Ambassador Sharpe Makes Yuletide Plea

The Broncos and Chiefs are talking as if they are expecting a love fest rather than a replay of their cheap-shot festival in Kansas City earlier this season. Denver tight end Shannon Sharpe said he wants to make nice with Chief linebacker Derrick Thomas before the game.

“I want to get his perceptions and his ideas about what went wrong, and I’m going to tell him my thought process, and then we’ll just go from there,” said Sharpe, a future ambassador to the United Nations.

“Because I think on both of our parts, it was really childish. It was wrong on my part to get it started, it was wrong on his part to carry it out. I think the thing is for two men to come to some kind of conclusion, and just clear the air and go on.”

Thomas went after a trash-talking Sharpe in the fourth quarter of a runaway Bronco win, picked up three personal fouls and was suspended for a game. Sharpe was fined $10,000 for an illegal hit of his own.

“We need to put this stuff behind us,” said Sharpe, taking all the fun out of the rematch.

CENTRAL / No Raven Review for Marchibroda

Let the rumors fly. The Ravens will probably be looking for a coach to replace Ted Marchibroda at season’s end, and in Baltimore the names of UCLA’s Bob Toledo and former 49er coach George Seifert have surfaced. Knowing Art Modell, he’s also considering George Halas and Amos Alonzo Stagg.

“I never dreamed that we’d be 5-7 at this point,” said Modell, who apparently never took a look at his team’s roster. “From the off-season and the preseason, I thought we would have a better team. But something went wrong and I have to find out what happened.”

No, not that.

Cincinnati Coach Bruce Coslet, after last week’s loss to Jacksonville, said, “Maybe it’s not . . . worth it to us, either.”

A day later, he said, “I most certainly did not mean to say what I said. It was a mistake on my part. It is worth it to us; it is important to us. . . . It was the frustration and disappointment of the moment just rising to the surface that got the best of me. . . . I apologize for that, especially if I offended any fans, and I’ll see to it that it doesn’t happen again.”

Too late. The fans in Cincinnati are not happy. One unfurled a large white bedsheet as a flag of surrender last week, and this week a fan boycott is being organized, with fans being asked to leave the stadium after the second-half kickoff. Much of the unrest has been directed at Mike Brown, owner and general manager. The Bengals are 38-86 since the death of his legendary father, Paul Brown.

EAST / It Wouldn’t Work in Los Angeles

The Bills are the latest NFL team to get away with blackmail.

Owner Ralph Wilson hinted his team might move unless fans bought $11 million worth of premium seats by a

Dec. 1 deadline so he could get an additional $63.25 million in state taxpayer-funded renovations to the Bills’ stadium. The improvements will add 7,678 premium seats and 765 more luxury boxes to make Wilson richer.

The fans topped the $11-million goal by $100,000 after the deadline was extended three hours, and now the Bills must remain in Buffalo for five more years before they can try another blackmail scheme.

“I’ve always wanted to stay in Buffalo,” Wilson said. “For a long while I was skeptical. But it was really an all-out effort and everything started to come together. It’s tremendous.”

Of course it is, because Wilson is expected to receive $12.5 million in added revenue each year that he will not have to share with other NFL owners.

News flash: Wilson just got fined $50,000 for bad-mouthing the officials last week. Look for a sudden increase in ticket prices.