PFT TEN-PACK:  THE DIVISIONAL ROUND

Well, one out of four isn't bad.

Actually, it's pathetic.  A monkey with a glass eye could do better.

We got one lousy game right in the divisional round, picking the Panthers to beat the Bears.  Here's hoping that our ability to craft ten observations from the weekend that was will suck at least slightly less than our skills at selecting winners.

1.  Alexander Loses His Leverage.

The 2005 season was a dream come true for Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander.  In a contract year with a guarantee that the 'Hawks won't tie his hands via the franchise or transition tag, Alexander won the rushing title, set the single-season touchdown record, and hoisted the MVP hardware.

And as Alexander was racking up those numbers and awards, the front office watched and waited, afraid that giving Alexander a huge contract would knock the chip from his shoulder pads. 

But with true free agency only weeks away, Alexander's leverage was high and rising.  If he were to cap a career season with a run to Detroit, a Super Bowl win, and the Cadillac-ac-ac-ac-ac that goes with being named the game's MVP, he'd be in a position to get more coin from owner Paul Allen than he could with a ski mask, a gun, and a big white sack with a dollar sign on it.

But after Shaun's eggshell got popped by Redskins linebacker LaVar Arrington on Saturday, a big chunk of his leverage suddenly disappeared.

Why, you ask?  Because the Seahawks proved to themselves that they really don't need him.  Sure, they'd love to have him.  But if he wants a market-busting contract to stay in Seattle, the powers-that-be will be more inclined to say no.

Other teams who might have been piecing together an offer for Alexander might now be asking themselves whether his success was merely a byproduct of the Seahawks' overall performance this year, which features one of the best offensive lines in the league and a quarterback who quietly has joined the NFL's elite.

The bottom line is that running backs inching closer and closer to the age of 30 aren't going to get $15 million or more to sign.  Before Saturday, Alexander's stellar season might have persuaded one or more teams to make an exception to a trend that sees rookie running backs taken at the top of round one getting much more money than established star tailbacks can muster.  Today, he's in the same predicament as guys like Edgerrin James, whose past performance will do nothing to get him paid tomorrow.

2.  Tom Brady Is Human After All.

We were starting to think that he wasn't.  We were beginning to believe that he was Touchdown (Pass) Jesus. 

Unflappable.  Invincible.  Unbeatable.

That was before Saturday night, when Brady looked, for the first time ever in postseason play, like just another guy who couldn't figure out how to deal with the noise of playing on the road in January.

He also showed that, despite his skill at sliding in the pocket away from pressure, he's got the mobility of Michael Vick . . . when he was two.  And the Broncos took full advantage of it, getting bodies moving toward him faster than he could find his hot reads, forcing him into making premature throws and bad decisions.

The worst decision of all, of course, was the throw into coverage in the corner of the end zone on third and goal with the Pats down only by four.  Flushed out of the pocket by a blitz, Brady rushed the pass into a bad spot, and then could only watch as Champ Bailey took it to hizzy.  Almizzy.

Hey, we'd still rather have Brady on our team than most if not all of the other quarterbacks in the league.  And the loss might drive him to come back better than ever.  But for one night, and maybe in retrospect one night only, the Wizard of Oz looked a lot more like the confused old man behind the curtain.

3.  NFL Needs To Think Outside The Box.

In a weekend that featured an inexcusable amount of bad calls (more on that later), we've spotted a glitch that can only be fixed by hiring more zebras or by exploring ideas for weaving technology into the efforts to get things right.

We're not inclined to call the end result of the Champ Bailey interception return a bad call, although it probably was.  Careful study of the replay suggests that the ball crossed the plane of the end zone before going out of bounds (which would have given the Pats a first down on their own 20), but there wasn't enough evidence to overturn the call on the field, whichever way the call might have come down.

The bigger problem, in our view, is that the officials weren't in position to make the call, since they all were clustered at the other edge of the field at the beginning of the play.  As a result, no one was in the right spot to determine whether the ball crossed the white stripe on the side of the field before or after it crossed the white stripe across the front of the end zone.

So what can the NFL do?  One option would be to hire officials who are fast enough to get down the field so that they can make the right call on plays that involve a sudden and dramatic change in field position.  But since most of the guys possessing the speed to do that are, you know, pro athletes, it might be a little difficult to recruit them into a profession dominated by older men.

Another option would be to add another official to the crew and station him at the far end of the field behind the line of scrimmage, in the event that there is a turnover and a return.  (This would have helped in the detection of those three illegal blocks that fueled Nathan Vasher's 108-yard return of a missed field goal this year.)

The cheapest option, over the long haul, would be to develop a system for detecting whether the football enters the rectangle at either end of the field.  We're not sufficiently conversant with the techno-poopie to figure out what the instruments would be called, but we think that something could be put in the pylons, and something could be put in the ball, to detect whether the ball crossed the plane of the goal line.     

It's obvious to us that something needs to be done to ensure greater accuracy in the enforcement of rules when a long return of a missed field goal or turnover breaks out.  Even if only a couple of plays per year raise questions in this regard, they're usually pretty big plays.

4.  More Corroboration of Chad Incident.

Five days after we broke one of our most controversial stories ever, corroboration of our account continues to roll in -- even if credit for our work from the national media outlets has been relatively limited.

On Saturday night's pregame show, Boomer Esiason of CBS reiterated his belief that something went down between receiver Chad Johnson and coaches Hue Jackson and Marvin Lewis during halftime of last Sunday's wild card loss to the Steelers.  On Sunday, ESPN's Chris Mortensen reported on the incident as if it were fact.

We've also gotten favorable treatment for the story in print.  Mark Curnutte of The Cincinnati Enquirer recently wrote:  "Though Johnson called a news conference to deny anything happened, the report has gained increasing degrees of credibility with each passing day."  On Sunday, David Neal of The Miami Herald addressed the report and added that "[u]nlike most of its Internet peers and radio ramblers, profootballtalk.com has a respectable shooting percentage with rumor accuracy."

We realize that it's easy for the untrained eye to lump us in with the cacophony of smarmy blogs and sites written by folks with no real connections to the the sports they purport to cover.  But the Johnson story and its aftermath should confirm for all of the Doubting Thomi out there that we really do have a solid network of sources, and that we're not just making stuff up in the hopes of generating traffic and buzz. 

5.  Worst . . . Call . . . Ever.

We can't wait to hear what NFL director of officials Mike Pereira has to say on Total Access this week regarding the decision to overturn the fourth quarter interception by Steelers safety Troy Polamalu against the Colts, because no amount of polish can transform that turd into a Twinkie.

It was, by far, the worst call we'd ever seen in a playoff game, and we're now convinced that the NFL must make a dramatic change to a system that should be there to correct bad calls, not wipe out good ones

Remember, the standard is that calls get overturned only if there is indisputable visual evidence supporting a reversal.  So where in the hell was the indisputable proof that the Tazmanian Devil didn't gobble up that ball like it was a chicken made out of bubble gum with a stick of dynamite in it?

The proof wasn't there. 

So referee Pete Morelli will have a little 'splainin' to do to Pereira.  And we wouldn't be surprised to see him back next year, but without a white hat.

6.  Worst . . . Hair . . . Ever.

When we first saw Jimmy Johnson's new 'do on FOX this weekend, we assumed we'd just missed an old-fashioned noogie session between Johnson and Terry Bradshaw.  But then we learned that Johnson intentionally has configured his hair that way.

Yee-ikes.

Maybe Johnson is longing for his Super Bowl days, so he gave his stylist a picture of himself after he took a Gatorade bath and an Emmitt Smith scalp massage 13 years ago and said, "Make me look that all the time."

Regardless, middle aged men (and we're being charitable to Johnson with that term) aren't supposed to make fashion statements with their hair, especially in and around a testosterone-driven industry like pro football.

What's next, Jimmy?  A private screening of "Brokeback Mountain" for you and Howie? 

7.  What's Next for LaVar?

An interesting footnote to the Redskins' loss to the Seahawks is the future of linebacker LaVar Arrington.  Earlier this year, it was a foregone conclusion that the 'Skins wouldn't pick up a $6.5 million roster bonus owed to Arrington later this year, especially in the wake of a nasty grievance filed by Arrington against the team in which he claimed that the organization defrauded him out of another $6.5 million roster bonus by omitting it from the final draft of the contract, which his agents (the Postons) didn't read.

But there's reason to believe that a reconciliation is possible.  There's talk that Chargers Pro Bowl linebacker Shawne Merriman is thinking about parting ways with the Postons.  Merriman is an Arrington protege; indeed, the thinking is that Arrington influenced Merriman's decision to part ways with Gary Wichard after the 2005 draft.  So if Merriman is thinking about making a change, it's not a major leap of logic to conclude that his mentor might be, too.

And it might be the smartest move Arrington ever has made.  Not because the Postons have done a bad job on behalf (although we believe they have), but because the grievance against the Redskins created a rift with the Redskins that will make it virtually impossible for a deal to be struck in order to permit Arrington to remain a member of the team with a more realistic cap number for 2006.

8.  Peyton Shows His Naked Butt And Rectum.

We've long believed that Colts quarterback Peyton Manning is a big, bolted-neck phony.  He says and does all the right things, for the most part, when the cameras are on and folks are watching.  But it's our opinion that, in his heart, he's a spoiled brat who thinks he's better than everyone else.

Finally, he has given us something concrete on which to base these beliefs (apart from the allegations of Jamie Ann Naughright). 

Actually, he gave us two.

The first one came late in the third quarter of Sunday's loss to the Steelers.  Facing fourth and two from their own 36 and trailing 21-3, head coach Tony Dungy sent in the punt team.

And Manning sent them back.

It was one of the worst examples, in pro sports history, of disregard for the office of the head coach.  Dungy is the head coach, for crying out loud.  Manning is the quarterback.

Yeah, we know that most quarterbacks have the ability to call audibles.  But that's part of the authority that the head coach specifically has delegated to the quarterback.  No head coach ever has given the quarterback the power to decide whether to go for it on fourth down.

In this case, Manning showed that he regards himself as bigger than the coach -- and that's a big problem.

As one league insider explained to us on Sunday evening, too many players on that team genuinely love Dungy.  And Manning blatantly violated Dungy's role.  It could create serious problems in the locker room moving forward.

The second bit of evidence came after the game, when Manning tried to explain away his inability to get the passing game going by throwing his offensive linemen under the buffet table:  "I'm trying to be a good teammate here.  Let's just say we had some problems with protection."

Actually it was a slam on both the blockers and the coaching staff, since the coaches have a pretty big role in keeping the defenders out of the quarterback's face.

"This is on a new level," one league insider said.  "This guy is a selfish SOB."

Amen.

9.  More Bad Calls.

It really was a bad weekend for officiating.  The phantom pass interference call in the Pats-Broncos game.  The non-interference call in the Colts-Steelers game.  The reversal of the Polamalu pick.  The Bailey pick, run, and fumble. 

There were plenty of bad calls in the Panthers-Bears game, too.  In the first half, Bears corner Charles Tillman pulled a blatant horse collar on Panthers receiver Drew Carter, when Carter was well out of bounds.  The extra yardage likely would have resulted in a call on the next play other than a pass down the seam, which linebacker Brian Urlacher leaped and intercepted.

And on the Bears' final offensive play the clock was at double zero before the snap.  No whistle.  No flag.

But this one helped the Panthers, since the play that wasn't called dead resulted in a game-sealing interception.

Moving forward, we think the league needs to revisit the decision to appoint full crews to postseason games.  It might be a good idea to go back to the process of pasting together teams of all stars, based on how the individual officials graded out during the regular season.

10.  No Quarterback Controversy in Chicago.

On the same day that the Bears joined the Colts as the second and third franchises to lose a division-round game at home after a bye week (the only other team with more than one loss under such circumstances is the Chiefs, with three), the one thing that likely won't come out of the loss is a quarterback controversy in Chicago.

Yeah, Rex Grossman looked rattled and overmatched in his playoff debut.  But he's still a lot better than Kyle Orton.

It remains to be seen whether Grossman can stay healthy and get it done on a regular basis.  But the job clearly is Grossman's, and the future is still relatively bright for the Bears, even though they won't go nearly as far this year as they thought they would.

POSTED 5:36 p.m. EST, January 15, 2006

Oops.  Our piss-poor prognostication skills in playoff games could be influencing our analysis of information we're gathering from our sources regarding matters related to the ever-spinning coaching carousel.

Based on nuggets we picked up on Saturday, we concluded that the St. Louis Rams plan to pursue Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera as their next head coach, and that reports of an interest in Dolphins offensive coordinator Scott Linehan were aimed at squeezing Rivera's price tag down a bit.

We're now hearing that Linehan actually is a legitimate candidate for the job, due in large part to the fact that he can be gotten for a relatively small salary.

The thinking around the league is that some of the candidates out there are pricing themselves out of the market, and that teams are opting instead for guys who'll do the job for less money.

Still, we think that the doofi in the St. Lou-i front office will be driving the franchise even farther into the FieldTurf if they hire Linehan.  Really, why fire the Art Vandelay of the Greatest Show on Turf in favor of an offensive coordinator whose best year drawing up the O's was aided by the presence of a guy named Randy Moss?

The Rams need a defensive enema in order to get better.  The status quo there hasn't been working -- and hiring Linehan would be a big step backward.

Another factor helping Linehan's candidacy is the perception that he'll be a good soldier.  It's no secret that Martz and the front office had more than their fair share of friction, and if Linehan is happy to get a chance at a job he really shouldn't have he's less likely to poop on the hand that fed it to him.

It's the same dynamic that, in our opinion, helped persuade Packers G.M. Ted Thompson to hire Mike McCarthy.  Reaction around the league to that one has been decidedly negative, and we think that a similar outcry will be heard if/when the Rams introduce Linehan as their next field boss.

The injury report for the Indianapolis Colts now reads in part as follows:  "QUESTIONABLE:  CB Nick Harper (stuck like a pig in the kneecap)."

In a bizarre story that conjures memories of a 2003 incident involving Browns running back William Green, Harper was stabbed by his wife, Danniell.  She was jailed on Saturday night.

Earlier reports indicated that Harper had been injured in a car accident.  Harper has stitches in his knee and his status for Sunday's game is uncertain.

In June, Harper was arrested for battery after allegedly hitting his wife. 

Finally, and in response to various reader e-mails, the Harper incident isn't the legal problem to which we were referring in a Saturday night post.

KEEP AN EYE ON BIG BEN'S MOUTH

Every once in a while NFL teams discover a pre-snap tendency that proves to be a big benefit.  Several years back, there were reports of quarterback Jake Plummer licking his fingers before passing plays, as detected by an opposing defense.

It's not always a player or a coach who spots the habit.  We've heard that the late Mike Webster, a Hall of Famer with the Steelers, did something different with his hand on running plays and on passing plays.  A member of the chain gang, we're told, tipped the team off to the quirk.

Earlier this week we caught wind of a strong belief on the part of some fans that Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger only uses his mouthpiece on passing plays.

We've done some poking around about this, and we've actually found some corroboration.  A review of the tape of last week's game at Cincinnati (performed at our request by sports director Joe Brocato of the local CBS affiliate, WDTV) was largely inconclusive, since the pre-snap shots don't always include a close up of the quarterback.  But Brocato spotted several occasions in which Roethlisberger left his mouthpiece out -- and on each such occasion the Steelers ran the ball.

We've gotten late word that Roethlisberger has been told about his possible tell.  It'll be interesting to see, then, if he deliberately leaves it out on passing plays in order to mess with the Colts' defense, if the Colts have spotted it.

Asked this morning whether we prefer our crow deep fried or barbequed, we opted to cover it in chocolate. 

Still tasted like chicken.

Anyway, we learned a valuable lesson on Saturday.  We grossly underestimated the value of home field advantage in the postseason.  Grossly.  There is, we now realize, a fundamental difference between the crowd during a same-old regularly season game and the rabid throng of painted faces during a win-or-go-home postseason contest.

And we suppose we've realized it in the past, but the power of the home crowd in January fades in the eleven intervening months.  So for Saturday's games, we allowed ourselves to pooh-pooh the potential influence of the paying patrons in Seattle and Denver. 

Man, were we wr-wr-wr-wr. . . .  Wr-wr-wr-wrong.

Especially as to the night game, in which the noise emanating from the stands of the venue named for an entity that no longer exists made Tom Brady look like Tommy Maddox.

So we're revising our prediction of a road-team sweep of the divisional round.  Partially.

First, the early game.  Pittsburgh at Indianapolis.

It pains us to pick against the Steelers.  We like the team.  We love Jerome Bettis.  He deserves a ring more than anyone else who has never won one, including the 'Burgh's own Dan Marino.

But the Colts are the best team in the league this year.  Period.  And with the Patriots out of the way (thanks to Indy's biatches from Colorado), the path to Detroit is paved, lined, and well-lighted.

Colts win, 31-17. 

And this time we hope we're wrong.

As to the late game, Carolina at Chicago, we've gone back and forth more than Rain Man in a room with recently rearranged furniture.  As of last night, we were leaning hard toward going with the home team.

But then it happened.  We'll admit that the thought came during Mass, while yours truly otherwise should have been listening to the homily.  But since the priest was talking about hearing God's voice, we'll conclude for now that the Big Referee in the Sky was trying to save us from the embarrassment of an 0-4 weekend.

The Panthers went into the Meadowlands a week ago and shut out the Giants.  Could the Bears do that?

In a word, hell no. 

Panthers win, 12-5.

We've caught wind of a rumor that a player from one of the playoff teams recently was involved in a legal scrape that has been kept under wraps by local authorities given the pending postseason games.

We know the team involved but not the player.  We'll keep the identity of the team under wraps until we can corroborate or debunk this one.

Stay tuned.

FOX reports that Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander will not return to action on Saturday after suffering a concussion in the first half of the team's playoff game against the Redskins.

It's possible that Alexander's career in Seattle is over.  If the Redskins win the game and knock the No. 1 seed in the NFC out of the postseason tournament, Alexander will be six weeks or so away from unrestricted free agency. 

Alexander, the NFL's MVP, signed a one-year deal with the Seahawks prior to the 2005 season.  As part of the package, the team agreed not to use the franchise or transition tag to restrict his movement in 2006.

We've previously reported that the Seahawks were reluctant to sign Alexander to a long-term deal during the 2005 season, because the team feared that he would lose the edge that was propelling him to one of the best seasons for a running back in the history of the league. 

Now that he's poised to hit the market, Alexander might decide to go to the highest bidder, whoever it might be.

Teams who might make a play for Alexander include the Jets, Ravens, Colts (if Edgerrin James leaves), Titans, Packers, Cardinals, and 49ers.

Contrary to published reports that Dolphins offensive coordinator Scott Linehan is now the front runner for the head coaching job in St. Louis, we're hearing that the guy on whom the team actually is focusing is Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera. 

Chris Mortensen of ESPN says that Linehan had an "impressive interview" this week.

So if the Rams like him so much, why don't they marry him?

The fact that Linehan hasn't been hired means that, in our view, he's really not the guy.  The guy is with a team that is still playing (the Bears) and the guy is likely to be hired not long after the Bears play their final game.

We're not saying that Mort's info is wrong.  Our guess is that the team might be trying to get the word out that Linehan is a solid candidate in order to leverage a better contract with Rivera, especially since the team is on the hook for more than $3 million to former coach Mike Martz if, as it appears, Martz doesn't get an NFL gig for 2006.

It's no different than the team with the top pick in the draft negotiating with multiple players, just as the 49ers did last year. 

Assume that we're right (we know it's hard to do), and that the Rams prefer Rivera.  But if they can get Linehan for $1.5 million a year and Rivera digs in at $2.5 million, it might be enough to make a difference.

Of course, Rivera first must believe that the Rams are serious about Linehan in order for the ploy to work.  Thus, the Rams put out misinformation regarding their interest in Linehan, and suddenly Rivera might not be inclined to drive such a hard bargain.

Besides, why would the team with a Greatest Show on Turf hangover hire a guy with less of a resume than Martz had at the time he was hired?  Sure, Linehan did fairly well in three seasons as Vikings' offensive coordinator.  But the fact that Linehan didn't even merit an interview in Minnesota sends a subtle (to say the least) message about whether the team that knows him better than any other NFL franchise regards him as Penske material.

And don't forget that there were rumors that Linehan was on the outs this year with his current boss, Fins coach Nick Saban.  Although the offensive attack got turned around late in the season, we've heard that it happened only because Saban got more involved.

Of course, we might be wrong on this.  Maybe Linehan is the guy. 

And maybe they haven't hired him yet because they want to give him the least amount of time possible to assemble a staff.

Acting swiftly to prevent G.M. Marv Levy from attempting to inject himself into the mix for the head coaching vacancy in Buffalo after interviewing a collection of "interesting names" (i.e., unqualified slapdicks), Bills owner Ralph Wilson said Saturday that Levy will not be the head coach of the team.

"Marv and I entered into an agreement initially that made him the General Manager of the Bills," Wilson said.  "He was hired to be GM and would never coach the team.  We are excited to have Marv as our General Manager as we move forward in hiring a new head coach."

Levy, this time around, agreed with his boss.  "In order to clear up any misunderstanding from my comments at Friday's press conference regarding the position of head coach for the Buffalo Bills, I want to say unequivocally that I am here to serve as the General Manager/Football Operations.  At the press conference announcing the resignation of Mike Mularkey we were prepared to talk about that issue only and therefore I was not prepared to talk about any coaching candidates at that time.  I regret that I was not more specific in stating that I will not be serving in a coaching capacity.  I am excited about my new responsibilities as General Manager and, as planned, will devote my full energies to that role."

Despite what they're saying now, we heard from multiple league sources on Saturday that Levy's plan was to go through the motions of the interviews and then lobby Wilson on the notion that Levy is the best candidate available.

On Friday, Wilson said that Levy was "absolutely not" a candidate to coach the team.  But when Levy got a chance to talk, he said:  "We're going to conduct interviews and go forth.  What am I going to do, say 'No, I'm not as good a coach as another guy?'  I can't answer it because I want to talk the whole situation over, but I can say we're going to address it swiftly and come up with answers."

And address it swiftly they did, with Levy's plan being scuttled before it could even get off the ground.

Earlier on Saturday (scroll down for more), we wrote that the Bills will have some "interesting names" on their list of candidates for the vacancy created when coach Mike Mularkey abruptly quit this week.

We're now beginning to figure out why.

Per a league source, G.M. Marv Levy's plan is to interview the candidates and then argue to owner Ralph Wilson that none of them would be better than Levy himself.  To bolster his contention, Levy needs an outside-the-box group of candidates that will seem progressive and daring -- but that will pale in comparison to the guy who took the team to four straight Super Bowl appearances.

Levy still faces a tall order in this regard.  On Friday, owner Ralph Wilson said that Levy won't be a candidate for the position.  Even if Wilson changes his mind from "absolutely not" to "absolutely maybe," Levy will still have to persuade the man who's beginning to look a lot like Yoda that Levy is a better choice for the job than former Bills Pro Bowler Jim Haslett.

The overriding problem here is that Levy's plan will require a couple of weeks, at least, to unfold.  By then, it'll be very hard for the new coach, whoever it might be, to put together a staff of assistant coaches.

MULARKEY DECISION FUELED BY STAFF CONCERNS

Speaking of the challenges of putting together a coaching staff, we're hearing that one of the big reasons for Mike Mularkey's decision to quit the job in Buffalo was his inability to find someone/anyone who was interested in replacing the various coaches who were recently fired by the Bills.

With openings at offensive coordinator, offensive line coach, defensive line coach, linebackers coach, and defensive backs coach, Mularkey was swinging and whiffing in his efforts to fill the jobs. 

A big part of the problem is that Mularkey was seen as being under a one-year, playoffs-or-else mandate, and guys with other options aren't going to choose to uproot their families for what could be a twelve-month stay in Western New York.  In fact, we've heard that some of the candidates didn't even return Mularkey's calls.

So maybe the "family considerations" Mularkey cited when quitting were accurate, after all.  If he had stayed, he might have been forced to put the wife and kids to work on the defensive side of the ball.

SOUP NAZI LOBBYING FOR LEWIS

Giants coach Tom Coughlin isn't such a bad guy after all.  As it turns out, he's trying his best to help defensive coordinator Tim Lewis get hired as a head coach.

Of course, the Soup Nazi's ultimate motivation, as we hear it, is that he wants Lewis out of New York.

We'd heard a couple of months back that Coughlin might just fire Lewis after the season, and it's possible that Coughlin still might do it after the dust settles on the coaching carousel.  Two years ago, Lewis was fired by the Steelers even though he was a candidate to become the next coach of the Falcons.

Word is that Coughlin wants to hire former Texans coach Dom Capers to take over the Giants defense.  Capers previously worked for Coughlin in Jacksonville, after Capers was fired as coach of the Panthers.

SOME WANT GRIMM TO GET THE JOB IN DETROIT

This new sense of altruism displayed by Tom Coughlin isn't confined to New York.  Several league insiders also are pulling for the Detroit Lions to hire Steelers offensive line coach Russ Grimm.

The reasoning?  As one league source put it, "It would make two teams worse."

Specifically, the Steelers would lose a guy who has been a very good offensive line coach, and the Lions would get a guy who simply isn't ready to be a head coach.

ESPN's John Clayton reports that Lions CEO Matt Millen is bringing back several candidates for a meet-and-greet with the Ford family.  Grimm is expected to be one of the invitees, if the Steelers lose to the Colts on Sunday.

We pretty much suck at picking games.  Or, to be more precise, we suck at remembering to make a note in this here space of the picks on which we're ultimately right -- and we're great at remembering to mention in this space the picks on which we're ultimately wrong.

We've seen the stats and heard the hype about the power of the home teams in the divisional round.  As explained earlier this week by USA Today, only 18 percent of the visitors have won at this level under the current format.

That's 49 wins and 11 losses for the home teams.

Still, even though the home team wins in the divisional round more than four out of five times on average, we think that the numbers are a bit misleading.

In the years prior to the onset of free agency and the salary cap (1990 through 1992), there was a real difference in talent level between the teams that earned a bye and the teams that didn't.  Over those three seasons, the home teams were 11-1, with the only loss coming by the Steelers at home to the Bills in 1992.  Throwing out those three years puts the home teams at 38 and 10, which equates to a road team win rate of nearly 23 percent -- or roughly one road victory per year in the divisional round.

The best year for the visitors came in 2003, with the Colts winning at Kansas City, the Panthers winning at St. Louis, and the Pats and Eagles holding serve at home by only three points each.

This weekend, we think the road teams will finish the job, capping the first four-game sweep by the house guests since the current format was installed. 

How far out onto a limb are we venturing here?  Since the AFL-NFL merger, the road teams have never won more than two of the four conference semifinals in any year.

Damn, we're starting to talk ourselves out of this one. . . .

The hell with it.  We're sticking to our guns.  At least for Saturday.  We'll revisit our feelings on the road teams' chances after we see how the first two games pan out. 

One last note.  Don't rule out an overtime game or two.  In the past four years, there have been four sudden-death finishes at this level, and three in the past two seasons.

Redskins at Seahawks:  Plenty of sphincters will be puckering in the Pacific Northwest as the Seahawks try not to screw up one of the best seasons in franchise history.  Beyond that attractive image, here's why the 'Skins will win.

First, the 'Hawks had a very tough time in two home games this year against NFC East teams (Cowboys and Giants) who weren't playing nearly as well as the Redskins are right now.  Seattle easily could have (and arguably should have) lost either or both of those games.

Second, the 'Skins already have beaten the Seahawks.  Sure, it was in Washington.  But the Redskins have gotten a lot better since then, especially on defense.  For example, a guy named LaVar Arrington was still eating Alpo from a plastic bowl at the time these two teams last played.

With strong defense (edge to D.C.), a solid running game (slight edge to Seattle), and quarterback experience in the postseason (edge to D.C.) being the three biggest factors in January, the pendulum swings to the 'Skins, 23-16.

Patriots at Broncos:  This could end up being one of the best playoff games in recent years.  And if that happens, it's bad news for the Broncos.

Why?  No team knows how to show up in crunch time better than the Pats.  The players live for those moments, and quarterback Tom Brady is arguably the best ever at staying calm when it matters most (with only his boyhood idol, Joe Montana, at or above his level in this regard).

So the Broncos can win this one only if they race to a big lead early and force the Pats to play from behind.  But do they have the horses to do it?  Though the coaching staff has plenty of experience in big games, the current roster of players doesn't sport a bunch of guys who have proven that they can get it done when it matters most.

Looking at the the defense, running game, and quarterback experience factors, we'll give the edge to the Pats in a nail-bleeder, 28-26.

Though former Bills Pro Bowl linebacker Jim Haslett is regarded as the favorite to replace recently former Bills coach Mike Mularkey, we're told that the list of candidates has some "interesting names" on it.

We've don't know any of the supposedly "interesting names" at this point, but we're working on it.

For now, we'll throw a few of the "interesting names" possibly identified by the dyspeptic duo of Ralph Wilson and Mary Levy in the hopes that, through dumb luck (emphasis on the "dumb"), we'll get one or two of them right.

Jim Kelly.  Mike Ditka.  Deion Sanders.  Jim Mora.  Frank Reich.  Vince Lombardi.  Matt Millen.  Chris Berman.  Scott Norwood.  The guy Levy once called an "overofficious jerk."  Tim Russert.  Donald Trump.

Stay tuned.      

A day after characterizing the knee injury suffered by Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer as the equivalent of a chicken wing being torn apart by a tailgater, Dr. Lonnie Paulos has changed his tune more abruptly than Paul Anka/Quiet Riot medley.

"I would consider this a typical ACL-MCL football injury," Paulos said on Friday.

On Thursday, however, the injury was a four on a scale of one to three, and "devastating and potentially career-ending."

So what gives? 

As we explained on Thursday night, the doctor was out of line.  He wanted to set himself up as the hero if Palmer recovers fully, while at the same time protecting him from being the goat if Palmer doesn't.

That the initial comments of Paulos might have been, you know, the truth doesn't matter.  The Bengals, after all, have swept under the FieldTurf a turdish tantrum of Chad Johnson at halftime of Sunday's loss.  Why not also ignore the possibility that their franchise quarterback might never be the same?

Still, it was wrong for Paulos to run his mouth.  Wrong, but as it turns out not illegal.  Several readers raised with us the question of whether the statements of Paulos invaded Palmer's privacy rights.  We're told, however, that Paulos was authorized to talk about the injury and the surgery.

Little did he know that he was expected to weave a little PR into his efforts from the OR.

NFC EAST ONE-LINERS

(Editor's note:  With the whole Chad Johnson brouhaha and other major stories this week, we've fallen behind on our presentation of news from around the league in the form of short blurbs with oft-snide remarks.  Our goal is to get caught up this weekend on a division-by-division basis.  We'll start with the NFC East.)

Cowboys offensive coordinator Sean Payton has interviewed for the Saints head coaching job (and he called Bill Parcells during a break in the session to ask permission to take a pee). 

It's time to start the annual bitching about a Canton bias against the Cowboys.

Four Cowboys have had surgery since the end of the 2005 season.

Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer was interviewed by the Rams.

Eagles coach Andy Reid refused to release any of his assistants for positions on Brad Childress's staff in Minnesota.

The Eagles won't raise ticket prices in 2006 (but a cup of beer will cost $37 bucks and there's a $10 cover charge for the restrooms).

Isn't Fins TE Randy McMichael criticizing Eagles WR Terrell Owens roughly the same thing as a pile of dog poop complaining about the smell coming from the outhouse?

The eye in the sky don't lie (or spew saliva at unsuspecting passersby).

Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren almost took a job on Joe Gibbs's staff after the 1988 Super Bowl.

The felony trial of Redskins S Sean Taylor has been bumped to March even though prosecutors resisted a continuance beyond January 17.

Giants defensive coordinator Tim Lewis was interviewed on Friday by the Jets (first question -- "C'mon, you didn't really think Terrell Buckley could cover Steve Smith, did you?").

The Giants plan to pay QB Eli Manning a $5 million bonus to extend his contract through 2009 (maybe they would have extended it through 2013 if he'd thrown a couple more interceptions last weekend).

The Giants plan to commence talks next week on a new contract with DT Kendrick Clancy.

Bucs CB Ronde Barber, the identical twin of Giants RB Tiki Barber, criticized the Giants' defensive game plan against the Panthers (or was it merely Tiki wearing a T-shirt that said "My Brother Is The Real MVP, And He's Even Prettier Than Me"?).

Giants WR Amani Toomer thinks his time in New York is over.

As we continue to scrutinize the credentials of new Packers head Mike McCarthy, who hardly could have been characterized as a hot candidate for any head coaching jobs north of the Tony Mandarich Middle School, we're wondering whether a real-world phenomenon known as protecting one's turf contributed to the decision of G.M. Ted Thompson to pull the trigger on McCarthy.

It's no secret that some coaches are drawn to the possibility of grabbing power.  In an organization with a strong G.M., a coach with such aspirations could cause serious problems.

And it can come in many forms.  Several years ago, for example, Jets coach Herm Edwards undermined G.M. Terry Bradway by simply refusing to use the guys Bradway had signed.  Also, although the Packers don't have a true owner, there are plenty of Board members with whom an ambitious coach can try to curry favor in order to carry more clout.   

In McCarthy, however, Thompson gets a head coach who is merely happy to be in the job that he has.  Actually, McCarthy should be tinkled ten shades of fluorescent pink. 

In six seasons as an NFL offensive coordinator, his teams have been to the playoffs one time.  It's hardly the fast track to the "A" list.

So McCarthy will never display his gratitude by dissing Thompson, overtly or otherwise. 

Think back four years.  Rich McKay was the G.M. of the Bucs.  Ownership wanted to hire Jon Gruden, who at the time was coaching the Raiders.  McKay wanted Marvin Lewis, a defensive coordinator who had yet to get an opportunity at the next level.

We believed at the time, and still believe today, that McKay wanted Lewis because Lewis would respect McKay's territory -- and that McKay didn't want Gruden because McKay knew that Gruden would try to grab power.

And grab power Gruden did, rendering McKay an empty suit until he left for Atlanta.

Want more proof that Thompson was looking for a guy who would defer to the G.M.?  Of the seven candidates he interviewed, only one has experience as an NFL head coach -- Chargers defensive coordinator Wade Phillips.  And Phillips hasn't been a head coach since 2000.  (He had a cup of coffee with the Falcons in 2003, after Dan Reeves got the boot.)

We're not knocking McCarthy.  We've never believed that success as a coordinator translates to success as a head coach.  Whether relative mediocrity does remains to be seen.

But one thing Thompson won't have to worry about is loyalty.  McCarthy will be a very good soldier, and Thompson will get plenty of credit and praise, likely from McCarthy himself, if things turn around for the Pack.

If they don't, then McCarthy can take the blame.  It's the least he can do for the guy who gave him a chance that, objectively speaking, he didn't deserve.

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Liz Mullen of Sports Business Journal reports that Texas quarterback Vince Young has indeed signed with agent Major Adams of Houston.  Mullen also reports that agent Bus Cook will not have an official role in the representation, but that he "may informally advise" Adams as to the negotiation of Young's rookie deal. 

We're told that Cook deliberately is keeping a low profile on Young due to concerns that another one of his clients, Vanderbilt quarterback Jay Cutler, might sever ties with Cooks due to the inherent competition between Young and Cutler on draft day.  Cutler was the 2005 SEC Player of the Year, and some think that his stock will rise dramatically in the run up to the April 29 draft.

Also, Mullen's report should put to rest rumors of Young changing his mind and returning to the Longhorns for his senior season.  Signing with an agent is, as a practical matter, the NCAA's version of the Rubicon; there's simply no way that Young would be able to play college ball in 2006 now that his name is on a rep agreement.

NFLPA records reflect that Adams has negotiated one contract.  We're told that he recently has signed safety Michael Lewis of the Eagles, but that Adams did not negotiate his contract.  With the addition of Young, then, it appears that Adams has tripled his client base.

We're also told that there is no actual family relationship between Adams and Young, but that Young regards Adams as an uncle.

That relationship could be tested when the time comes for Adams to deal with the inherently complex and high-stakes terms of a top-five contract.  Three years ago, Texans receiver Andre Johnson signed with a relative no name in order to save on agent fees.  In Johnson's case, the consensus in league circles is that the team didn't take advantage of his agent's inexperience.

This time around, it could be different.  Although precedent suggests that the Texans would be fair with Young, the agent for the No. 1 overall pick doesn't have the benefit of a ceiling under which to fit his contract -- so "fair" will be far tougher to define. 

And if Young is taken by the Titans at No. 3, the agent needs to be able to persuade G.M. Floyd Reese to give due credence to the curve-busting deal signed in the No. 3 slot by receiver Braylon Edwards a year ago.  Indeed, we've heard from multiple teams that, just as the No. 4 spot was considered to be the kiss of death in 2005 due to Philip Rivers' deal from the four hole in 2004, the Titans are in a tough spot at No. 3, given the player-friendly terms of Edwards' rookie contract.

Of course, by then it's more likely that Cook will be able to get involved in the negotiations with Adams after the draft, since Young and Cutler no longer will be in competition and since, in theory, it will be in Cutler's interests at that point for Young to get the best deal possible in his own slot.  Assuming that Cook helps the Titans work out a new deal for another one of his clients, quarterback Steve McNair, the Titans might be more likely to cooperate with Cook on Young's deal.

At the press conference announcing the decision of coach Mike Mularkey to resign, new G.M. Marv Levy suggested that he might be a candidate to take over.

Owner Ralph Wilson, however, didn't get the memo.  "Absolutely not," Wilson said when asked if Levy would be a candidate for the job.

It's good to see that everyone is on the same page in Buffalo.

We're also hearing conflicting reports on whether Levy and Wilson specifically engineered the resignation of Mularkey in order to avoid responsibility for the three remaining years on Mularkey's contract.  Some league sources say they did, others insist they didn't -- and that Mularkey's decision really was a shock to Wilson and Levy.

The talk in league circles this morning that Bills owner Ralph Wilson and new G.M. Marv Levy opted not to fire coach Mike Mularkey, but to instead bust the whipper-snapper's balls until he walked away on his own.

The reason?  They wanted him out, but they didn't want to have to pay him for the final three years of his contract.

And the prime target to replace him, we're told, is former Bills Pro Bowler Jim Haslett.  

Of course, there's only one minor glitch in that regard.

The Rooney Rule, which requires at least one minority candidate to be interviewed for each head coaching vacancy.

Maybe that's why defensive coordinator Jerry Gray wasn't fired last week with the rest of his staff.  Maybe Wilson wants to interview Gray for the head coaching job . . . and then fire him.  Or maybe Gray gets consideration to remain with the team as part of Haslett's staff if Gray agrees to interview for the vacancy.

And maybe that's why former Bills defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell is also being mentioned as a possible candidate for the job.

Regardless of how anyone feels about the Rooney Rule, the reality is that it must be complied with.  Wilson, however, recently shrugged off the league's stated preference that the spirit of the rule also be applied when hiring a General Manager.  The only man considered for that job in Buffalo was Levy.

The other potential glitch in the Wilson and Levy plan is that Haslett is getting genuine consideration for vacancies with the Lions and the Jets, where some league insiders believe that the supposed leading candidates (Russ Grimm and Eric Mangini, respectively) really aren't.  Thus, by waiting a week to clear out Mularkey in order to save a few bucks, it's possible that Wilson and Levy have made it harder (and more expensive) to get the guy they apparently want.  

A league source tells us that Texas quarterback Vince Young likely will be hiring a relatively unknown agent to handle his rookie contract.  Per the source, Major Adams of Houston will be Young's agent.  Adams supposedly is an uncle of Young's.

Per the NFLPA records, Adams has one other client with an active NFL contract.

And although multiple sources tell us that Bus Cook is not in the running to represent Young, we hear that Cook will be "supervising" Adams in the complex negotiations that routinely occur at the top end of the draft.

We don't know whether Young officially has signed with Adams.  There were rumors earlier in the week that Young might change his mind about entering the draft, and return to school for his final season of eligibility.  We've heard nothing firm in this regard.

There's a feeling in league circles that Dr. Lonnie Paulos should have kept his piehole clamped shut regarding the severity of the knee injury suffered by Carson Palmer.

According to The Associated Press, Dr. Paulos called the injury "devastating and potentially career-ending." 

Yikes.

"On a scale of one to three, it was a four," he said. "It was off the chart. It was pretty badly damaged -- shredded is the better term."

Said one league source, the comments are "reason number one for not allowing doctors to talk."

"It's not just like it was a torn ACL," Paulos said.  "It's a magnitude more difficult to recover from and repair.  It can and has ended careers, without a doubt."

So why would the doctor speak so publicly, and in such negative terms?

Easy.  If Palmer plays again, it's because Paulos is the next James Andrews. 

And if Palmer isn't recovered by the start of the 2006 season, Paulos's butt is tucked warmly under a blanket of "it wasn't my fault."

Also, there's a certain element of ego at work here, in two ways.  First, the doctor has gotten his name out.  With Dr. Andrews of Birmingham still the go-to guy when it comes to orthopedic injuries -- and given that Dr. Andrews recently had a heart attack -- a guy like Paulos surely would like to fill the niche.

Second, don't overlook the the fact that Palmer's agent, David Dunn, is still trying to reel in USC's latest Heisman-winning quarterback, Matt Leinart.  The potentially devastating injury to Palmer comes on the heels of Dunn's negotiation of a long-term extension that puts a lot of money in Palmer's pockets in the short term.  Put simply, Dunn can use the injury to Carson as proof that Dunn pulled off a shrewd move, since it's highly unlikely that the team would have given Carson the deal now, in light of the cloud of uncertainty now surrounding his future. 

Jay Glazer of FOXSports.com reports that Bills coach Mike Mularkey has quit as the team's head coach.  Glazer says that Mularkey made the decision on Wednesday. 

The leading candidate to replace Mularkey is former Saints coach Jim Haslett.  Haslett played linebacker for the Bills, and was voted to the Pro Bowl in 1980 and 1981.

Haslett recently has interviewed for head coaching vacancies with the Lions and the Jets.

A league source tells us that Ravens offensive coordinator Jim Fassel is interviewing for the head coaching vacancy in St. Louis on Thursday evening.

Fassel previously coached the New York Giants.  He has spent the last two seasons working for the Ravens.

Last week, Fassel interviewed with the Chiefs for the position eventually filled by Herm Edwards.

PewterReport.com reports that the Rams also have sought permission to interview Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin for the head coaching job.  Other candidates for the job include Giants defensive coordinator Tim Lewis.  There also are unsubstantiated rumors of the Rams possibly pursuing Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer, who reportedly is on the outs with G.M. A.J. Smith.

ESPN's Chris Mortensen reports that Bills coach Mike Mularkey met with team officials on Thursday afternoon, and that the meeting could lead to his resignation.

Mort says that it is believed that Mularkey is meeting with owner Ralph Wilson and new G.M. Marv Levy.

Per the report:  "Sources said that, because of family considerations, Mularkey intended to walk away after only two seasons, but felt that he needed to meet with Bills management before he formally tendered his resignation. Mularkey had lengthy meetings with Wilson last week as the Bills owner dramatically reshuffled the football operation."

We think there's a lot more to this one that someone calling Mularkey Jr. a bad name at school.  The "family considerations" would have been more pronounced during and/or immediately after a disappointing regular season.  

So why not quit then?

It could be that Mularkey opted to say nothing until Wilson decided whether to fire him.  After all, NFL coaches who get fired while under contract still get paid; guys who quit don't.

It's also possible that Mularkey didn't take kindly to the termination of multiple members of his coaching staff, or that he already has tired of hearing Levy say words like "overofficious."

Or it could be that one of the other teams with a head coaching vacancy has come sniffing around, quietly and discreetly.  Surely, Mularkey isn't going to retire from the profession.  With vacancies in New York, Oakland, New Orleans, Detroit, and St. Louis, maybe someone put a bug in Mularkey's ear that if he can get out from under his current contract he might have a shot in another city.

As USC tailback Reggie Bush prepares to announce on Thursday that he'll bypass his last year of eligibility and enter the NFL draft, a league source tells us that his decision to hire agent Joel Segal is a done deal.

Regarding the other high-profile underclassman who already has announced his desire to enter the draft, we're hearing that Texas quarterback Vince Young has not made a final decision to hire Bus Cook to represent him, despite reports to the contrary.  We're told that Tom Condon of IMG is still very much in the running.

And as to rumors that Young might change his mind and stay in school, we've heard nothing to suggest that Young seriously is considering an about-face.  League sources expect, however, that Texas coach Mack Brown is doing everything he can to get Young to reconsider.

We're not up to speed on the specific details regarding Young's deadline for  pulling his name out of the draft and playing for Texas in 2006.  The key, as we understand it from the Mike Williams example two years ago, is that Young has a realistic window of opportunity to pass on the NFL if he refrains from signing with an agent.

As more time passes, more support for our report of a halftime scrum between Bengals receiver Chad Johnson and receivers coach Hue Jackson and head coach Marvin Lewis continues to emerge.

To summarize, we've reported in great detail on a confrontation that occurred as the team prepared to return to the field for the second half of Sunday's playoff game against the Steelers, at a time when the Bengals were leading, 17-14.  On Tuesday night, Johnson called a press conference to deny the report, repeatedly calling it "ridiculous."

Appearing Wednesday on FSN's Totally Football, Jay Glazer called our report "dead-on accurate," though Glazer said that the swinging of hands and/or fists by Johnson in the direction of Lewis was not intentional.

Meanwhile, former Bengals quarterback Boomer Esiason told the team's official web site that he is "convinced that Johnson had some kind of an altercation with . . . Jackson and Lewis at half time of last Sunday’s game and that it contributed to the second-half meltdown." 

(Editor's note:  We're impressed that Geoff Hobson actually used Esiason's comments, since they essentially provide that there is a forked tongue tucked behind Chad's gold teefs.  Geoff -- you can use us as a reference when you're updating your resume.)

The bigger issue here is whether Coach Lewis is going to continue to apply one set of rules to Chad Johnson, and another set of rules to the rest of the team.

Said Boomer:   "If [Johnson] went after a coach, something significant has to happen.  One guy can't have that kind of autonomy if Marvin is going to get this team where they want to go."

The root of the growing resentment within the locker room is the autonomy to which Boomer refers.  Or to use terms more common to pro football players (and to quote a league source who explained what has been going on in Cincy to us), Johnson's teammates primarily are upset with the situation "because the coaches have to blow him every day to get him to do his job."    

Due to Sunday's incident, Bengals players believe that they are on a "Super Bowl quality team that was brought down by one man."

As Esiason told Bengals.com on Wednesday, "Lewis has to meet this challenge as decisively as he's met any other n Cincinnati."  Amen, Boomer.

The problem is that, more than three days after the incident occurred, Lewis hasn't uttered a peep about it.  And we don't expect him to, since acknowledging the matter now would also be an admission by the head coach that his star receiver has a serious issue with the truth.

Adam Schefter of the NFL Network reports that Pats coach Bill Belichick could be discouraging defensive coordinator Eric Mangini from accepting an opportunity to become the head coach of the New York Jets, based on factors such as the team's salary cap situation (and perhaps that the Jets and Pats play two games against each other per year).

Belichick, per Schefter, refused to allow Mangini to be interviewed this week.  Instead, Mangini will sit for the job after the Pats return from Denver following Saturday night's playoff game.

If Mangini decides to pass on the opportunity to leap to the franchise with which Belichick technically was the head coach for like 18 minutes in 2000, Schefter thinks that the Jets will hire former Saints head coach Jim Haslett, former Giants head coach Jim Fassel, or former Vikings head coach Mike Tice.

GRIMM THE NEW MEATHEAD?

We've heard plenty of good things lately regarding Steelers offensive line coach Russ Grimm, who is regarded by many as the favorite to land as the Lions' new head coach.

But there are whispers of concern.  As a position coach only, he never has called offensive plays.  Also, some think he's a little too rough around the edges to be successful as a head coach in the modern NFL, which requires as much skill with the letters "P" and "R" as it does with the letters "X" and "O."

We know that other position coaches have become successful head coaches without serving a stint as a coordinator (e.g., Andy Reid).  But the last offensive line coach to leap directly into the top job was Mike Tice -- and we all know how that turned out.

Of course, the problem that the Lions and every other team currently faces is that there simply isn't a guy on the list of candidates who is a no-brainer for a head coaching gig.  Still, we've got a feeling that an eventual decision to hire Grimm will do very little to silence those chants of "Fire Millen," either in the offseason or once the games begin again in September.

According to published reports, the Packers have selected 49ers offensive coordinator Mike McCarthy as the team's new head coach.

Fourteen years ago, the Packers hired another 49ers offensive coordinator (Mike Holmgren a/k/a the Big Show) to take the reins of a team that won a Super Bowl five seasons later.

McCarthy was the Packers' quarterbacks coach in 1999.  He served as offensive coordinator of the Saints before joining the 49ers in the same capacity a year ago.

Currently, the Packers and McCarthy are negotiating a contract.

He was selected over Cowboys offensive coordinator Sean Payton, Chargers defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, Packers defensive coordinator Jim Bates, and Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera.

It's hardly a shocker, and it won't prompt any press conferences to deny it.  Gary Kubiak, we're told, will be the next coach of the Houston Texans.

Kubiak, 44, emerged as the favorite after a recent interview.  He is from Houston, and played college football at Texas A&M.  He has spent eleven seasons as the Broncos offensive coordinator.

He can't be offered the job until the Broncos' season ends.

His arrival surely will add fuel to the debate regarding reports that the Texans already have decided to select USC tailback Reggie Bush with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.  Over the past decade, Kubiak has presided over an offense that has turned low-round picks into Pro Bowlers, but that hasn't been back to the Super Bowl since a certain quarterback selected first in the draft 22 years ago packed it in.  

Sure, the Texans already have a quarterback who was the first pick in the draft, but we're pretty sure that David Carr ain't no John Elway.

BUSH TO HIRE SEGAL

Speaking of Reggie Bush, we're told that he will be hiring agent Joel Segal in the very near future.  Liz Mullen has reported (scroll down) that Bush met on Monday with Segal, David Dunn, and Ben Dogra.

Bush has until Sunday to enter the NFL draft.  There's little doubt that he'll give up his senior season at USC; running backs have only so many miles on the tires, and the younger a guy is in line for his second contract, the better.

Bush most likely will be one of the first three players drafted.  The Texans pick first, then the Saints, then the Titans.  Former USC offensive coordinator Norm Chow is entering his second season as offensive coordinator in Tennessee.

The New York Daily News reports that Giants receiver Plaxico Burress was a no-show for the team's final meeting of the season, on Monday.

His actions came a day after reports (originating right here) that teammates accused Burress of quitting on the team during Sunday's 23-0 loss to the Panthers.

(Editor's note:  At least he didn't put his position coach in a headlock and take a swing at the Soup Nazi.) 

(Actually, Ernie, you know exactly how far you went without him, since Burress basically was AWOL for all of Sunday's home playoff loss.)

So what does the guy who signed Burress plan to do about his behavior?

"That's Tom's domain," Accorsi said. "I don't want to get into that. I have to allow Tom to take care of the locker room."

Let's get this straight.  When things are going well with Plax, Accorsi is praised for making the free-agent acquisition of the year.  Now that it's all going to purgatory in a poopbasket, it's Coughlin's problem?

Looking at this more broadly, we really think that it's time for the era of the prima donna pass-catchers to come to a close.  For every Randy Moss and T.O. and Chad Johnson and Plaxico Burress and Keyshawn Johnson, there are a dozen or more grinders who run the routes, catch the balls, and keep their mouths shut, even after they score a lot of touchdowns and make a lot of money.  When will teams realize that they can be a lot more successful by accumulating the kinds of receivers who simply do their jobs?

As Bengals receiver Chad Johnson continues to deny that he engaged in a locker room brouhaha with receivers coach Hue Jackson and head coach Marvin Lewis during halftime of Sunday's home playoff loss, we continue to hear from new sources that the incident Johnson claims didn't happen in fact did.

This one came to us unsolicited (but second hand) from one of the many agents we've gotten to know over the past four-plus years.  Said the source:

"I spoke to a player that I am very close to on the Bengals today and he confirmed the incident you have been reporting.  He said that there was a 'swing' taken in Marvin's direction and that Marvin did nothing about it.  My source also said that he felt like 'kicking Chad's ass' and that Marvin never stands up to Chad.  He said that they allow him to act like a 12-year-old and that it definitely affected their play in the second half."

The problem, of course, is that no one has gone on the record to dispute Johnson's version of the events.  Lewis has been conspicuously silent, as has been Hue Jackson.

But this isn't a game of rock-scissors-paper in which a public denial trumps the truth.  The players understandably are reluctant to discuss the matter on the record, apparently because they believe that any public comment on the issue would not be appreciated by Coach Lewis.

There's also a general belief in locker rooms that, as Herm Edwards a/k/a Jackie Chiles said on Monday, "what stays in my house, stays in my house."

Also, let's consider for a moment the bass-ackward logic that was spawned by the Eephus pitches hoisted in Chad's direction during last night's press conference.

Softball #1:  "Chad, if any of this stuff was true, wouldn't -- wouldn't Coach Lewis based on what we know about him have done something about it during the game?"

Johnson:  "Probably so.  Probably so."

Softball #2:  "Do you think you would have played if you would've took a swung [sic] at him?  Do you think you would have played?"

Johnson:  "He would have sat me down."

But if Marvin Lewis had decided in the midst of the moment, only seconds before it was time to head back to the field and receive the kickoff to start the third quarter, that it was an emotional reaction by an emotional player in very emotional circumstances and that the team, already down Carson Palmer and Chris Henry, couldn't win with Chad Johnson out of action, Lewis would have done precisely what he did. 

Nothing.  Nothing at all.

And let's assume Lewis had benched Johnson for the second half of the franchise's first playoff game in 15 years at a time when the Bengals were clinging to a three-point lead and without their starting quarterback and their No. 3 receiver.  With Kelley Washington inactive, the Bengals would have had three wideouts for the rest of the game -- T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Kevin Walter, and Tab Perry.

The post-game press conference would have been interesting, to say the least.

Hardball #1:  "Coach Lewis, why didn't Chad Johnson play in the second half of the game?"

Lewis:  "Coach's decision.  Next question."

Hardball #2:  "But what could have happened to cause you to bench one of the best receivers in the NFL during crunch time in the team's first playoff game in 15 years?"

Lewis:  "As Herm Edwards might say tomorrow when addressing his exit from the Jets, what stays in my house, stays in my house."

Hardball #3:  "What the hell does that mean?"

Lewis:  "I don't know.  Ask Herm tomorrow.  But I think it means we don't talk about things that happen in the locker room."

Folks, there's no way Lewis would have been able to keep a lid on what had happened, if Johnson had been yanked from the game.  Even if Lewis had refused to explain to the media why Johnson was benched, at least one of the other players would have viewed the benching as tacit approval to talk about what happened.  Johnson, at a minimum, likely would have said that there was a confrontation in the locker room but that the punishment didn't fit the crime.

Bottom line -- Lewis made a snap decision to brush the whole thing under the rug, and everything that has happened since then was a natural consequence of the choice Lewis made.

Including the decision by multiple other players to talk privately about the matter.  It's not an uncommon phenomenon when players believe that there is one set of rules for them, and another set of rules for the photogenic superstar who has the head coach and the media wrapped around his finger. 

Human nature, under such circumstances, spawns resentment -- especially when there's reason to believe that the circumstances ultimately prevented the team from achieving its goal of advancing in the playoffs.

"The special treatment program is a dangerous path," one league insider told us on Wednesday morning.  In this specific case, it's possible that one or more of the players will fink on Chad publicly, turn on Lewis for allowing Johnson to misrepresent what occurred, or want out of Cincinnati.

As we've learned too many times in matters of politics, the cover up is often worse than the crime.  In this case, the cover up is in full gear.  The only thing that remains to be seen is whether one of Johnson's teammates will stand up and expose the truth.

A meaningless story has been getting a lot of play over the past 24 hours or so.  The Eagles (drum roll, please) have authorized agent Drew Rosenhaus to attempt to strike a trade for the rights to receiver Terrell Owens.

As a practical matter, there's no way that Owens will be shipped to a new team under his current deal.  He's due to receive $7.5 million in bonus money in March -- far more than he'd get on the open market.

So there's no reason for any team to "trade" for him, unless the swap occurs after the Eagles sign him to a new contract before sending him to a new team.  In exchange for giving up a draft pick or two, the new team won't be required to outbid any other clubs on the open market.

But an auction is surely what Owens wants.  He won't see the highest possible offers unless multiple teams are clamoring for his rights at the same time, without the requirement of sending compensation to the Eagles.

Thus, look for agent Drew Rosenhaus to use this period of time during which he is permitted to talk with other teams as a way to commence negotiations on the free-agent deal that will be consummated not long after the Eagles release Owens in early March.

And here's another reason why Owens' current contract won't be traded to another team.  Since Rosenhaus didn't negotiated it, he doesn't get paid until the old contract is terminated and a new one is signed.

Liz Mullen of Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal reports that USC tailback Reggie Bush and quarterback Matt Leinart are in the process of selecting agents.

On Monday, Bush met with David Dunn, Joel Segal, and Ben Dogra.

The meetings were also attended by USC coach Pete Carroll.

Leinart is poised to chose from a group including Dunn, Leigh Steinberg, Tom Condon, Gary Wichard, and Mike Sullivan.  Leinart already has signed with Hollywood talent firm Creative Artists Agency for representation in marketing and off-field endeavors.

Bush has not yet officially declared his intention to enter the draft.  We'd previously heard that he planned to do so on Tuesday.  As of this posting, he hasn't.

If he's going to do it, he only has five more days.  The deadline is January 15.

In a Tuesday evening press conference, Bengals receiver Chad Johnson denied, again, reports of a halftime altercation occurring in the team's locker room.

"Nothing happened," he said on Tuesday night.

But even as Johnson continues to insist that nothing happened, we're hearing of more players who privately concede that something did indeed happen between Johnson, receivers coach Hue Jackson, and head coach Marvin Lewis.

Here's hoping that one of Johnson's teammates will go on the record to dispute his denials.  At a minimum, we hope that the players will continue to talk off the record about the issue -- and that the media will listen and report on it.

The video of Johnson's press conference is available at Bengals.com.

1360 WSAI in Cincinnati corroborates our report regarding the halftime locker room fight involving Bengals receiver Chad Johnson and receivers coach Hue Jackson and head coach Marvin Lewis.

At the radio station's blog is the following entry, posted at 3:48 p.m. EST on January 10:

"David Lapham confirms that after talking to various Bengals players, there was an incident coming out of the lockerroom Sunday..........and 'something did happen' that included a scuffle between Chad Johnson and WR Coach Hue Jackson. TJ did jump in to seperate [sic] .... followed by Marvin jumping in. Lap cannot confirm a punch was thrown.  Lap was told by defensive players that they heard it.  And an offensive player did confirm what went down to Lap.  Lap did indicate that Anthony Mitchell and Madeiu Williams did nudge and kick each other last night on Bengals Line....in an effort to not talk about it on the air.  Mitchell did say, 'there were fireworks' at halftime."

The station also reports on its blog that Chad Johnson will conduct a press conference at 7:00 p.m. EST from Paul Brown Stadium to address the situation.

Maybe it's just us, but wasn't it enough for him to deny it on the record earlier in the day on Tuesday?

Unless, of course, our report was on the money.
  

In response to the denial by Bengals receiver Chad Johnson of a halftime altercation with receivers coach Hue Jackson and head coach Marvin Lewis, our original source on the story says us that, in his opinion, Johnson likely is "too embarrassed" to admit to his behavior.

"Nothing happened," Johnson told The Cincinnati Enquirer on Tuesday.

But happen it did, insists our source, who has requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The incident was "ridiculous," the source said, adding that he believes the actions of Johnson directly contributed to the outcome of the game. The Bengals led 17-14 at the break, ultimately lost to the Steelers by the score of 31-17.  It was the Bengals' first playoff game in 15 years.

It remains to be seen whether Lewis, Jackson, or any other members of the coaching staff or team will be asked to comment on the record regarding the incident.  

According to The Cincinnati Enquirer, the Bengals officially have declined to comment on our report of a halftime skirmish involving receiver Chad Johnson and receivers coach Hue Jackson and head coach Marvin Lewis during Sunday's playoff loss to the Steelers.

"We don't comment on rumors," said public relations direction Jack Brennan.  (Editor's note:  But do you comment on, you know, facts?)

For his part, Chad Johnson denies that a fight occurred.  

"That sounds like drama," Johnson said.  "At halftime, I was getting an IV.  Nothing happened.  Why don’t you talk to the coaches, they’re all down there today."

However, Johnson's admission to getting an IV places him in the training room at the time of the incident, which is where (per our report) the incident took place.

Mark Curnutte and Paul Daugherty of The Enquirer also asked defensive tackle John Thornton about the incident, and Thornton told them, "I can't confirm or deny anything that happened in the locker room."

Hmmmmmm.

Curnutte and Daugherty explain that after Sunday's game several members of the team made comments hinting at team turmoil.  Said Lewis at the time:  "We came in here as a football team and we need to leave out of here as a football team and understand that it's about working through the tough times.  You work through the critical points in the game and do you [sic] job."

A source who knows former Virginia Tech quarterback (and current and future turd extraordinaire) Marcus Vick tells us that Vick has been seen with a gun in his possession lately, which indirectly corroborates charges that he pointed and/or flashed the weapon at three people outside of a Suffolk, Virginia McDonald's on Sunday night.

Roughly a month ago, a gun fell out of Vick's belt and struck the ground while Vick was with a group of folks. 

As a result of Vick's numerous off-field issues, we've also heard that multiple teams have removed Vick from their draft boards -- and he only declared for the thing four days ago.

We still think that Vick's big brother Michael will lobby the Falcons to give Marcus a chance, and that Falcons owner Arthur Blank won't have the stones to tell him "No."  Beyond the Falcons, we can't imagine anyone giving him a shot.

As one league insider told us on Tuesday morning, "I wonder how Marcus will feel about being the best quarterback in the Arena League?"

MEATHEAD AND MANGINI IN RUNNING FOR JETS GIG

Published reports link a couple of unlikely candidates to the new vacancy in New York -- former Vikings coach Mike Tice and first-year Pats defensive coordinator Eric Mangini.

Anyone who has frequented this here site at any time over the past year or so knows how we feel about Mr. Tice, whom we lovingly refer to as Meathead.  And in our parting shot at him after he was fired by the Vikings nine days ago, we explained that you get what you pay for with Tice -- assuming you don't pay him very much.

And that looks to be what owner Woody Johnson plans to do.  Herm Edwards was getting $2 million a year to coach the Jets, and it looks like the next guy (whether it's Tice or Mangini or someone else) won't get much more.

Look, Mangini very well could be the next Lombardi.  But he's 34 and he's been a coordinator for one year and he's never been linked to a head coaching job and suddenly he's one of the top candidates to coach the Jets.

The message could be that an owner of one of the teams that is raking in a big chunk of the unshared revenue isn't inclined to drop a commensurate piece of it into the head coaching budget.  

Between the Meathead and Mangini, our money is on Mangini.  But we'd love to see Tice as the head coach of another team, since we really don't know who we'll make fun of if he's merely an assistant in Arizona. 

But it could be that the flirtation with Tice and Mangini and anyone else could be intended to squeeze the salary demands of Jim Haslett, who interviewed for the job on Monday and who otherwise will earn $3.25 million from Saints owner Tom Benson in 2006.  If Johnson didn't want to pay Edwards the $3 million he'll now get in Kansas City, it's likely that Johnson likewise won't want to pay $3.25 million or more to land Haslett. 

As the real media scrambles to investigate an "Internet report" regarding a halftime altercation in the locker room between receiver Chad Johnson and coaches Hue Jackson and Marvin Lewis, we've obtained further confirmation of the fact that something bad went down during intermission of Sunday's playoff game between the Bengals and the Steelers.

Scroll down for the full story.

And we're asking the real media for a little favor on this one.  We know that we're not yet considered a "mainstream" outlet.  But, please, don't go get your own confirmation and then omit reference as to how you first found out about it.  We broke it, you bought it -- and when you are able to corroborate it it's only fair to tell your readers where it originated.

On Monday, we surmised that the Texans have floated the notion that they intend to select USC tailback Reggie Bush with the No. 1 pick in the draft in order to avoid criticism from the Longhorns lovers that the lure of playing for his hometown Texans prompted Texas quarterback Vince Young to skip his senior season.  (A reader also raised with us another solid possibility -- that the report was a trial balloon aimed at determining what the local reaction would be to not taking Young -- and we're told that the local reaction was decidedly negative.)

But the Bush report also might have been intended to throw potential focus off of rumors that are now emerging -- and these are rumors only -- of a looming trade between the Texans and Dolphins.

Under the deal, as we've heard it, the Texans would send quarterback David Carr to Miami for running back Ricky Williams (a former Longhorn) and a third-round draft pick.

Williams is under contract through 2007.  Carr is due to receive an $8 million option bonus in February, which would extend his contract through 2008.  

Again, these are rumors only -- and we're not suggesting that this trade will go down.  But if it should happen it clears the way for the Texans to select Young.

Stay tuned.

HILL A LEGIT CANDIDATE?

When it was reported over the weekend that the Saints have contacted Fresno State coach Pat Hill, we made a crack along the lines that owner Tom Benson should have aimed higher.

But we've since learned that Hill is indeed a respected coach from the Bill Belichick tree.

"His teams at Fresno have always overachieved," a league source tells us. "He's tough and smart and knows the game.  He will be a head coach in the NFL.  He is very well respected by a number of people in the league.  Because he is at Fresno he doesn't get a lot of pub."

So maybe Saints G.M. Mickey Loomis knows what he's doing, after all.

Wait a minute . . . we just looked at the team's roster again.  He doesn't.

THE $17,000 LOOGIE

The league has fined Redskins safety Sean Taylor $17,000 for spitting in the face of Bucs running back Michael Pittman.  On the surface, the number seems a bit arbitrary; the reality is that it's the equivalent of Taylor's payday for the playoff game.

Far more surprising to us than the fact that Taylor was fined a game check for the incident is that players only get a measly $17,000 for wild card playoff games.  This projects to $289,000 over a 17-week season.  For every guy on the team.

Hey, NFLPA -- at a time when you're looking for items on which to draw lines in the sand during the CBA negotiations, how about getting the guys a raise for risking further injury during high-intensity postseason contests, especially since something like a torn ACL occurring in January throws a huge wrench into the guy's preparations for the next season.

One last note on this one.  We still don't understand why Bucs running back Michael Pittman didn't at least draw a flag for responding to the spit with a open-handed blow to Taylor's grill.  We're not saying Pittman should have been ejected or fined, but that he should have been flagged for an offsetting penalty.

Absent the flag, the message it sends is that retaliation is okay under certain circumstances.  It isn't, and it shouldn't be.  

SHUT IT, TIKI

Giants running back Tiki Barber really needs to knock off the bitching about coaching and play calling in the team's 23-0 playoff loss to the Panthers.  

After Sunday's game, Barber publicly said that the team had been outcoached.  On Monday, the Soup Nazi (a/k/a head coach Tom Coughlin) acknowledged that he wasn't happy with Tiki's comments.

And who would be?  Was Tiki praising the coaching staff when folks were arguing that he should be the MVP?  

More importantly, was anyone from the coaching staff publicly criticizing Barber at a time when he was dropping more balls than a drunken urologist?

No.  And no.  

Then again, Barber's comments shouldn't surprise anyone.  Some league insiders regard him as self-centered, a self-promoter, and generally selfish, but the media rarely knocks him, despite his obvious lust for the spotlight and attention.

Still, it could be that Barber won't get a pass on this one.  Reaction to his criticism of the coaching staff was mixed, with some calling him out for "'throw[ing] the coaching staff under the bus.'"

PALMER INJURY "ATYPICAL"

A day after ESPN was describing Carson Palmer's ACL injury as a "clean tear" (what the hell does that mean?) requiring less complex treatment and rehab than a "normal" ACL tear, a doctor painted a far less optimistic picture of Palmer's prognosis.

"Carson's injury is a lot more complicated than the average ACL injury," said Dr. Angelo Colosimo, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.  "There are multiple ligaments involved and he essentially dislocated his knee.  It's a more complicated operation, and a more complicated course of recovery."

If the surgery and rehab go well, Palmer can be ready for action in "eight or nine months."

Doing the math, that's not good news for Bengals fans, since it puts Palmer back on the field in September or October.

In hindsight, then, it was a great move by Palmer to sign that long-term extension prior to the end of the regular season.  Given the nature of the injury and the questions that it raises, we're pretty sure that the Bengals would not put that same amount of money on the table right now.

A league source tells us that multiple members of the Cincinnati Bengals witnessed a troubling incident as the team prepared to take the field for the second half of Sunday's playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Per the source, the last few minutes of intermission were ticking away, when the players were startled by the sight and sound of a helmet slamming against the glass pane of the training room door.  Inside, receiver Chad Johnson and receivers coach Hue Jackson were engaged in an altercation.  At one point, Johnson was seen holding Jackson in a headlock.

Coach Marvin Lewis entered the training room to intervene, and Johnson (per the source) took a swing at him.

Eventually, receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh broke up the skirmish, within a minute or so of the team exiting the locker room for the second half.

On Monday, several members of the team pointed to the Johnson-Jackson-Lewis incident as the catalyst for the loss of a 17-14 halftime lead and, ultimately, a 31-17 defeat.

Word is that Johnson was unhappy with the lack of balls thrown to him in the first half.  A total of three passes came his way, with two completions.

In the second half, another three passes were thrown to Johnson, with only two more completions.  For the game, Johnson had four catches for 59 yards.

The incident could have an even more lasting impact on the team than quarterback Carson Palmer's torn ACL and MCL.  Some players, we're told, don't want to see Johnson back next year, and there's a belief that the team will be less inclined to give in to Johnson's request for a hefty restructuring of a contract that expires after the 2009 season.

So the Chad Johnson saga very well could evolve into the 2006 version of the Terrell Owens fiasco.

If so, it's very bad news for a franchise that otherwise looked to have a very bright future.

We couldn't agree more with Peter King's take on the circumstances that recently unfolded in New York, with Jets coach Herm Edwards forcing his way out of the two remaining years on his contract and landing in Kansas City with only a fourth-round draft pick changing hands.  The entire episode was shameful, and it potentially sets a very bad precedent.

It's the coaching equivalent of the Terrell Owens situation, as we see it.  Like T.O.'s case, Herm was a guy who signed his name to a contract and who realized that he might be able to get more money somewhere else, even though he still had committed himself to two more years of service to the team that has been paying him good money.

And although a team like the Eagles might have squeezed Herm's hacky-sack under similar circumstances, the Jets opted to let him go.

King suggests that the same kind of thing could happen if, for example, Houston owner Bob McNair makes it known through intermediaries that he'd pay Bill Belichick much more money than he's getting from Pats owner Bob Kraft.  If Belichick wants out, what can Kraft really do?  Force a guy who doesn't want to be there to work against his will?

We raise this now because there are rumblings that Titans coach Jeff Fisher wants out of Nashville.  The Rams deny rumors that they are interested in hiring Fisher -- but didn't all parties to the Edwards fiasco do the same thing, just days before Edwards left?

In recent days, we've been told that league insiders are generally asking the question of whether Fisher will be leaving Tennessee, but without any concrete reason to think so.  It could be, then, that Fisher wants out, and that he now realizes based on Edwards' example that all a guy has to do is complain loudly enough behind closed doors in order to make it impossible for the team to keep him.

If that's what's happening in Nashville, we hope that Titans owner Bud Adams will stand firm.  If he doesn't, Fisher's situation will only make it easier for more and more coaches to piss and moan their way out of their contractual obligations.

Regardless of whether it's Fisher or someone else, the next coach who tries to pull a Herm needs to be told in no uncertain terms that he is expected to honor his contract and devote his best efforts to doing so.  And if the guy refuses, then the team should sue him for breach of contract and pursue all damages flowing from the premature termination of the relationship.

Moving forward, we suggest that teams come up with some creative contractual language, which could make it easier to throw cold water on a case of coaching wanderlust.  One possibility would be to insert a so-called "liquidated damages" provision that imposes a set amount of damages on a head coach who tries to force his way out of town prematurely.

Sure, any team that uses such language and then tries to enforce it would be required to get its hands dirty, and some teams don't like to do that.  But with coaches increasingly willing to roll around in the slop in order to get their way, it's time for the teams to be willing to pursue their own rights if/when a coach tries to take unfair liberties with the situation.

GRIMM AT TOP OF LIONS' LIST?

There's talk in league circles that the leading candidate for the head coaching vacancy in Detroit is Steelers offensive line coach Russ Grimm.

Grimm was linked to a couple of jobs in 2004, and he played for the Redskins in the 1980s with Lions CEO Matt Millen.

We're not sure, however, that the hiring of Grimm will be enough to quiet the "Fire Millen" throng in Motown.  As we've previously surmised, Millen needs to swing for the fences in order to persuade the fan base that he's not an overgrown doofis.  The problem is that there's really no big-name coach out there whose arrival would prompt folks in Detroit to declare that Millen isn't a moron.

There were rumors of an interest in Bill Parcells, but he decided to stay in Dallas.  USC's Pete Carroll wouldn't be interested absent much of the power that Millen wields, and a couple of subpar years have caused the star of Iowa's Kirk Ferentz to sink a bit. 

A reader raised an intriguing name with us on Monday -- Mike Holmgren of Seattle.  Holmgren has one year left on his contract with the 'Hawks, and it was believed prior to the season that he'd exit after 2005.  If the Redskins scalp the Big Show's boys on Saturday, the sudden bursting of the Seahawks' bubble could be enough to make Holmgren hit the road.

If Millen aims lower, Grimm could be the guy.

Not that Grimm wouldn't be able to get it done.  He has a solid reputation and he could very well be a major success.  But the reality is that Grimm would need to generate quick results, since Millen will continue to be on a short leash as the Lions continue to serve as the fire hydrant for a pack of 31 NFL dogs.

GRUDEN WON'T COMMENT ON T.O. RUMORS

On Monday, Bucs coach Jon Gruden refused to comment on an ESPN report that Tampa could be interested in Eagles receiver Terrell Owens.

"I don't watch ESPN, and for good reason," Gruden said, according to PewterReport.com.  "[Owens] is under contract, and it’s tampering to even discuss his situation.  I wouldn’t even go there and try to respond."

But then he did.  Asked whether Owens is the kind of player the team would like to add, Gruden said:  "What kind of player is that?  We like explosive players, yes.  I think anybody that stood up here would say, 'give me three of those.'  You like explosive players, you need explosive players to win championships.  I'm not using [Owens] as any kind of example."  (Editor's note:  Sure you're not.) 

It's no secret that the Bucs like to collect turds.  But with Joey Galloway and Michael Clayton under contract, we're not sure that there's room for T.O. in Tampa.

Besides, we think the team to pursue Owens the hardest will be the Broncos, who'll be looking for ways to significantly upgrade the team after getting dismantled on Saturday by the Patriots.

Sources within the Virginia criminal justice system tell us that former Virginia Tech quarterback Marcus Vick has been arrested on three counts for brandishing a firearm during an incident that occurred on Sunday night outside a McDonald's in Suffolk, Virginia.

As of this posting, Vick is in custody and is being processed by law enforcement officials.  We're told that he will be released on a $10,000 surety bond.  He faces twelve months in jail per count, if he is convicted.

Vick, the younger brother of Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, was kicked off of the Virginia Tech football team on Friday, due to a variety of antisocial acts, including most recently the stomping on the leg of Louisville defensive end Elvis Dumervil during the Gator Bowl.  Vick was arrested in December for driving on a suspended license and for speeding.

After getting the boot for his stomp, Vick announced that he'll enter the NFL draft, saying "I'll just move on the to the next level, baby."

For Vick, the next level could be a cell block -- and perhaps he can play quarterback for the Virginia prison system's version of the "Mean Machine."

Redskins safety Sean Taylor is facing similar charges in Florida.  Due, however, to more stringent criminal laws regarding the use of firearms in Florida, Taylor could do much more time in jail, if convicted.

A league source tells us that USC running back Reggie Bush will announce his intention to enter the NFL draft on Tuesday.

The move is hardly a surprise, given multiple reports that Bush has been in the process of selecting an agent.  

Bush won the Heisman last month, and many still view him as a lock for the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.  Some league insiders, however, are concerned about his durability at the pro level, including whether he can run between the tackles and whether he can survive the physical demands of 20-plus touches per game.

Published reports over the weekend indicated that the Texans will select Bush with the top pick.  We maintain that it's far too early for a final decision to have been made, and John McClain of The Houston Chronicle reported on Sunday that the Texans haven't even done an evaluation of Young, since it was assumed he'd stay in school.

We believe (speculation alert) that the Texans intentionally put out the word that they're drafting Bush in order to avoid criticism from the Longhorn crowd that Vince Young's decision to enter the draft was influenced in any way by the local pro team.  After all, Texas players rarely give up eligibility, and there could be plenty of resentment flowing out of Austin if folks concluded that Young left early only because someone in Houston lured him with the promise of playing professional football in his hometown.

In roughly a week, Vikings defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell has gone from being a candidate for the head coaching job to being unemployed.

According to The St. Paul Pioneer Press, new Vikings coach Brad Childress has fired Cottrell, along with several other assistants.

Tampa defensive backs coach Mike Tomlin is a leading candidate to replace Cottrell.  Tomlin played college football with Vikings Pro Bowl safety Darren Sharper at William & Mary.  Tomlin was the Bucs defensive backs coach when the team won the Super Bowl after the 2002 season.

Tomlin most likely would bring with him the vaunted "Tampa 2" defense, an attack premised upon keeping the safeties deep and stopping the running game with the front seven.  To be effective, the system needs a weakside linebacker who can get to the ball carrier and/or the quarterback, and a middle linebacker who can drop into coverage and take away the seam routes that otherwise open up in the heart of the field.

Although the Vikings arguably have the defensive line and the defensive backs to pull it off, much work will be needed to get their linebackers ready.  Alternatively, the Vikes will need to focus on getting more (and better) 'backers via free agency and/or the draft. 

One of the unintended casualties of the Giants' 23-0 shutout loss at home on Sunday could be the chances of defensive coordinator Tim Lewis to become a head coach in 2006.  Indeed, there's talk in some league circles that Lewis now will not be viewed as a serious candidate for any of the vacancies this season in light of his unit's poor performance on Sunday.

If the Giants had won, Lewis would have spent a maximum of two hours each with the Rams, Lions, and Packers.  Instead, Lewis has all the time in the world to meet with these three teams.

And Lewis might need that much time to 'splain away those 223 yards of rushing that were surrendered to Carolina.

We're told that the Giants feared getting burned by receiver Steve Smith, so they kept seven in the box for most of the game.  And the Panthers capitalized, with DeShaun Foster rushing for 151 yards and Nick Goings adding 63.

But just as the Giants never adjusted on the offensive side of the ball to efforts to bottle up Tiki Barber, the New York defense never made the changes necessary to stop the Carolina running game.

In hindsight, it probably was a smart move.  If the Giants had snuck an eighth man into the box, the final score on Sunday might well have been much worse than 23-0.

ELI, PLAX ARE "FRAUDS"

At times this season we heard great things from our league sources regarding Giants quarterback Eli Manning and receiver Plaxico Burress.  After Sunday's shutout, no one is saying anything good about either of them.

Both are "frauds," one league source said on Sunday night.  "Manning has been a lot of hype.  What has he done in critical games in the second half of the season?  He hasn't shown much leadership, either.  [And he has made] a lot of bad decisions."

As to Burress, he "showed to be the true asshole that he is," in the source's opinion.

"Leopard's don't change their spots.  Asshole in college, asshole in Pittsburgh.  How many times have we read that he was the offseason signing of 2005?  The season isn't five games.  It isn't eight games.  It isn't 10 or 14.  It's 16 plus the playoffs.  Talk when the season is over."

Now that the season is over for the Giants, there will be plenty of talk in New York.

And not much of it will be good.

BUCS STAFF TO BE RAIDED?

League rules now permit teams to block efforts by other franchises to hire away assistant coaches, even if the guy is offered a promotion from, say, position coach to coordinator.  And since draft picks can't be used to hire assistant coaches, the only way to get a guy is if he has been fired by another team -- or if his contract has expired.

So with a total of nine new coaching regimes to be assembled this year, PewterReport.com reports that the Bucs are facing a situation in which nine assistants' contracts have expired. 

If Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera gets a head coaching job, the Bears could come calling for Tampa defensive line coach Rod Marinelli.  Two years ago, the Bears tried to hire Marinelli for the position that Rivera now holds -- but the Bucs refused to allow him to leave, even though the move would have entailed a promotion.

We've never liked the rule that permits teams to block position coaches from accepting jobs as a coordinator elsewhere.  The whole idea of the coaching profession is that guys climb the ladder.  In Marinelli's case, he might now be in a position to be a head coach if the Bucs hadn't refused to permit him to enhance his career two years ago.

So maybe the Bucs will get what they deserve for holding back Marinelli, if all nine of these assistants whose contracts have expired leave the team.

VICK SHOULD SHUT UP

One of the things we missed after the slate of generally meaningless Week 17 contests was the post-game commentary from Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who was held to ZERO yards rushing against the Panthers.

"It's not just me," Vick said at the time.  "It's not just Mike Vick.  I've got other players around me, other people around me, coaches who are supposed to do everything in their power to put everyone involved in the offense in a better position.  It's not just me.  If you think it's just me, let me go out there by myself against the 11 guys on defense.  Then we'll see how tough it is."

Great observation, Mike.  And we wonder whether you were thinking of this when you gobbled up a $118 million contract extension in 2004.  You see, the ability of the team to put 10 capable players around you is directly related to the amount of cap pie that you have crammed into your pockets.  

At least one league source recognizes that Vick's statements are the natural consequence of the situation that owner Arthur Blank has created in Atlanta.

"Their handling and promoting of [Vick] encourages him to be this way, starting with the owner," said the source.  "They have created this monster and they will have to live with it."

The thinking is that the Falcons are letting Vick be Vick because they're selling the local fans an individual, not a championship.

Really, what is the product you're selling, Mr. Blank?  If your goal is to sell and market false promises and individuals, that's fine. But you should let the paying customers know that they shouldn't expect to contend for any championships while the name "Vick" is stitched onto the back of a Falcons jersey.

Although the team will get close from time to time, there's no way that Michael Vick will ever lead the Falcons to anything other than ultimate disappointment, barring a significant adjustment to the manner in which Vick is coddled and protected from criticism or blame.

Basically, he'll never get any better unless someone pushes him to do it.  And with everyone in the organization walking on eggshells around him, he will stagnate . . . until his incredible physical skills begin to diminish.