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1. There's No Such Thing as Face Guarding.

We were perplexed by the third-quarter pass interference call on Patriots cornerback Ellis Hobbs, who while facing Colts receiver Reggie Wayne (and not facing the line of scrimmage) jumped as the ball approached Wayne in the end zone. The ball struck Hobbs on the arm and fell incomplete, and the zebras struck Hobbs with a piece of yellow laundry.

So instead of third down and seven yards to go from the New England 19, the Colts got a first-and-goal from the one, and on the next play Dan Klecko caught a touchdown pass from Peyton Manning. The two-point conversion tied the game at 21.

The sock puppets declared that Hobbs had been called for "face guarding." It was clear that Hobbs didn't touch Wayne, so that could be the only explanation, right?

Within minutes, several readers sent us a link to a 2006 article from the Chicago Tribune, in which former NFL official Jerry Markbreit answered the following question:

Can you call pass interference on a defender if he is turned toward the wide receiver, not looking at the ball, waves his arms, but doesn't touch the wide receiver at all? Say the ball is in the air and hits the defender in the arm because he deflects the pass. Again, he doesn't touch the WR, but isn't looking at the ball either. --Dawn Polomsky, Phoenix, Ariz.

Many years ago, there was a penalty on pass plays for "face guarding." What you describe is face guarding. There is no penalty under current NFL rules for this act, unless there is physical contact. If the ball hits the defender, as you describe, the play would be legal. It is dangerous for a defender to turn his back on the direction that the ball is coming from. If he contacts the intended receiver, it would be pass interference because the defender is not playing the ball. You seldom see what you describe, but it would not be a foul.

There you have it. Very, very bad call. And shame on the sock puppets for not knowing that face guarding is no longer a penalty in the NFL.

Even when the rule existed, it was permissible for the defender to jump up with straight arms, and only a penalty if the defender waved his arms to distract the receiver.

2. Make FieldTurf Mandatory.

Not long ago, folks couldn't understand how we could put a man on the moon, but the best artificial playing surface we could come up with was the green cement of AstroTurf.

Now there is FieldTurf and various similar products, which provide the kind of cushion that the green cement never could.

And FieldTurf is so good that, for most cities in cold-weather climates, it makes more sense to use FieldTurf than RealTurf.

Given the crappy condition of the Soldier Field sod during the playoffs, why doesn't the NFL make FieldTurf mandatory for Chicago? And Pittsburgh. And Cleveland. And every other town in which the weather makes it hard to maintain a luxurious lawn.

Home-field advantage in the playoffs is one of the spoils of a good season. But the surface shouldn't ever be an issue, at all, and we think it's high time that the NFL take an active role in ensuring that games between the best athletes in the world are played on the best available surfaces.

3. Caliendo Es Caliente.

We've always loved the impersonations of FOX's Frank Caliendo. And they're even better when the people whom Frank is impersonating are similar to him in, um, shape.

So it was a home run for Caliendo on Sunday when he pulled off a phony face off between Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell.

The line that made us pee in our pants? Trump's last words to Rosie: "I loved you in Uncle Buck."

(We appreciated the line even more in light of the fact that, two nights before, we picked up a copy of the John Candy classic for $5.50 at Target.)

So well done, Frank. Though there isn't much about the network pregame shows that we'll miss until the 2007 season starts, Caliendo's segments are on the short list.

4. Pats Misplayed The Clock.

The Patriots haven't done many things wrong over the past five years. And it's very hard to find ways to criticize him. But there's a real problem, as we see it, with the way that the plays were called when the team had the ball down the stretch in Sunday's AFC title game.

Let's summarize. After an Adam Vinatieri field goal tied the game at 31 and Ellis Hobbs returned the kickoff to the New England 46, there were five minutes and 23 seconds left in regulation.

On the first play of the drive, Tom Brady found tight end Daniel Graham for a 25-yard gain, to the Colts' 29.

The next snap came 44 seconds after the prior one, with four minutes and thirty-nine seconds to go. The play called was a deep pass to Jabar Gaffney.

The next snap came with four minutes and 33 seconds to play. And it was another pass. A short one to Graham. Incomplete.

So, after three plays, only 54 seconds had been taken off of the clock.

On the next play, third down and ten, the Pats handed off to fullback Heath Evans. The play gained only four yards.

The field goal attempt was snapped on a rolling clock, only 36 seconds after the third-down play had started.

So the Colts, after the field goal and the kickoff, got the ball back with 3:49 to go. But if the Pats had kept the clock moving on the three plays that culminated in the field goal that put them up by three, there would have been less than two minutes and thirty seconds to play.

After a three-and-out by the Colts, the Pats got the ball back with 3:22 remaining. But if they'd played the prior series differently, the drive easily could have started with the first play coming on the other side of the two-minute warning.

Under those circumstances, the Pats could have milked the rest of the clock with a first down or two.

But even with 3:22 left, the Pats' three-and-out drive featured two incomplete passes, which left the Colts with 2:27 when their eventual touchdown drive started from their own 20.

Sure, the maneuver left the Patriots with enough clock to mount a potential game-winning drive, but a potential game-winning drive might not have been necessary if the Pats had decided, when faced with first down and ten from the Colts' 29 and 4:39 left, to use as much clock as possible before kicking the field goal that gave them their final lead of the season.

5. Time To Get Rid Of The Rooney Rule.

With two African-American coaches in Super Bowl XLI, which necessarily means that the 2006 season will produce the first NFL champion coached by a minority, we think it's time for the Rooney Rule to be wiped off of the books.

It's no longer necessary. It's done its job. It's time for it to go away.

Regardless of the reasons for the fact that there weren't many African-American head coaches, owners can now be trusted to conduct inclusive coaching searches that have no connection of any kind to skin color.

And the reality is that race will continue to be an issue when it comes to coaching as long as the process to fill every vacancy must include at least one minority candidate.

The best-case scenario is to get to the point where no one is talking about race when it comes to coaching candidates. Though it wouldn't happen immediately if the Rooney Rule were to go away, it will never happen for as long as the Rooney Rule is the law of the land.

6. Horton Hears A "Who Dat?"

We'll keep this one brief.

FOX's Pam Oliver looked like a character from a Dr. Seuss book on Sunday.

That is all.

7. Reggie Runs Afoul Of The Football Gods.

Let's see. Reggie Bush makes an in-full-stride catch and takes off on a stunning 88-yard touchdown play. He taunts Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher as he reaches the end zone. He does a flip as he scores, and then he gets up and dances.

The extra point makes the score 16-14. The Saints, down 16-0 late in the first half, have all the momentum.

And then the wheels come off. The Bears score the next 23 points, and the final score is 39-14.

Then, three days later, the long-dormant story that could rob Reggie of his Heisman gets dusted off, with the first hint of hard evidence that his family accepted cash and/or other benefits from the folks at New Era Sports and Entertaiment.

The inescapable conclusion? Reggie dissed the football gods, and they are not happy.

8. We Can't Forget New Orleans.

It'd be very easy for everyone to permanently close the chapter on the whole Katrina-New Orleans situation, now that the Saints' unlikely run to the Super Bowl ended a step short.

But anyone who saw the FOX pregame show on Sunday won't forget. Can't forget. Terry Bradshaw's depressing-while-uplifting look at the mess that still remains in New Orleans was jarring to us, and it made us even more in the tank for the team that plays in the Superdome than Jim Nantz was for the Colts.

It truly is a tragedy, and we're amazed that there hasn't been more of a national push to get people to give a little money to folks who lost everything. We mobilized to amass millions for a tsunami in a distant land a couple of years ago, and yet apart from the guilt-driven efforts of the federal government, we've largely forgotten about our own.

Folks, these are our neighbors. Our people. We don't have many specific answers here. We just hope that someone with a ton of cash and influence will start banging the drum to get these folks back to where they were before a hurricane changed their lives forever.

9. Napolian Already Getting Started.

Colts president Bill Polian is well known for doing whatever he wants, without real consequence. The next example of Polian being Napolian?

Keep an eye on when the Colts travel to Miami, and when the Bears head there. We've been tipped off to the possibility that the Colts will delay their arrival until Monday night, thereby avoiding some of the media sessions to which they otherwise would be subjected.

Hey, it's the Colts. Napolian got away with bashing the zebras for their failure to call illegal contact fouls in the early games of the playoffs, when he suggested that the downfield manhandling of wideouts kept Indy from scoring touchdowns.

On Sunday, the calls likewise didn't come -- and a total of nine touchdowns were scored in the AFC championship game.

10. Bet The Farm On The Colts.

Unless Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has a more serious thumb injury than advertised, and assuming that Manning doesn't pull a Eugene Robinson the night before the big game, Indy will win the Super Bowl.

Why? They're simply the better team. The Bears lost to the Patriots during the regular season, even with defensive tackle Tommie Harris. The Colts? They vanquished the Pats not once, but twice. [Editor's note: The prior version of this item said that the Bears lost "convincingly" to the Pats. We had a different number in our head than the actual 17-13 final score, and we should have checked it. We apologize.]

And don't forget our nugget from a week ago that No. 1 seeds from either conference are 1-5 in the Super Bowl this decade. The reason, we believe, is that the No. 1 seed that wins two games at home to qualify typically isn't sufficiently challenged in the postseason, and thus isn't ready for a tough game at a neutral site.

For a while on Sunday, it appeared that the Saints would make a game of it in Chicago, but as the Bears pulled away in the second half, so did the ability of the Bears to be battle-tested in the one that really matters.

The Colts, on the other hand, went on the road to beat a tough Ravens team, and then out Patrioted the Patriots in a game for the ages.

If the Colts had only one week to rebound from that Sunday night classic against New England, perhaps they wouldn't be fully recovered from the physical and emotional rollercoaster. But with a full 14 days, the Colts will be loaded for Bear. And Chicago will see a team better than any it has faced since getting pasted by the Panthers in the 2005 playoffs.

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