Before getting to the voluminous commentary on the NFL, I found it very interesting that Indiana University's point guard has been involved in two "illegal drinking" incidents in the past couple of months and that he is now moved into a dorm and ordered to get some counseling and has a 10 PM curfew. But he is still playing. One has to wonder if the discipline standards there have been relaxed just a bit. I don't hear even a peep from the IU President so maybe he does not care about student involvement in "illegal drinking" at IU? This never happened in the 30 years prior to now…

Also in an encore performance, Olden Polynice has been charged for the second time in a couple of months with impersonating a police officer. A car cut him off in traffic and Polynice pulled the occupants over to the curb and flashed a badge at them. He said he was associated with the "California Sheriff's Office" and could have them arrested. They reported him and he was charged.

Memo to Olden: Cut back on the caffeine. You are not a cop.

One of the Maryland assistant football coaches will leave that bottom-feeding program to join the new staff being formed at Oklahoma State. That is like finding a new pond to go scavenging in. Is this the college football version of the old poker game "Pass the Trash" or is this some artistic ballet creation akin to the "Dance of the Lemons"?

Now that the Heisman Trophy has been awarded, I want to observe that since the late 80s it seems that there has been an emphasis on "marketing" the candidates to the people who do the voting - and who have never seen most of these players actually play. And now that we have mass mailings from athletic departments and websites created and all the stuff of political campaigns, it seems to me that the quality of the awardees in the last decade have been about the same as our political candidates - stinky. Starting in 1989 - just after Barry Sanders won it - I would say that there have been 7 stinkers that won (Andre Ware, Ty Detmer, Desmond Howard, Gino Toretta, Charlie Ward, Rasshan Salaam and Danny Weurffel) and the jury is still out on Ron Dayne and Chris Weinke.

I am not a real hockey guy, but if I recall correctly the Flyers brought in Craig Ramsey to coach them last year when their coach came down with cancer and needed chemotherapy. When the coach was physically ready to go back behind the bench, the Flyers had made it to the playoffs and management kept Ramsey; then they jettisoned the former coach and cancer victim because Ramsey took the Flyers to one game short of the finals. Now Ramsey is fired just two months into the season because Bob Clarke says the team is too easy to play against and he hired his old teammate Bill Barber to coach the team with orders to "make them tougher". Clarke and Barber were both part of the Broad Street Bullies and you have to wonder if they will talk to this guy named McSorley who will be available come February…

In the NFL, the Eagles have made the playoffs in the NFC and they did so by beating the Browns 35-24. Cleveland used two different wide receivers at QB yesterday and basically ran Dennis Northcutt off tackle to the left in a single wing kind of play every time he lined up there. It worked for a while. Donovan McNabb did not run yesterday, but he did pick apart the Browns secondary with a surgical precision he had not shown before. He was 23-36 with 4 TDs and no INTs and 350 net yards. I don't know where he was in the QB ratings last Saturday, but he moved up the list based on that performance!

The Bears won a game against the Patriots that just had to be awful. The Pats defense seemed as if it missed the plane allowing Shane Matthews to pass for the same yardage as the total Pats' offense for the day and to set a Bear record with 15 consecutive completions. The goofiness began the night before the game when Curtis Enis had to go to the hospital because he became dehydrated after taking an over-the-counter cold medication. The team is not clear on what medicine he took. I suspect that once they find out, they will be careful about naming it unless they are 110% sure that it was the only thing in Enis' bloodstream at the time.

The Ravens held the Chargers to 64 yards rushing yesterday; and since that seemed like a good idea, they held the Chargers to 64 yards passing too. Add five turnovers to that performance and the Bolts were lucky to lose only 24-3.

The Giants won because they shut down the Steelers running game (47 yards on 20 carries) and dared Kordell Stewart to beat them. He never came close. Stewart threw 34 times and netted 217 yards; Kerry Collins threw 35 times and netted 326 yards.

But if you want to see rushing futility, look at the Carolina Pantloads who ran the ball 16 times yesterday against the Chiefs for a grand total of 23 yards. Their leading rusher gained 13 yards on 10 tries and is named "Hoover" . It is just too easy to say that he sucked yesterday!

The Seahawks outgained the Broncos which is a big surprise but they also turned the ball over 4 times and managed to lose the game. Gus Frerotte has kept the Broncos alive during the recovery of Brian Greise from a shoulder injury and that is what your backup QB is supposed to do.

The Bungles gave the ball to Scott Mitchell again. The total output was 171 yards of offense and 3 points. What will it take for the bells to go off in the collective minds of NFL team officials to get them to realize that Scott Mitchell stinks and can't play QB in this league? Go find Steve Walsh and sign him up; he'll be happy to leave whatever he is doing to play for whatever you are paying Mitchell; Walsh stinks too, but no one has seen evidence of it recently and you may be able to fool some fans for a while.

The Rams came back to life against the Vikes. I may have been a bit premature in pronouncing them dead and gone but they do end the season with two tough road games at Tampa and at New Orleans. But yesterday they gained over 500 yards against the Vikings and that shows up one weakness that the Vikes will have to overcome if they want to make a serious playoff run. The Vikings defense - particularly the pass defense - is porous, Kurt Warner was 27-32 yesterday for a net of 346 yards and no INTs. That is not a "playoff team defense"; that is a "bottom feeder defense".

The Jags ran the ball 45 times yesterday; the Cardinals ran a total of 45 plays yesterday. "Nuff said.

And that brings me to the Redskins and the Cowboys. We heard all week how Terry Robiske was the fire and brimstone kind of guy that would get in people's faces and make players emotional. Horse Hockey!! The Redskins were flat; they went through the motions; they were outhit and out hustled by the Cowboys. And looking at Robiske on the sidelines he had the same blank stare that Vince Tobin used to have and he showed all the emotion and fire of an Easter Island Statue. In short, he showed me that he is still a long way from knowing what needs to be done with this team - and he has been with the Redskins for about 7 years now.

Paging Mr. Robiske…Mr. Terry Robiske. Please pick up the white courtesy clue phone. We have one for you.

And since I am keeping score here, let me remind all of you that Jeff "Boy" George is now 1-3 as a starter for the Redskins and has lost to Arizona and Dallas. Good move going to him now. And Keith Simms was ordered to practice this week so he would be physically fit in the 4th quarter. Well, Simms injured the Achilles tendon that he has been nursing all year in the 1st quarter. Was it because he practiced instead of resting? Who knows? But another bold move that was trumpeted as heralding a new era of toughness turns out to be nothing more than hot air.

The special teams coach was fired last week too - as well he should have been since the Skins special teams have stunk for about 3 years now. Nonetheless, the special teams were outplayed in every facet of the game yesterday leading me to state for all of you the source of this problem. There are no special teams players here. There are position players who are making money to be backups and are put on special teams because they need 11 guys out there. But they don't play special teams well. The Redskins are not a football team put together by people who strategize about what is needed to win games; it is a fantasy league team of players with recognizable names who are presumed to be interchangeable. The problem is that this is not fantasy football; you actually have to go and play the games on the field!

The media has taken off the gloves with regard to Danny Boy. Previously, there were oblique references to his "hands-on" style and his "passion for winning". During a camera shot of Danny Boy and the extremely attractive piece of arm-candy in his owners' box yesterday, Bill Maas said, "Well, I know one thing he's done right." And soon they may come to the conclusion that the real problem with the Redskins is the General Manager (that would be Danny Boy) and he can't fire him. With a camera shot of "Pepper" Rodgers who is already being poked at by the media, the voice over was "And he's the guy who's going to fix this?"

You all need to go to the Houston Chronicle website and check out the column written by John McLain on 8 December. McLain is the NFL writer for the paper and he devoted the entire column to the Redskins and "Pepper" Rodgers. According to McLain, the Tennessee Titans players who know Rodgers from their days of playing in Memphis gave him the title of "Vice President in Charge of Screwing Things Up". There are LOTS of examples of Rodgers' acumen in this column. If the column is half true, don't be surprised if "Pepper" makes one call that could sink the franchise for 5 years. All you Redskin fans need to get out your crucifixes to back down even the potential spectre of one - - - - Richie Kotite. He's not working these days… He has experience… He will have his head so far up Danny Boy's ass he might even be able to see "Pepper"…

Now we have Robiske taking responsibility for the loss and we have Danny Boy sitting there with his arm around him consoling him. And as I have rhetorically asked Danny Boy several times in the past two years:

What are you gonna do now, tough guy?

And after the skirmish you provoked with Art Modell in the pre-season, how would you respond to his invitation to visit him in his box as he watched the Ravens play in a playoff game. Danny Boy, you won't have any other commitments on your calendar.

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...