NFL week 5 – the Velvet Bear

I hadn't intended to catch the Cowboys/Bills game this week. The team with the most points in the NFL in opposition to the side with the worst defense anywhere didn't exactly look mouthwatering, unless you are the sort of person who likes watching Bambi's mother get shot (or unless you support Leicestershire at cricket, in which case why would you want to suffer twice?).

Fortunately, a slightly complicated sequence of events, where nothing worked out quite as I intended it to, meant that I ended up seeing the game anyway. I'm really glad that I did. Forget the fact that the Cowboys won 25-24. Forget the fact that they did so with a 53 yard field goal in the final second*. Forget, even, that along the way Tony Romo, imperious this season, threw no fewer than five interceptions. To me, it was what the Bills did in the first quarter that was special.

First of all, we had two exceptional pieces of skill from Bills punter Brian Moorman. Now, punters really are the runts of any NFL team. Their sole role in the team is to come onto the pitch when their team's offense has failed to move the ball the requisite 10 yards in the first 3 downs.

They are then expected to hoof the ball as high and as far as they can, hopefully landing it somewhere inside the final 10 metres of the opposition half. That's it. Maybe they get to make the occasional tackle if their opponents catch the punt and manage to run it back far enough. Very very occasionally they get to take a long range kick at goal. It is a job which lacks glamour, thanks and – in NFL terms – money.

In this game, the Bills received the ball from the kick-off. They ground to a halt well inside their own half after 3 plays and so Moorman was sent for, with the side still 4 yards short of a first down.

The ball was snapped back. Moorman caught it. And ran and ran. For a full 10 yards. It doesn't sound much, but for someone to do something like that on the fourth play of a match takes real guts. If he hadn't made the first four yards, Moorman would have handed the Cowboys the ball deep in his own half. Because remember, those 10 yards are measured from where the ball started, not where Moorman started, which was a good 20-25 yards from where the ball was snapped to him.

The surprise of that move didn't unsettle the Cowboys too much and, although Moorman had given his side another four downs, they failed to make any real headway with the first three and so he was very quickly back on the field again. This time he did punt the ball in the normal way, this time from just inside the Dallas half (or at least the ball was just inside the Dallas half, see above).

With accuracy astonishing even at this level, Moorman landed the ball just two yards from the Dallas goal line. Which meant Dallas had to play from practically on their own line and the pressure was enough for Romo to throw his first interception of the evening – one which was run straight back at him for a touchdown to the Bills.

Even more remarkable was what happened the next time Dallas had the ball. Romo threw another interception. Moreover, their offensive team looked completely rattled by a defence reaching legendary levels of uselessness. It took a little while to work out why. To understand, you need to understand the 'line of scrimmage'.

The line of scrimmage is the point where the two teams face one another. On one side you have the offensive line and on the other the defensive. The offensive line will almost always have 5 players in it, sometimes even more. The defensive line can have anywhere between 3 and 7 players in it, depending upon what the offense does. The players crouch down like sprinters in the 'set' position, with either one or two hands on the ground.

What the Bills were doing was putting anything up to 7 players on the line, but only one of them was going into the 'set' position; the rest of them were standing like – to continue the athletics analogy – the way middle distance runners do when they start a race. Not only was this perfectly legal, it was confusing the hell out of the Cowboys, who didn't seem to have a clue what was going on. It is one of those tactics that probably isn't going to work more than once, but full credit to whoever came up with it.

In the rest of the NFL:
Two seasons ago, the Steelers and the Seahawks contested the Superbowl. Last season the Seahawks suffered badly from the strange phenomena whereby the losing Superbowl side suffers a spate of injuries which ruins their season. The Seahawks seem to have managed to get that to carry over to this season, but even that can't excuse being shut out by a Steelers side who still look pretty average;

In a sad postscript to the above, Seahawks fullback Mack Strong announced that he had a serious spinal condition and that his career was over, although thankfully his quality of life is not affected;

The Patriot's Tom Brady tied an NFL record by throwing three touchdowns for the fifth consecutive game as the Pats destroyed the Browns 34-17. The most interesting thing about this game was an after game spat between Eric Steinbach of the Browns and the Pats' Mike Vrabel over a late hit towards the end of the game. Steinbach called Vrabel 'classless' which, frankly, is like Victoria Beckham calling another Spice Girl 'talentless'. NFL players are picked for many things, but being classy isn't one of them;

The Cardinals eked out a win over St Louis by 34-31, but in doing so lost QB Matt Leinhart for the season with a broken collarbone;

More heartache for Miami as the Dolphins slump to 0-5 by virtue of a 22-18 loss to the Texans. More importantly, they also lost QB Trent Green with grade 3 concussion – the most severe – when he tried to make a block on Houston tackle Travis Johnson. He will miss at least one game and probably more;

In fact, injuries are really beginning to take their toll in the NFL this season. The determining factor seems to be which team manages to cope best without a large number of stars. High up this list will be the Colts, who shook off losing 5 starters to beat Tampa Bay 33-14. The Bucs in turn will lose RB Michael Pittman for at least 6 weeks with an ankle injury;

Over in Carolina, QB Jake Delhomme is out for the season with an elbow injury, but they just manage to edge out the Saints 16-13;

Painfully, the Broncos lose starting center Tom Naylen with a torn bicep. Even more painfully, they put up their worst performance for almost 30 years in losing 34-3 at home to the Steelers, who barely even bother to break sweat in the final quarter;

In Wisconsin, a genuine “Star me, how did that happen?” moment as the Bears, led by Brian Griese, beat the Packers 27-20 to claim bragging rights in one of the NFL's oldest rivalries;
Things can't even go right for the Vikings on a week off, as Tavaris Jackson announces that he will be fit for this weekend's game. I thought they just shot lame donkeys?

*The equivalent of Jonny Wilkinson kicking a penalty from inside his own half to beat the French with the last kick of the match this Saturday. Except I won't complain if he does.

Tradition is dead in the fixture list – Premcorrespondent

In last night’s football action some former Chinese parents complained at length about their missing children. That’s right, the money men mucked about with the fixture list again, cancelled the traditional Monday night game, and put me right off my chow mein with the pointless documentary I couldn’t turn over after breaking my remote in anger.

Fortunately that was the low point of an otherwise good weekend for football purists.

Early on Saturday afternoon Manchester United displayed the sort of master class in football that people predicted for this season what with their £50million enhanced squad. And frankly, how Rooney, Ronaldo, and Tevez only scored four goals against Wigan is beyond my imagination.

Having taken top spot, United lost it again early on Sunday afternoon when Arsenal displayed the sort of master class no one predicted from their Henry depleted squad this season, couple with worrying defencive frailties.

The Gunners took an easy two goal lead at home to Sunderland, and then decided to add some spice by letting the away team draw level later in the game. That set the scene for an 80th minute corker of a winner that ensured Wenger need not be sacked for a dull brand of victorious football.

Talking of Chelsea, they played out a 1-0 win against Bolton in which much of the little excitement caused came from Bolton’s attacking efforts that deserved to earn at least a point. Roman has responded by approaching Ten Cate as the next man to make Chelsea exciting.

One team not lacking excitement on the pitch is Spurs who snatched defeat, or a draw at any rate, from the hands of glorious and well deserved victory at Anfield.

The Lilywhites came from behind to lead 2-1 thanks to Robbie Keane’s acrobatic finishing. But alas Paul Robinson made another effort to avoid being called into Steve McLaren’s England squad. Having gifted Liverpool the lead early on, he gifted them further chances that the Reds squandered, only to be blameless for the 93rd minute equalizer.

Fortunately for Spurs, Fulham lost to Portsmouth thanks to two goals just three minutes apart from Benjani and Hreidarsson. That left Fulham in the bottom three instead of their London rivals, although had Pompey keeper David James not been on top form Fulham could now be further up the table, instead of James being further up the England pecking order.

Michael Owen returned from injury yet again this weekend, and ensured Steve McLaren need not think too much about his striker options this week. In a fifteen minute cameo the England man scored a late winner against Everton. Though McLaren’s mental clogs should be turning after the combination of Baines and Johnson for one of Everton’s two goals.

In other games no one much cares about, Bentley played a scoring part in Blackburn’s win over Birmingham, Derby recorded an relative victory by losing just 1-0 against Reading, and West Ham lost by the same score to Aston Villa in the only 3pm Saturday kick off of the weekend.

Parkour - file

Taking the Metro from Forum Les Halles to La Défense in the early 90’s was like watching a moving montage of urban culture. Around the Centre Pompidou and all over the mazey Les Halles were outbreaks of skateboarding jinx and breakdancing cliques, youth in bandana’s and baggy BDU’s pushing the limits of their street style for themselves and for their scally peers.

The street battles for proto-hoodie kudos to organic urban rhythms had natural pauses for surliness and shiftiness in the face of anyone, especially the stocky security guards and traditionally heavy-handed and violent policiere with their sticks and dogs. At this time even the Champs D’Elysee was patrolled by CRS with Uzis.

Slipping back down underground to the relative calm of the Metro, heading North West and out to les banlieues, La Défense sits at the end of the line like a huge, stamped full stop. The end of civilized language, beyond this point the local patois takes hip buzz words from the ghettoes of the world and then speaks them backwards with a French accent. It’s a street lingo called Verlan and the built-in ‘fuck-you’ grittiness echoes around the canyons of the high-rise estates that seem to extend for infinity out from the besieged romantic heart of Paris.

Being born is like coming out of the station at La Défense; the inexorable upward slide to a gash of bright light, the open esplanade that greets you and the immense full-stop that blocks your way.

I remember being struck by the scale of the shining arch up close, feeling very small by comparison. Looking around I could see the tips of the disrepaired housing blocks that form the horizon there, they too seemed struck by the scale of the thing, as if they too felt very small by comparison. What of their, even smaller, inhabitants; the immigrants, the poor, the disenfranchised and the disenchanted, living in the shadow of such a state-sponsored gleaming colossal end?

Over on the banked edges of the space around the Metro exit and La Défense itself there were some doods flying around the street furniture on their boards, or so I thought. As I approached for a nosey I realized they didn’t have any boards…

A group of about 12 ragged guys, looking like break dancers on dress-down Friday, were sprinting up a wall and somersaulting over backwards, some were cart wheeling down the concrete slopes, I saw one guy hop up a lamppost and on to a wall, starjumping off it and landing in a roll.

I was really impressed at the time thinking that the wonderful French art of subverting anything and baptizing it with Style and Art had come to gymnastic tumbling. It seemed to echo the completely sensational departure of Cirque du Soleil and the reinvention of the circus for a modern world or Savate, the peculiarly French interpretation of kick-boxing.

What I saw was ghetto ballet, set firmly in and on the concrete and steel environment that had previously only conspired in the crushing socialization of those unable to escape. Like Verlan had broken out of the languages of les banlieues, Parkour had emerged from the very walls of this economic prison.

That was years ago and while I’d always intended to find out more about what I’d seen, I didn’t. Only a chance clip of Luc Besson’s astonishing movie Yamakusi brought it back to mind, oh, I thought, this has really caught on.

I didn’t find out its name until last week; Parkour.

Back in the day (1902) there was a guy, un mec (fr.) un keum (Verlan), called Georges Hébert, a place; St. Pierre in Martinique, and a volcano; big, fiery, explosive. Hébert saved the day (and 700 people) and went on to form an exercise program that developed specifically useful skills for situations just like that.

Méthode Naturelle became the standard torture for French soldiers and sailors as well as those in the emergency services. With a ‘learn today, use today’ approach everyone had to go through the hells they would likely face, in the places they would likely face them. Later in Vietnam, for example, the squaddies would be forced to run, jump, climb and verily swing through the jungles at break-neck speed in readiness for active service.

Then David Belle got a hold of the cat by the tail and brought it scratching and squealing into the ghetto. Inspired by his father’s heroics as a military firefighter, Belle, who had always been a serious climber, martial artist and gymnast, was well equipped to carry resistant moggies and acclimatize them.

No vines or branches or soft muddy landings in the hood. Belle would set a route from one apartment block to another and then he’d get there as quick as possible, by whatever means. Skipping up sheer walls on to mezzanine floors, scaling balconies and drainpipes, running up the outside of stair wells and flying from one roof top to the next.

The cat brought superpowers to the youth. The practicality of these skills was immediately grokked by every down-with-it and dodgy street rat punker gangsta who might, one day, have occasion to vanish sharpish.

Like Hébert had done, Belle ended up formalizing his practice. What had been called Parcours du Combatant in Vietnam was dubbed Parkours (wiv a K) by the new kids on the block (literally – On the block) and eventually PK by the buzzers. Belle formed Yamakasi the first PK gang and they danced all over Paris, then London and the World.

As PK got bigger and the movies came and the stunt jobs, it started to look more like PR. Sébastien Foucan, an original member of the Yamakasi tribe, ended up bugging out and going his own way, quickly, into Free Running which is PK with clean, combed hair, slicked back and parted down the middle. Parkours split into two; the gritty utility and the dance for the masses who like all the frilly bits and forward rolls and wouldn’t dream of running from the police.

It’s easy to tell when it’s going down the pan. In the Guardian last week there was a video report which made me realize just how far PK has come from its humble beginnings. Watching a middle-aged, middle class man in a soft pink Lacoste shirt boasting of his adventures in penis enlargement and jumping off a 2 foot high vault on to a soft springy mattress in a tidy gymnasium, shouting “Oo” in excitement, I despaired.

In a globalized world that shuffles culture like playing cards, that saw French kids annex the skateboard and the hip-hop just like the Italians or the English did, it’s still a little sad to watch PK cleaned up for the petit-bourgeoisie.

I wasn’t in Harlem to watch the WASPS try to steal Jazz after its renaissance or at the Armory Show where the US Govt. claimed modern art as its own and I didn’t personally witness the Pans People doing Punk but it doesn’t matter. The gentrification of truly subversive social movements can surely only end in their eventual sanitization and conformity, like crack cocaine cut with baby powder. Not a crack fan but I fear for the future of PK.

Governments don’t want to own this one though; more like disown it, but that it’s now being practiced by the fashion conscious of Kensington and Hampstead in evening classes is an ugly symptom of its social evolution.

The truth is that PK is dangerous, anti-establishment to its very core attacking even the inalienable traditional rights of property and enclosure. Super human powers for the sub-human classes, no wonder it’s being subverted itself. It gives escape routes for hoodie vandals from the not-quite-long-enough arm-of-the-law.

I’ll not support the Egits or the kids-wi-guns but PK does offer a glimmer of equilibrium in a black unbalanced world of terror-reaction and increased powers of search and arrest, all the craze among the big boys these days. Also, a bit like the martial arts and David Belle himself, those that can give what it takes to do it well are most unlikely those who will turn to the dark side, that said, watch the videos up at Pscenes, there can be no better training for the wannabe urban warrior.

NFL week 4 - The Velvet Bear

Well, folks, the big news in the NFL this week was that there wasn't any big news in the NFL this week. Nothing. Brett Favre finally threw his 421st career touchdown, to break the all-time record of the great Dan Marino. Even this caused only a ripple upon the surface of an otherwise calm week (though I did find myself wondering (a) just how long they had toted around the recorded tribute from Marino before the record fell and (b) why the Old Man's surname is pronounced 'Farv' and not 'Fav-ray'?). This being the case, I thought I would use this space to answer some of the questions I have been asked since I started writing here.

First of all, the Belichick affair. Yes, I know it sounds daft, but you can use TV pictures to analyse your opponents, just not covert footage you have taken yourself. I guess it is all down to some ill-defined code of fair play. Also the fact that the players know they are being filmed by TV and, as i have mentioned before, guard against it. That is not to say that some have not been caught out. There is a famous story from basketball where, with less than 10 seconds of an important game remaining, the coach of the losing team called a time out. At that time, TV cameras were allowed to film inside the huddle that basketball players go into during a time out. The other team simply sent a member of staff down to the changing rooms, where the game was being shown. He ran back with details of what the opposition were planning and the game was won.

Next, the Minnesota Vikings. I'm sorry to say that my view on them hasn't changed much since I wrote the preview. They are currently 1-3 for the season, having been on the receiving end of Favre's record pass at the weekend. They have two injury prone QBs and don't seem to be able to decide which is the lesser risk. Frankly, I can't blame them. If I had to choose which was the lesser of the two evils that are Tavaris Jackson and Kelly Holcomb, I'd be putting my head in the oven. Their one victory came over the Falcons and their next best chance of not losing a game is actually this weekend - but only because they have a bye. They then have to play the Bears - who at least do know who their QB will be, after Brian Griese was confirmed as #1 this week - followed by the Cowboys, Eagles, Chargers and Packers again. This means that by the time they get a match I would expect them to win - the Raiders in Week 11 - they could easily be 1-8 and looking at their worst season ever.

Vick's drug test failure proves nothing other than that the guy is too stupid to even stick to his own bail conditions. Even Pete Doherty is - currently - managing to do that. I don't actually wish Vick ill and so long as he receives a fair punishment for what he has done I'll be happy. But talk about making life hard for yourself!

'Paper Lion' is a good book, although 'Friday Night Lights' is regarded as the definitive 'year with a team' book - probably because most Americans feel a closer affinity with their college and high school sides than with the pro sides. Another great book is 'The Blind Side' by Michael Lewis, which is a truly heartwarming story and will teach you some things about the game along the way - like why a left tackle is the second highest paid player on a team.

Heritage uniforms: For some reason, whenever a side reaches a significant anniversary, NFL tradition decrees that, for that week, they play in a uniform which is a replica of that which they played their first game in. This season, both the Eagles and the Redskins were 75 years old. The interesting facts to come out of this were that the latter only developed their slightly controversial Red Indian logo sometime later - their original one was an R with tailfeathers - and that whoever designed the original Eagles outfit had no dress sense whatsoever. They looked like page boys in helmets

Meanwhile, back in the modern day NFL:


- 'Cadillac' Williams becomes the latest exotically named star to be ruled out for the season with a cruciate ligament injury;

- Revenge is sweet for Daunte Culpepper as he leads the Raiders to a 35-17 win over the Dolphins team which released him at the start of September, scoring three of the touchdowns himself;

- Pre-season favourites the Chargers lose their third straight game, going down 30-16 to the Chiefs;

- At the other extreme, the Steelers lose their first game as the Cardinals defense puts up a massive performance to bring off a 21-14 win;

- Tony Romo throws four touchdowns as the Cowboys flatten the Rams 35-7. In one amazing play, Romo had to run back 33 yards to recover a misplaced snap which had flown over his head, then ran for 37 yards, leaving a net gain of 4 yards - and pretty much summing up the Rams' afternoon into the bargain;

- The 49ers will be without QB Alex Smith for one game with a damaged shoulder on his throwing arm. As they went down 23-3 at home to the Seahawks and went back to 2-2 it doesn't bode well for this weekend;

- A less happy QB was the Eagles' Donovan McNabb, who managed to get himself sacked a record-equalling 12 times in a 16-3 defeat to the Giants;

- Changing QB doesn't help the Bears. Not only do they lose 37-27 to the Lions, the lack of Rex and the Giants' victory means I don't have anything to laugh at. Couldn't Lovie Smith tell from the names that Grossman and Griese would be the worst double act ever?

- That's all for this week. Thanks for reading. Keep the questions coming and I'll be back next week to talk about padding, or positions, or something. VB

Maestro, please - premcorrespondent

These men stands at the centre of it all, controlling tempo, angles, possession, goals, assists. These men hold the crowd in their thrall - at their whim tattooed dockers weep. Brady, Dagliesh, Haynes, Cantona.

And this week they came again: Arteta, Elano, Fabregas.

Each at the heart of their team's play. Untouchable. The others seem to tip their game to them. The opposition relied upon to do their bidding as reliably as the ball.

Arsenal saw off West Ham thanks in large part to their pint-sized boyband-lookalike/best-player-in-the-world Cesc Fabregas and a misplaced linesman's flag. In the 60s George best boozed, looked like a Beatle and ruled the world as a teen genius. Fabregas looks like a clean-cut member of one of the androgynous anodyne all-boy acts that seem to clog up the hit parade in this post-Blair Britain. But he plays like an angel.

Over in Manchester Elano proved that Sven's eye for talent is of more value than a Thai chequebook. Elano is currently displaying something that Chelsea, Manchester United, and Liverpool lack. Someone to play the ball to and through who has class. City, inspired by this Brazilian from Donetsk, took Big Sam's Newcastle apart 3-1.

Arteta comes from Spain via Glasgow and doesn't look like a boyband member, but that mattered little as he ran the show and Everton lived up to one hack's pre-season hopes in a 2-0 suffocation of Middlesbrough. And McFadden played quite well and looks like he's in Travis, so that's fine.

As well as the return of the playmaker, this week has also harked back to the golden days of Stoke City defeating West Brom 10-3 with Sir Stan running the wing. Yes, in a comedy performance straight out of the 50s golden age, or the MLS, Portsmouth beat Reading 7-4. As I said to the man at the turnstile - if I'd wanted a cricket score I would have watched Fiji play rugby.

Of course, if we wander down the Kings Road we find the home of Haynes, Marsh, Best, and latterly Malbranque and Davis at Craven Cottage. Next to Fulham is 60s glamour side Chelsea. Zola, Gullit, Wilkins, Osgood, Vialli. Unfortunately all these players have now left. About the best thing in a turgid 0-0 draw was "not good enough for the Championship" Diomansy Kamara. Chelsea slip to 8th in the table.

Derby and Bolton joined in with Fulham in proving that not every team in white plays like Real Madrid. In fact, a white shirt seems to be more of a French flag than a symbol of attacking flowing football. Derby and Bolton drew 1-1 with each other. They continue to prop up the table, the less said about Leeds the better.

Spurs - the remaining achromatic outfit - were at home for their 125th anniversary. They managed to blow a 1-0 lead to draw 4-all and complete a whitewash of the relegation places. If they had a goalkeeper they might have scraped to the 4-0 they deserved, but panicking at their lead Leeds reject Paul Robinson (who also plays with the white shirts of England) handed Villa four straight goals to make sure Spurs didn't get ahead of themselves.

Gianni Brera wept.

In other news Mark Hughes' Blackburn beat Roy Keane's Sunderland to cement his position as the top manager managed by Ferguson in a previous life. But then competing with two newly promoted sides makes this job somewhat easier.

Alex Ferguson's Manchester United and Rafa's Liverpool both eked out 1-0 wins against no-hopers Birmingham and Wigan respectively. They are now in second and fourth, split by Sven's City.

NFL Roundup - the Velvet Bear

For the benefit of those of you who hadn't realised, these little pieces are all about the professional side of American Football. What you might not realise, though, is that there are two other levels to the game - High School and College. These are exactly as they say they are. High School games are played by those who have not left school yet and are hugely well supported. Some of you may have seen the television series Friday Night Lights. This was originally based on a famous book written about high school football in the late 1980s. Famous and controversial, as it exposed the pressure that these young athletes were placed under, the pressures imposed upon them and the crazy education system which contrives to keep the academically inept in school because they are good sportsmen.

You will gather that high school games are mostly played on a Friday night, which means that Saturday is the day for college - effectively university - games. The goal of every high school player is to win a scholarship to college, which then gives them a shot at the big time of NFL football. It is the parallel of the apprenticeship system in soccer, only with more studying and less boot cleaning; indeed, some colleges have sports facilities which put even those of Premiership soccer clubs to shame. Needless to say, the attrition rate is high. Only a tiny proportion of those who win college scholarships will reach the NFL and only a fraction of those will be successful there. To do this, many will have to change position - for example, Antwan Randle El was a star college quarterback who became a moderately successful wide receiver in the NFL. He won a Superbowl with the Steelers, who would occasionally put his old skills to use by having him throw a pass instead of the quarterback (trick plays like this are known as 'gadget plays', for reasons I've never been able to find out, let alone explain).

Why am I telling you this? Because of something which happened in a college game last weekend. Texas Tech's QB Graham Harrell threw for 646 yards in a game against Oklahoma State and still lost. Imagine how that must feel. You throw the ball for almost SIX AND A HALF TIMES the length of the field and still end up on the losing side. And remember that in calculating these yards, they only count if someone catches the ball after you've thrown it. The game finished 49-45 to Oklahoma, so it is not as if the passes he threw were ineffective, or the product of bad choices. Indeed, the game ended dramatically when the Oklahoma tight end (you know how I love those guys) Brandon Pettigrew ran more than half of the length of the pitch for a touchdown.

Only three people have thrown further than Harrell during a college game. Oddly enough, the man he passed to take that fourth place was Cody Hodges, who also played for Texas Tech. The fact that Hodges set his mark in 2005, though, might indicate that other teams have now sussed out Oklahoma's tactics.

And if all this wasn't enough to depress Harrell, of the top five guys in this list, only one, David Klingler, made it to the NFL - and he was a huge disappointment there. It's tough at the not-quite-top.

Meanwhile, in the NFL itself:

● The Giants come back from 17-3 down at half time to beat the Redskins 24-17 with their defense holding out for four plays on their own one yard line to seal the win;

● Nate Burleson catches a touchdown pass with a minute to go to enable the Seahawks to edge out the Bengals 24-21;

● Old Man Favre levels Dan Marino's record of 420 career TDs and couldn't care less: “I'm so glad we one I couldn't care less about the record”, he paraphrased;

● Atlanta lost again, but Joey Harrington had his best day since taking over from Michael Vick and all was going well until Carolina lost starting QB Jake Delhomme. Replacement David Carr made a pitch for the starting role by leading the touchdown drive which put the Panthers ahead. The killer, though, was Falcons' cornerback DeAngelo Hall losing his cool at Panthers WR Steve Smith. First he picked up a penalty for shoving Smith, then added another for continuing to abuse him. This not only lead to the touchdown from which Carolina levelled the scores, it cost him a $100,000 fine and suspension from at least the first quarter of the Falcons' next game. And you thought Chelsea were in trouble;

● My favourite whipping boy finally got his comeuppance this week. A loss to the Cowboys lead in turn to Bears coach Lovie Smith losing his restraint and Rex Grossman losing his starting berth to veteran Brian Griese. Yes, that's pronounced 'greasy'. And no, it doesn't mean that he takes Rex's place on my laugh-list. Where's Eli Manning?

● As if trying to prove my 'this is a pretty safe sport' riff of a fortnight agon, Texan's defensive end Cedric Killings broke his neck on Sunday. He's making even swifter progress than Kevin Everett - who is still doing very well - but may not play again. We wish both of them well;

● A bad week for star names. Shaun Alexander, JP Losman, Heinz Ward, Tommie Harris and Steven Jackson will all miss games with injuries, whilst Deuce Mcallister's season is over after a torn cruciate ligament;

● The Saints' nightmare continues as they lose to the Titans;

● Marc Bulger will play on with two broken ribs. Well, at least until the first time someone tackles him;

● Patriots' Vince Wilfork is fined $12,500 for the low tackle which injured Losman. Video evidence indicates that it may have been an accident, but the Pats aren't exactly flavour of the month and it is hard not to suspect that Wilfork is paying for the sins of others;

● Samari Rolle of the Ravens will miss another week after suffering an adverse reaction to medication. Which just goes to show that all the medical facilities in the world won't help if your body won't play;

● Finally, it is nice to hear that the life of Michael Vick is getting worse. Not only is he now likely to be indicted in further dogfighting charges which might lead him to 40 minutes in the clink, he also tested positive for marijuana in September, in violation of his bail. Idiot - but a nice way for the rest of us to end the week.

You could take someone’s eye out with that! – Mimitig

When I was at school, unless the weather was positively arctic (which didn’t happen that often in Oxford), our morning and lunch breaks were spent outdoors playing the same sort of games that had entertained our parents and grandparents. There was precious little in the way of regulation – we were mostly just left to get on with it, and the heavy hand of Government had yet to step in and ban such competitive fun as conkers.

There were running around games – tig and such. Sitting down games – marbles. And jumping and skipping games. Now I hadn’t thought about any of these for years until I was chatting away with a friend, here in the north-east of Scotland about how we used to pass the time in the playground.

There we were, we’d talked about the chasing games – we called it Touch-tig down south, up here it was “Join the captain or walk the plank”, but it was the same game.

Then we talked about various crazes that we’d both known: clackers was one (those two balls on strings that you had to make hit each other in a violent way), and the ankle hoop game – a round circle of brightly coloured plastic (mine was yellow) went round your foot. Attached to it by a piece of plastic string was a bell-shaped item and the idea was that you rotated the ring and jumped over the string until you finally got your other foot well and truly hit by the bell. Not particularly skilful though a certain amount of co-ordination was required, but good exercise.

Suddenly, at the same time, we both went: “Remember what we used to do with knicker elastic?”

Now some might see that as a call for memories of a furtive and fumbling nature, but my friend and I were thinking of exactly the same playground game. Our minds froze, then out of nowhere the term “French Skipping” popped into my head. Before any of you leap to conclusions, this is the official name of the activity and is not scurrilous or suggestive in any way, though I don’t know why it would have been called “French”.

All you needed were three players and the requisite length of knicker elastic tied in a loop. Two girls (and as I went to a girls’ school, it was always girls, though I’d love to know if boys played this too – I doubt it somewhat) stood a few yards apart with the elastic hoop encircling both pairs of ankles. The third girl was the jumper – her task was to perform various moves and cause the elastic to become crossed up in more and more complicated ways. When all jumps were completed the girls at each end would move the “hoop” up. The jumper would then be challenged with completing the moves at “kneesies, thighsies and waisties”. Should she be up to these supreme endeavours, she would then face performing the jumps at “chesties”. Seldom could this be achieved and so after a failure at any level, another girl would get a go.

Aah memories, memories.

I wonder how many of the games we used to play are still current? Almost without exception, an over-active imagination could imbue our pastimes with an element of risk or danger – hence “stop doing [whatever] you could take someone’s eye out with that” was the warning cry that over-anxious teachers and parents would emit. But no-one ever banned our fun and I’ve never come across anyone who had an eye taken out by a playground game.

The closest I’ve heard is from my friend whose dad was playing on the beach one day as a young loon, with all his friends, and they found an unexploded World War II mine. It didn’t stay unexploded for long, and one poor chap, now an old man, carries a deep scar close to his eye from a bit of the shrapnel. But it didn’t happen at school!

It’s Derby ’73 all over again - premcorrespondent

They say the hangovers get longer the older you get, which means a certain knight will still be feeling the effects of the special bottle of wine he set aside in memory of his grey-coated nemesis.

Ah,that famous Matalan coat, those twinkling eyes, I almost wanted United to win. Almost.

But another thing that gets worse as you get older is hatred. For several decades now I have felt a rising enmity to the ruddy-faced Govan escapee. But it’s hard to drag your own blood-shot eyes from him as he rants, raves, and blusters because one day, one game, a capillary in his face IS going to pop. You mark my words – I’ve seen it happen in the press box and it’s not pretty.

And we can all hope that when that fateful day occurs the man splattered will be Young Arsene.

And his teeny-bopper move to ditch the classes will come back to haunt him then, oh yes, no matter how prettily his pre-pubescent players pass. And my they looked impressive, seeing young Cesc run the show like a seasoned pro was something to behold. Derby, meanwhile, did an impression of Serbia against Argentina, and I can’t shake the feeling Arsenal might well play their part in the extended metaphor later on.

Big Martin and Little Sam played out a relegation six-pointer over in Burnden Park with neither side showing evidence of the bottle required to stay in the first division.

Newcastle brushed off last week’s defeat to Serbia with Big Sam’s faith in pies and Croatians and Croatians that like pies being paid off. The toon now sit one place above Chelsea with a game in hand.

Speaking of clubs ahead of Grant’s grafters, Sven’s City did something his England side never tried. A thrilling 3-3 draw, with four goals in the second half. Fulham – the other half of the draw - sit in 17th, two points ahead of Serbia and Bolton, and one ahead of the Lilywhites. So not a huge departure from the days of drawing with Macedonia then Svennis. Expect City to qualify for the finals then go out on pens in the quarters.

Rounding up the makeweights, Villa climbed to a shock 8th place with a win at home. But then they had already beaten the blues 2-0 at home once this season. The groan in the press box when Agbonlahor scored was considerable.

And Liverpool followed this up by drawing at home to the blues in a game they should have won.

Blackburn are, along with Spurs and Everton, currently busy highlighting exactly how little the hacks know about football with a 1-0 surrender to Portsmouth. That said a win would see them (as well as West Ham and Villa) climb above Roman’s new-look team and potentially into fourth. Kanu, 93, and his size 11s are proving there is life in the old dog yet – although there is no danger of him becoming big-headed about it.

Sunderland earned a point at Boro in front of three Teesdiers, a parrot, the WAGs and 28,000 travelling Wearsiders. Reading beat Wigan, in a game so irrelevant it made Bob cry and me hide in my allotment mooing like cow for 45 minutes.
I think the farmer’s coming back now so I’m off for another week – toodle pip.

The Second Meaning of Sport - Greengrass

Studying at the London School of Economics in the mid-1960’s was a fantastic experience for a simple lad from a Lancashire mill town.

This was Swinging London, and for me it really swung. I realised that southern ale was not, as I had been taught, ”witches’ piss” - Young’s was a grand brewery!

Carnaby Street, blues groups by the score, folk clubs every night of the week, Bert Jansch on tap, all-night poker schools and an unlimited supply of Southern Crumpet. Since I had a Beatles haircut and a northern accent, they all thought I had grown up with the Fab Four - and who was I to spoil their fun?

There was, admittedly, that regrettable Jagger business. That poor bloke, after two years of hard studying at the L.S.E., apparently got wind of the fact that I was on my way there, realised that there wasn’t room for both of us, pouted, and did the decent thing. Last I heard of him, he was singing with some half-arsed band out Kingston way - not Kingston, Jamaica, but Kingston upon Thames.

There was a lass from the Wirral at the L.S.E. The Wirral is just a ferry cross the Mersey from Liverpool. Wirral people like to believe they talk posh, but they talk Scouse - well, a sort of veggie Scouse. She was what today’s Swedes might term a ”puma”: heads turned in the library when she went to look for a book; she must have caused any number of stiff necks.

Miss Wirral had a boyfriend back home, and I had a girlfriend back home. We really enjoyed having a coffee, ”studying” together, agreeing that Herman’s Hermits were crap, humming ”Wild Thing” and taking turns to sigh about our long-distance relationships.

After a while, we stopped sighing about our long-distance relationships and went for a short-distance relationship: we were, after all, at a school of economics, and saving on travel made sense.

She stayed with her aunt in Ealing, which in my mind’s eye was the stop before Plymouth. I went out there once, to watch The Who with her, and noted that the ads for rooms to rent stated ”No Irish”. Well, you can’t expect Ealing landladies to speak the Erse, now can you?

I stayed in Brixton, which appeared to be a suburb of Kingston - not Kingston upon Thames, but Kingston, Jamaica. Coming home half-cut in the early hours of Sunday morning and hearing the ska pouring out of all-night parties was one of the joys of living there.

I was sharing a room in a Brixton student flat, which meant that my meetings with Miss Wirral involved me bribing my room-mate, Paul, to go out and get drunk every time we needed a bit of peace and quiet. We just couldn’t properly appreciate Buddy Guy singing ”First Time I Met the Blues” on my reel-to-reel Grundig with Paul in the room.

After a few months of that, I got a room near Euston station - I couldn’t stand the thought of my love of music turning that poor lad into an alcoholic.

Come the Christmas break, it was time to nip over to the Wirral and meet her parents. I sung ”I Hear You Knockin’” to my knees and sunk into their smug suburban sofa, ready for the trial to begin. But it wasn’t all bad - the next day, they went to work and we didn’t, which of course gave us loads of time to visit the library in Liverpool and the jam butty mines of Knotty Ash.

Then came THE BIG ONE: Liverpool v. Manchester United at Anfield. Liverpool was her team, Manchester United mine. We rolled up to the ground at the last minute and headed for the cheapest entrance in sight. It turned out to be the Kop, and it was packed.

Since I was shouting things like ”Keep on runnin’!” every time a Red Devil looked like breaking clear, the Liverpool fans quickly sussed out the fact
that I supported United.

After about 40 minutes of heart-warming homely abuse I noticed that people who had passed out were being passed over the crowd and onto the pitch, just behind the goal. I whispered to Miss Wirral, ”We gotta get outa this place. Pretend to faint!”

She suddenly said, ”Oooh!” and collapsed into my arms. She was passed over the heads of the crowd, and I swam after her. When we arrived on the pitch, she was given a whiff of smelling salts to ”bring her round”. The man from the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade then asked me if I was OK, and I told him I was fine. He said that I might need a drop of brandy ”to be on the safe side”, and I understood him to be a very wise man, so I took a swig.

As we were led away to the halfway line, she mumbled that she’d never forgive me the fact that she got those awful smelling salts for her brilliant acting - and I got a shot of brandy.

We arrived just in time to see the players come out of the tunnel for the second half - you could almost touch them! We spent the second half in seats, and later heard that Miss Wirral and I had appeared on the telly as we walked along the touchline.

She later got back with her Wirral boyfriend, and I continued my valiant quest for the Meaning of Sport.

NFL roundp - the Velvet Bear

One of the great things about this game is that it’s never predictable. Looking down the fixtures for Week Two, I thought I would struggle to find an introduction without resorting to the slightly tired ruse of explaining the game by reference to rugby. And then the Patriots got caught spying.

I alluded to this last week, but really didn’t think anything much would come of it, what with the Kevin Everett injury and it being the start of the season. How wrong I was.

Bizarre though it may seem, the NFL actually does have rules on spying on your opponents - unlike most other sports, where it is fair game if you can get away with it. Even for a game so highly tactical, this is slightly surprising, because it has always been a sport which depends as much upon second guessing what your opponent will do as what you do yourself. You would think that any little advantage would be allowed to be taken. Clearly not. From the reaction in the States, you would think that Pat’s coach Bill Belichick hadn’t so much found the Holy Grail as taken a dump in it.

To understand why people are getting so upset, you need to understand about the playbook. This is - to carry the Biblical analogy a little further - the bible of any team. In it is every play the team could conceivably run that season. Some teams have very simple playbooks, some have ones which make War and Peace look like a slimline paperback. Basically, if you want to know how to beat a team, get a hold of their playbook. It is so valuable that some sides don’t allow them to be taken home, even by players like quarterbacks, who need to know everything in there.

This explains why, when you see them during a match, the coaches all talk with their mouths covered. They don’t want anyone lipreading them, because most of the time they are talking to the quarterback, calling the next play. Similarly, quarterbacks almost never talk to their players on the pitch, other than when they are in a tight huddle. Instead they use hand signals. When you see Peyton Manning waving his arms around like an epileptic seagull, he’s actually ‘talking’ to his team members. It was these signals that the Patriots were recording and trying to decipher.

In my book, all of this would be fair game, were it not for the fact that the NFL has specifically outlawed it. Which has given Roger Goodall another excuse to flex his muscles, which he has done in quite a creative way. The Patriots were fined $750,000, of which $500,000 has to be paid by Belichick (don’t cry for him, he gets paid in excess of $4m per annum) and has docked them a pick in next season’s draft, precisely which one depending upon how well they do this season. As he himself said, this is far more of a long term punishment than simply suspending Belichick, because it affects the Pats’ plans for the future - and they are a side notorious for planning their draft picks very carefully.

It wasn’t all bad news for the Patriots, though. On the field they humbled the Chargers 38-14, notching up a 24-0 half time lead along the way. Tom Brady threw for almost 300 yards, Randy Moss ran in two more touchdowns and new boy Adalius Thomas returned a fumble for another score.

In other news:

· Eli Manning surprises everybody by playing for the Giants against the Packers, but is horribly upstaged by Grandad Brett, who not leads the Packers to a 35-13 win but wins his 149th match, an NFL record;

· The Colts regress horribly from their opening day spanking of the Saints and only just hold on to beat a fairly average Titans side 22-20;

· The Saints, however, are still over someone’s knee with their pants down and this time it is the Buccaneers wielding the paddle as they go down 31-14. The Saints look threatening on offense but seem to have forgotten to pack a defense;

· The Bills wore ‘Everett 85’ t-shirts under their game shirts and will auction them for charity, but were outclassed by the Steelers and lost 26-3. Everett himself is making good progress, is breathing unaided and has some slight movement in all limbs. There is talk of him being transferred to a specialist rehab unit very soon;

· The Bears continued their one team campaign to rid me of hair, performing smoothly and efficiently in the first half and woefully in the second to end up with a less than comfortable 20-10 win over the Chiefs. Their two scores came from reserve left tackle John St Clair and a punt return from Devin Hester. The only consolation was that St Clair’s score was a copy of a play the Bears used to run with William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry twenty years ago. Which might be an omen;

· Over in Cleveland, it was hard to tell whether it was a game of two brilliant offenses or two woeful defenses. Bengals QB Carson Palmer contrived to throw six, yes six, touchdowns and still end up on the losing side as Derek Anderson showed that the Browns were right to trade Charlie Frye after Week One and led the Browns to a 51-45 victory;

· The Browns were not the only team to bounce back from shocking starts to the season. Oakland almost stole the game from under the Broncos’ noses, losing to an overtime field goal;

· Detroit QB Jon Kitna has hailed his recovery from concussion during Sunday’s game as ‘a miracle’ - and judging from his subsequent blatherings about God he either really means it or hasn’t recovered at all;

· The Bills’ resident orthopaedic surgeon - and the man credited with saving Kevin Everett’s life - is called Andrew Cappuccino. Wonder how he likes his coffee?

· Atlanta have signed Byron Leftwich and Morten Andersen in an effort to get their season started. That’s right, the solution to the problems left by Michael Vick is a banged up QB with more dodgy parts than a Trabant and a kicker who, at 47, makes Brett Favre look positively juvenile;

· The Eagles are comprehensively outplayed by the Redskins and lose 20-12. Afterwards, Donovan McNabb excuses his own performance by complaining that black quarterbacks are criticised more than white ones - which would work as an excuse, except that Rex Grossman isn’t black;

· Tank Johnson signs a two year deal with the Cowboys, despite the fact that he’s suspended until after Week Eight. Will they still want him when they find out his real name is Terrence?

Fast Lady in Pearls -- Zephirine

When Mildred Mary Petre was 15, her elder brother went away for a few months, telling her to look after his new motorbike. Naturally she tried riding it, and was soon charging round the country lanes at ever-increasing speeds with her collie dog in the side-car. She then discovered she could go faster by taking the baffles out of the exhaust, and as a result found herself in court for noise nuisance and speeding. When asked if she had a licence for the bike, she said: no, but she did have a licence for the dog. The year was 1911.

By the time the First World War ended, she had grown up, saved up enough to buy her first car and was determined to become a racing driver. A woman driver was no longer a novelty, but there were very few women in the cutting-edge world of motor racing, where Mary quickly became outstanding for her skill, daring and endurance.

In 1926 she married Victor Bruce, an excellent racing driver himself who in the same year became the first Briton to win the Monte Carlo Rally. Keeping to the nineteenth-century tradition of adopting the husband’s entire name, she became known as Mrs Victor Bruce, and this is the name she goes by in the record books - though very few people now have even heard of her. In 1927 she won the Coupe des Dames at the Monte Carlo Rally, and together the couple embarked on a series of racing and record-breaking adventures.

(If you’re about to flip over to Google to see if this is a true story or I’ve made it all up, let me save you the trouble: it’s all true.)

It was a time when many wealthy amateurs paid their own way in their chosen sports, but neither of the Bruces was rich. They were seriously good drivers, though, and they funded their driving careers by forming relationships with car and tyre manufacturers who sponsored them in order to test and improve new products. So that when they took a car up into the Arctic Circle, it wasn’t purely for fun, they were able to prove that the vehicle could function well in those conditions; though along the way Mary also found a wonderful hairdresser in northern Finland.

Perhaps their most astonishing achievement was a ten-days-and-ten-nights endurance drive round the Montlhéry circuit in France. They did this in December 1927, in an open AC sports car, covering more than 15,000 miles, at first driving for three hours each but later having to extend it to six hours each as the lack of sleep was too punishing; the six-hour stints, however, presented a serious risk of frostbite in the below-zero conditions. The few other women racing drivers of the day wore trousers or overalls for driving, but Mary Bruce always drove dressed in a jacket and skirt and, invariably, her pearls. For the Montlhéry drive she added a fur rug from her hotel bedroom. She said later that the ten-day record left her with a lasting dislike of sandwiches, as all they ate while driving were ham sandwiches, kept in the glove compartment and tasting of petrol.

Now backed by the AC company, Mary Bruce spent much of 1928 racing at the famous Brooklands circuit, and in June 1929 she returned to Montlhéry to attempt a 24-hour solo drive, in a borrowed 4.5 litre Bentley as AC didn’t have a suitable car . At least this time it was summer, but the weather was still terrible. (The photo shows the Bentley being refuelled at Montlhéry.) She covered 2,164 miles in 24 hours, at an average speed of 89.57 mph - a record which was unbeaten by any solo driver for over fifty years, and has never been surpassed by another woman.

And then, after a brief flirtation with speedboats, Mary Bruce discovered aeroplanes.

She saw a plane for sale in a shop in London. According to her own account: “I thought, ‘What are we coming to now, when we can buy aeroplanes out of shop windows? Soon I shall be so old-fashioned nobody will want to talk to me unless I learn to fly.’” It was a small light aircraft with wings which could be folded back, intended to be transported around and used for short pleasure flights. Mary Bruce decided to buy it and take it round the world.

And so she did, in 1930, having rapidly learned how to fly and navigate. She went on her own: the aircraft was a two-seater, but she couldn’t take a co-pilot as the spare seat had to accommodate a petrol tank. Planes tended to fall apart quite easily in those days, so such things as a spare propeller were essential, and the spares threatened to overload the little plane. She wanted to take a dictaphone to record her impressions of the flight, and refused to leave it behind when the mechanic said it was too heavy. Her husband said: ‘Don’t stop her taking the dictaphone, she’ll never be happy unless she’s talking,’ and in order to lighten the load she threw out the parachute.

She didn’t actually fly the plane all round the world, it couldn’t carry enough fuel to cross the oceans, so she put it on ships for the sea crossings and flew it across the land masses - it would be another two years before Amelia Earhart flew non-stop across the Atlantic. Going round the world with her little plane took Mary Bruce five months and numerous adventures, some frightening, some farcical, before she arrived safely back at Croydon Aerodrome. Her small son Anthony was clearly a chip off the old block, as all he said when his mother got back was, ‘ Mummy, you’re an hour late.’

She continued flying until the Second World War, taking part in early experiments in mid-air refuelling as well as stunt flying for public entertainment, and gradually becoming more of an entrepreneur (though she diversified by going back to riding horses and doing a little competitive show-jumping). She built up a small fleet of aircraft doing passenger and cargo runs out of Croydon, and during the war her company provided aircraft maintenance and repairs. The Bruces were divorced in 1941 and Mary continued on her own in the post-war years as a successful businesswoman in aviation. It was during this period that her fame died away, associated as it was with another and very different world.

This probably didn’t bother her - she doesn’t seem ever to have courted publicity. There’s no doubt she was thrilled each time she won a race or broke a record, but she was motivated by the love of speed and competition, rather than the desire to be famous.

During the 1970s, when she was 78, she had a go at test-driving the new Ford Ghia Capri and took it up to 110 mph, though she objected to wearing a crash helmet, having never worn one before, and initially put it on back to front. At 81, she went up in a Chipmunk and looped the loop for the last time. And although by this time she was pretty much a forgotten name, she did appear on the Russell Harty TV show (sharing the bill with Oliver Reed), before she died in 1990 at the age of 94.

She wrote: ”Speed has always fascinated me since my first pony bolted. Going slowly always made me tired.” Amelia Earhart, Amy Johnson, Jean Batten, and other early women aviators achieved great things and had their own personal glamour and mystique, but none of them also broke records in racing cars and powerboats. And surely none matches Mildred Mary Bruce for sheer panache.

[more photos, and film clips, at http://pocketfulofpseuds.blogspot.com ]

Jose Mourinho at Pseuds' Pscenes

In a real scoop for Pseuds’ Pscenes we’ve uncovered a behind-the-scenes tape giving you the lowdown on what really happened at Stamford Bridge.

Mourinho’s Chelsea history, the goals from his last game against Rosenborg and a video montage of some of the special one's special moments are all here.

Post your own YouTube clips or video/picture pieces by sending YT addresses, pics with, of course, your words of wisdom, to fileofacks@gmail.com.

Digging in the dirt - premcorrespondent

Sorry about the late post. I've been digging up the potatoes on the allotment and if some snotty nosed kid sagging off school hadn't tried to pinch the whole sack, forcing me to stick the spuds in the boot of the Cortina and drive home with Radio Five, for all I knew the Premier League weekend might still be rumbling on. I've heard that there are countries where the populace will venerate a vegetable on which there is the vague shadow of the Madonna, so I'm thinking of flogging these spuds in the Manchester United Megastore, because every last one of them is etched with the face of Wayne Rooney or Paul Scholes.

To the matches. Spud-faced Wayne couldn't get a game at Goodison, as his team-mates ground out their usual 0-1 win to squeeze out a pre-Wenger Arsenalesque 11 points out of this season's four goals. Spud-faced Scholes was lucky to stay on the pitch - so no change there. At Fratton Park, Liverpool's Premier League squad drew a blank to draw the game with Pompey's plodders after 55 year-old Kanu summoned enough energy to kick the ball, only for Reina to save the penalty. Kings Road entertainers Chelsea nil-nilled against Happy-go-Lucky Mark Hughes' Blackburn Rovers. Rounding off the Big Four, Arsenal gave Martin Jol just enough hope with an early goal for it to hurt like mad when they roared back with three of their own to push the Dutchman closer to his P45. Little Cesc continued to make up for the absent Henry (as well as even more absent Vieira) with another goal, the scamp.

Amongst the lost and confused, Little Sam's Bolton continued their nose-dive with a defeat at Birmingham, while Sunderland beat Reading with an eye-catching display from Kenwyne Jones, whose mirror must be worn out. Wigan drew 1-1 with Fulham in a match that must have pleased the Premier League's branding consultants no end and West Ham jumped into a European slot with an easy 3-0 win over middling Middlesborough.

Come Sunday, and the fixtures still weren't finished, with Manchester City's single goal win over Aston Villa taking Sven's men to second place and leaving Martin O'Neill in a seemingly pre-ordained 11th. Sven's stock continues to rise, while O'Neill's is as stationary as a Northern Rock queue. Monday's match must have brought waves of nostalgia flooding over Newcastle fans, as they blew a chance to go top six losing at doomed Derby.

There's plenty of star players in the Premier League, but of the galacticoes, only Little Cesc was on target - funny that, the weekend before the first round of CL matches.

I'm off to peel the skin off Wayne Rooney's faces, then deep fry them in high cholesterol lard and hang the consequences.

Colin McRae 05/08/1968 - 16/09/2007

A Tribute to Colin McRae – mimitig

Sunday 16th September.

I was really looking forward to a day of exceptional sporting choice and hopefully quality. Three international Twenty20 cricket matches to enjoy – including one involving England. A Formula One race at Spa – one of the very great racing circuits. MotoGP at Estoril – with a real chance of a fine race after all the testing Michelin had just done, and one more treat on the telly – a two hour review of the Tour of Britain, in which British road cyclists (especially the Manx Express – Mark Cavendish) had done extremely well.

Sadly, although all these events went ahead according to their broadcast paths, I found it hard to muster any enthusiasm for these, my favourite of sports.

I had woken in the small hours to hear a report on the news that a helicopter had crashed in Lanarkshire and it was confirmed that one of the dead was Colin McRae. It was one of those times when you don’t quite know if you’re really listening to a news report on the radio or if you’re having some deeply unpleasant nightmare.

I went back to sleep. When I resurfaced, there was no mention of a helicopter crash on the news – it was several hours before I heard that what I had suspected was indeed true and former World Rally Champion Colin McRae had indeed been killed, along with his young son Johnny, and the two other people on board. It was a horridly bizarre echo of Stevie Hislop’s death in the skies above Hawick on 30th July 2003.

While the deepest sympathy goes to Colin’s surviving family, his wife Alison, father Jimmy, fellow rally driving brother Alister, and close friends, all Colin’s fans are reeling with shock and grieving. His close friend, motor-cycle ace Valentino Rossi dedicated his win at Estoril today to Colin. I saw how moved Vale was before the race as he spoke of his friendship with the Scotsman, and I believe that he fought so hard for the win to honour Colin’s own fighting spirit. Rossi – normally the most ebullient of spirits was in tears on the podium.

Colin had droves of fans outside his own specialised world of rallying – in which he became Britain’s first World Rally Champion in 1995 after a thrilling final event decider with Subaru team mate Carlos Sainz on Rally GB. Although not to win another World Title, Colin held the record of 25 WRC wins until recently overtaken by Sebastian Loeb. He moved from Subaru to Malcolm Wilson’s M-Sport (Ford) team and after wins at the Safari Rally (oft considered the toughest test of man and machine) and Portugal, only just missed out on a second World Title in 2001.

His next move to Citroen did not bring great rewards. Colin never really gelled with the French team – despite having spent the time and energy to become comfortable with the language. At the end of 2003, Colin effectively retired from the World Rally stage, though he took part in the Paris-Dakar rally. He then moved to sportscars and drove, with great credit at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

He made further occasional appearances at the WRC - and some strong performances with Skoda had led to his name being linked to a full return to the discipline for 2008.

But Colin was more than just a great of World Rallying. He was a keen and talented motor-cycle rider, a sports and saloon car driver, and had his go in single-seaters. With fellow Scot David Coulthard, he competed in the 2006 Race of Champions at the Stade de France, and was due to do so again at Wembley this winter. He also pioneered motor-sport in the world of computer games. The ground-breaking Colin McRae Rally was released by Codemasters in 1998 and has been updated and made available to all the latest platforms on a regular basis.

However, despite his global status and following, Colin always remained close to his Scottish rallying roots, and the last few years have seen him either as a competitive or supportive presence at even the smallest of rallies. I had the pleasure of meeting him, though very very briefly, in Cooper Park in Elgin as he walked around, signing autographs, chatting with the kids, and smiling a lot.

He was, and it is with pain that I write that word, a truly great ambassador for his sport, his country and a terrific example of how to conduct yourself in both victory and defeat. Tributes have poured in from his friends and colleagues. David Richards (who in an ironic postscript to this tribute, today walked away unhurt from a helicopter accident as he returned to Britain from the F1 race at Spa), Nicky Grist, Max Mosley, Jackie Stewart, Malcolm Wilson have all had warm and genuine things to say, but I leave you with the words of Colin’s mate David Coulthard:

“Why is it always the good guys it happens to?”

Colin McRae: 1968-2007

NFL week one - the Velvet Bear

When I first stated following American football, back in the early 80s, there were two positions I always wanted to play. The first, obviously, was quarterback. Who wouldn’t want to be the team’s glory boy? I don’t think that, at the time, it occurred to me that he would also be the team’s best paid player, but then neither did the possibility that he might also be the subject of huge levels of public opprobrium; as one who found himself shouting “Jesus Christ, is a quarterback with hands too much to hope for?” at Rex Grossman on Sunday, I know that only too well now.

The other position I wanted to play was tight end. “Tight what?” you may well ask, and I wouldn’t blame you for doing so. One of the nice things about this kind of football is that, unlike in sports such as rugby and cricket, most of the positions on the field have reasonably straightforward names. “Quarterback” would probably be an obscure title, but fortunately even non-fans know what that is. “Linebacker” is a bit contrived, but not too bad once you realise that linebackers are the guys playing behind the front line when the side is defending. I could explain what a ‘nickelback’ is - other than a really bad rock band - but you don’t often see someone playing there anyway.

None of which explains what a tight end is. I guess the best analogy would be with a flanker in rugby. Imagine if you will the typical American football scene, with the two lines of men facing one another, crouched down, like two rugby front rows just about to engage. The tight end will be the guy on the very end of the attacking side’s line. His job is basically to be both a blocker of players trying to get to the quarterback, but also an outlet for the quarterback to throw the ball to, usually if he is in trouble himself. In other words, very much the relationship between a flanker and his scrum half. It’s a pretty thankless job, far removed from the glamour of being a quarterback, running back or wide receiver and I have no idea why it appeals to me so much.

The nature of the role is such that tight ends get banged up pretty easily, too. There’s always someone just that little bit bigger than you trying to flatten you. Fortunately, serious injuries in the NFL are pretty rare. The padding and helmets are much maligned on this side of the pond, but they are there for a reason - you should see some of the photos from the 1950s, before there was any real protection at all - and whilst there are now concerns about the long term effects of the sport, these are more to do with the level of care (or lack of it) available to ex-players than the seriousness of onfield injuries.

All of which makes what happened to the Buffalo Bills’ Kevin Everitt at the weekend rather shocking. Everitt - the Bills’ reserve tight end - suffered a severe spinal injury when tacking Domenik Hixon of the Denver Broncos. He underwent surgery on Sunday evening to repair fractures to his third and fourth vertebrae. For a time it was thought that he would never walk again, but at the time of writing he has regained some movement in his arms and legs. It is, however, the most severe injury in the NFL since Detroit Lions’ Mike Utley was paralysed from the waist down whilst making a tackle back in 1991. That record compares very favourably with both rugby codes.

It wasn’t a good week for the Bills. They lost two other players to season ending injuries. One of them, Ko Simpson, broke an ankle tripping over a team mate. And they lost to a last-minute field goal, too.

In other news:

· Randy Moss scored a touchdown on debut as New England beat the New York Jets 38-14. The Patriots might be in trouble, though, as they are being investigated by the NFL, accused of spying on the Jets;

· In the same game, Eli Hobbs set an NFL record by running 108 yards for a touchdown;

· Big Ben Roethlisberger threw a career best four touchdowns to help Pittsburgh beat Cleveland 34-7;

· Chicago, as you might have guessed, blew their game against San Diego. Despite being 3-0 up for most of it, they contrived to both lose 14-3 and lose two key members of their defense to season-ending injuries;

· Atlanta got off to a predictably bad start, losing 24-3 to Minnesota;

· Brett Favre’s 384th season in the NFL began with a win as he lead Green Bay to a 16-13 win over Philadelphia, the winning score coming with just two seconds remaining;

· Another late finish saw Washington beat Miami 16-13 in overtime;

· The other New York side, the Giants, lost to Miami and also saw quarterback Eli Manning to a shoulder injury which will keep him out for a month. It would be unkind to suggest that this won’t make much difference to the team, but I’m going to do it anyway;

· The least said about how woeful Oakland were, the better. But at least they really have now signed JaMarcus Russell;

· More bad news for Tennessee. Not only is Pacman Jones suspended for the season, their other star cornerback Antonio Gates is out injured for it (Pacman, meanwhile, has used his time off to become a tag team wrestling champion. As you do.).

Was Ebren right? - file

In his seminal work “Rafa Needs to Sign Unproven Small Names” the venerable Professor Gunther Ebren von Sauerkraut states empirically that “Rafael Benitez [the Liverpool manager] needs to sign unproven small names”. He goes on to support this astonishing assertion with reference to historical and contemporary European investment performance analyses and outlines a plausible comparative study which leads him inexorably to the fantastic and unfashionable conclusion that Liverpool, as a football club, would be better off if they signed unproven small names.

But was he right?

Upon reflection and with the benefit of hindsight it’s possible to look at the primary sources in context:

• Rafa’s scruffy torn out bit of notepad shopping list with the names of Torres, Voronin and Babel et al clearly crossed out, or smudged with a damp finger as in the case of Torres.

• The spreadsheet with the balance of payments, salaries and accumulative interest and other costs of the acquisition of chosen newbies.

• With 360 long minutes of Premiership football already completed, said team has had full opportunity to demonstrate their potential for success and provide (or not) collaborative data for von Sauerkraut’s bold claims.

As it happened Rafa elected to go his own way and turn his nose up at the hirsute Footologist’s considered advice; he spent an awful lot of money on signing proven big names who are doing very well so far, thank you.

That said, it’s clearly impossible to know what would have happened if the Reds had gone the other way so this shouldn’t detract from an assessment of Gunther Ebren’s proposal.

In fact it could be argued that shining examples of the perspicuity of that text has been on show at Wembley this week.

A manager who definitely has something to prove and has in no way already made any sort of a name for himself was forced into a position (at first) where he had to name a team of “Players with something to prove, not men who have already made a name” as the Lord of Dampness suggested for the scouzers.

This is of key importance for an England team who’ve been called many names individually and collectively in the recent past and it’s a welcome change of direction from compromised selection policy.

As many observers are reporting today; England looked hungry in the last two games but perhaps more importantly they looked humble.

For those who’ve lived off the fat of their ancestors (limited) success for far too long, humility is a powerful medicine, a panacea for arrogance, a remedy for vanity and a recipe for teambuilding.

Von Sauerkraut’s piece offers strategies too that could have been furiously tapped into McClaren’s PDA; “…the way to get world-class players seems to be to buy players that aren't world class yet.” Perhaps he mistyped ‘buy’ and put in ‘make’ instead. For the England national team it could be suggested that the success in the last two games was partly due to the truth of the statement that ‘the way to get world-class players is to make players world-class.’

Again, a radical and forward thinking position for a national manager who may well be relishing the idea of a similar career route. Although sadly, it seems that this added responsibility has yet to filter down to the FA or any of the youth teams or schools of excellence.

“Most would agree that the Galactico experiment was not a resounding success” for England or Real.

That the hundreds and thousands of Galactico topping on the Red ice-cream at Anfield is giving the appearance of efficacy so far is testament to the other truth that ‘you get’s what you pay’s for’. England, however, don’t have to worry about the price of their players, only the Galactico mentality, and that has been the overriding flavour of the resounding flop over the past decades.

”So my advice to Rafa - if you want the best you have to buy from the second-tier.” McClaren has selected from the second tier, with care, and fingers crossed, he looks like he’s getting the best from them.

This week’s performances have been as convincing as any England performance in living memory. The usual caveats apply about the length of the study, opposition, home territory and disallowed goals but over the two games England were consistent in style, balance, attitude and quality and it’s more than just the players.

So could Ebren have been right?

Yes, but about the wrong team.

Like going on an epic quest to the Oracle at Delphi for the winning lottery numbers and getting a map reference for Shangri La by mistake, or trawling through miles of ancient cuneiform for the real name of the one true Dog and coming out with an anagram of Hong Kong Phooey [Fr. Hong Kong Fou Fou].

In the immortal words of Professor Pakamambo “von Sauerkraut is nature’s red herring; a little smelly but full of protein.”

NFL team by team – the Velvet Bear

Sitting here at the start of five months of gridiron fun, it is disconcertingly easy to see who most of the playoff participants will be. This is one of the least open seasons for years, largely because so many teams were in such bad shape at the end of last season, not even extensive drafting and player trading has made a whole lot of difference. Admittedly, there is always the chance that someone will come from absolutely nowhere, as the New Orleans Saints did last season, but that isn't likely to make a whole lot of difference to the outcome. It is therefore with a certain sense of inevitability that I present my guide to the 32 candidates for the title Superbowl Champions 2008.

ARIZONA CARDINALS (2006 Record 5-11)

Just how a side like the Cardinals had such a bad 2006 season still mystifies me. How any team with Edgerrin James, Larry Johnson and Anquan Boldon can have a losing year is somewhat incredible, but the fact is that, for all of their offensive capability behind the line, the o-line itself was a shambles. They'll be hoping that the new coaching team of Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm can work that out in a way that enables them to get the best from their stars. On defense, their major problem is going to be stopping the run and the fact that, in Eric Green, they have the second-worst cornerback in the NFL. The upside of this is that the inventiveness of co-ordinator Clancy Pendergast should lead to some very aggressive play, with plenty of sacks and turnovers.

ATLANTA FALCONS (7-9)

It's hard to get a worse start to the season than the Falcons have already had, with the Michael Vick affair not only disrupting their entire offensive planning, but distracting the franchise as they tried to regroup after 2006's decidedly average season. They're left with a second rate QB in Joey Harrington, two very average RBs in Warrick Dunn and Jerious Norwood, an unchanged defensive line which spent most of last season getting beaten up by everyone they faced and only one real attacking threat in Alge Crumpler. And you can't win games with just a decent tight end. If they win as many as six games this season I'll be surprised.

BALTIMORE RAVENS (13-3)

The Ravens surprised many people last season and probably hoped that they would make it all the way to the Superbowl. This year they will do well to do half as well. They're an ageing team where most of their best players are, at most, two seasons from retirement.Signing running back Willis McGahee from Buffalo will help in the short term, but he is no spring chicken either. Their best hope is actually in defense, where they are so strong, even losing a player as good as Adalius Thomas won't make a significant difference.

BUFFALO BILLS (7-9)

Losing McGahee will mean that they look ever more to the passing game. QB JP Losman is no longer the innocent youngster of previous seasons and, on his day, has a phenomenal arm. The problem is that his wide receivers are among the smallest in the NFL. Without a running game to speak of, this is going to be a problem against any side with reasonably tall cornerbacks - unless Marshawn Lynch comes through faster than expected. On defense, they have a compartively inexperienced front 7, but boy are they quick.

CAROLINA PANTHERS (8-8)

2006 was a huge disappointment. Injuries to Steve Smith illustrated just how badly one-dimensional they had become, even for a side with DeShaun Foster and DeAngelo Williams in the backfield. A new offensive co-ordinator, Jeff Davidson, will be expected to redress the balance and will have to do so fast, as they have not really replaced the retired Keyshawn Johnson. Defensively, they are on the small side and injury-prone, but if Julius Peppers and Kris Jenkins can stay fit, they'll still be a handful.

CHICAGO BEARS (14-2, lost Superbowl)

Even as a Bears fan I still have to ask how the hell they managed to win so many games with a liability like Rex Grossman at QB. Anyone who saw his nightmare Superbowl ought to know that this was no shock to Bears supporters, who have had to put up with the NFL's most error-prone triggerman for far too long. Losing star RB Thomas Jones in the close season won't have helped the offense either, hence the attempt to turn Devin Hester into an offensive as well as defensive player. Otherwise, the Bears will rely upon the erratic Cedric Benson for their points - unless a miracle happens and Grossman manages to find receivers Bernard Berrian and Muhsin Mohammed on a regular basis. The defense, lead by star linebacker Brian Uhrlacher, remains a ferocious prospect for opponents.

CINCINNATI BENGALS (8-8)

Expect much, much more from the Bengals this year. With Carson Palmer on form and Chad Johnson, TJ Houshmanzadeh and (once his suspension is served) Chris Henry for him to aim at, stopping them scoring will take a better team than most of those they will face. They'll concede plenty of points - their secondary, Jonathan Joseph aside, is feeble - but you'd always expect them to be a score ahead anyway.

CLEVELAND BROWNS (4-12)

Last year was a disaster. This year won't be much better, unless rookie QB Brady Quinn comes good and the rest of the team manage to avoid being arrested. Brayon Edwards and Kellen Winslow should be potent attacking threats, but whilst they have good tailbacks in short yardage situations they have no-one who poses much of a ground threat. Their D is a solid and unspectacular unit who relied too much on rookie Kamerion Wimbley last season; they'll all need to put more effort in if the Browns are to have much of a season.

DALLAS COWBOYS (9-7)

This will surprise many, but, statistically, Tony Romo was the best QB of 2006. His overall passing was better and he made fewer errors than anyone else, Peyton included. With TO for once living up to his self-generated reputation and Jason Witten a potent threat at TE, they shouldn't miss the injured Terry Glenn at all. The hard hitting Ken Hamlin shores up a creaky defense, although the secondary is still going to have to hide the woeful Anthony Henry if they are not to cough up easy points.

DENVER BRONCOS (9-7)

The astute off-season signings of Daniel Graham and Brandon Stokeley should open up more options for Jay Cutler this season, whilst Travis Henry gives them running options. It is probably too much change for a young QB like Cutler to absorb in the early season, but expect them to come strong in the second half. Having Champ Bailey and Dre' Bly on defense will make them very hard to score against, so once they can get some points on the board they will be a formidable outfit.

DETROIT LIONS (3-13)

You have to feel sorry for Lions QB Jon Kitna. He's a talented player who deserves much more than he has to work with here.He gets abysmal pass protection, the o-line's run blocking is scarcely any better and, despite having explosive rookie Calvin Johnson wide out, he's got very few targets indeed. Basically, here's one guy who'll be spending a lot of play time on his backside this season. The defensive line spent more time injured than on the field last season, but if Shaun Rogers stays fit he and new signing Dewayne White will give them some much needed steel and probably represent their best hope of avoiding sixteen weeks of humbling.

GREEN BAY PACKERS (8-8)

So, Old Man Favre returns for yet another season in Wisconsin. He's interesting to watch, because his play has become increasingly maverick as the years have worn on - which must make him infuriating to coach and to play with. Just how much scope he will have for that this year, when his only real weapon is WR Donald Driver, is open to debate. He's either going to make someone a star, or it is all going to go horribly wrong for the Packers. Their defense is at least consistent, in that they make as many cock-ups as they do brilliant plays. Expect a losing season.

HOUSTON TEXANS (6-10)

All change in Houston, where the talented - if untried - Matt Schaub has replaced David Carr at QB and where veteran Ahman Green has been brought in to try and give some penetration to the running game. The problem is that very little has been done about the dreadful offensive line of 2006, the one which left Carr so badly beaten up and stopped the run in the first place. Apart from Green, Schaub has only Andre Johnson and (at short yardage) Ron Dayne as threats worthy of the name, so it could be a tough learning curve - to the point where it is a toss up who will be wishing he had stayed in Atlanta, him or the Falcons. Things might be a little easier if the defense was reliable, but it isn't, it's inexperienced and has a real vulnerability at CB.

INDIANNAPOLIS COLTS (12-4, won Superbowl)

What would you like me to say. They have Peyton, Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Joseph Addai and Dallas Clark. The defense is a mess, with a mass of off-season defections being led by star linebacker Cato June, but the only way that will matter will be if Peyton gets injured; the real weakness of the Colts lies in the fact that it is so much his team now, without him it is doubtful they'd cope.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS (8-8)

A slightly disappointing 2006 for the Jags, largely as a result of their failure to hold onto the ball. If they could just stop dropping the thing, they would be a pretty formidable proposition. This season, expect much more work for running backs Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew, who were the best RB pairing last season. The defense has the enormous tackle combination of John Henderson and Marcus Stroud, plus star CB Rashean Mathis, so they will be very hard to score against. Expect a better season than last.

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (9-7)

A two man team if ever there was one. Larry Johnson and Tony Gonzalez must be wondering what they did wrong in a previous life to end up playing behind a line as clueless as this one. Johnson will be hoping for the same number of yards and TD s with far fewer carries than the 400+ he had last season. The defense has been strengthened by the arrival of Napoleon Harris and Alfonso Boone, but really it was youth, not weight, the Chiefs needed here. Expect plenty of 4th quarter scores against this ageing unit.

MIAMI DOLPHINS (6-10)

It all went very wrong for the Dolphins in 2006. They started as playoff favourites and ended as also-rans. Having released Daunte Culpepper, it is hard to see how they will be any better off with the injury prone Trent Green. The offense lacks any real weapons; for all Chris Chambers' promise at wide receiver, his iron hands will have to soften before he can be seen as any sort of threat. The defense will rely too much on the incoming Joey Porter - who is going to have to play out of his skin to justify his reported salary - and the underrated André Goodman. Another tough year in prospect.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS (6-10)

The good news for Vikings fans is that the close season saw them shift Brad Johnson, the world's least mobile QB and a whole host of other makeweights. The bad news is that they've not actually been replaced by anyone. Second year QB Tavaris Jackson will lead them this year and will spend most of it handing the ball to Chester Taylor and rookie Adrian Peterson (not to be confused with the Bears' rookie of the same name), because the Vikings' passing game is going to be non-existent. Being more positive, the defense isn't bad, with a solid reputation against both the pass and the run.

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (12-4 )

Tom Brady will be licking his lips in anticipation. An offense which not only features Randy Moss and Donte Stallworth, but which is so strong, they could afford to let Reche Caldwell go last week. Not only that, but the defense, bolstered by Adalius Thomas, lacks any obvious weakness either. Only overconfidence can stop them now.

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (10-6)

With Drew Brees, Reggie Bush, Deuce McAllister and last year's surprise new arrival Marques Colston, it is arguable that the Saints should've won more games, scored more points and generally beaten the hell out of most other teams. What let them down was a defense which lacked both speed and penetration; nothing they have done in the close season has changed this, so expect a very similar season to the last.

NEW YORK GIANTS (8-8)

The Giants have one huge problem, which is that Eli simply isn't Peyton. In fact, if he wasn't a Manning, it is arguable that the Giants would not have persevered with him anything like as long as they have. The Giants' solution to his regular brain freezes was always to give the ball to Tiki Barber, but Tiki isn't there any more and Brandon Jacobs and Reuben Droughns are just not as reliable at digging a side out of a hole. All this is before you consider that any side which has Plaxico Burress as their #1 receiver has problems anyway. They'll be looking to their tough defense, buoyed by new co-ordinator Steve Spagnuolo, to keep them in games.

NEW YORK JETS (10-6)

In signing Thomas Jones from the Bears the Jets have at last given Chad Pennington a decent weapon to work with. The o-line is sound, but they lack class otherwise, with Jerricho Cotchery having had a particularly shoddy season last time around. The defense has historically been good against the pass but feeble against the run and this will hurt them again this year if some serious improvements are not made.

OAKLAND RAIDERS (2-14)

It is hard to see how it is going to get any better for the Raiders in 2007. Randy Moss has gone, leaving the side bereft of quality wide out. LaMont Jordan and the incoming Dominic Rhodes will enhance the running game, but at the time of writing they still don't have a quarterback, with JaMarcus Russell still (contrary to what I wrote a couple of weeks ago) refusing to sign a contract. As for the defense, well, the only stars are in the corners and that is never a good thing, because you're just asking to get run into oblivion.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (10-6)

Donovan McNabb can't shore them up forever, but then again I say that every season and every season he does so. Brian Westbrook remains the main alternate threat, especially if McNabb's dodgy knee flares up again. They look weak wide out, though. The defense will blitz and blitz and blitz on the back of good line discipline and a talented secondary. At times it will go wrong, but no-one is going to rack up a cricket score against them.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS (8-8)

An 8-8 season was such a disappointment to them last year, as they tried to adjust to life post-Bus. This year, they have to adjust to life post-Cowher. Can they do it? Well, a year out of the spotlight can only have helped Ben Roethlisberger and Willie Parker remains a threat on the ground. Hines Ward will be #1 receiver and the better for it, especially with Santonio Holmes to keep him company. The defense will continue to do the basics very well indeed, secure in the knowledge that if you get past the line, you've still got to get past the human cannonball that is Troy Polamalu. Definitely should have a better year this year.

ST LOUIS RAMS (8-8)

The big question here whether the creaky o-line can give Marc Bulger enough time to unleash Steven Jackson, Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce. If they can, the Rams will be a side to be reckoned with. If, like last season, they can't, Bulger faces another season seeing more turf than gaps. The defense has been the subject of extensive surgery, but the line looks undersized and will once again be vulnerable against the run.

SAN DIEGO CHARGERS (14-2)

It isn't hard to see what will happen here. From the snap, Philip Rivers will hand the ball off to LT, LT will blast another hole in a hapless defensive line, and the Chargers will keep doing it until they score. It's a blessing and a curse. An easy offense to run, where any variation surprises, but also rather predictable. So, just for variation, they'll dump the ball off to Antonio Gates and watch him make the yards instead. The clock runs down, as does the spirit of the opposition. In defense, they've got Shawn Merriman, Quentin Jammer and a whole host of others as adept at stopping the run as their offensive counterparts are at making it. Hard to beat.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS (7-9)

Still an improving side, the 49ers. Bringing in Darrell Jackson and Ashley Lelie gives Alex Smith some much needed options downfield, but the loss of Frank Gore for the opening games is still a big blow. An awful secondary cost them dear last time out, but this has been rectified by the signings of Nate Clements and Michael Lewis. In all, new coach Jim Hostler - and 49ers fans everywhere - have much to hope for this year.

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (9-7)

Last season was spoilt for them by the injury which deprived them of Matt Hasselbeck for a good part of it. This year, they have lost Darrell Jackson and Jerramy Stevens, so an awful lot depends upon Shaun Alexander recovering his 2005 form. The defense is built on speed, not power, so expect them to take a pounding there, too. A shadow of their former selves.

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS (4-12)

Anyone expecting the Bucs to bring in some youth to replace their aging side will have been very disappointed. Instead, Jeff Garcia will be the second oldest starting QB in the NFL. Moreover, he's their only threat on the ground apart from Cadillac Williams. The defense is in better shape, with Gaines Adams a quality signing, but nothing less than a complete overhaul could've prevented this being a very tough season for the Bucs.

TENNESSEE TITANS (8-8)

If he could play QB, RB and WR all at the same time, then Vince Young would. Moreover, if he could, the Titans would let him, because the options are LenDale White, Chris Henry and David Givens, which doesn't add up to an awful lot in my playbook. They've no Pacman Jones on defense, either, but they do have the hugely underrated Nick Harper, for which they may come to be incredibly thankful indeed.

WASHINGTON REDSKINS (5-11)

Don't expect too much passing from the Redskins. Mark Brunell had real trouble finding his receivers last season and things aren't going to change much this year. But given that they will have to go to a running game, losing Derrick Dockery seems at best careless, at worst tantamount to allowing Clinton Portis to be assaulted several times a week. Luckily, they now have Ladell Betts as a quality backup. They'll need to put plenty of points on the board, though, because their defensive line is old, injury-prone and likely to ship points like an old bucket ships water.