Not even the goof who wears the Eagle outfit to go and sit in the end zone seats and wiggle around like someone plugged into a 220 volt outlet would have thought that the final score would be Eagles 41 and Cowboys 14. If you had heard that a running back in that game had 26 carries for 201 yards, you would have bet the ranch that it was Emmitt Smith, right? And if you heard that one team ran the ball 46 times for 306 yards, you would have been certain that it was Dallas. Wrong!! (To tell the truth, I would have guessed Nebraska had gained the 306 yards against the University of Middle Southwest Iowa Tech.) The Cowboys' defense is bad and now their offense just got worse with Aikman getting concussion #10 and Galloway out for the year and facing knee re-construction. Everybody who picked Dallas to win more than 8 games should chalk up that bet in the losing column.

Another team that is probably going to do worse than you may have imagined is the Arizona Cardinals. They are slow; they play for an owner that is anything but a beloved figure; their coach is going to be fired at the end of the season absent a win in the first round of the playoffs. Nigeria will win 6 skiing gold medals in the European ski Championships this winter before the Cards win a playoff game. I figure this team puts it in cruise control about Halloween. I reiterate that Jake Plummer is a mediocre QB who bears no resemblance to Joe Montana; meanwhile Thomas Jones is a quality player who has a 4 year deal in Arizona and people should be planning to sign him up for the 2004 season.

Baltimore showed that their defensive prowess did not disappear over the summertime. They shut out Pittsburgh and the stats for the game were all in favor of the Ravens. Pittsburgh rushing average was 1.66 yards per rush. Pittsburgh passed 39 times for only 193 yards which is only 5 yards per attempt. Granted, the Steelers are not the top offensive team in the league, but these are numbers that reserved for defenses that get the job done properly.

The Packers lost to the Jets and Bret Favre looked like a shadow of the guy who used to be the MVP for the league. They can say that his arm is 90% and all that hootdoodle, but his throws were miserable. And the Packers only gained 149 yards on 34 passing attempts and that is almost a guaranteed path to a LOSS. Obviously, the continuation of the consecutive starts is important to Bret; equally obvious to me is that what the Packers really need is for him to rest until his arm is really healed.

Ryan Leaf played for the first time in almost two years and had the Chargers ahead for a while in the 4th quarter even though he threw 3 INTs and fumbled twice. The Raiders were not exactly putting on an offensive clinic gaining a total of 233 yards of offense for the whole game. And so the Raiders had to come from behind to win 9-6 with a pass to Andre Rison with just over 2 minutes to play.

In the Minnesota/Chicago game, the leading rusher for the Bears was QB Cade McNown who ran 10 times for 87 yards. Meanwhile, Viking QB Duante Culpepper ran 13 times for 73 yards. What happened there? Did the teams surprise each other and put in a single wing offense? Final score was 30-27 in favor of the Vikings even though the Bears gained 425 yards of offense and the Vikes "only" gained 374 yards.

And the most surprising implosion on offense was by the Seattle Seahawks who produced a total of 143 yards of offense in their 23-0 loss to Miami. Seattle threw 4 INTs and lost 2 fumbles and gained a total of 72 yards passing. Just for perspective, six teams on Sunday were penalized for more than 72 yards!

The Redskins did not blow out the Panthers and that has caused more angst in the Washington media than one can imagine. The Redskins won the game and that is all that matters since they just need to avoid such a level of complacency in the regular season that they wind up in a must win situation in December to get into the playoffs.

I had a discussion over the weekend with someone who says he is swearing off MNF because it starts too late and he does not like the "entertainment focus" of the show that manifests itself in several ways including Dennis Miller's presence in the booth. Too bad that he missed a wonderful game last night. The St. Louis Rams played just like they did last year breaking off big plays because they have about 7 or 10 guys who are flyers. But the Broncos were with them all the way until a final drive ended in a disastrous 4th and 33 play that was doomed from the time the huddle was broken. If MNF gets more games like that, the ratings will go up - and it will not matter if Dennis Miller or Dennis the Menace is part of the announcing team.

PGA punching bag, Casey Martin, finished 14 strokes off the lead and cashed a $6300 check in the Who Gives A Rat's Ass Open. I'm sure that put at least four more attorney's on the PGA payroll to figure out how to "derail" this guy.

Some offensive players at Penn State have decided to blame the coaches for Penn State's disastrous opening of the season with two bad losses. One RB said that the coaching staff had been there for 30 years and did not want to change anything. Look, Joe Paterno is not now and never has been an offensive genius, but he has been successful for over 35 years at Penn State and he needs advice from a 20 year old prima donna like the world needs another album from Abba.

Memo for Penn State RB: This system that they want to preserve has produced RBs named Lydell Mitchell, Curt Warner (not the QB with the Rams), Franco Harris, John Capaletti and maybe even Lenny Moore but I don't remember when Moore graduated. When the system has competent players, it works; it has worked for about 40 years. So if it isn't working now, look in the mirror and discover the problem.

Finally, David Wells gave up 9 hits and 7 earned runs while retiring exactly 4 batters and then proceeded to claim that the umpire had caused al this because of his ball/strike calls. In addition, Wells said that the umpire was "staring him down" when he was warming up on the sidelines. Wells said after the game that he had been pitching for long enough that he knew when pitches were balls and when they were strikes.

Memo to David: I bet every batter would make the same claim. That is why they have umpires. Some calls get butchered. But the umpire did not give up the home-run balls or the other shots that leaped off the bats of the Oakland batters. If you look at the video tape, you will see that it was YOU !!