Rock ‘em, Sock ‘em Defense Makes a Comeback : Pro football: It’s no coincidence that the NFL’s five unbeaten teams boast defenses that are among the stingiest in the league.

Chuck Noll, who won four Super Bowls with the Steelers, knows what it takes to win in the NFL.

“The Raiders played good, old-fashioned, knock-your-head-off football,” Noll said after his Steelers were beaten, 20-3, in a throwback to some of their brawls of a decade ago.

The win left the Raiders as one of five teams at 3-0 and kept the Steelers without an offensive touchdown in their three games.

In fact, in their own way, all five unbeatens play physical football and defense --a fact illustrated by the New York Giants, who won a Sunday battle of unbeatens by shutting down Dan Marino and Miami, 20-3. It’s no coincidence that the five remaining unbeatens are among the six stingiest in average points allowed: Raiders (8.3), Bears (9.7), Giants (10.0), 49ers (12.7) and Bengals (14.3).

In the last decade, that is what has allowed the NFC to dominate.

“We’re NFC. We play a lot of rock ‘em, sock ‘em football,” said Giants cornerback Perry Williams, who had an interception and forced a fumble in the victory over the Dolphins.

That adage will be tested next week when Chicago visits the Coliseum to play the Raiders.

The Bears won Sunday despite just five completions in 16 attempts for 43 yards by quarterback Jim Harbaugh. At one point, they ran the ball on 19 straight plays.

“If we have to run the ball 70 times, we’ll do it,” said Mike Ditka, whose team ran 43 times Sunday.

RUSHING: After only three 100-yard rushing games in the first two weeks, there were four on Sunday--144 by Derrick Fenner of Seattle in the 34-31 overtime loss in Denver; 129 by Denver’s Bobby Humphrey in the same game; 122 by Kansas City’s Christian Okoye in the Chiefs’ 17-3 win over Green Bay, and 103 by Anthony Toney of the Eagles in their 27-21 victory over the Rams. The latter was the first 100-yard rushing game by an Eagle since 1987.

OFFENSE OF THE ‘90s? After three weeks, the three teams that use the run-and-shoot (Atlanta, Detroit and Houston) are a combined 3-6, including Atlanta’s win over Houston and Detroit’s over Atlanta. Seattle, a team that uses some run-and-shoot, is 0-3.

Atlanta has scored 74 points, but four of its touchdowns are on defense. Detroit has 62, Houston 60 and Seattle just 44.

By contrast, the ultraconservative Giants have scored 75 points, Chicago has 67 and Kansas City 64.

SPEEDUP: With the Denver-Seattle game settled in overtime (total time: 3 hours, 22 minutes), Sunday’s games averaged 3:03, keeping the yearly average at about 3 hours, compared to 3:11 last season. Seven of the 13 games finished in less than three hours.

POOR NORM: In hindsight, it’s probably no surprise that Seattle’s Norm Johnson missed two potential game-winning field goals against Denver.

In their 13-year history, the Seahawks have lost four overtime games--all to Denver.

BLOCK THAT KICK: Albert Lewis’ blocked punt for the Chiefs against the Packers was the seventh of his career and second in two weeks.