for having the impudence to miss a field-goal attempt. This means the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons are now on their ninth placekicker during the Voldemort era -- bet that makes the new guy feel relaxed and confident, huh?

The new guy, Jose Cortez, missed his first attempt Sunday. As TMQ endlessly points out, in the four years of Voldemort's evil reign, in addition to nine kickers the Persons have had six starting quarterbacks, four head coaches, four defensive coordinators and four general managers.

Hidden Indicator: In the Bengals-Panthers game, there were two kick return touchdowns, two fumble return touchdowns, a safety and 15 penalties. This is the kind of hidden indicator that is essential for an insider's understanding of the game. In this case, it means Cincinnati was on the field.

Running items department
Obscure College Playoff Score of the Week: Valdosta State 21, Texas A&M-Kingsville 12 (Division II semifinal). Kingsville's "prospective students" page begins:

Start your first year at A&M-Kingsville with Hoggie Hysteria Welcome Week, six days of events and activities to welcome you to campus. Close out your first year with Spring Fling, a celebration of the season that includes music, dancing, and booths sponsored by student organizations. In between, join in the fun at Homecoming, Family Day, Fall Carnival, the Miss Texas A&M University-Kingsville Scholarship Pageant and the other events sponsored by the Office of the Student Activities. Join some of the more than 130 campus clubs and organizations, an intramural team, or a community service project. It's all part of student life -- what goes on before and after your classes -- and it's an important part of your A&M-Kingsville education, an opportunity to make friends, learn new skills and develop new interests.

Note that the school says almost nothing about learning or classes; this is the Texas A&M system we're talking about! Bonus factoid: Kingsville calls itself TAMUK, which sounds like an Iraqi biological facility on the United Nations inspection list.

Bonus Obscure Playoff Score: John Carroll 16, Brockport 10 (Division III quarterfinal). One guy beats an entire city! The president of Brockport, with 8,500 students one of the largest schools to compete in Division III, declares "we have identified student success as our primary mission" as if this had previously been a point of controversy. Located on the buckle of the Snow Belt near Rochester, N.Y., Brockport advises potential students, "Canada is but a 3½-hour drive," as if assuming they will be anxious to flee.

Double Bonus Obscure Playoff Score: McNeese State 24, Montana State 20 (Division I-AA quarterfinals). What counts as news at a school at beautiful Bozeman, Mont.? A one-day delay in a professor's appearance on "Good Morning America" to talk about ... snow.

What are they thinking about in Bozeman besides snow? "It is a primary expectation of President Geoffrey Gamble that the University will engage in an open, data-rich budget development process that is directly linked to the maintenance of a long-range plan, the identification of specific strategic priorities, and a detailed assessment of resource allocation outcomes."

New York Times Final-Score Score:. The Paper of Guesses returns to its habitual 0-16 in its triumphant attempt to predict an exact final score, bringing the New York Times Final-Score Score to 1-727 since TMQ began tracking.

Eagles cheerleader
OK, you asked for it.

Reader Animadversion. A mere one-week absence of a Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader lingerie calendar photo -- buy the calendar here, advertised with the line, "we haven't pushed the envelope, we've ripped it open" -- caused such an avalanche of email that TMQ is forced, forced to show another.

Many readers nominated Christina, a La Salle University student who, according to her bio, does tae kwon do, aerobics six times a week and lifts weights five times a week; the results are admirable. A reader haikuizes of her highly literary pose,

The Road Less Traveled?
Cheer-babe reading or telling
mortals our chances?
-- Kim Lynne, College Station, Texas

On TMQ's question of why, if in the "Lord of the Rings" Sauron once made an all-powerful ring, he simply doesn't make another, many readers including Chris Benfatto of St. Louis replied that Sauron put all his dark power into the One Ring; his weakened spirit is incapable of making another and seeks the first to recover full vileness. Rob Hartsock of Anchorage adds that the elves who made the ring at Sauron's behest mysteriously lost the knowledge of how to make another; it's the One Ring or nothing now. Another reader suggests Sauron's mistake was to name his creation the One Ring, making it impossible for him to forge a second:

Sauron trapped in own
tautology: One Ring means
can be just One ring.
-- Joe Mette, Mars, Pa.

OK, but then if the One Ring has that much power how come Prince Isildor, a mere human, took it from Sauron in the first place by defeating the ultimate bad guy in a swordfight? How come Isildor himself was later killed in battle while wearing the One Ring?

Jennifer
Our deepest apologies Jennifer.

Reader Tim Donahue of Fishers, Ind., was among many who pointed out that the Lucky Charms cheer-babe identified in the column last week as "Jennifer DeMotte" was actually Jennifer from DeMotte, Ind. The Colts' site is not a model of clarity, leading to this mistake. And for some techno-reason, ESPN.com could not import Jennifer's swimsuit picture. TMQ urges readers to exercise their First Amendment rights by going to the Colts site, clicking cheerleaders, then calendar preview, then Jen. It's worth the effort.

Robert Kemp of New Orleans was among many who noted it was Jake Reed of the Boy Scouts, not Joe Horn, who made last's week's "wow" catch while being hit by four Bucs defenders simultaneously. "There were so many Tampa players around him, it was hard to tell who he was," Kemp notes.

Brian Straub of Ames, Iowa, was among many who pointed out that Marty Mornhinweg's decision to kick after winning the overtime coin toss was not the first time this had happened since the 1962 AFL title game. In 1997, Denver won a kickoff coin toss at Buffalo, choose to kick to get the wind, and was victorious on a figgie after getting good field position when the Bills' opening drive into the wind stalled. Denver went on to win the Super Bowl that year, so its tactical choices must be respected.

Finally, Chad Kubicek of Lenexa, Kan., noted that in choosing to kick after winning the overtime coin toss in the 1962 AFL title game, Hank Stram accomplished the double futility of surrendering both the ball and the wind. Stram wanted the wind, and told his captain Abner Haynes to take it if winning the toss. At midfield Haynes said, "We'll kick toward the clock," meaning the clock tower at the downwind end of the field, but zebras heard only "we'll kick" and allowed the Oilers to pick direction, and they picked toward the clock. Stram's Texans won anyway in the second OT, and the moment created some fine lore. In haiku,

"Kick to the clock" in
'62 championship;
a double-whammy.
-- Chad Kubicek, Lenexa, Kan.

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TMQ Challenge Last week's Challenge was to come up with new bowl game names.

One reader suggested in haiku that the Challenge was unwinnable because there has already been a name that can never be topped:

Truth's always stranger:
Can Poulan Weed-Eater Bowl
ever be outdone?
-- Jeff Vance, Washington, D.C.

Many, many readers, including Bryant Kiedrowski of Cleveland, suggested the Kellogg's Cereal Bowl, to be played in Battle Creek, Mich.

David Dirgo of Omaha suggested the Diminished Expectations Bowl, which this year would pit Nebraska versus Florida State. Hey Dave, Florida State made the BCS! Oh, I get it, that's part of the joke.

Neil Towler of Worcester, Mass., suggested the Victoria's Secret Bowl, where the real viewer interest would be on the sidelines. The site would have to be warm-weather. In like spirit Nick Bremer of Eagan, Minn., suggested the Tuesday Morning Quarterback Mega-Babe Bowl, with teams composed of Cheerleader of the Week winners. Nick, I will give this proposal very serious study, as soon as I can arrange for the Cheerleaders of the Week to meet me for a secret practice session.

Sopranos
I got your bowl right here!

Mark Givarz of St. Louis suggests HBO Presents "The Sopranos" Bowl, played, of course, at the Meadowlands.

Curtis Gilchrist of Huron, S.D., suggests the Hostess Cupcake Bowl, matching the two big-name teams that did the most padding of their schedules with cupcake opponents. Curtis, how would you narrow it down to two?

Josh Bell of Raleigh, N.C., suggested the Manute Bowl, sponsored by the former NBA player. Sam Gupta of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, suggested the Erskine Bowl, sponsored by the unemployed former Senate candidate.

TMQ's nominee is the Fiasco Bowl. Watch this space for more on that.

This week's Challenge goes to Noah Abrahamson of Iowa City, who suggests The Invesco Bowl at Rose. Since Invesco has already ruined the most majestic place name in professional sports, Abrahamson reasons, why shouldn't it also ruin the most majestic name in collegiate sports? The Invesco Bowl at Rose would, of course, be played in Miami.

This Week's Challenge: OK, the Heisman Trophy only considers big-hype glory boys. Which non-quarterback non-running-back from any division deserves to be lauded as "the outstanding college football player in the United States?" Propose your candidates here and try to give concrete reasons -- not just, "he's really good" -- considering that TMQ will not have seen many of your nominees play.

Posted by tien mao in TMQ at 5:17 PM

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