The Ravens pitched their third shut-out of the season and their second in a row. Last team to do the back-to-back number was the 1985 Chicago Bears with Buddy Ryan's "43 defense". Granted they shut out Cincy and Clevleand back to back which is not the same as shutting out St. Louis and Minnesota, but it is still impressive. The Ravens forced 4 turnovers in the game. But you need recognize that the Cleveland defense is a whole lot better than it was. In the first five possessions of the Cleveland offense, the drive lasted 4 plays or less; two of these possessions ended in INTs; and the score was only 9-0 at that point. Cleveland is not good yet by a long shot, but they will win some more games this year.

Meanwhile on the other side of the ball the Rams generated 614 yards of offense against the Chargers and scored on their first eleven possessions. That is not a typo. And Kurt Warner was 24-30 and 390 yards in the passing game. I think that the Chargers defense left their hearts in San Diego. Cue Tony Bennett...

It was only a couple of weeks ago when TV analyst Bill Maas - he of the size 22 shirt and the size 4 hat - was raving about the genius of Sean Payton as the Giants' offensive coordinator. Well, the Giants have stunk for both of the last two weeks but the game stats for yesterday might lead you to believe that this was actually a "contest in doubt" sometime in the 2nd half. It was not; much of the yardage came in "garbage time". When the score was 21-0 in the first half, the Giants had run 9 plays for a net gain of 8 yards; at the half, the Giants running game had a net of minus 3 yards. Ron Dayne carried 3 times for minus 1 yard in the game meaning that the "thunder" was barely audible. And the Giant defense let Tennessee hold the ball for over 42 minutes and manufacture 4 scoring drives of 80, 80, 80 and 98 yards.

The Bungles scored 4 times yesterday in a single game. They led 13-0 early in the second quarter but once the Dolphins recovered from the shock that Cincy was actually going to play football now that Bruce Coslett was in some other zip code, the game turned. Cincy's final score of the day was a field goal with about 7 minutes to play in the game after Miami had built a 31-13 lead. So with the score 31-16 and about 7 minutes to play, did the Bungles go for an onside kick? No. Is there something in the water supply in the coaching staff suites in Cincy?

Buffalo played Indy tough and led with a minute to play. A final drive by the Colts set up a field goal to give Indy the win. But Manning threw for only 184 yards this week after a 400+ yard performance last week and the Colts only managed 84 yards rushing. Buffalo is fourth in their division at the moment, but they are a better team than that; the Buffalo defense is underrated.

The Bears ran out to a lead of 24-3 with 5 minutes to play in the 3rd quarter. Green Bay tried a miracle come-back but the Bears won their first game of the year 27-24. Somehow, the Bears ran the ball 36 times for 178 yards and they did not dominate the time of possession and only managed 13 first downs. That is not particularly easy to do.

Somehow, the Broncos ran for more yardage than the Pats, passed for more yardage, had almost double the number of return yards, and lost the game 28-19. And it took a TD with a two point conversion with less than 2 minutes to play to make it look that close on the scoreboard. That is not easy to do either.

The Eagles beat the Falcons 38-10, but it was not the offense that won the game. The Eagle defense just stopped Atlanta every which way. Chris Chandler had so many green shirts around him, he must have thought he was playing the Eagles and the Jets at the same time.

The Redskins played a solid game to beat the Bucs in O/T. I know that the Bucs have a new offensive coordinator, but there must be something in the water in Tampa too. Every once in a while, the Bucs game plan for the running game calls for Mike Alstott to line up at tailback and for the QB to go back there and hand him the ball meaning that Alstott gets the ball about 5-7 yards behind the line. By the time he gets to the line, whatever hole he is supposed to run to has opened and closed twice. Alstott runs best when he hits the hole quickly meaning he gets the ball while running forward and about 2 yards behind the line. Since Tony Dungy has been anointed as a certified football genius, don't you think he would notice this and take those delayed runs out of the Tampa playbook? And even though Keyshawn Johnson caught six passes, this was a very quite game for him. He gained all of 42 yards and lost a fumble. Time for the media to ignore this motor mouth until he actually does something on the field.

The Washington media is really worried about Tre Johnson's knee injury and there will be medical "reports" and "speculation" and "analysis" all day. What I saw was that the Skins OL played better with him out of yesterday's game than when he was there. Check it out.

In baseball, the season is over and the playoffs are set to begin. According to one of the people on ESPN Sports Reporters yesterday, the combined salaries of the White Sox and the A's are less than half of the salary cost of the Yankees. And both are around a third of that for the Orioles who are hoping to get a good tee time early this week. Interestingly, if you were seeding the 8 teams in the playoffs by record, the Yankees would be seeded 8th; they would be four full games behind the seventh seed.

NBC will allow its stations to decide on their own whether or not to televise the baseball playoffs or the political debates tomorrow night. The chronic complainers are in full throat. A letter to the editor in the Washington Post yesterday chided NBC for showing tape delays of the Olympics so therefore they should show the tape delay of the baseball game so that the critical and historical debate events could be seen by "the people". Here is what they are really afraid of. If NBC carries baseball that will make the ratings for the debates even smaller than they are going to be anyway and if by some chance baseball actually outdraws the debates, then the political gasbags may need to worry about whether the sports will go on the front page in the future and not the daily dose of political spin doctoring. For the record, my assessment of the campaigns to this point is that Bush is trying to convince us that he is not too stupid for the job and Gore is trying to convince us that he is not too smarmy for the job. Advantage? Certainly not us!

The Phillies fired Terry Francona. I doubt that any manager in the history of the game could have gotten that team to .500 this year. The baseball adage is that you win by being strong up the middle. Leiberthal is a solid catcher; the Phillies pitching staff was awful; their shortstop was awful; their second basemen were barely adequate; their centerfielder is OK. If Francona needs to go, then so do the "architects" of this team.

In the semi-final Olympic basketball game, Luc Longley injured his knee ligaments and will be out about 6-8 weeks. The scary thought here is that when he comes back to the Knicks, he may be slower than before. That would put him in the "tectonic plate class" of moving objects. Amazingly, the Knicks' complaint about Patrick Ewing was that he was too slow to run with the rest of the team. You may remember that a couple of years ago the Knicks drafted a center from France. Well, he was on the French Olympic team and in the final game against NBA competition he had one point and two rebounds. His name is Weiss; you need not waste any synapses remembering it; he won't be here because he can't play.

Finally, the Olympics are over. If these were "the greatest Games ever" - as is the customary valediction given by the IOC chief - then maybe we need to cancel the games in 2004 and 2008 and whenever. Once the website for the Sports Curmudgeon is finalized, I will have a "topical rant" for you on the Olympic nonsense. But just ask yourself a question. Why did the Olympic folks find a way to leak the drug test results for CJ Hunter? He was not an participant in the games. Why not release the blood test results for Joe Flabeetz of Buttmunch, Arizona? Wishing a pox on the houses of the Olympic organizers and most of the athletes is too good for all of them.

The daughters of Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier are aiming to fight next March. Here is advance notice: Any reader of this stuff who pays the projected $39.95 to get this as a pay-per-view will be dropped form the mailing list and will be labeled as a moron for eternity.

Some readers here know that I and friends make an annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas each autumn. In my household, these are referred to as the "high holy days". This year, the trip is the weekend of 21 October and I just learned that the Mike Tyson/Andrew Gollota fight is that very weekend. I wonder what the proposition bets for the fight will be? Hmmm… Maybe I'll suggest some to the guy who runs the Sports Book at the Mirage.

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