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PAGE B4 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5,1995 • *- PLATT$BURCaH,hl.Y. PRESS-REPI^Bl Picking the pros: If nothing STEVE OUELLETTE Staff Writer People often ask me what the secret is to handicapping football games: This week, for example, when I was impressively right on the nose about three games out of just 13, several readers were in- spired to write, \What makes you such an expert, you stupid moron,\ said John Smith of Plattsburgh. \My mother knows more about football, and she's dead.\ \Dear pompous fathead,\ said John Smith of Keeseville. \You're obviously more qualified to pick your nose than to pick the pros.\ \Jerk. I bet on your picks and lost all my money, my house, my car, my wife and my dog;\ said John Smith of Ticonderoga. \I miss that dog. I WILL kill you, slowly and painfully with some kind of garden tool. Soon. \P.S. If you pick against the Giants one more time, I'll kill you again.\ Thanks for all your support and curiosity. As you can probably guess, picking football games is a very complicated task and should not be attempted by an amateur. Every expert has his own method. Some have a specific set of criteria they go by; for instance, every time a home team is an underdog in a domed stadium against a team with a bird nickname, bet on them. Others are more flexible, carefully studying the personnel on each team, comparing the matchups, checking the wind velocity, scouring the injury report and making adjustments for late-breaking arrests. Some call a 1-900 Sure Winner hotline, but then, some have had their phone privileges taken away by their short-sighted newspaper superiors. My own patented method involves wearing women's clothes, working myself into a Buddhist trance and having a trained squirrel pick teams out of a hat. Then, I pick against the Giants, lock all the doors and tell my wife to watch out for a madman with a Garden Weasel. Seattle 22, NY Giants 17 Every great quarterback has been benched once or twice in his career. Of course, so have Rick Mirer and Dave Brown, New England 28, NY Jets 16 It's not that the Patriots are better, it's just that the Jets are more innovative in the ways they find to lose. This week, for instance, the Jet linemen are mistakenly set on fire during a spirited Rich Kotite pep talk. Indianapolis 24, Buffalo 17 Bills are desperate for wide receivers. Bob Chandler comes out of retirement, Andre Reed is fitted for a motorized wheelchair and Marv Levy is heard weeping somewhere in the distance \Don Beebe, Don Beebe,..\ . ' GraenBay27,Mlnnaiota23 If Brett Favre is going tocaUhimself fFarve\ then he darn well better spell it that ^ay. Officials give him a five-yard \pompous pronunciation\ penalty every play. The NHL will do the same to Patrick Roy. Detroit 31, Atlanta 27 Jeff George screams at coaches and teammates on the sidelines. His parents are called in to deliver the proper spanking that he should have received oh so long ago. Cleveland 20, Houston 16 Eric Zeier is Cleveland's new cult hero. Just a few loud threats to Jane Pauley, a^couple of pup- pies mowed down in the road, and one corketffobt- ball away from being as big as Albert Belle. Kansas City 23, Washington 18 Teams from everywhere are planning to move to Baltimore, which the Redskins consider their ter- ritory. The Redskins, however, have the Presi- dent's ear, and the President has his finger on the button. St. Louis 21, New Orleans. 14 . Saints now feel like they can beat anyone. Un- fortunately, Mike Tyson came up with a really nas- ty hangnail on his little finger and postponed their chance to prove it. Pittsburgh 19, Chicago 17 Rashaan Salaam's real name, of course, is not Rashaan Salaam. It's actually \Bob\ Salaam, but aU-the pthlrlcids usjed to make tfjin of him ' '• • D|i|f3;o;Ari«on«20' / f.3;o;,Ari«on«-20./ . Cardiigt||^i ate sick of Buddy Ball, They're crying ibjpiBfp^ Ball, but Buck Shpwajter won't sign on untii^lpzdna agrees to bripg Darryl Str awbef ry^Igng-as Director of Morale* Oakland 23, Cincinnati 20 Okay, I take back what I said about Vince Evans the oth^r week. He's actually\^ more mobile ver- sion ofUteri Marino and it will be a crime if his en- tire tody isn't dipped into molten bronze and plac- ed in the.^allof Fame. Sdn Francisco 38, Carolina 10 Any explanations for the 49ers loss to the' Saints? George Seifert claims their pants were too tight, cutting off all circulation to the upper body and brain.. .. Miami 27, San Diego 20 The Dolphins have decided to go with a different water-based mammal as their mascot. Either the finback whale or Pamela Anderson, they're hot sure yet. Dallas 27, Philadelphia 20 Nothing short of a freight train seems able to stop Emmitt Smith. Philadelphia's request to lay rail tracks into the Cowboys' stadium has been summarily denied. Pick of the Week: The Patriots are the best darn sub-Carolina team in football. Give the two points and take them over the Jets. Last week's record: 6-7. Season record: 70-52. Last week vs. spread: 3-10. Season vs. spread: 61-56-5. Giants, Seahawks experience same disappointment NFL stumbles through first half of strange season By DAVE GOLDBERG AP Football Writer By JIM COUR AP Sports Writer SEATTLE -Dan Reeves, the veteran coach, sym- pathizes with what Dennis Erickson, the rookie coach, is going through. Up to a point. He has his own pro- Don Raevai blems, you know. \Teams are so equal now that every week you've got an oppor- tunity to win, but you've also got an opportunity to lose if you rnakejnistakes and don't play up \ to \your potential,\ the New\ York Giants coach said. Reeves' Giants (3-5) and Erickson's Seattle Seahawks (2- 6), two teams that were thinking playoffs in September, begin the second half of their disappointing seasons Sunday in the Kingdome. The Giants, who began the season with three losses in a row, are favored by a point against the Seahawks, who have lost four games in a row. The Giants and the Seahawks both know all about potential and mistakes. Both teams will start struggl- ing 25-year-old quarterbacks, who have been in their coaches' doghouses this season. Seattle's Rick Mirer, benched for the first time in his pro career last week against Arizona, is starting because John Friesz has a separated left shoulder sus- tained in the loss to the Cardi- nals. Yanked by Reeves in the sec- ond half in favor of Tommy Mad- dox against Philadelphia two weeks ago, Dave Brown will start at quarterback in the Giants' first game in Seattle since Oct. 19, 1986. Mirer enters this week with a dismal 58.4 quarterback rating, 15th in the AFC, while Brown has a 69.3 rating, 12th in the NFC. Mirer has thrown 10 of his NFL-high 14 interceptions in Seattle's four-game losing streak. \It doesn't happen overnight, it takes time,\ said Reeves, in his 15th season as an NFL head coach and his third with the Giants. The Giants bounced back with a 24-15 victory over the Redskins in Washington last week. Brown was ll-for-22 for 139 yards and one touchdown after a loss to Philadelphia. But it's been a difficult year for a team that won its final six games last season, including a season-ending triumph over Dall&Si for a.9-7 record. Before the season- began, Reeves said the team was aiming for at least an 11-5 record. Reeves this week denied an NBC-TV report that he is unhappy liyjiyj in New York, displeased with'his-own coaching job and trie'\ Giants' front office and he planned to step down at the end of tfe season. \I took this job fop. five years and I fully intend on staying and -fulfilling, my obligation \to the New York Giants,\ Reeves said.\ Seahawks owner Ken Behring convinced Erickson, an extremely popular man in the Northwest after coaching success at Washington State and Idaho, to leave the University of Miami. Erickson coached the Hurricanes to two national championships and lost only nine games in six seasons. The Seahawks won't say it, but they'd probably be happy to finish 6-10, because it would mean a 4-4 finish. Erickson's offense committed a season-high seven turnovers- against Arizona, including two interceptions on the only two passes thrown by Mirer after Friesz was injured. The Seahawks are minus-13 in turnover ratio, the worst in the league. Their 22 turnovers have led to 73' of the opposition's 195 points. The last time an Erickson- coached team lost four games in a row was in 1987, when he was at Washington State. \It boils down to turnovers,\ Erickson said. \I hate to even mention the word, because then I'm afraid everybody will start fumbling their pads.\ In Brown and Mirer, Sunday's game matches a four-year veter- an and two-year starter from Duke (Brown) against a three- year veteran and starter from Notre Dame (Mirer). The pressure in New York is enormous, Brown said. But the pressure in Seattle is growing, too, Mirer admitted. \I'm not out to make anybody's Fantasy Football League team,\ Mirer said. Three times this season, the New York Jets had the ball with 26 or fewer seconds left in the first half and gave up a touchdown to their opponents be- fore the break. Until last week, the Pittsburgh Steelers had 10 straight posses- sions inside their opponents' 20 without getting so much as a first down. The Cardinals and Seahawks combined for 22 penalties and 11 turnovers last week, the same day Cleveland had 188 yards in penalties — and won. This year, there is no doubt that the NFL is playing Bumble Ball. It has one good team in 30 (Dallas), a second good team that's been killed by injuries (San Francisco), and 28 others that can be decent one week, average the next and awful the week after. \\ ~~~ It's a season in which parity has become parody; when the ex- pansion Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers each have more wins (three) than New England, which many thought would contend for the Super Bowl. Blame it on free agency, the salary cap and expansion. \It's the confluence of those three things,\ says Bill Polian, who built Buffalo's four Super Bowl teams and now is Carolina's general manager. \I think it's a one-year blip.\ The shovel pass is a relatively safe play in which the quarter- back fakes going deep, then flips the ball to a running back a cou- ple of yards in front of him. It's been used' for decades with few mishaps. Until three weeks ago. That's when Bubby Brister, at quarterback for the Jets, shov- eled the ball directly to Carolina linebacker Sam Mills. He ran it back 36 yards for a touchdown with 13 seconds left in the half en route to the Panthers' first win. OK, that's the Jets, a symbol of ineptitude for two decades. But the next week, Jeff George of Atlanta tried the same play from his end zone in Tampa and shoveled a touchdown to the Bucs' Warren Sapp. The league office offers a dif- ferent opinion on the quality of play. \The skills of the players are better than ever. Fans like com- petitive games and they like scoring and we're delivering both,\ says Greg Aiello, the NFL's director of communica- tions. '-Someone making a sweeping judgment about the caliber of play being down is completely subjective.\ There's something to that. In half a season, there have been 17 overtime games, just two short of the record for a full season. There have been 52 defensive touchdowns (32 in- terceptions and 20 fumble returns) in a half-season, com- pared to 64 all of last year (45 in- terceptions and 19 fumble returns). And there have been 63 mis- cellaneous touchdowns — defense plus returns and blocked kicks. Last year, there were 97 for the entire season (the record is 109 in 1992). Is that good defense or inept offense? The NFL argue% that whatever it is, itfs excitement. It also argues\that^EKire^hope now for teams that rarely had any. The long-downtrodden Falcons and Rams are 5-3, tied with the 49ers for the lead in the NFC West; the Bucs, who have lost 10 or more games for 12 straight seasons, already have won five, although they have only one touchdown pass in the last eight wepks. And Kansas City, expected to be a sub-.500 team after Joe Montana's retirement, is tied with Dallas for the league's best record at 7-1. Three of its seven wins are in overtime. There are many young stars — Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, Brett Favre, Gus Frerotte, Hugh Douglas — to go with older stars like Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice, Michael Irvin, Troy Aikmam, Bruce Smith and Reggie White. There also have been some bad decisions made by team execu- tives. In Week 3, the Falcons beat the Saints, 27-24, in overtime. Morten Andersen, the best kicker in the NFL, kicked four field goals, including the game-win- ner, against the team with which he spent his first 14 seasons. He's a Falcon because the Saints figured that Andersen's business and personal interests' in New Orleans would make him stay for a smaller salary that would allow them to make salary cap room. . Instead, Andersen left for Atlanta. New Orleans started 2-6 and is still looking for a kicker. \ The Patriots also are 2-6. One reason is Dave Meggett, whom by Elvis Grbac and Ted Popson, because Steve Bono and Wesley Walls, who used to back them up, had left for more money and starting jobs. \It's hurt development,\ says Giants general manager George Young. \With free agency, you have to throw in young players right away at positions like the offensive line, quarterback and secondary where they need time to develop. You have to see what they can do before you decide whether to invest in them for the long term, or you need them now because the veteran depth is gone.\ Even the coaching by some of the sharpest minds in the NFL has been suspect. George Seifert has the best winning percentage of anyone who ever coached more than 100 -NFL..games,, .7,6,7,. Yet in San Francisco's 18-17 loss at In- AP Photo Patriots' quarterback Drew Bledsoe has been a major disappointment this season. Bill Parcells signed away from the New York Giants, the team he used to coach. It hurt both teams. It hurt the Giants because they've missed Meggett. And it hurt the Patriots because the $2.3 million they had to pay for a part-time receiver, runner and kick returner cost them players they could have used — such as Michael Timp- son, who caught 73 passes last season, fullback Kevin Turner, safety Harlon Barnett and defen- sive lineman Tim Goad. So New England, which also had to lay aside $42 million for Drew Bledsoe's new seven-year deal, had 11 new starters from last year's 10-6 team in its loss to Carolina last week. And Bled- soe's having an awful year, in part from injury, in part because he no longer has Timpson and Turner to throw to. There's also a depth problem throughout the league. \You have to remember that expansion took 130 players away from the rest of the teams,\ Polian says. \We have a lot of players who could provide depth for others.\ It's deeper than that. Most teams, including the Cowboys, have little depth. When the 49ers lost Steve Young and Brent Jones, they were replaced p, ; — Ran Derek Loville -on a sweep inches from the goal line with 2 seconds left in the first half and failed when he could have had Young sneak or William Floyd bull for the score. — Kicked for one point after the 49ers took a 13-12 lead, in- stead of going for two. But 13-12 and 14-12 make little difference, and 15-12 gives him the lead by a field goal. \In some games, the team will bail the coach out. There have been times the coach's decision bailed the team out,\ Seifert said later. \This is one where neither took place.\ Dan Reeves has more wins than any active coach other than Don Shula. But after running back Rodney Hampton broke his right hand, Reeves insisted on letting him play with a cast, even though he had No. 1 draft choice Tyrone Wheatley available. Hampton, who hadn't fumbled in 495 attempts before the injury, fumbled four times in four games, costing the Giants at least one win and endangering two others. Reeves also pulled quarterback Dave Brown in the third quarter of a loss to Philadelphia and in- serted Tommy Maddox. Maddox went 6-for-23 with three in- terceptions, including one that killed a drive as the Giants were getting into position for a tying field goal or winning touchdown. Only once before in 15 seasons had Reeves pulled a quarterback in midgame for reasons other than injury. \\You always learn,\ he said. 49ers put best spin on disastrous events ByARTSPANDER San Francisco Examiner SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The mood at Niner Central must be awful these days. The men upstairs' can put any spin they want on the events that have transpired, the injuries to William Floyd and Steve Young for a start, but surely the worst- case scenarios terrifyHhem. Floyd, with horrific damage to his right knee, very well might be finished. Antl-who really knows the extent of the injury to Young, who missed prac- tice because his throwing shoulder was sore after Wednesday's return. No one's speculating, but when Young stood by in sweats and baseball cap and watched Elvis Grbac take the snaps, you wondered whether the shoulder will heal or require something more than just time to make it well again. There's no question how bad Floyd's knee is. After a lot of tip-toeing around the issue, providing a minuscule, euphemistic report of the operation that was performed on the knee Monday night by team orthopedist Michael Dillingham, the Niners came forward with the awful truth. \The surgery,\ conceded team president Carmen Policy, \was about four or five hours and it was pretty intense. I know the cruciates were torn. If there are four ligaments, then all were torn. Whatever could be torn was torn.\ Fortunately, there was no vascular or nerve damage, said Policy. \Monday night was the first of several anticipated procedures,\ Policy added. \How many we don't know. It was Dr. Dillingham's opinion that (Floydf has an excellent chance of returning to the NFL as a productive player. It is impossible to give you a time frame.... God willing, it looks like this motivated athlete will be return- ing as a player.\ There are four ligaments in the knee, the anterior cruciate, posterior, medial collateral and lateral collateral. Players have come back after one or two were torn. Steve Emtman tried to return after having three repaired when he was with In- dianapolis. He's now struggling along with Miami. Said Niner exec John McVay, \The biggest thing William has going for him is he's young.\ He's 23, in his second year after being drafted in the first round by San Francisco in 1994. Always a leader, he quickly became.a starter. \Bar None,\ he was nicknamed, as in he would become the best fullback in the NFL, \Bar Norte.\ But now what? Does he make it back in 1996? Is he going to be out for a year and a half? \That would be a reasonable interpretation,\ said Policy. \To suggest he would be able to come back next season would not be fair on my part, on anybody's part. He'll tell you, 'I'm Bar None,' and you want that kind of spirit. But it's going to be a process. It's going to be a tedious process.\ And what do the Niners do in the interim? \Since we're going to be without William's ser- vices for a period of time,\ said Policy, \we've got to get a replacement.\ The replacement for Young is Grbac, a guy who's just learning: < \There will be more diagnostic tests on Steve,\ said head coach George Seiferfc. \The doctors didn't want him practicing ... I'll make a decision. And then probably change my mind.\ And, probably, try not to think about the worst- case scenario.
