Throwing flags at FedEx

After nearly nine years of living in Washington, I went to my first Redskins game this week. Not just any Redskins game, either. The season opener. On Monday Night Football. Against the Minnesota Vikings, the team I grew up rooting for and will grow old waiting for to return to the Super Bowl. All this was possible because way back in the spring, when the 2006 schedule was first announced, my wife got me a pair of tickets for our third anniversary. Because that's the kind of wife she is. I can't remember what I got her. Some aspirin, I think, and a set of those little things shaped like corn cobs that you use to hold your corn on the cob. Because that's the kind of husband I am.

Not only was it the season opener and the first matchup of the ESPN era of MNF, the game was also played on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. I had no doubt that the game would (and, of course, should) include some kind of commemoration. I didn't realize that I was expected to be part of it, and that my role in it was going to get me chewed out by a drunk before I even had a chance to sit down. But as they say, we're living in a whole new era.

(This is a good time to stop and emphasize that I love my country and hate terrorists. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, were indescribably awful, and all of us were touched in some way. The Pentagon was less than 3 miles from the apartment where I was living on 9/11. I walked down to the Key Bridge to watch as the Pentagon burned and fighter jets screamed overhead. It was a horrible, horrible day.)

Tracy and I got to gaudy FedEx Field with time to spare and were frisked unenthusiastically at the gate. Satisfied that my seven-months-pregnant wife was not carrying anthrax or nunchucks or whatever they were after, the minimum wage crew allowed us inside. Upon entering, we each had an American flag shoved into our hands. Not a little postcard-sized flag, either. These were the size of face towels, at least. Not that we'd, you know, wipe our faces with them.

(And let me say I love the flag, too. I love it best when it's flying atop a flagpole, getting raised at the Olympics or being carried by a color guard. I'm less a fan of those times when someone hands you a flag unexpectedly, and then it's your responsibility for the next three hours.)

FedEx Field doesn't allow you to carry backpacks, large purses, duffel bags, briefcases, or anything else in which you could hide a granola bar or an inexpensive bottle of water, so we were pretty well loaded down with crap already. I was carrying binoculars, an eyeglasses case, a jacket, a pack of Fruit Gushers (I win this time, Snyder!) and a few other things. Before reaching our seats, we also picked up a bottle of $5 water, two hot dogs, a brat, a pretzel and a large soda. And each of us now had a 2-foot flag, with a little pole, tucked under our arms.

We got to our seats, and there was trouble in the air. Carrying that much stuff, there's just no way you can get settled in without putting something down. And because all the other seats were occupied, "putting something down" meant putting it on the ground. I put the jacket down, the binoculars, the Diet Coke, the water. I needed to take off my sweatshirt. Something had to give. I sure as shit wasn't going to put the hot dogs on the ground. So I handed the food to Tracy and set the flags down for only a second so I could get my sweatshirt off.

(I was a Boy Scout. I learned all the rules about the flag. I learned how to fold it, how to display it, how to care for it, how to dispose of it properly. I also learned that the flag, or its likeness, should never be used as wearing apparel, should never be draped over the body, should never be used as an advertisement and should never be used as a decoration. Trust me, I know that when displaying the flag, it should never be allowed to touch the ground or anything else beneath it. But I wasn't displaying the flag. It was still rolled up and wrapped with tape. The guy who handed it to me at the gate was pulling them out of a box sitting on the ground. If he can say he was storing those flags, then dammit I was storing mine.)

As I set the flags down to take off my hoodie, I turned to Tracy and started to say that I needed to make this quick because some busybody was going to give me a hard time about setting the flags down. I didn't have time to complete the thought, however, because some busybody came along and gave me a hard time about setting the flags down. He was in his 50s or early 60s, had a Minnie Mouse tattoo on his arm and was already two and a half sheets to the wind. "You shouldn't let the flag touch the ground!" he barked. "It's disrespectful!" Then he tottered up the stairs in pursuit of more beer.

You know what else is disrespectful to the flag? How about treating it like a party favor? How about putting a sticker on it that says "MADE IN CHINA"? Because as my wife and I stared at each other in slack-jawed, goggle-eyed amazement, I happened to notice just such a sticker on the little pole the flag was attached to. The flags handed out in the nation's capital on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 were made in the People's Republic of China. Red China, our forefathers called it. Ain't no party like a Communist Party, 'cause a Communist Party don't stop.

But whatever. I'd put the flags on the ground knowing full well I might get an earful, and I got an earful. Life goes on. We eventually got ourselves settled in, and we found a nifty little crack between our seats where the flags could stand upright without falling over or invading anyone else's personal space. As the game progressed, we saw that we weren't alone. All 90,000 fans in the stadium were arranging their evenings around keeping the flags out of harm's way. People heading up to the concourse for beer (and beer, beer and more beer) would do a little hesitant dance, torn over whether to leave their flags behind. Most would leave them, but not before making sure they'd stay in place if joggled. I don't want to know how the men who carried the flags into the toilet handled the situation. One fellow in the row ahead of us had an inspired solution. He just kept his flag in the back pocket of his white jeans, even when sitting. He may have spent the whole game farting into Old Glory, but he didn't let it touch the ground.

An hour from game time, there were twin commotions down on the playing field. On the sidelines almost directly in front of us, ESPN's Monday NFL Countdown crew was doing their show. Michael Irvin appeared to have already forgiven Tom Jackson for that whole are-you-retarded thing. Farther down the field, toward the other end zone, an enormous crowd was gathered. I pointed it out to my wife and wondered whether they were 9/11 survivors or families, who I assumed would appear in either a pregame or halftime tribute. They weren't. We never found out exactly what was going on down there, but I highly suspect this had something to do with it. There was no pregame tribute that I noticed. Then again, news reports said there was supposed to be an Apache helicopter flyover, but I didn't see one. I'm starting to wonder if I'm the crazy one. What couldn't be missed was The Star-Spangled Banner sung by the Joint Military Chorus, accompanied by 90,000 American flags being waved in unison. That was a remarkable sight, even for a cynical bastard like me.

Everyone appeared to be on the same page that the national anthem is a perfectly acceptable time to wave the flag. The song is about the flag. There was less consensus, however, about using the flag as a visual noisemaker, both pro-Redskins (rapid waving, side-to-side) and anti-Vikings (vigorous shaking). Scouts like me will tell you that's not an appropriate use of the Stars and Stripes. The flag doesn't belong to any one group of Americans. It belongs to all of us. Someone tell the politicians. When the Skins were introduced, a number of fans began waving their flags like it was the Olympics. From several rows back, someone screamed "Put your flags down!" I don't think he was complaining about his view being blocked, either. It might have been the Minnie Mouse tattoo guy. He was on a beer run pretty much all through the pregame and into the first quarter.

The pregame festivities wrapped up with Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving as an honorary coin flipper. One of the cool things about living in Washington is that when they say a VIP is coming, you can be sure that the P is going to be V fucking I. General Pace was accompanied by a young Redskins fan who, like your typical 8-year-old, shrugged off the general with row after row of medals and instead stared in awe at the guys in football costumes. After the coin toss, the lad bolted for the sidelines, and the general had to kind of reel him in. There's something totally endearing about seeing the most powerful uniformed military officer in the world, in his dress blues, trotting after a fourth-grader.

It wasn't until halftime that we learned via the public address system who was responsible for handing out 90,000 Chinese-made American flags at FedEx Field. Surprise: FedEx! Having figuratively wrapped itself in the flag, the company proceeded to do so literally as dozens of FedEx employees unfurled a field-sized flag while the Redskins cheerleaders -- some in red, white or blue dresses, others in flag-themed halter tops, I shit you not -- did an interpretive dance to Lee Greenwood's bathetic God Bless the USA. The dreariness of the Greenwood anthem was especially apparent because it immediately followed a stunning performance of God Bless America by Isaac Ho'opi'i, a Pentagon police K-9 officer who saved the lives of 20 people on 9/11 and received the Congressional Medal of Valor. As he sang, the names of the victims from the Pentagon appeared one by one the scoreboard. Ho'opi'i gave me goosebumps. Greenwood made my skin crawl. But then again, he always has.

The game itself proved to be a sloppy affair. The Redskins were able to stay in it because Troy Williamson caught nothing but air when it counted and the Vikings killed themselves with penalties in the first half. The Vikings were able to stay in it because Mark Brunell was helpless on third down and the Redskins killed themselves with stupid penalties in the second half. Someone had to win, and it turned out to be the Vikings, 19-16. Cue the absurdly high hopes in Minnesota and the absurdly panicked response in Washington.

As we filed out of the stadium, I tucked our flags into my back pocket for the short walk to the shuttle bus that would take us to the Landover Metro station. I told myself to remember to take them out once we were on the bus so I wouldn't sit on them. In my mind, that really is worse than letting the flag touch the ground. Just as I think using the flag as a bedspread, which many "patriotic" people do, is worse than letting it touch the ground. But that's just me and my opinion. It's a free country. Thank God.

By the time I got to the bus, someone had stolen the flags out of my pocket.

Week 1 at a glance

Picking the winners for the first week of the NFL season is part intuition, part intellect and entirely pointless. Nevertheless, I tried, and finished the week 9-7. That's barely better than flipping a coin, you might say. But if I'd just gone with the home teams, which is supposed to be so damned accurate, I'd have been 6-10. So get off my back. Here are some one-sentence recaps:

CORRECT PICKS:
Pittsburgh 28, Miami 17: Daunte Culpepper looked like the Daunte Culpepper of 2005, while Charlie Batch(!) looked like the Daunte Culpepper of 2004.

Chicago 26, Green Bay 0: Brett Favre proves the doubters wrong, again, when it turns out the Packers can sink lower.

Cincinnati 23, Kansas City 10: We stopped obsessing about the state of Carson Palmer's head and started worrying about the condition of Trent Green's brain.

Seattle 9, Detroit 6 (suicide pick): Who needs the best offensive guard in the NFL when you have a kicker who can make three out of five field goals?

Jacksonville 24, Dallas 17: Jaguars started slow, finished strong; Cowboys started strong; Bledsoe finished?

New England 19, Buffalo 17: Tom Brady cost his team 7 points, while J.P. Losman cost his team only 2, but history gets written by the winners.

Arizona 34, San Francisco 27: The Cardinals were strong in several areas ... but their new $30 million tailback was not one of them.

Philadelphia 24, Houston 10: David Carr did throw more touchdown passes than Vince Young ...

Indianapolis 26, New York Giants 21: Peyton Manning throws four interceptions, but the Giants can only hold on to one of them.

INCORRECT PICKS:
New Orleans 19, Cleveland 14: Reggie Bush's long-awaited debut totally overshadows Kellen Winslow Jr.'s.

St. Louis 18, Denver 10: When you think of the Rams, you automatically think defense and the kicking game.

Baltimore 27, Tampa Bay 0: As the University of Texas goes, so goes Chris Simms.

Atlanta 20, Carolina 6: Michael Vick beats the archrival Panthers with his trademark stifling defense.

New York Jets 23, Tennessee 16: Vince Young's future moves one step closer, while Kellen Clemens' moves one step back.

Minnesota 19, Washington 16: It's a shame the Redskins didn't have some kind of "pre-season" games to get their offense in sync.

San Diego 27, Oakland 0: When you get to hand off to LaDanian Tomlinson and Michael Turner on 70% of the plays, "leading a team" gets much easier.

THIS WEEK: 9-7
SEASON: 9-7
(2005 through Week 1: 11-5)

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KAPOW-ER RANKINGS AFTER WEEK 1
Down and Distance's exclusive KAPOW-ER RANKINGS are back for their second year. The product of a simple formula, the rankings have predicted 10 of the last 16 Super Bowl winners. Further, 14 of the last 16 Super Bowl winners finished the regular season No. 1 or No. 2 in the KAPOW-ER system. Unlike with other, lesser rating systems, no opinion is involved in formulating these rankings. None. Teams are ranked on a centigrade scale, with 100 representing the NFL's strongest team and 0 its weakest. Don't like where your team is ranked? Sheesh, it's only Week 1. (Key: WK1 = This week's ranking. '05 = 2005 final ranking. POW = KAPOW-ER centigrade score)

WK1	'05	TEAM	POW		WK1	'05	TEAM	POW
1	19	Ravens	100.00		17	26	Bills	47.22
2	8	Chargers	100.00		18	11	Redskins	45.71
3	9	Bears	100.00		19	6	Giants	44.68
4	16	Falcons	76.92		20	32	49ers	44.26
5	23	Eagles	70.59		21	24	Browns	42.42
6	12	Bengals	69.70		22	15	Cowboys	41.46
7	21	Rams	64.29		23	28	Titans	41.03
8	5	Steelers	62.22		24	27	Lions	40.00
9	2	Seahawks	60.00		25	17	Dolphins	37.78
10	29	Jets	58.97		26	3	Broncos	35.71
11	7	Jaguars	58.54		27	10	Chiefs	30.30
12	31	Saints	57.58		28	30	Texans	29.41
13	22	Cardinals	55.74		29	4	Panthers	23.08
14	1	Colts	55.32		30	20	Packers	0.0
15	18	Vikings	54.29		31	25	Raiders	0.00
16	13	Patriots	52.78		32	14	Bucs	0.00

Rich? Man ... Poor, man.

Week 1 of the 2006 NFL season requires us to get used to a whole new television regime. Monday Night Football is on ESPN. James Brown has escaped the special-needs classroom at Fox and now hosts CBS's pregame show. The Sunday night games have moved to NBC, which has wrapped all the evening's gridiron-related infotainment into something it calls Football Night in America, which should sound extremely familiar to our friends north of the border. (I understand NBC has had some trouble in the past few years, but stealing ideas from hockey? Is it really that bad?)

As part of its blockbusta deal with the league (theme song by Pink!), NBC became the only NFL broadcast partner allowed to air a highlight show on Sunday nights. That means ESPN's NFL Primetime, a staple of football fans' weekly experience since 1987 and the only NFL recap show on television that showed anything besides touchdowns and sack dances, has been kicked to the slums of Monday afternoon (and yet it's still called NFL Primetime).

But wait, it gets worse. Chris Berman and Tom Jackson are no longer on the show. Like most people, I tired of Berman's act years ago. The "Well-Dressed Amani Toomer" references weren't funny in 1997 and were less so in 2005. "Daylight Come and You Got to Delhomme" not only wasn't funny, it was somehow offensive. And yet ... after so many years on the air, Berman and Tom Jackson just were the voice of NFL highlights. Fans had developed the ability to tune out the nonsense and focus on the useful stuff. There was a sometimes strained but still affectionate relationship borne of time, familiarity and routine. Just like your parents and mine.

Now Primetime has an all-new team. The host is Stuart Scott, a witless caricature of street cred whose vocabulary is as dated as his wardrobe. There are now two analysts where there once was one. The first is Senator Mike Ditka, who still looks like Da Coach of Da Bears but sounds like Da Coach of Da Saints every time he cranks opens Da Pennsylvania Piehole. The other analyst is poor, poor Ron Jaworski, who has one of the sharpest minds in football broadcasting but who is cursed with a tragic flaw: susceptibility to peer pressure. On his own, Jaws is enthusiastic yet levelheaded. In the company of dim bulbs like Scott, Michael Irvin, Merrill Hoge (sometimes) and, I fear, Iron Mike, "levelheadedness" just means he drools out of both sides of his mouth. I don't know whether I can bring myself to watch.

It was because NFL Primetime had been yanked off the Worldwide Leader's Sunday night schedule that I found myself casting about for a recap show when I got home from work late Sunday (actually early Monday). Remembering the ads I saw (over and over) during the preseason, I flipped over to the NFL Network to check out their highlights program, called NFL Gameday.

The show is hosted by Rich Eisen, a onetime ESPN wunderkind (and Stuart Scott sidekick) who has been the face of the network since its inception. Eisen is joined by Deion Sanders and Steve Mariucci. Sanders formerly appeared on the CBS pregame show, before demanding more money and not getting it. His job at CBS was to shout at random about this and that, and to not seriously criticize anyone. This appears to be his role on Gameday, too. Mariucci is in his first broadcasting job after head-coaching stints in San Francisco and Detroit. His job appears to be staring into the camera with sad, nervous eyes and pattering earnestly.

(Crib sheet for first-timers: Sanders is the well-dressed, easygoing, bald black guy. Mariucci is the well-dressed, haunted, white guy whose thick head of hair stands in unspoken contrast to Eisen's rapidly thinning crop.)

You'd think that Mariucci, as the novice, or Sanders, as the motormouth, would be the most prone to foot-in-mouth disease on-air. You'd be wrong, as it's Eisen who apparently says whatever comes into his brain without checking it first against that big machine in front of him with the words on it. In less than half an hour of Sunday night's program, Eisen:

• Called Trent Green "Carson Palmer," as in "Carson Palmer lay motionless on the ground."
• Called Plaxico Burress "Eli Manning," as in (honest) "Eli Manning catches this pass from Eli Manning."
• Called D'Brickashaw Ferguson, the No. 4 pick in the draft, "the No. 1 overall pick."
• Called Reggie Bush "Reggie Brown."
• Referred to Eric Mangini as "the first Jets coach to win his opener since Al Groh in 2000," as if he'd stopped some kind of losing streak. There has been only one other Jets coach since Groh.
• Said Edgerrin James is "the first Cardinal with 26 carries in a game since Emmitt (Smith) in 2004," as if sheer number of carries meant anything. James, acquired for $30 million, had 73 yards on those 26 carries, a 2.8-yards-per-carry average. (To be fair, Sanders chimed in, "We didn't see any productivity from him in the preseason, but he was just saving it all for the big game." So this might be the company line.)

It's still early, but at this point, I may have no choice but to gas up The George Michael Sports Machine. Where have you gone, Irv Cross?

Breaking down the NFC quarterbacks

With the possible exception of Lawrence Taylor, no one does a more thorough job of handicapping NFC quarterbacks than Down and Distance. Now that the teams have made their final cuts and the season is upon us, let's take a spin through the conference and see who's going to be throwing balls on the field and who's going to be fingering balls on the sidelines. Don't forget to check out the AFC edition.

Arizona Cardinals
Some Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks are destined to win still more Super Bowls (see Brady, Tom). Some Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks are destined to spend the rest of their careers moving to progressively worse teams, teaching other guys how to play quarterback (see Dilfer, Trent). So it is that Kurt Warner now lives in Arizona (where, just FYI, the largest supermarket chain appears to be Bashas'). Warner will undoubtedly open the season as the starter but will give way sooner rather than later to rookie Matt Leinart, this year's nominee for young quarterback most likely to appear on the Web in a drunken stupor (which, also FYI, is no way for a new daddy to act). However, Dennis Green treats quarterbacks like disposable razors, so there's a good chance Warner will take back the starting role at least once this fall. (Remember, Green once tried to start Dan Marino's bones ahead of a young Daunte Culpepper.) John Navarre, who has demonstrated in sporadic action the past two years that the broad side of a barn is all he can hit, will probably get his shots, too. The last one standing gets to be the starter in the 2007 opener.

Atlanta Falcons
A Quarterback Controversy of One. Observers tell us that for the third consecutive year, "this is the year that Michael Vick needs to get it together and learn to play like an NFL quarterback, or the Falcons won't be legitimate contenders." That's one way to look at it. But if the Falcons make the playoffs -- and they play in the NFC, for Pete's sake, so it's not like I'm talking crazy here -- you'd better lay in an extra supply of Internet, because the one we have will fill up quickly with I-told-you-so's from Atlanta and environs. Vick won't be responsible for the (at this point purely hypothetical) playoff run in any case, but try telling that to falconzfan1134. Count me among those who say the "haters" might as well stand down because Vick is never going to learn to "play like an NFL quarterback." He's still the most exciting slot receiver in football; it's just too bad the Falcons' QB can't get him the ball. The backup quarterback is Matt Schaub, who, depending on whom you ask, might be Atlanta's latest Brett Favre or its latest David Archer. Both of those men also showed promise as the Falcons' second-stringer. Favre, of course, was expendable because Atlanta already had a Pro Bowl-caliber leader in Chris Miller, so he was traded in 1992 to the Packers, where he had a couple good years. Archer, on the other hand, backed up Steve Bartkowski ably, took over as the starter in 1985, stunk, and drifted out of the league. (Billy Volek, take heed.) The third-stringer is rookie D.J. Shockley, a hometown hero who will enjoy it while it lasts.

Carolina Panthers
Wow. Didn't see this coming. The Panthers' starter is Jake Delhomme. No argument there. He talka kinda funny (actual headline on Panthers.com: Cajun up with Jake: Let's geaux), but hoo-wee, he t'row dat ball like a mudda -- and twice a year he gets to remind the New Orleans Saints that they had this guy sitting on their bench for years behind the likes of Billy Joe Hobert, Billy Joe Tolliver, Billy Joe Wuerffel and Aaron Brooks. However, I just assumed that when Carolina broke camp, the No. 2 quarterback would be Stefan LeFors, just two years out of college and ready to go Tom Brady all over your ass, and that the No. 3 would be Chris Weinke, just five years out of college and already a grandfather of three. Well, Carolina went and t'rew us all a curve: Weinke, whose only significant playing time coughed up a 1-15 season and destroyed all that George Siefert once stood for, is the backup. The backup. LeFors has been cut, and the Panthers go into the season with only two QBs. Fine. In three years, when LeFors is playing the Delhomme role, and his new team has become the 2003 Panthers, and the Panthers are the Saints, Down and Distance will be laughing its ass off. And trying to figure out that last sentence. In the meantime, the Panthers win Super Bowl XLI, and no one cares what I think.

Chicago Bears
Coming into the 2006 preseason, the biggest question about Chicago's offense was the same as it was in the 2005 preseason: Can Rex Grossman, the Precious China Doll of the Monsters of the Midway, stay healthy for the whole season? Or half the season? Or three games? After a few exhibition games in which Grossman underthrew half his passes and overthrew the rest, the question quickly became whether Bears fans wouldn't prefer that Grossman break another leg. Or two. If Grossman's backup was still Kyle Orton, those fans might keep their opinions to themselves. Orton's performance in relief last year was so dreadful that the natives would have been screaming for his head if not for two things. First, the Bears won most of his games on defense and luck. Second, he wasn't Alex Smith. The backup QB this year, however, is Brian Griese, the rich man's Kelly Holcomb. A couple dandy showings in the preseason, and suddenly Griese is the most popular guy in town. Just like he was in Denver, Miami and Tampa. That the Bears have a brewing quarterback controversy is not surprising. The team hasn't had anything resembling a consistent, capable starter since, maybe, Jim Harbaugh in the early 1990s. In the intervening 15 years, they've wheeled out the league's motliest revue of noodle arms, tired legs, empty heads and fused spines. Steve Walsh. Erik Kramer. Dave Krieg. Shane Matthews. Cade McNown. Jim Miller. Kordell Stewart(!). Chad Hutchinson. Craig Krenzel. Orton. Orton. Orton. And of course Orton, who now lies in wait at the bottom of the depth chart for Grossman's inevitable broken ankle and Griese's inevitable hyperextended knee.

Dallas Cowboys
Having watched his team spin its wheels for two seasons, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones hopes to gain traction by having Drew Bledsoe thrown under them. To that end, he imported Terrell Owens and asked Bill Parcells to graft him onto the Frankenstein's monster he's continually assembling and reassembling out of other people's discards (e.g. Eddie George, Anthony Thomas), other people's troublemakers (Owens, Joey Galloway), and his own discards and troublemakers (Vinny Testaverde, Drew Bledsoe, Keyshawn Johnson, Terry Glenn and, really, Bill Parcells). Dallas will begin the season, but not end it, with Bledsoe under center. T.O. has taken over for Johnson at the key position of Disgruntled Wideout, and from there should begin lobbying for backup QB Tony Romo, something of a Parcells favorite, in or around the season's 10th week. The Cowboys have officially given up on Drew Henson (who had essentially been a free agent without the freedom since Parcells first laid eyes on him) and at present are carrying only two quarterbacks. That will change when the O-line finally gets Bledsoe killed for good. I hear Jeff George is available.

Detroit Lions
Would it be ridiculous to call Jon Kitna the perfect quarterback? Well, he was the perfect quarterback to lead the Bengals for a season while they gave Carson Palmer time to develop. He was also the perfect quarterback for the Bengals to have on the bench as insurance once Palmer took over as the starter. And he'd be the perfect quarterback for the Lions if they could just go back in time and draft Carson Palmer. The Lions also have Josh McCown, whose confidence should be pretty well shot after two years as Dennis Green's yo-yo, and Dan Orlovsky, who was able to get into only two games last year despite sharing the depth chart with both Joey Harrington and Jeff Garcia.

Green Bay Packers
Brett Favre spent another offseason playing slap-and-tickle with Packer Nation before making the same decision he always does: to come back for "one" more season. You can't question the man's grit, but after Favre declared that Green Bay has assembled "the most talented team that I've been a part of as a whole," feel free to question his honesty and/or cognition. Against San Diego in the first series of the Packers' first preseason game of 2006, Favre looked less like the quarterback of a contender than an old lady trying to dodge a purse-snatcher. Make that failing to dodge a purse-snatcher. He's said all along that he'll retire when the game isn't fun anymore, and this could be the year scientists learn exactly how many blows to the head it takes to drain all the fun out of football. Whenever Favre does leave -- and make no mistake, it will be his decision -- the Aaron Rodgers era can begin. Or can it? New Packers coach Mike McCarthy's previous job was offensive coordinator in San Francisco, where presumably he was part of the team that opted to take Alex Smith instead of Rodgers in the 2005 draft. Let that sink in for a minute. Now, you decide which is more troubling for Packer fans: That their quarterback of the future might be worse than Alex Smith, or that their new head coach was the guy responsible for the 49ers' offense in 2005. Behind Rodgers is Ingle Martin, famous for losing his starting job to a freshman when he was at Florida, then transferring to Furman. All or nothing, eh, Ingle?

Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings' season hinges on which nugget of Brad Johnson trivia proves most pertinent: 1. Johnson is the only NFC quarterback to win a Super Bowl in the 21st century. 2. Johnson turns 38 two days after the Vikings' season opener. 3. Johnson has been benched in favor of both Jeff George and Brian Griese in the past six seasons. Depending on how that shakes out, Minnesota has in reserve the intriguing Tarvaris Jackson, on whom they used a second-round pick even though no one else was in any hurry to take him, and Brooks Bollinger, who lost a roster slot with the Jets through no real fault of his own. Bollinger's signing pushed J.T. O'Sullivan off the roster. That's assuming "J.T. O'Sullivan" is a real person at all and not that new sports bar at the shopping mall.

New Orleans Saints
Damn. You turn your back for an offseason and suddenly New Orleans has Drew Brees, the Saints' first bona fide star quarerback since ... well ... Double damn. Has New Orleans ever had a star quarterback? Forget Aaron Brooks, the Saints' QB for the past five years. Before the 2005 season, Pro Football Prospectus made the convincing argument that Brooks is an average quarterback masquerading as a star. Expect that to be proved this year in Oakland. As you dig around even deeper into Saints history, you realize what a cesspool the quarterback position has been. Many times, the team had the wrong guy calling signals. Other times they had the right guy, but they had him a few years too early or too late. Kerry Collins, for example, roared through town on a bender between his "drunk"-"racist"-"quitter" flameout in Carolina and his redemption in New York. New Orleans was where Heath Shuler endured a final season that was even uglier than Ryan Leaf's first. Ken Stabler, Richard Todd, Jim Everett and Jeff Blake all passed through the Big Easy on their way to retirement. Wade Wilson, the Billy Joes (Tolliver and Hobert) and Steve Walsh all passed through on their way to nowhere in particular. Bobby Hebert? Only if USFL stardom counts. Jake Delhomme? See the Carolina Panthers entry above for the rogues' gallery of clucks who stood in the pocket for the Saints while Delhomme picked his nose on the sideline. So, no, he doesn't count. You pretty much have to go all the way back to Archie Manning's tenure, 1971-82, to find something like a star. But even then: Can you be considered a star if you throw 36% more interceptions (156) than touchdowns (115)? Are you a star if your team never gets to the playoffs? Archie Manning had a hell of a college career, was a game and gutsy player as a pro, and is a damn fine human being, but he may not fit the definition of "star" for the purposes of our discussion. Bitchin' DNA, though! Now let's bring this back to the 21st century. Brees has become something of a folk hero by the simple fact of his willingness to come play for a city that had been kicked in the crotch by nature and nurture, God and government. And Saints owner Tom Benson. Brees was free to sign with the Saints because San Diego finally balled up the nerve to cut the cord after he hurt his shoulder in last year's meaningless final regular season game. How far the Saints go this year depends on how well Brees has recovered from the injury. Yeah, right. Brees and Reggie Bush may be a strong nucleus for a bright future (mixed metaphor), but it'll take more than these two to move the needle very far this season. And if Brees can't go? Next in line is Jamie Martin, who is kind of like Brett Favre, in that they are both 36 years old, both went to smaller schools, and both are listed on the roster as quarterbacks. If it weren't for Favre's Super Bowl ring, eight Pro Bowl appearances, 400 touchdowns, 53,000 passing yards and 223 consecutive starts, they'd be like twins. The Saints' third QB might have been Adrian McPherson, except he got run over by a golf cart driven by a man in a raccoon suit during pregame warmups.

New York Giants
If you're in one of those fantasy football leagues with more than, say, eight teams, someone probably chose Eli Manning on purpose. Someone needs his (or her!) head examined. That's not to say Manning is a bad player, because he isn't. He also isn't his brother. Every one of us needs to look deep inside ourselves and decide what we really believe: Is the real Eli Manning the guy who had 14 touchdowns and only 5 interceptions in the first half of last season? Or the one who had 10 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in the second half of last season? Take a wild guess which side I come down on: The dark side. On the bright side, look who's been elevated to No. 2 on the Giants' depth chart: Jared Lorenzen! J-Lo's weight is still charitably listed at 285, but if he's an ounce under 300, I'll eat my hat. If he hasn't gotten to it already. Tim Hasselbeck, meanwhile, has been kicked down to the third string after signing something like a four-year contract that all but guaranteed he'd never start. You've got to love that competitive fire. See, Hasselbeck -- whose brother just started in the Super Bowl -- needed to stay in New York because his wife is co-host of The View. And if you think he'll ever hear the end of it in the locker room, get in line behind Eli Manning's fantasy owner for one o' them head examinations.

Philadelphia Eagles
Of course the starter is Donovan McNabb, who joined the ranks of the elite by internalizing the lesson Steve Young eventually learned, Daunte Culpepper will now be forced to learn, and Michael Vick has shown no willingness to learn. Namely, that an "athletic quarterback" is a quarterback first and an "athlete" second. Too much "athleticism," which I dare you to define, and a guy's asking to have his head lopped off, so expect McNabb to wait even longer in the pocket before pulling the ball down and taking off. But enough about Donovan McNabb. Let's talk about T.O.! The Eagles' 2005 season fell apart for a number of reasons: McNabb's injuries, David Akers' injuries, Brian Westbrook's injuries. But it was the 24/7 Me-Ring Circus that is Terrell Owens that turned it into Dunkirk. Owens had spent the offseason accusing McNabb of choking in the Super Bowl, then, seven games into the season, declared that the 4-3 Eagles would be undefeated if their quarterback had been Brett Favre (who at the time was coming off a five-interception game). Owens was soon gone, but then again, so was McNabb, who went out with a "sports hernia," which ... if you're a boy, you don't want to know the details. That left the season in the hands of Mike McMahon and Koy Detmer, both of whom were various flavors of awful before combining for a 14.3 passer rating in a Monday night loss to Seattle that embarrassed Philadelphians all the way back to Ben Franklin. At season's end, McMahon followed Brad Childress to Minnesota, only to be cut there, while Detmer, who had been with the Eagles even longer than McNabb, was waived bye-bye. In their place this year are Jeff Garcia and, believe it or not, A.J. Feeley. First, Garcia: In the mucho macho world of pro football, there are few things worse than calling a guy a jake, which is what Owens did to McNabb in Philadelphia. One of those few things, however, is calling him a gay, which is what Owens did to Garcia in San Francisco. Garcia hasn't done much since leaving the 49ers. He spent a dreadful 2004 not fitting in with what Cleveland was doing, then was brought to Detroit by Steve Mariucci in 2005 to destroy what was left of Joey Harrington's confidence. Mariucci was out before the end of the season and now reads cue cards on NFL Network (not very well, I might add). Garcia was gone not much later and now finds himself in Philadelphia, where he might not be much of a backup QB, but will serve to remind McNabb that he wasn't the first guy to get backstabbed by Terrell Owens. (The Cowboys come to town in Week 5, and by then Drew Bledsoe should be ready to join the support group.) As for Feeley: Eagles fans remember 2002, when McNabb was injured in the ninth game and Detmer in the 10th, leaving the season in Feeley's soft young hands. He kept the Eagles in contention and handed the keys back to McNabb for the playoffs. His Scott Mitchell-esque adequacity earned him a contract offer from the Dolphins. Failing there, he was dealt to the Chargers for the immortal Cleo Lemon. San Diego cut him in late August, and he has returned to the role he was born to play: third-string quarterback for the Eagles. Welcome home, A.J. Welcome home.

San Francisco 49ers
What's left to say about Alex Smith, really? He's a nice kid, and it would be a shame if he can't get pointed in the right direction. The 49ers have brought in Trent Dilfer to mentor Smith. If that doesn't work, electric shocks and water hoses might be their only option left. Unlike a lot of teams this year, the 49ers will carry three quarterbacks, and run a good chance of having to use them all. The No. 3 is Shaun Hill, who spent the first four years of his career with Minnesota. Out of 66 total games in those four years (64 regular seaon, two playoff), he spent 56 inactive as the third quarterback and 10 as the backup, and he saw action in exactly one game: He knelt down twice to run out the clock in the 2005 season finale. Makes Cody Pickett look like George Blanda.

Seattle Seahawks
There doesn't appear to be much doubt left that Matt Hasselbeck is the best quarterback in the NFC. That's meant to be praise. I mean, it's not Hasselbeck's fault that the majority of the other starting quarterbacks in the conference are older than dirt (B. Johnson, B. Favre, D. Bledsoe), greener than grass (A. Smith, R. Grossman), has-beens (M. Brunell, K. Warner), never-weres (J. Kitna), or now living in Miami (D. Culpepper, J. Harrington). Hasselbeck capped his breakout season last year with an up-and-down Super Bowl that managed to capture in one single play the essence of all that is Seattle Seahawky. Down 14-10 in the fourth quarter and still very much in the game, Hasselbeck was intercepted near the goal line by Ike Taylor. Ouch! Then he ran down Taylor and tackled him. Redemption! Then he was penalized for ... tackling without prior approval, maybe? Bogus! And yet: Typical! Anyway, Hasselbeck should be coming into the season good and angry, and if he isn't, I got no sympathy for him. Here's someone else I got no sympathy for: Seneca Wallace. He's a dynamic player, but dynamism does nothing for him or his team so long as the dynamo is nailed to the bench. (Dy-no-miiite!) Wallace could be cavorting on magazine covers and smiling on cereal boxes from here to Ames, Iowa, if he'd just get his ass in the slot like Antwaan Randle El did. Yet Wallace continues to play that I'm-a-quarterback-and-that's-what-I-expect-to-be game. You know, the game that made a fool out of Kordell Stewart and cost Eric Crouch a whole lot of rupees? That one. Randle El didn't demand that the Steelers play to his lifelong dreams rather than his skill set, and look what happened to him: He threw a touchdown pass in the Super Bowl. Matt Jones switched to wideout, and now he's the Jaguars' No. 1 receiver rather than, say, their No. 2 quarterback. Seneca, we love you. We're married to a lady with not one but two degrees from Iowa State. We're proud of you. Go catch the damn ball. The final Seattle quarterback is rookie David Greene. With Hasselbeck's bald head up there in the front of the bus, I have no idea why Seattle burned a third-rounder on this dude, swell as he may be.

St. Louis Rams
After wrestling Kurt Warner for the better (or worse) part of two years for the right to be the Rams' starting quarterback, Marc Bulger finally claimed the position for good at the beginning of the 2004 season, at the precise moment when being the Rams' starting quarterback quit being something to aspire to. Though the Rams went to the playoffs that year, it was only because someone had to. Last year, the team returned to its mid-'90s roots at 6-10, and Bulger proved he truly was Warner's heir by missing eight games because of injury. The Rams' 2005 season may have died the night they blew a 17-point lead in Indianapolis, but the last rites were administered sometime in July. Bulger is healthy again, which is fantastic, because the backup is Gus Frerotte. You knew he was going to turn up somewhere. After that, it's just Ryan Fitzpatrick. Who? Think Brooks Bollinger, except wearing an Ivy League necktie.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
All right, all right. I was wrong, but so was everybody else. Chris Simms is a legitimate NFL starting quarterback, not just a pretty-boy choke artist. My bad. What with Simms firing that cannon arm of his this-a-way and that, the Manning brothers running wind sprints down Madison Avenue, and Brian Griese threatening to bring down another franchise in Chicago, it's a surprise no one's camped out on Neil Lomax's doorstep asking if his boy can come out and play. Tampa Bay's coach remains Jon Gruden, so you'd expect to find at least one creaky old fart backing up the youthful Simms, but you'd be wrong. (We're full of surprises today.) The second-stringer is Tim Rattay, who got dicked by San Francisco for Alex Smith's sake (talk about bum luck), and the third-stringer is another one of those MAC quarterbacks, Bruce Gradkowski, who looked like a stone-cold superstar in the preseason ... playing against guys who got cut the day after the last game.

Washington Redskins
After injuries made him look like a dainty, over-the-hill fool in 2004, Mark Brunell had something to prove in 2005: that at age 35 he wasn't too old to play quarterback in the NFL. He led Washington to the playoffs, so ... Mission Accomplished! Now Brunell is about to turn 36, which we all agree is too old for him to play quarterback in the NFL. I assume Joe Gibbs will give Brunell more time to fail this year than Patrick Ramsey got last year (all of 19 minutes). At some point, though, the hook will come out, and Jason Campbell, last year's first-round draft pick, will make his debut. What about Todd Collins, ostensibly the No. 2 QB on the Redskins' depth chart? Well, what about him? If I was still picking up game checks after having thrown 27 passes in eight years, I wouldn't draw attention to myself, either.

The weekly picks are back

Everybody into the office pool! Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water -- just when you thought it was safe to strip naked and hit the Wendy's drive-thru -- along comes the news that Down and Distance will once again be trying to pick the NFL winners. Longtime readers will remember that last year we finished tied for sixth out of the 30 or so writers and websites participating in The Writers' Picks at TheMirl.com. (Our quite-respectable 172-84 record was just above the magical two-thirds threshold that separates the men from the boyz.)

The picks have switched hosts this year, and now appear on Breakaway Beach (last year's co-winner). The Week 1 picks are live at the site ... and guess who's already 1-for-1 this year, even with Charlie Batch starting for the Steelers? Let's hear you say "Championship!"

Check out the full slate of picks at http://picks.beachthe.net/

Breaking down the AFC quarterbacks

With the possible exception of Kimo von Oelhoffen, no one does a more thorough job of handicapping AFC quarterbacks than Down and Distance. Now that the teams have made their final cuts and the season is upon us, let's take a spin through the conference and see who's going to be thorwing balls on the field and who's going to be fingering balls on the sidelines. Watch for the NFC edition before this Sunday's games.

Baltimore Ravens
We all know Ravens coach Brian Billick is some sort of quarterback guru, having turned Stoney Case and Chris Redman into perennial Pro Bowlers and Anthony Wright into a freakin' Hall of Famer. But the guru business isn't what it once was in America, and Billick's latest project, Kyle Boller, has a chronic case of two steps forward, two steps back. So Billick is taking a page from other successful gurus in U.S. business managemet and has assigned quarterback development to an outside contractor. Just as IBM discovered it was more cost-effective to farm out laptop production to China, the Ravens have outsourced offensive production to the Tennessee Titans. There's a reason Boller has that dark cloud hanging over his pretty little head: the recent arrival of Steve McNair, who just waltzed into Baltimore and took the starting job that Boller had been butterfingering for the past three years. Not that McNair doesn't deserve a break after spending half the offseason banging on the doors of the Titans' workout facility and shouting at the guard to come unlock the door. (Turns out the Titans had their fingers crossed when they proffered McNair's last contract. Sooprize!) Among the many advantages to giving McNair the job over Boller is that McNair has spent 11 years in the NFL outside the blast radius of Billick's fierce intellect, so no matter how deep the Brain gets his claws into him, there's only so much damage he can do at this stage. And that's why coaches coach, players play and fans get the shaft. At third QB, the Ravens couldn't decide between Brian St. Pierre and Drew Olson, so they cut them both. That's what I like to see.

Buffalo Bills
An embarrassment of riches. While teams like Dallas tiptoe into the season without a proven backup QB, the Bills have three of them. J.P. Losman, Kelly Holcomb and Craig Nall will compete for the No. 2 slot. The runner-up will be the third-stringer, and whoever is left over will be the starter. Losman, the poor man's Patrick Ramsey, lives on a seesaw, at best. Holcomb, the poor man's Brian Griese, is always a fan favorite until he's sent into the game. And Craig Nall, the rich man's Kliff Kingsbury, received a surprising amount of money to come to Buffalo and make things even more difficult. This is as good a place as any to mention that Bills GM Marv Levy is 81 years old.

Cincinnati Bengals
The long-suffering football fans of Cincinnati will be watching through their fingers all season long as Carson Palmer plays on his surgically repaired knee, because there's nothing behind him on the depth chart. Dangling from the end of the second string is Anthony Wright, who was cut in favor of Chad Hutchinson in Dallas and was less effective than Kyle Boller in Baltimore. The Bengals also have Doug Johnson, because ... there's apparently some law that says you have to have three quarterbacks. You may remember Johnson from such roles as Atlanta's disastrous Plan C the year Michael Vick broke his leg. Nevertheless, he's an improvement over Cincinnati's previous No. 3 QB: Craig Krenzel. Or is he? At least Krenzel "won some games" while he was stumbling around out there for the Bears.

Cleveland Browns
It's a sign that the latest incarnation of the Browns might finally be headed in the right direction that they've quit playing hide-the-salami with quarterbacks they got cheap from the day-old bread bin. Trent Dilfer was a great guy but a bad fit, Jeff Garcia had no business whatsoever wearing an orange helmet (as if anybody does), and there's nothing you can say about Kelly Holcomb that I haven't already said above. Charlie Frye may be young, but these guys aren't going anywhere for another year or so anyway, and besides, the locals absolutely love him. So Romeo Crennel should be applauded for tossing him out there and letting him figure out which way is up. If he actually has Kellen Winslow to throw to for any length of time, all the better, but no one's really counting on that. Maybe Winslow can play center! Behind Frye are Ken Dorsey, who's developed into a perfectly serviceable and reliably non-threatening backup, and Derek Anderson, who I couldn't tell you anything about, even if you were to listen.

Denver Broncos
It's too early to know which of these guys to feel sorry for. On the one hand, you've got Jake Plummer. After six years in the castrating wilderness of Arizona and two wobbly years in Denver, Plummer finally put it together last season to lead the Broncos to their best record since the Elway era, their first playoff victory since the Elway era -- over the defending champions, no less -- and an appearance in the AFC Championship Game. His reward? On draft day, his team picked a quarterback in the first round. And it wasn't just a case of "Hey, wow, we couldn't believe this guy was still available." No, the Broncos traded up to get him. Thanks for all your help, Grizzly Adams! On the other hand, you've got Jay Cutler, the aforementioned first-round draft choice. Feel-good story, great player stuck on a lousy college team, shows a lot of character, blah blah blah. Pop quiz: What do Matt Mauck, Bradlee Van Pelt, Jarious Jackson, Brian Griese, Jeff Lewis, Tommy Maddox, Shawn Moore, Todd Ellis and Buddy Funck have in common? All were quarterbacks drafted by the Broncos after 1983, the year John Elway came to Denver (via Baltimore and diaper school). Griese was the only one to become the starter, and oh boy did it mess his ass up. The rest not only couldn't displace the starter, they couldn't displace Gary Kubiak as the backup. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be "heir apparent" in Denver. In the final analysis, the guy to feel bad for is Bradlee Van Pelt. Sorr-ee, Brad-lee.

Houston Texans
For someone who just got an $8 million bonus and a three-year commitment from his team even though a) they had every right to cut him loose, and b) it would have cost them next to nothing to do so, it sure sucks to be David Carr. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2002 draft, Carr has spent the bulk of his career being piledriven into the carpet while his linemen shuffle their feet and avoid eye contact. He's had a lot to worry about, but at least he never had to bear the burden of comparison with the other QBs in his draft class. When you're up against Joey Harrington, Patrick Ramsey, Josh McCown and a litter of Rohan Daveys, Kurt Kittners and Seth Burfords, any glint of adequacity will shine like Ultrabrite. This year, the Texans again had the first pick in the draft (which tells you something about how far they've come since 2002). They decided against selecting a quarterback and instead picked up Carr's option through 2008, thus ensuring that he'll heretofore be held liable for not being Matt Leinart, Houston native Vince Young, Jay Cutler or maybe even Tarvaris Jackson. To add insult to the devastating injury that's looming in Carr's future, Houston also passed on Reggie Bush, only to have Domanick Davis' knee go bum. Check this exact space next September as we drool all over Texans rookie quarterback Brady Quinn. With Dave Ragone finally (ra-)gone, backing up Carr this year will be the Favorite Quarterback of Mrs. Down and Distance, Iowa State alumnus Sage Rosenfels. There is as yet no third quarterback, which could have Carr either jumping for joy or weeping softly into his pillow, depending on which way you want to go with that.

Indianapolis Colts
The Colts have been able to carry two placekickers on the roster for the past few seasons because they've only needed two quarterbacks: perennial Pro Bowler and future Hall of Famer Peyton Manning, and perennial Week 17 starter and future Week 16 starter Jim Sorgi. The free-agent signing of Renaissance man Adam Vinatieri, who can kick both field goals and kickoffs, freed up another roster spot, and the Colts brought in Shaun King to audition for No. 3 quarterback. Indy's brain trust ultimately decided that King's on-the-job experience -- falling a game short of the Super Bowl with a Tony Dungy-coached team one year, followed by an embarrassing early exit from the playoffs the next season -- would be, uh, redundant. King was cut at the end of camp, and it's a Manning/Sorgi ticket again in '06. Hey, room for another kicker!

Jacksonville Jaguars
If we're within a month of the NFL season, it must be time for some clown or another to once again suggest that Byron Leftwich should be benched in favor of The Much More Mobile David Garrard. As evidence, he'll cite the two quarterbacks' records as starters in 2005: Leftwich was 7-3 in the Jaguars' first 10 regular season games and 0-1 in the playoffs; Garrard was 5-1 in the final six regular season games, after Leftwich broke his ankle. Here are the teams Leftwich beat: the eventual NFC champion Seahawks; the AFC North champion Bengals; the Super Bowl champion Steelers (thank you, Tommy Maddox); the Jets; the Texans; the Ravens; and the Titans. Here are the teams Leftwich lost to: the 14-2 Colts; the 13-3 Broncos; the Rams (well, OK); and the defending champion Patriots, in Foxboro, in the playoffs. Garrard, meanwhile, beat the Cardinals, Browns, 49ers, Texans and Titans and lost to the Colts. Put me in there, and I'll do pretty good against the Cards, Browns, 49ers, Texans and Titans. Well, not me, exactly, but the NFL equivalent of me, which is David Garrard. The third-stringer is Quinn Gray, making the Jaguars the first team with three African-American quarterbacks, which is pretty cool. Even cooler is that we've gotten to the point that it's not really a big deal.

Kansas City Chiefs
What's interesting about Trent Green is that even though it seems like he's been around absolutely forever, there's no evidence of it. He was drafted in 1993 but threw only one pass through 1997, then all of a sudden he was a starter and was throwing for like 4,000 yards a year. The guy's got so much gray, he looks like Daryle Lamonica, yet he began the season just 49th in career passing yards. What's also interesting is that with all the trouble the Chiefs have had over the past several years, Green has largely ecaped blame. I'm not saying he should be blamed, but he's the quarterback. Getting blamed is what you do. Green has a couple good years left in him, so he's got nothing to worry about. In the meantime, Kansas City is grooming his successor, Brodie Croyle, who is not Brady Quinn, though for the longest time I didn't know the difference. Sandwiched between the two on the depth chart is Damon Huard, the uglier of the Huard brothers. He's not being groomed for anything.

Miami Dolphins
People have finally come to realize that although Daunte Culpepper was horrid in the first two games of 2005, when he was still with Minnesota, he played much better from the third game on, right up until the Panthers crippled him in Week 8. Go back and look at the film, and it becomes clear what happened. Culpepper had lost his offensive coordinator, his top receiver, and his All-Pro center before the season began, but nobody told him. He was throwing those passes out there like always, but for some reason it was Travis Taylor or some other clown running around on the other end instead of Randy Moss. Once Culpepper figured this out, he got better. That's my theory anyway. So blame Mike Tice. Again. Culpepper wound up being traded to the Dolphins, less for his performance on the field than for his performance on Lake Minnetonka. In Miami, he gets a fresh start on a rebuilt knee. The reduced mobility could be a problem, or it could not, but whatever happens, his job is safe. I mean, that's Joey Harrington with the clipboard back there. (You may not have recognized him because he's begun sporting Paige Davis' haircut.) And Cleo Lemon sure as hell is no threat.

New England Patriots
After putting up big, big numbers when he had to last year, Tom Brady erased any doubt that he's the best quarterback in the National Football League. As such, it's awfully tempting to say he's not in any danger of losing his job -- but he plays for the New England Patriots, and Bill Belichick will cut anyone at any time. He'll cut rookies, he'll cut veterans, he'll cut stars, he'll cut scrubs, he'll cut his own throat just to teach you a lesson. Every year, a high-profile Patriot (e.g. Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law) gets made an example of. This year it's Deion Branch, MVP of Super Bowl XXXIX and long Brady's No. 1 target. I asked Brady this last year, and I'll ask him again: A couple years back, you took less money than you could have demanded so that the team would have more cap room for other guys. When do you suppose they'll start using that cap room on other guys? Oh, I kid! Branch has a contract; he, not the team, is the one refusing to honor it. I'm sure Brady is perfectly safe. ... But the Patriots have been giving Matt Cassel more playing time than he ever dreamed of in college. Watch yourself out there, Tommy. It'd be a shame if anything were to ... happen to you.

New York Jets
Ten years from now, during a Sunday Night Football game between the New York Jets and the Los Angeles Ravens (oh, wouldn't that be poetic?), the beloved, newly retired quarterback who returned the Jets to glory in the mid-'00s will weave up to sideline reporter Raven Symone and demand a little sugar. But will it be Chad Pennington, Patrick Ramsey or Kellen Clemens? Fragile chew toy Pennington is coming off his second major arm injury in as many years and continues to test Down and Distance's pet theory that he's considered a star for no other reason than that he plays in New York. Well, near New York. Enter Ramsey, who as a Redskin endured vicious beatings on the field under Steve Spurrier and off it under Joe Gibbs. The Jets acquired him from Washington for a sixth-round pick. Just four years ago, Ramsey was a first-round pick -- and perhaps the strangest first-round quarterback selection of the past decade. I've seen teams pick bad quarterbacks in the first round (Akili Smith, Jim Druckenmiller). I've seen teams pick average quarterbacks way too high in the first round (Joey Harrington, Tim Couch). I've seen teams pick fruitcakes and psychopaths in the first round (Cade McNown, Ryan Leaf). But Patrick Ramsey is the first quarterback I've ever seen who was drafted in the first round even though he didn't have first-round talent and, most important, even though no one with the team that drafted him seemed to want him. Spurrier certainly didn't. He wanted his former Florida guys, Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews, even though Wuerffel had already bombed out of the NFL and Matthews was headed in that direction. It was rumored that Dan Snyder was behind the pick, but he didn't seem terribly enthralled with Ramsey, either. When Gibbs came to town, he benched Ramsey, played a gimpy Mark Brunell as long as possible, eventually declared Ramsey the starter in 2005, and then took away the job for good when Ramsey suffered a not-season-ending injury in the second quarter of Week 1. Pennington will open the season as the starter, but Ramsey will play at some point, because these are the Jets and every quarterback gets playing time whether he deserves it or not. That leaves us with Clemens, a second-round pick out of Oregon. The Jets media were positively over the moon about this guy. One word of caution for Gang Green: Oregon.

Oakland Raiders
Aaron Brooks is Al Davis' kind of quarterback, one with a great big arm who isn't afraid to wind up and throw the ball as far as he can. If only he had any idea where it was going to come down, he might be the next Jay Schroeder. Randy Moss was so impressed with what he saw of Brooks in the preseason that he recommended the Raiders sign Jeff George, who had been out of the NFL for five years (and out of football even longer than that). George lasted all of five days in camp, so it's back to Brooks. Andrew Walter got a long look in the preseason and will probably get a longer one in the regular season once Oakland sinks far enough into the toilet. And Marques Tuiasosopo is now farther away from the starting job than at any previous point in his five meaningless years in the league.

Pittsburgh Steelers
It's clear now that Ben Roethlisberger is a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, because he's bitching about "respect" and vowing to "prove everyone wrong." It works like this: The Steelers win the Super Bowl on the strength of their running game, their defense and a nifty trick play. Roethlisberger has a generally ugly game (9-for-21, 123 yards, no TDs, two interceptions), but it doesn't really matter when all's said and done. After the game, he proceeds to moon in the locker room over how he should have "done more" to help his team. Coming back for 2006, he tells Sports Illustrated that after crapping on the carpet at Ford Field, he now has something to prove. The Cult of Ben swoons. So intense! So driven! Peeyoo. Get a grip. You sound like you're 12. In more ways than one. On the other hand, it's comforting to see Big Ben able to say anything after having turned his face into a maraca on Second Avenue near 10th Street. I'm not going to lecture him about the importance of wearing a helmet while overcompensating around town on a crotch-rocket. There are entire non-profit organizations dedicated to that sort of thing. I will berate him, however, for his cavalier attitude toward appendix health. People are counting on you, man. Think! With Roethlisberger on a clear-liquid diet, the Steelers open the season with Charlie Batch at quarterback. Last year Tommy Maddox was the QB all Pittsburgh lived in fear of, while Batch was the lesser of two evils. Now Maddox is gone, and Batch is the only other quarterback on the 53-man roster. Sometimes, there's no way you can win. Curiously, the Steelers kept two QBs on the taxi squad: Omar Jacobs (heh!) and Brian St. Pierre (haw!).

San Diego Chargers
The real problem with Philip Rivers isn't that he's inexperienced. It's that he doesn't look like a professional football player as much as the Republican candidate for Wyandotte County Commissioner. Rivers became the Chargers' starting quarterback after Drew Brees was cheerfully encouraged to take his bad shoulder and his winning attitude somewhere else. It was an ugly situation, but it wasn't Rivers' fault. It might actually have been Brees' fault. If he hadn't spent his first three years in the league defining "average" downward, the Chargers never would have felt compelled to draft Eli Manning, trade him for Rivers and doom us all to two years of awkward press conferences. Be that as it may, the Chargers are now Rivers' team, and the organization is demonstating that it's fully committed to ... whoops! It says here that San Diego used its third-round pick this year on Charlie Whitehurst of Clemson. "We've got full faith in you, Phil. Could you, ah, bring the new kid up to speed?"

Tennessee Titans
The Titans enter another(!) rebuilding year with a mismatched set of luggage at the quarterback position: a former star (Kerry Collins), a presumptive future star (Vince Young), and a former presumptive future star (Billy Volek). When the preseason began, it was a two-man race. Volek was the loyal backup who patiently waited his turn and even turned down the chance to start elsewhere so he could re-sign with the Titans. Young is the electrifying rookie who led Texas to the national championship before being drafted to play under Matt Leinart's old coach in Tennessee. By the end of preseason, however, the answer to the "Volek or Young?" turned out to be "Kerry Collins." So expect the veteran Collins, a good soldier but a fading talent, to start until the Titans are mathematically eliminated (Week 7), then turn things over to young Young. Volek, his patience and loyalty rewarded the way patience and loyalty are always rewarded in pro sports, will ride the bench for the rest of his life. Unless Pacman Jones shoots Collins to death. And Young. In that scenario, Volek might have a shot at beating out Jeff Blake for the job.

All you need to know:The NFC West preview

Hey, I know football. Maybe you know football, too. Good for us. But there are millions of people who don't know as much about football as they should. These people dread the arrival of fall because it means that for the next four months they'll be locked out of all NFL-related conversation, banter and give-and-take. Well, if there's one thing Down and Distance is about, it's about bringing people together. Bringing America together. So, in the spirit of brotherhood, here's All You Need To Know About The NFC West, just enough talking points to get you through the season.

How many superstars have played for the Arizona Cardinals? Off the top of my head, maybe one: Emmitt Smith, and he was so used up by the time he arrived that he was a "superstar" tailback only in the sense that Marlon Brando was still a "superstar" actor in The Island of Dr. Moreau: Yeah, he was there, and yeah, he was doing the job for which he became famous, but come on: Emmitt Smith in a Cardinals uniform? (You can imagine what Brando would have had to say about that.) No superstar in his prime has ever worn those red pants. Cuba Gooding Jr. deserved a closet full of Oscars, Golden Globes and whatever else you've got for coming across even marginally believable as a superstar playing for the Arizona Cardinals.

Now, all of a sudden, the Cardinals could have not one but two superstars on their roster. One is running back Edgerrin James, who grew so weary of falling just short of the Super Bowl year after year in Indianapolis that he signed as a free agent with the one team we can all agree will never do him like that. The other is quarterback Matt Leinart, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2005 NFL draft, who for various reasons, none of them good in retrospect, fell to the Cardinals with the No. 10 overall pick in the 2006 NFL draft.

James did everything and more for the Colts. He ran over, around and through defenses. He caught a good 50 passes a year. He picked up the blitz. The Cardinals gave him $20 million in guaranteed money on the expectation that he'd do it all in Arizona. Then they put him behind the weakest line since Maginot 1940. Where the Colts' offensive line was stocked with Pro Bowlers, the Cardinals' offensive line is stocked with ... well, Cardinals.

At least James won't be alone back there. Leinart, who won more games in three years at USC (37-2) than the Cardinals have won in the past seven (36-76), held out of training camp as long as he could before swallowing hard, kissing Paris Hilton and Nick Lachey goodbye, and signing his contract. Questions have been raised about whether all the time Leinart missed will keep him from "learning the system." Yet after only two practices, he appeared in a preseason game against the Patriots and showed he'd already mastered the Cardinals offense. It's a simple progression:

1. Receive snap from center.
2. Drop back.
3. Watch pocket collapse.
4. Run.

Rushing totals for the game: James, 2 rushes for 5 yards. Leinart, 2 rushes for 29 yards. If Leinart aspires to be as much of a legend in the NFL as he was at the Viper Room, tailback might just be the position for him. The Hall of Fame isn't exactly packed with Cardinal QBs, be they of the Arizona, Phoenix, St. Louis or Chicago variety. Look at the quarterbacks who have squatted under center for the Cardinals since the franchise crash-landed in the Sonoran Desert in 1988, and you'll find men whose best days were already far behind them (Kurt Warner, Boomer Esiason, Dave Krieg), still far ahead of them (Jake Plummer, Chris Chandler), and both ahead of them and behind them (Steve Beuerlein) -- plus one whose best days wouldn't roll around for 16 years, and even then it'd be on Survivor (Gary Hogeboom). Oh, and Timm Rosenbach.

Like so many broken men before him, Leinart will learn that playing quarterback behind the Cardinals' line isn't much different from being trapped in a rockslide. If you're quick on your feet, you can dodge the worst of it for a while, but there's nothing actually protecting you, and it's only a matter of time before a rock levels you. A rock named Lofa Tatupu, probably.

For the time being, Leinart will watch from the sidelines as Kurt Warner starts at quarterback. But given Warner's style -- immobile as the Statue of Liberty, then toppling like the statue of Saddam -- and the way Denny Green goes through quarterbacks like the rest of us go through oxygen, he'll be on the first team by the end of September. And on injured reserve by the end of October.

When Leinart decided in 2005 to return to "school" for his senior season, it was a big Southern California middle finger to the San Francisco 49ers, who were coming off a 2-14 season, held the first pick in the '05 draft and needed a quarterback desperately. They were so desperate that they used that pick on Alex Smith of Utah. Smith was a quarterback, just like Leinart! He was coming off a 13-0 season and a BCS bowl victory, just like Leinart! There really wasn't much difference between the two, except that one was ready to play in the NFL and the other wasn't. The Niners got the one who wasn't.

Smith had a rookie year for the ages, alternating between getting sidelined, getting burned, and getting sideburns. So gruesome was Smith's year (84-of-165 for 875 yards, one-count-'em-one touchdown and 11 interceptions) that the only thing distinguishing him from Ryan Leaf was that Leaf had a better TD-to-INT ratio his rookie year. Well, maybe not the only thing. There were also Leaf's personality disorder. Or disorders. Smith seems sane. Now.

On the heels of Smith's humiliating season, the 49ers brought in Norv Turner as offensive coordinator. Turner had the good fortune to have been calling in the plays to Troy Aikman while the Dallas Cowboys built their dynasty of the early 1990s, and as a result gained a reputation as an offensive genius and mentor of quarterbacks. This reputation clings to Turner in defiance of all reason, as he developed no great (or even good) quarterbacks in seven subsequent seasons with the Redskins, one with the Chargers, two with the Dolphins and two with the Raiders. Now he's brought his magnetic personality to San Francisco, where he's sure to light a fire under Smith.

And for one magical half in the first preseason game against the Bears, it looked like Smith had indeed turned the corner. He was 16-of-21 for 137 yards and led two scoring drives against last year's top defense. He looked comfortable under center and in the pocket. He rolled out smoothly and threw tight spirals while on the run. Then he crapped all over himself against Oakland a week later, and all was right with the world. Somewhere Heath Shuler is saying, "It wasn't just me!"

So Smith will at best be taking baby steps this year and at worst might actually die on the field. Doesn't matter. The Niners are in the middle of a rebuilding project of epic scale. Put John Brodie, Joe Montana or Steve Young at quarterback for these 49ers and see how they would do with Antonio Bryant and the Bethel Mission All-Stars playing wideout. Fans should pray for Arnaz Battle to make a speedy recovery.

It'd be easy to lump the 49ers in with the Cardinals -- either as two bad teams or as two teams on the rise. You could make an argument either way, and I'd love to see you try. But these teams are different on an elemental level. It's a history thing. The San Francisco 49ers, as a franchise, are winners. The Arizona Cardinals, as a franchise, are losers. As bad as they've been in the 21st century, the Niners can put five Lombardi Trophies on the cover of their media guide, and do so with a straight face. What do the Cardinals have? Nothing, save the 1947 NFL championship, which came 13 years before the team left Chicago. Which is why the cover of the 2006 Arizona media guide depicts the team's new stadium. Yes, the Cardinals, winners of nothing significant since George W. Bush, president of the United States, was 1 year old, have a new stadium paid for with more than $300 million in taxpayer money. The San Francisco 49ers, winners of five Super Bowls since 1981, remain trapped in Monster Park, a stadium, like the team, stripped of all dignity. I'm not saying publicly funding a football stadium is the right thing to do. But the Cardinals getting a new stadium when the 49ers were denied for decades? That definitely ain't right.

Lest we forget, the Cardinals moved to the Phoenix area after the city of St. Louis refused to give the team a new stadium. In the time it took Arizona to build the stadium it had promised the Cards back in the Reagan years, St. Louis put up its own brand new stadium, lured another team to the banks of the Mississippi and watched in ecstasy as the St. Louis Rams promptly won one Super Bowl and nearly won another. Fittingly, the Rams had two-time league MVP Kurt Warner in those days to throw the ball to Isaac Bruce and Co. and hand off to Marshall Faulk. Fittingly, the Cardinals have former two-time league MVP Kurt Warner these days to throw the ball to Anquan Boldin and Co. and hand off to Edgerrin James. The Rams got Cinderella. The Cards got the pumpkin.

Now, however, midnight has come and gone for the Rams as well. Four years removed from the Super Bowl, the Greatest Show on Turf has had all the air let out of its tent, and St. Louis is just another bad, bad team. The franchise fell apart completely over the course of the 2005 season, as the Rams were reduced to their third-string quarterback, their second-string running back, their fifth-string cornerback and their second-string coach. That running back turned out to be pretty good. That quarterback was pretty good against the worst team in the league and awful against everyone else. That defensive back wasn't even really a defensive back. And that backup coach, Joe Vitt, didn't have a chance. Despite doing his best to keep the team moving forward after Mike Martz got sick and had to give up the headset, Vitt was on the Terry Robiskie plan, and we all knew it. So did he.

Martz, meanwhile, could have been described as the franchise's scapegoat, except that he really was responsible for what ailed the team: inattention to defense, inept special teams, bizarre coaching decisions. So he had to go. Bouncing back quickly, Martz coasted to Detroit with a reputation as an offensive genius, based on the performance of Warner, Bruce, Faulk, etc. during the glory years. Sound familiar?

OFFENSIVE GENIUSES: A COMPARISON

	Norv Turner	Mike Martz
Team he helped guide to the Super Bowl	Dallas Cowboys (1992, 1993)	St. Louis Rams (1999, 2001)
Quarterback(s) who, in retrospect, may have made him look smarter than he really was	Troy Aikman	Kurt Warner, Marc Bulger
Quarterback(s) who may have actually been the rule rather than the exception	Heath Shuler	Jamie Martin, late-stage Chris Chandler, Ryan Fitzpatrick
Coach who got plenty of credit but perhaps not enough	Jimmy Johnson	Dick Vermeil
Current job	Offensive coordinator, 49ers	Offensive coordinator, Lions
Quarterback(s) whose future success, if any, might get attributed to the genius/mentor	Alex Smith	Josh McCown, Dan Orlovsky
Quarterback who won't get enough credit	Trent Dilfer	Jon Kitna

The Rams hired a new coach in Scott Linehan, one of a series of relatively anonymous, seemingly interchangeable Caucasian coordinators who were elevated to head coach this past offseason. Others: Brad Childress of the Vikings; Rod Marinelli of the Lions(!); and Sean Payton of the Saints. Linehan was offensive coordinator of the Vikings from 2002 to 2004, which means someone undoubtedly views him as "responsible" for Daunte Culpepper's emergence as a superstar. Another genius for our chart, perhaps. Yet when the Vikings job came open, Minnesota certainly wasn't in any hurry to hire him, if that tells you anything.

To take care of the Rams' defense, which has been wandering in the wilderness since Lovie Smith moved to Chicago, Linehan brought in Jim Haslett, whose six-year tenure as the head coach in New Orleans set all new standards for mediocrity (and that's not including last year's disastrous 3-13 finish, which comes with an asterisk the size of Hurricane Katrina). If Haslett is your definition of an answer, you need a new dictionary.

With Arizona and San Francisco creeping forward ever so slowly and St. Louis madly spinning its wheels, the NFC West belongs to the Seattle Seahawks, who will become the first team since the 2000 Titans to make the playoffs the year after losing the Super Bowl. And just by writing those words, I've guaranteed that Matt Hasselbeck gets a torn ACL, Shaun Alexander gets turf toe, Lofa Tatupu gets post-concussion syndrome and Mike Holmgren gets worms. They'll never trace it back to me, at least. Not with Peter King shooting off his big fat mouth.

One of the bigger stories in the first few weeks of the offseason was the officiating in Super Bowl XL. Seattle fans complained about several dubious calls, all of which went against the Seahawks, while fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers -- who just weeks earlier screamed in unison that they were victims of an NFL conspiracy when a bum call went against them -- demanded that they just get over it and enjoy the sight of Jerome Bettis winning the Super Bowl in his hometown, just like all the promos said he would.

For the record, the Steelers would have won anyway.

The Super Bowl left a sour enough taste in Washington state's collective mouth (eeuw) that it's not hard to envision the Seahawks rolling through the 2006 season like the original Juggernaut, fueled by a volatile brew of bile, piss and vinegar. Add in the annual declaration by sundry football commentators that the Carolina Panthers are the year's It team in the NFC, and this season is looking real good for Seattle.

The Seahawks return the bulk of their Super Bowl team, with few big changes. Clutch wideout Joe Jurevicius went home to Cleveland, and the team lost offensive guard Steve Hutchinson to Minnesota after one of the greatest strategic blunders since the Yom Kippur War. But for the most part the pieces are all there, and the only question is whether Holmgren can put them back together correctly without gluing his fingers to his forehead.

Also returning for 2006 is Seattle's "12th Man." The Seahawks retired No. 12 in 1984 in honor of the noisy fans who made first the Kingdome and now Qwest Field so hostile to opposing teams. It wasn't long -- 22 short years -- before Texas A&M University took notice. A&M claims to have invented the term "12th Man" in like the 1920s and copyrighted it in the 1990s (which historians can tell you came after 1984). The university saw the Seahawks and their fans waving No. 12 flags and sporting No. 12 gear during the march to the Super Bowl, and the school demanded that the team quit using the number. When rebuffed, A&M warned that it would have to resolve the dispute Texas-style -- in court. Eventually the two sides came to an agreement. Seattle has permission to use the number so long as it recognizes that No. 12 is the exclusive property of the rootin'est, tootin'est, lawsuit'inest school this side of the Pecos. Seattle finished 13-3 last year. Talk about narrowly averting disaster.

The only question that remains is whether this is the year Seattle wins more games than the rest of the division combined. They came so close last year. Had the 49ers and Rams not won meaningless Week 17 games, and had the Seahawks not taken a dive in their own meaningless Week 17 game, they could have made history. If playing to get back to the Super Bowl isn't motivation enough for these guys. They should at least play for that.

ALL YOU NEED TO SAY

Arizona: "They're putting together a hell of a fantasy team, but until they get the offensive line taken care of, they'll always be two years away."

San Francisco: "Smith has got to play sometime, it might as well be now. Maybe by the time the rest of these guys learn how to play at this level, he will, too."

St. Louis: "They have to realize that the time for tweaking the roster has passed. The window has shut. They've got to blow it up and start over."

Seattle: "It's just a question of whether they can keep their motivation going after they clinch the division in the 11th week of the season."

The preseason's fiercest rivalry

You can learn a lot by watching the hot, team-on-team action on the NFL Network as it reruns exhibition games all day long. One thing I've learned is that the NFL's fiercest blood rivalry going into the 2006 season is between ... Progressive and Geico. The commercial breaks have been a total slugfest as the two titans battle for supremacy in the dial-up car insurance market. First Burt Bacharach sings about the Geico gecko. Then Kenny Mayne, who used to be wry and funny on ESPN but is now just arch and unpleasant for 30 seconds at a time, sneers into the camera on behalf of Progressive. Then the gecko is on Larry King. Then Kenny Mayne is sneering at us while holding a box. Then Little Richard is screaming about something related to Geico. Then this guy with eyebrows that are something else delivers one of the most ridiculous lines in commercial history. After describing how helpful Progressive is when you're shopping for insurance -- they'll even tell you if you can get a better deal from another company! -- he says something along the lines of, "If they're this helpful before you buy insurance, imagine how helpful they are when you're a customer."

The line is so preposterous it makes me laugh out loud. There are very few universal truths, but one of them is this: How a company treats you in an attempt to get your business has no bearing on how it will treat you once it has your business. For example, three years ago, my wife bought a Ford. Everyone was so very friendly and solicitous while she still had the checkbook in her hand. But when the car started falling apart, which it did almost as soon as she got it off the lot, everyone at Ford made it clear it was now our problem, not theirs. (The Ford family owns the Detroit Lions, which makes so much sense it isn't even funny. Matt Millen is the Ford Focus of NFL general managers.)

When Progressive boasts that it goes out of its way to get you as a customer, I'm sure they're telling the truth. I wouldn't expect anything else. Hell, they may even treat you just great once you sign up. But don't think I'm so damn dumb that I see the connection between the two as anything other than a coincidence. Or an accident.

Next time, we're going to talk about that ridiculous "ab-reducing" lawn chair that Peter Brady keeps hawking incessantly. I never, never thought I would actually look forward to beer commercials.

Failure of imagination:The Vikings' new uniforms

As the elder statesman of professional football writers, I owe it to the people not to make snap judgments. I prefer to deliberate something to death (and beyond) before opening up my key-lime piehole, which is why I have yet to comment on the botched surgery that is the Minnesota Vikings' new uniforms. For my third(!) wedding anniversary, my much-better half snagged me two tickets to the Redskins' season opener against the Vikings on Monday night, Sept. 11 (uh-oh!). I was going to wait until I saw the new uniforms on the flesh before I shot off my mouth. But then, last night, the uniforms went global as ESPN debuted the next generation of Monday Night Football. I can only be thankful that the announcing team, though shaky, wasn't as awful as many had feared because my hands weren't available to cover my ears. I had them over my eyes. Those fucking uniforms. They ... hurt me ... here.

Down and Distance readers know that the most popular post to appear in this space -- by far -- was March's sucker-punch insinuation that I somehow had obtained pictures of the designs before they were released to the public. Oh, if only the Vikes had dressed their players like Tinky-Winky. It would have been considerably manlier than the fruit suits they wound up with.

(Click the photo or here for a Star-Tribune photo gallery.)

There's so much that's wrong with the new uniforms that it's impossible to single out one defining feature. In fact, that is the biggest problem. When you think about a sports uniform, good or bad, something should immediately jump to mind, be it the New York Yankees' classic pinstripes, the Vancouver Canucks' abominable V-necks or the Pittsburgh Pirates' dandy pillbox. In the NFL, the prototype for the latest trend in uniform design is, of course, the Denver Broncos' armpit-to-knee swoosh, a big, clever slice of Nike on an outfit manufactured by ... Reebok. (Bok got pwn3d!)

There's nothing iconic, however, about the Vikings' new uniforms:

• There's a side swoop of sorts, but one without any soul: half-hearted, two-toned, and it peters out somewhere about mid-thigh. It's supposed to evoke a Viking horn, but it's pointing downward, which makes no sense.
• Gold piping winds its way around the numbers, over and under the shoulders and down the leg. Not only is it reminiscent of fashions of the 1980s, it's reminiscent of fashions in cheerleader uniforms of the 1980s.
• The uniform's various stripes, colors and whatnot converge toward the nameplate in the upper back in a way that brings to mind the Macedonian flag.
• The Norseman, that mustachioed sumbitch who represents all things blond, badass and redolent of pickled herring, has been removed from the upper arm, where he had ridden in tattoo-like honor since the '90s, to the terra incognita of the hips and upper back, where nothing good ever happens.
• On top of these, er, updates, the players' names are now spelled out in an utterly incongruous serif font similar to that used by the Dallas Cowboys in their classic-look uniforms.
• Oh, and after all that work, the purple in the uniforms still looks blue under the Metrodome lights when seen on TV.

Funny enough, the only improvement came with the closest thing the uniform had to an icon: the horn on the helmet. Small tweaks give it more definition and make it "pop" better. Me likee. If they'd only stopped there.

The Vikings' new uniforms are the ultimate mishmosh of changes made for their own sake, "innovations" borrowed piecemeal from other teams, and various bits of this and that added for no functional or aesthetic reason. I'm not a wild-eyed traditionalist who believes football should look just as it did in the 1970s. I think the Broncos' modern uniforms are better than the rec-room monstrosities that preceded them. The colors of the 21st-century Patriot dynasty are far superior to the Suzy Chapstick scarlet of their first Super Bowl appearance or the universal atrocity of their second. Nor am I just in love with the look of the teams of my Minnesota youth. I stood and cheered with the rest of the state when the Twins moved from powder blue doubleknits to traditional pinstripes. And that was even before they won the World Series.

No, my objection to the Vikings' new uniforms is based on simple appearance. These uniforms try to make a statement, but they have nothing to say. They strive for modernity by adding features that have already been done to death by other teams. They aim to be imaginative but are instead derivative. They are at once ugly and boring, distracting and forgettable, obnoxiously modern and sorely dated.

In that way, they certainly are unique.