NFL News And Notes: Week 8

Kickers should be seen and not heard. Mike Vanderjagt should keep his mouth shut and just kick the ball. His missed field goal a year ago on opening night in Foxborough, which broke his long personal string of consecutive field goals made, was perhaps the sweetest miss by a Patriot opponent in recent memory, maybe ever. Vanderjagt spent the previous few days mean mouthing the Patriots. Peyton Manning once told him to shut up. Will he? He boots one out of bounds. Serves him right.

Sit down and chew on this for a second. Could you picture anyone in the Kraft family running Scott Pioli out of town? That is why the Patriots are the Patriots and the Red Sox are the Red Sox.

People will stand up and cheer for Tedy Bruschi long after he retires.

Someday, Brian Billick may treat himself to a decent quarterback. He didn't even have one when he won the whole thing five years ago.

You know, I wouldn't blame Joe Gibbs one bit if he began his postgame press conference with this: "I don't care who died! I told my players that the Giants were going to come out with a lot of emotion! That's no excuse for us losing 36-0! We just plain stunk today! This wasn't about Mister Mara. This was about us playing lousy football!"

Of course that doesn't sound nice. But if he feels that way deep down inside, you can't blame him.

Don't keep bringing up how poorly Arizona plays at Texas Stadium. Where was their most recent playoff win at?

Keep the Saints in Louisiana. At Tiger Stadium, if LSU is willing. They don't belong in San Antonio.

Or Los Angeles.

Geek of the week: That idiot fan in Cincinnati, Greg Gall, was lucky Mike Curtis has long since retired. And this nut actually pleaded not guilty. By the way, who's Mike Curtis? We'll tell you in just a bit.

You know, that fan had a lot of gall to do what he did.

Go flick on Nick at Nite and watch Sanford and Son sometime. Watch old Fred Sanford walk around his dumpy house with his bent back and his gnarly fingers. You might begin to think to yourself, "He could cover deep receivers better than Duane Starks can!"

We assume that Romeo Crennel knows that usually bad things get worse before they get better. At least Houston was the favorite.

Hope Steve Mariucci noticed that it was Jeff Garcia that threw that pick, not Joey Harrington. Oh, for the good old days of Eric Hipple and Gary Danielson.

Not to mention UMass grad Greg Landry.

Honk if you are rooting for Brett Favre to get out after this year, if only to preserve his great legacy.

Watching the Patriots botch that field goal attempt thanks to a delay of game penalty is sort of like a White Sox starting pitcher not being able to throw a complete game.

What's this? Interim Rams head coach Joe Vitt now has heart problems also? What is it with coaching that team anymore?

Seriously, this was a minor procedure Vitt underwent (he doesn't need an angioplasty as was originally thought), and all signs say that he'll be fine. But you really have to wonder.

What more can go wrong for the Vikings? Daunte Culpepper is now gone for the season. It should have been the coach instead.

Back to school: Fans of Wazzou, don't take it personal if USC tried to run up the score on you. They made it back to the top of the BCS, and never should have left it in the first place.

By the way, watch Police Academy 2 and find out what BCS really means.

Have they already forgotten about Julius Jones in Dallas?

If Drew Brees gets hurt, his backup isn't on the bench. He's further behind him in the backfield.

By the way, Willis McGahee, make like Vanderjagt and shut up also. You're no LaDainian Tomlinson. You may never be.

One of these days, Denver will pay for not playing 60 solid minutes of football. They let both Super Bowl XXXIX participants back into games they had won easily at home.

Miami proved nothing by beating New Orleans on Sunday other than Nick Saban still has a lot of work to do.

But you have to wonder how Saban felt coming back to Tiger Stadium. Maybe he felt something like "Good grief, what did I get myself into?"

Tiki Barber is one class act. Somewhere up above, your late boss is looking down on you and loving you for what you did.

We're not ready to say that Bill Belichick misses Crennel and Charlie Weis. But some of these schemes on both sides of the ball could use a little sprucing up.

Listening to Steve Smith brag about getting the better of Fred Smoot stinks. We're still listening to echoes of him trashing out Tyrone Poole from a Super Bowl loss two years ago.

But that was still pretty stupid on Smoot's part. No Viking should be trash talking right now.

Remember him: Back to Mike Curtis. On December 11, 1971, a 30-year-old Baltimore Colt fan named Donald Ennis charged on the field at old Memorial Stadium and swiped the football much like Gall did in Cincinnati this past weekend. With three minutes to go in a game where Baltimore would eventually beat Miami 14-3, Ennis charged out of his end zone seat and on the field. He ran up to the football and snatched it, and ran away. Curtis took off after Ennis and laid a Mo Lewis-esque hit on this unbelievably stupid fan, clubbing him in the neck and sending him to the ground, unconscious. Ennis went to the hospital, and then to the hoosegow. The hit became the defining moment in an otherwise decent career for the Colt linebacker, who played 11 years in Baltimore (winning Super Bowl V and making it to four Pro Bowls along the way) before moving on to one season with the expansion Seattle Seahawks and two final seasons in Washington.

Manning may finally make Gillette Stadium Peyton's Place on Monday night.

The only thing that should bother Manning is whom he got his 7-0 record against. Go look at those seven teams and find one win which would make you think, "Gosh, the Colts sure beat a tough team in that one!"

Have the 49ers finally turned the corner?

If Theo Epstein is really looking for a new line of work, if he gave Bob Kraft a call, he'd find a place for this remarkable young man. As they say, when one door closes, another one opens.