In case you did not know it, Blackie Sherrod still writes a weekly sports column in Dallas. And it is still very, very good. Last week he reported that after a Cowboys loss, Dave Campo said that it was "back to the drawing boards." Blackie's observation was that it should be a well-worn path by now. That deserves a tip of the cap!

In Sunday's loss to the Eagles, a 4th quarter Eagles' drive was kept alive by a penalty called on DB Ryan McNeil who took off his helmet to taunt an Eagle receiver or to argue with an official - depending on which account of the play you read. Helmet removal for such purposes gets an automatic 15 yard flag. And for that act, we hereby award Ryan McNeil with the Biweekly Bonehead Award.

Bobby Ross resigned. The Lions are 5-4 but the team is in disarray and the fans are more than a bit antagonistic. The Detroit fans "cheered derisively" when Charlie Batch was knocked out on the field on Sunday; the fans were booing heartily in the first half of the game and most had left by the time the Lions scored a meaningless TD in the 4th quarter. Ross must have figured that the team had begun to tune him out and he does not have a wide range of acts in his repertoire, so he got out while the getting was good. Gary Moeller is the replacement - with a 3 year contract already! He never impressed me as any kind of genius at Michigan, but the remaining schedule has three rather easy games and two others that are winnable. That would give the Lions 10 wins - if they can pull themselves back together.

The Tampa Bay Bucs have an assistant coach that is missing. Wendell Avery was at a team meeting last Saturday in Atlanta at 10:00 PM. No one has heard from him since. Police are looking for him after a missing person report was filed but they do not yet suspect foul play. Most unusual.

A loyal reader said that he had read that Brian Griese's blood alcohol when he was arrested for DUI was .14. Since Griese wears 14, he wondered if the judge would order the Broncos to put a decimal point on the uniform as a way to warn about the evils of drinking and driving. If the judge did, there would be a long legal battle launched by the NFL because of their uniform restrictions and no decimal points are allowed. Of course the NFL would lose because they always lose lawsuits. Who represents them anyway? I thought Marcia Clark and Chris Darden tried to conduct criminal prosecutions.

Tennessee is now 8-1 and has a two and a half game lead in the AFC Central. They play the Ravens on Sunday and if they win that one the Titans can put it on cruise control - if Jeff Fisher knows the meaning of the phrase "cruise control". Oakland is also 8-1 and also has a 3 game lead in the AFC West. However, the Raiders' opponents to date have a combined record of 26-50; in their remaining games, the opponents have a combined record of 27-29. So clearly, the tough part of the schedule starts now for the Raiders… They play Denver on Sunday and if the Raiders win that one, have Willie Nelson warm up his tonsils:

Turn out the lights; the party's over…

The Redskins did fire a special teamer. They fired the kicker - again. And the conventional wisdom in Washington is that they will sign Pete Stoyanovich - who was cut yesterday by the Rams after he missed two field goals in the Sunday night game. I wonder how that will cure the Redskins' problem of giving up long kickoff returns at the most inopportune moments. The Redskins kickoff coverage team has given up the highest average yards per return in the league.

Marshall Faulk did not play Sunday night because they had to "drain fluid from his knee in the locker room after he warmed up". Faulk had knee surgery yesterday to remove cartilage from the knee and is probably out for three weeks. The Raiders' Sebastian Janikowski is also in the hospital to treat whatever problem he has with his foot infection. He is expected to be there for three days. Chris Chandler left Sunday's game with yet another concussion. He did not require hospitalization and is listed as "doubtful" for this week.

I wonder what odds you could get in Las Vegas that the Philly/Pittsburgh game will be "UNDER 25.5"? Same question applies to the Tennessee/Baltimore game. How is this for a proposition:

Total score Philly/Pitts + Tenn/Balt: +160

KC/SF: -185

Jake Voskuhl (remember him from the UConn championship team?) is now on the roster for the Chicago Bulls. He is sharing the duties of back-up center with Brad Miller and Dalibor Bagaric. If those are your three back-up centers, that means that the starter could even be … Felton Spencer. Fortunately for Chicago fans, it isn't Felton; it is Elton Brand.

Another college football coaching job just opened up. Oklahoma State coach, Bob Simmons, announced that he will step down at the end of the season. The Cowboys have lost six straight.

Kazuhiro Sasaki is the Rookie of the Year in the AL. Some folks are "perturbed" that he is the ROY when he is 32 years old. But there is precedent for this. Jackie Robinson was also ROY and he was about 29 at the time…

I am a casual fan of the NHL. But it is beginning to become apparent that there are financial situations in the league that are potentially disastrous. Salaries are climbing quickly and attendance is dwindling and the TV contract is small - but still waaay bigger than any hope for a breakeven by the Disney geniuses - and there is no more expansion money coming in any time soon. In fact, it is probably time for the league to implode. One unidentified NHL team president is quoted in the Washington Post as saying the league should go back to 21 teams from the current roster of 30.

The NHL needs to watch some situations carefully because they are ominous indicators. The Atlanta Thrashers are in the second year of their existence and drew their lowest attendance ever in their second home game of the year. The Boston Bruins season ticket base is down to an estimated 7000; the Bruins are one of the revered "Original Six". The Montreal Canadians went begging for a buyer whereas twenty years ago potential buyers would have lined up all the way to Hudson Bay. The Florida Panthers could not sell out on opening night.

A year ago there was a tempest in a spittoon as American University decided to leave the Colonial Athletic Conference and join the Patriot League next year. The level of emoting from AU student athletes about how terrible this was and how they were not going to stand for it and how they would transfer was like a hormone tsunami. And none of it mattered a whit. One of the loudest protestors - if not THE loudest - who assured everyone that he would not play at AU if they went to the Patriot League was a basketball player named Patrick Doctor. Well, he is still at AU which can only mean that Coach K and Lute Olsen and Tom Izzo were not able to get his cell phone number. But he may have been more prescient than we could have known. Doctor has been suspended by the NCAA for eleven games for NCAA "rules violations" and there are published reports that AU has been investigating some "academic irregularities" that may be related to finding some student term papers on the computer of a former athletic department official who is no longer with the University. And to think that I doubted Patrick when he said he would not play for AU…

I checked the list of the top 125 money winners on the PGA Tour twice and I could not find Casey Martin's name so I guess this means that he won't be in a position next year to do irreparable damage to the game and the PGA can go back to figuring out new ways to annoy its prima donnas such as making them travel to Europe for an end-of-year tournament with a $1M prize. For all the golf junkies out there, the money available now will be the ingredient that drives golf back to "minor interest status". Players are already making so much that they can and do skip tournaments and complain that they have to travel too much. The PGA needs to look at the immense popularity of tennis in the late 70s and early 80s and then ask themselves what they need to do to avoid falling to the levels that tennis has fallen to now.

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