We felt kind of bad for pulling the plug early on the Monday night Live Blog of the Raiders-Seahawks game.  So we spent the balance of the broadcast working on this week's Ten-Pack of takes, and also pumping some content into the Rumor Mill.

The end result?  An earlier-than-usual posting of our weekly Ten-Pack.

Hey, it's better than nothing.

1.  1972 Dolphins Relax, Pucker All In The Same Day.

On Sunday afternoon, the members of the 1972 Dolphins breathed a collective sigh of relief when the 2006 Dolphins, previously 1-6, knocked the Chicago Bears from the ranks of the unbeaten.

It was a tremendous win for the Fins, who forced the Bears into committing six turnovers (like the Cardinals did last month) and who were able to hang on for the win (unlike the Cardinals).

But just as one of the undefeated teams was taken down, the Dolphins have a new reason to fret, given that the Colts completed impressive back-to-back wins over quality teams by knocking off the Patriots on Sunday night.

The 1972 Dolphins have good reason to worry.  The toughest remaining game on the schedule is the November 19 trip to Dallas.  There's also a game at Jacksonville on December 10, and the Jags have had a resurgence of late.

If the Colts can beat the Bills and the Cowboys and the Eagles and the Titans and the Jaguars and the Bengals and the Texans, it will be -- you guessed it -- the Dolphins who have the last chance to keep the Colts from completing a perfect regular season.

Though we don't think the Colts can win the next seven games without losing, we hope it comes down to that last game.

2.  More Fun With Bad Words.

We mentioned on Sunday that multiple readers heard Ravens coach Brian Billick drop an "F" bomb, courtesy of the microphones owned and operated by the folks at CBS.

There were more examples of questionable content on Sunday.  Prior to saying the "F" word, Billick also took the Lord's name in vain, with the addition of the word "damn," and the phrase was a clue to the folks in the truck that it might be prudent to kill the audio before Billick said something else.  As he did.

During the FOX pregame, the chants of "Dallas Sucks" could be heard from the pro-Redskins crowd, and on at least one sign that we saw.

And during the Sunday night broadcast on NBC, the New England faithful chanted "bullsh-t" after an illegal contact call in the first half.

But perhaps the best audio entertainment of the weekend came during the second quarter of the Broncos-Steelers game, when according to multiple readers someone hocked a world-class loogie right into a microphone.

3.  Madden Is The Master Of The Obvious.

We like John Madden, primarily because we ordinarily don't notice him.  And that's generally a good litmus test for any of the sock puppets. 

If we're not noticing them, it means that they're not saying dumb, annoying, and/or incorrect things. 

Madden's appeal is that he keeps it simple.  Sure, it's almost like watching a game with a lobotomy patient, but we'd rather listen to a guy who follows the old adage of keeping his mouth shut and being perceived an idiot in lieu of opening his mouth and confirming it than someone like Joey Sunshine, who hasn't encountered a topic on which he was unwilling to bloviate (thanks again, Tiki), regardless of whether Joe actually knows anything about the subject in question.

So instead Madden is, has been, and likely will continue to be a master of the obvious.

The latest example?  During the first half of Sunday night's Colts-Pats game, Al Michaels noted that the punters are the only guys who might not need to take a shower after the game.  The point was clear to us, and to anyone else with more common sense than, say, John Kerry.  The teams' offenses were performing so well that the teams' punters would not be needed.

But, thanks to Madden, guys like the junior Senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts didn't suffer any brain injuries while trying to figure out what Michaels was trying to say.  Said Madden: "Yeah because when the Colts get the ball, they're gonna go down and score, and when the Patriots get the ball, they're gonna go down and score."

So while we like Madden, he provided us on Sunday night with one of those rare moments during which we'd like to grab that scarf Michaels wears over his sport coat and strangle the big guy with it.  (After, of course, we strangle Michaels for wearing a scarf over a sports coat while inside a press box.)

4.  Cowboys Get Jobbed.

Apart from everything that the Cowboys did to themselves on Sunday against the Redskins, the zebras delivered the kill shot by calling a 15-yard major facemask penalty on Sean Taylor's return of the blocked field attempt that could have won the game for the Cowboys.

Although Taylor's head jerked for an instant, Kyle Kosier of the Cowboys released it quickly, and it looked to us like it should have been only a five-yard penalty.

As a result, the final untimed play was moved 10 yards closer than it would have been, giving Redskins kicker Nick Novak a realistic chance of nailing the game-winning kick.

It was a bad call, in our view.  But our guess is that the officials are more likely to make it a 15-yarder in situations like that, since as a matter of basic strategy it would be easy for teams to coach up their special teams to do whatever is necessary to get a guy down after a blocked field goal try late in a tie game.

Frankly, it's good football strategy.  Yeah, the player might be fined for violently yanking the guy down by the headwear (see Rolle, Antrel), but a win is a win is a win (is a win), and if Kosier had gotten Taylor down at the spot where the face mask was pulled then the 15 yards would have only made the last-ditch Hail Mary pass fifteen yards closer.

With all that said, the bigger problem for the Cowboys on Sunday was Terrell Owens, who dropped a certain six-pointer that could have (and perhaps would have) broken the Redskins' will with the Cowboys already up by seven and less than 20 minutes to play in the game. 

And as to anyone who faults coach Bill Parcells for his decision to go for two after the Cowboys scored the first touchdown of the game, which made the score Dallas 6, D.C. 5, we think that it's unfair to assume that the Cowboys would have been leading 20-19 prior to the blocked field goal try. 

If the Tuna had gone for one, the difference would have changed the dynamic of the entire game, arguably from the moment that the one-pointer had been scored.  The Redskins likely would have called different plays on offense in the fourth quarter while trailing by one point, and the Cowboys would have called different plays on offense while leading by one point, especially on the drive that put them in position to try the game winning kick. 

In hindsight, should the Cowboys have taken one point instead of two?  Yes.  But the loss shouldn't be pinned on that decision.

5.  Coach Ditka Proves One Of Our Favorite Theories.

We've always believed that the players and coaches on great teams of the past secretly don't want current versions of those same teams to eclipse the success that the past great teams had. 

Does anyone, for example, really think that the members of the 17-0 Dolphins of 1972 would want the Dolphins of 2007, 2008, or any future year to go 19-0?

Sure, they might prefer the Dolphins to do it over another team, but if they are being honest with us (and with themselves), they'd say that they want to be the only group that has run the table, and that they want neither the other 31 franchises nor their own to replicate that success.

That same theory goes, we believe, for any other guy connected to any other great team.  Did the remaining Packers of the 1960s really want to see the franchise get another Super Bowl win in 1996?  Did the Steelers of the 1970s really want the 2005 edition of the team to push their feats into the background?

And during Sunday's NFL Countdown on ESPN, former Bears coach Mike Ditka implicitly proved our theory via his efforts to compare the 1985 Bears to the 2006 version of the club.  In this regard, Iron (but only after taking his Levitra) Mike was pointed in his statements:  The only thing better about the 2006 Bears, he said, is their head coach. 

We realize that certain members of former great teams will from time to time express unwavering support for their old franchises, but many of these guys have no choice, lest they risk alienating the fans who still hold them in high regard.

Ditka either doesn't care or (more likely) believes he is immune to such dynamics.  Really, who among Bears fans would ever turn on the only guy who has delivered to Chicago its only Lombardi?

No one.  Until, that is, another head coach delivers a newer championship.  At that point, Ditka would be less relevant.

And that's precisely the point. 

6.  Sterling Still A Moron.

Kudos to NBC for putting together its best Football Night in America (And Particularly in Arizona Since the Cardinals Were On A Bye) of the season.

Why?  Because it was shortened, due to the NASCAR race.

We're joking, sort of.  There are still aspects of the show that are acceptable to us, even though the highlights portion still pales in comparison to the old ESPN Primetime offering.  For example, Peter King provided an intriguing nugget this week regarding the fact that the word is out that Bears quarterback Rex Grossman can be thrown off of his game if he is roughed up early.

But the show will never reach its maximum potential as long as Sterling Sharpe has a seat at the grown-ups' table.  Is he opinionated?  Yes, and that's a good thing.  Are his opinions always the product of sound logic and reasoning?  No, and that's a bad thing.

The latest example of Sharpe spouting off without a sound basis for his beliefs came on Sunday night, when in debating whether Peyton Manning or Tom Brady is the better quarterback Sharpe seized on the fact that Manning makes more money than Brady.

"There's a reason Peyton Manning is making six million more dollars than Tom Brady," Sharpe declared.

Yeah, Sterling.  There is.  It's because Peyton is a pig.

Brady intentionally and deliberately took less money than he might have gotten on the open market in order to allow the franchise to build a quality team around him, year in and year out.  Manning, in contrast, gobbled up as big a piece of salary cap pie as possible, making it harder for the Colts to build a quality team around him, year in and year out. 

Brady's decision to take less money doesn't mean that Manning is a better quarterback; it means that Manning has less regard for the connection between the team's total salary cap and its ability to consistently achieve its ultimate goals. 

Linebacker Marcus Washington, for example, was lost to the Redskins via free agency because the Colts were scrambling to work out a deal with Manning.  This year, running back Edgerrin James couldn't be brought back.  And while his departure has been adequately addressed by the selection of Joseph Addai in the first round of the 2006 draft, the fact that Addai was a "need" pick prevented the team from getting, for example, a run-stuffing defensive tackle or a play-making linebacker -- or to address some of the "protection problems" in the offensive line that resulted in Peyton Manning getting tossed around by the Steelers in last season's playoff loss.

Regardless, the amount of money a guy makes doesn't make him "better" than a player at the same position, and it's that very thinking, in our view, that prompts players to think that they have "outperformed" their contracts when due to changes in the market a guy in the out years of a deal is making less money than a player whom he regards as inferior.

So to the extent that teams like the Eagles, who have negotiated long-term deals about which the players who have signed those deals might grouse in the future, will have trouble keeping those guys happy over the long haul, teams like the Eagles can thank guys like Sharpe for putting the notion in players' heads that their worth is determined solely by their cap number.

7.  Reggie Still A Decoy?

Earlier in the season, the Saints were heralded for using rookie tailback Reggie Bush as a decoy.  In the team's triumphant return to the Superdome, the use of Bush going one way opened up the field in the other direction, as New Orleans throttled the Falcons.

The thinking was that opposing teams eventually would re-focus their efforts on defense, cutting off these other players and thereby allowing Bush to run wild.

Though we didn't watch Sunday's game between the Saints and the Buccaneers, Bush's stats suggest that either he's still being used effectively as a decoy . . . or that he isn't, and that he's just not as effective as most folks thought he would be.

A week after getting thrown around by the Ravens (which included an observation from Mike Preston of the Baltimore Sun that Bush took a dive in the second quarter in order to avoid getting blown up by Ray Lewis), Bush's numbers against the Buccaneers were downright horrendous.

The 2005 Heisman winner had 11 carries for minus-5 yards rushing, four receptions for 22 yards, and two punt returns for 20 yards.

Thus, through eight games of his rookie season, Bush has 700 total yards from scrimmage, and a rushing average of only 2.6 yards per carry.

Gale Sayers, in contrast, averaged exactly twice as many yards per carry as a rookie in 1965, and one rushing touchdown per game.  Bush's only touchdown of the season came on a punt return that, frankly, didn't showcase many of the skills that made him the most feared offensive weapon in the NCAA last year.

8.  We Love A Good Quarterback Controversy.

Several years ago, we concluded that the salary cap would render quarterback controversies less likely, since teams often will make a much larger financial investment in the starter -- and thus will have no alternative but to use him.

This concept kept Byron Leftwich on the field in the past, even though some folks in the Jacksonville organization thought that David Garrard might be the better player.

But this year there are several intriguing quarterback quandaries.  Drew Bledsoe already has gotten the hook in Dallas.  Leftwich, who is nearing the end of his rookie deal, is getting bumped to the bench.  Daunte Culpepper was implicitly moved out of the starting lineup in Miami after a shoulder injury yielded to an allegedly lingering problem with his knee.  In Oakland, an injury to Aaron Brooks put Andrew Walter on the field, and we've got a feeling that Walter might hang on to the job.

Other potential hot spots include Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Washington, Minnesota, Chicago (don't laugh), and Tampa. 

In Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Houston, the first-round pedigree of the current starters will insulate them from replacement.  In Cleveland, Tampa, and Minnesota, the starters are still better than anyone else in the building.  In Denver and Washington, there are quarterbacks of the future who simply aren't ready to be quarterbacks of the present. 

The most intriguing dilemma is in Kansas City, where overlooked reserve Damon Huard is playing like Len Dawson on a team that, in theory, will be putting Trent Green back on the field as soon as he's fully recovered from a significant concussion suffered on September 10.

So what will coach Herm Edwards do once Green is cleared to play?  Our guess is that, in the same way that teams can get clearance for players with head injuries when they really want it, teams also can not get clearance for a player when they don't want it.

Green, we predict, won't be cleared to play unless and until the powers-that-be in K.C. conclude that Huard isn't getting it done.  The challenge, as we see it, will be for Edwards to know when to pull the trigger on putting Green back in.  The longer, however, that Huard plays well, the harder it will be to justify shutting him down.

9.  NFL.com Makes A Pretty Big Mistake.

In a first-season episode of Seinfeld, Jerry and George act on a hot stock tip, and Jerry becomes obsessed with the daily ups and downs of the price of the shares.  At one point he begins to check a newspaper, and his girlfriend reminds him that he's already looked it up.  "This is a different paper," Seinfeld says, "I thought maybe they have different sources."

Most football fans have at some time or another experienced similar emotions.  Back in the early 1990s, before the days of DirecTV and widely-available Internet access and when only CNN Headline News scrolled scores at the bottom of the screen, guys partial to certain teams (for reasons either sentimental or financial) often would hope that the final score listed by CNN's junior network might somehow be incorrect.

It was a thin shard of hope, but it was hope nonetheless.

We were reminded of those emotions from days gone by on Sunday, when we were advised by multiple readers that the NFL's official site inadvertently displayed, for an undetermined amount of time, that Cowboys kicker Mike Vanderjagt actually had made the field goal that the Redskins blocked, and that Dallas actually had won the game.

Here's a screen shot that one reader sent to us:

If nothing else, the error validates any past or future Seinfeldesque efforts to check multiple publications regarding otherwise objective, quantitative facts regarding sports scores, stock prices, or election results.

Indeed, it's still possible that different resources have different sources.   

10.  Enough Already With The GM Commercials.

We can't recall another commercial that we once revered so completely and then about which we became disgusted so thoroughly (and quickly).  We're talking about the various versions of the GM "This Is Our Country" ad.  We initially loved (and still like) the extended edition of the commercial that includes all sorts of football footage.  But we hate the never-ending stream of alternate versions that seem to be played in virtually every break taken during virtually every NFL game that we watch.

Don't get us wrong.  We appreciate GM's support of the NFL.  And we're half tempted to give a Yukon Denali a test drive when it's time to replace the official PFT Ford Fiesta.  But the "This is Our Country" thing has been played . . . to . . . death. 

As we head to the polls (and we encourage everyone to vote, although we think that most of the candidates aren't worth scrubbing someone's butt), let's set aside the arguably jingoistic tone of the portion of the lyrics that landed in the GM spot and remember that this really is our country. 

And it's everyone's country, regardless of political affiliation, wealth (or lack thereof), connections (or lack thereof), race, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, etc.  Let's also hope that the politicians who lead this one nation under God moving forward will keep in mind His beliefs -- and the express words of our founding fathers -- that all persons are created equal.