SPOTLIGHT / A GLANCE AT THIS WEEK IN THE NFL : NFL TO AMERICA: TAKE THE WEEKEND OFF

How about that great Saints-Falcons game at 10 a.m.?

What better way to cap the day than the Colts and the Dolphins at 5 p.m.?

Rarely has the NFL put on a worse show than Sunday when its new bye-week format had most of the NFC East and the AFC West on vacation.

Between off-days and blackouts, only one of the five nation’s five largest cities could see any of their home teams on TV. The Jets were on in New York but the Rams were blacked out in Los Angeles, the Oilers were blacked out in Houston, the Eagles were off and the Bears play tonight.

The league’s meager nine-game schedule had only one--Pittsburgh at Cleveland--that matched two teams with winning records.

Lowlights bottomed out with the second Seahawks-Patriots game of the season and the semi-annual classic of the Battle of the Bays, the Packers and Bucs.

The bye-week format, installed to stretch out the season to provide more TV dates and revenue, is generally unpopular. Some consider it a stand-in for what the owners really want: an 18-game season.

Even the promoters were laughing at Sunday’s card.

Said ESPN’s Dick Schaap, promoting his own network’s look at the day in football: “Stay tuned for SportsCenter where Chris Berman will summon up all his skill to try to make it sound exciting to Robin (Roberts).”

FROM SHARPE MINDS COME SHARPE PRODUCTS

The Battle of the Bays lived up to pregame expectations, the Packers routing the Buccaneers so badly, they even let wide receiver Sterling Sharpe take two snaps at quarterback.

Sharpe, lining up in the shotgun, broke up the middle for five yards on the first. Then he passed to Mark Clayton for one yard on the second down.

After that, Sharpe went back to wide receiver, where he caught four touchdown passes.

Sharpe, who hasn’t spoken to reporters since his rookie season, refused to talk after the game but made his usual exception for TV networks.

SEE IF THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR

With the Bengals trailing the Oilers, 14-12, Cincinnati’s Jay Schroeder, subbing for injured David Klingler, took his team to the Houston one-yard line.

There Schroeder was sacked. On the next play, he fumbled the ball away.

“I was just trying to move around and dropped the ball,” Schroeder said. “We did move the ball at times and once again we shot ourselves in the foot.”

YOU WANT NUMBERS, WE’VE GOT NUMBERS

The Bills’ Thurman Thomas rushed for 117 yards against the Jets and caught passes for 67 more. In his last seven games against the Jets, he has gained an average of 142 yards from scrimmage.

Browns Coach Bill Belichick, who’d just benched owner Art Modell’s favorite, Bernie Kosar, was given a two-year extension, taking his contract to 1997, or almost as long as Kosar’s.

The 49ers’ Jerry Rice caught nine passes for 155 yards against the Cardinals, his 40th 100-yard game, tying him with Steve Largent for fourth on the all-time list.

The Jets blew a lead for the third game in a row. They have now lost after leading the Eagles, 21-0; the Raiders, 17-0, and the Bills, 7-0.

Bobby Hebert, the Cajun and ex-Saint who calls himself “the Benedict Arnold of New Orleans” for deserting to the hated Falcons, came off the bench to complete 13 of 16 passes, leading Atlanta to a 26-15 victory in the Louisiana Superdome.

A crowd of 56,526 in Seattle saw the Seahwaks beat the Pats. After 117 consecutive sellouts, the game was blacked out locally on television for the first time since 1978. There were 7,808 no-shows.

GENIUS AT WORK, PART II

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who gave you the Emmitt Jones holdout, says he’ll extend the contract of Troy Aikman, now under scale at $1.9 million a year, but is holding off until “December when I have a better feel for the lay of the land around the league, the TV contract, the salary cap, the whole situation.”

Says Aikman: “I’ve taken what they paid me and never said a word. I’m not going to start now. But December? When we’re in the hard part of the season? It’s a funny time to start looking at a contract.”

EXPANSION POLITICS

The real action this week takes place Tuesday in Chicago where the league will award its first two expansion franchises since Seattle and Tampa in 1976.

The fix is supposed to be in for St. Louis and Charlotte, but the 2000 Olympics was supposed to be set for Beijing so stay tuned.

Baltimore, whose team fled in the dead of night 10 years ago, has voted funds for a new stadium to be built next to Camden Yards. However, NFL owners are leaning toward St. Louis, home of Anheuser-Busch which spends $43 million annually in TV ads, and Charlotte, a booming area which has guaranteed sellouts.

Jacksonville, Fla., and Memphis are considered long shots. NFL President Neil Austrian says the league wants “fan-friendly” stadiums, by which he means new ones. Jacksonville and Memphis are planning to renovate the Gator and Liberty Bowls.

SON OF STEEL CURTAIN

The Steelers, led by linebackers Greg Lloyd and Kevin Greene, went into Sunday’s game against the Browns having allowed an average of 39 yards rushing in the last four games.

At 6-2, 225, Lloyd is an an undersized hitter in the tradition of Jack Lambert. As a rookie, he was ejected for a crunching hit on Denver’s Gary Kubiak. A few years later, he gave the Jets’ Al Toon a concussion and, while Toon was laying on the ground, tapped the turf next to him with his hand like a referee counting him out.

A No. 6 draft choice from Ft. Valley (Ga.) State in 1987, Lloyd comes from a broken family. He never knew his father. He was raised by his aunt after his mother dropped him off one day when he was 2.

“I have had to overcome the bitterness and I’m still working on that,” Lloyd says. “The complete family, the mom and dad, the milk and cookies? No, I got a taste of reality real fast. . . . I’d be playing against these kids and they’d have their parents up in the stands, rooting and hollering for them and I would get very mad. I’d say, ‘I’m going to break your Johnny’s nose.’ I’d try to kill the kid and then look up in the stands at his parents.”

BABYGATE: THE SAGA ENDS

The Houston Oilers aren’t great at holding leads, their coach is thought to be in trouble, their offensive and defensive coordinators don’t speak to each other and their owner promised to clean house before they got off to their 1-4 start.

But nothing they’ve done drew the condemnation they received last week for threatening to discipline lineman David Williams who missed the game against the Patriots to stay with his wife, Debi, who was giving birth to their son, Scot.

Debi, who’d miscarried in her previous pregnancy, asked doctors to give her the drug, pitocin, to speed up the birth process so David could get to the game. The Oilers called Williams in the delivery room, finally angering the doctor so much he pulled the phone off the wall.

Williams’ position coach, Bob Young, compared it to missing World War II but Williams drew wide support elsewhere. The story ran on Page 1 of the New York Times and was later commented upon on the Op-Ed page. Vice President Al Gore praised Williams.

“There were more calls about this than the Oilers’ choke at Buffalo,” said Dan Patrick, a Houston talk show host. “That was literally just a game.”

Williams, docked his day’s pay of $111,111, returned to work, starting in Sunday’s game against the Bengals. He received the loudest cheers of any Oiler upon introduction.

“I’m just glad I got this game behind me,” he said. “It’s just incredible how things have gone. It amazed me last week how they snowballed. Hopefully that’s all behind us now.”

THEY SAID IT (HONEST)

David Shula, coach of the 0-7 Bengals: “It’s getting to the point that I don’t know what to say.”

Sam Wyche, coach of the 1-5 Buccaneers: “I told our players I don’t know what happens on Friday night and Saturday because we see a whole different team on Sunday from what we see during the week. It’s frustrating to me as a coach because I don’t have an explanation. ... I take the blame for it. For some reason, this team doesn’t play as well as it practices.”

Deion Sanders, whose Falcons were 0-5 by the time his baseball season ended: “This is more me. This is what I love. Baseball is more about me and football is about ‘team,’ and that’s what I love.”

TONIGHT’S GAME Minnesota Vikings at Chicago Bears

In the fight to be second in the worst division in the NFL, the NFC Central, this game looms large.

Sure, two 3-2 teams look decent enough here on paper.

But Chicago has defeated Tampa Bay and Atlanta (a combined 2-9 entering this weekend) and the third victory came against the Randall Cunningham-less Eagles.

The Vikings beat the Bays, Tampa and Green, and even the Bears in the second week. That gives Minnesota a good divisional record, which counts only for tiebreakers.

Minnesota should be, and can be, a good team. But with running back Terry Allen out for the season because of a knee injury, the offense has held the Vikings back.

Jim McMahon was brought in to be the quarterback, but he has been inconsistent at best. He is the 18th-ranked passer in the NFL. Barry Word was brought in to replace Allen, but he has not been the answer.

Minnesota’s defense, led by former USC star Jack Del Rio, is the NFL’s best overall. The Vikings swarm to the ball and rarely give up the big play.

That might not matter against Chicago, which has had few big plays this season.

Another former USC star, wide receiver Curtis Conway, was drafted by Chicago to give the team a big-play threat. However, Conway has not had many opportunities because of injuries, and his biggest play was a 32-yard touchdown catch against the Eagles two weeks ago. Both teams had a bye last week.

Until the Bears figure a way to get the ball to Conway, the offense will still simply chip away. Quarterback Jim Harbaugh is 14th in the NFL in passing, averaging a bit more than six yards per completion. Neal Anderson is 18th in rushing with 272 yards, averaging 3.4 yards per carry.