It’s Really a Perfectly Obvious Statement

Coach Mike Shanahan apparently forgot to muzzle linebacker Glenn Cadrez, who became the first Bronco to admit the obvious.

“I’m not going to fool anybody--I’m looking at undefeated,” Cadrez said. “And I want it. I want it bad. I want this roster in Canton [Ohio, site of the Pro Football Hall of Fame] as the only 19-0 undefeated team. There’s no avoiding it. Why should I sit here and blow smoke up your nose and say, ‘Oh, we’re not thinking about it?’ Of course we’re thinking about it. It’s there. I can’t see anybody on this team not thinking about it. We’re doing something that is beyond expectation right now.”

Yeah, but can they beat San Diego?

Marty Schottenheimer has a fan, maybe the only one, but the most important in owner Lamar Hunt.

Hunt said he has no plans to replace Schottenheimer, whose contract runs through 2001, or General Manager Carl Peterson, whose runs through 2000.

“They’ve very, very capable guys,” Hunt said. “Six games does not change a career. They’re very capable people and I think they’re among the tops and I certainly consider them that.

“It would be kind of silly to go from when we were 4-1, when we had tied the best start in team history, you would have to say, ‘Boy, that’s pretty good,’ so six weeks later you can’t say that undoes 10 or 15 years of success.”

Sure, you could.

CENTRAL / Time to Roll Out the Unwelcome Wagon

The Ravens are 4-7, the Colts are 2-9 and who cares? Well, the folks in Baltimore might because it’s the first time the Colts will visit Baltimore since March 29, 1984, when moving vans took the team to Indianapolis.

“We’re not going to be rooting for the Ravens as much as we’re rooting against the Colts,” said David Houseknecht, a fan, in an interview with a Baltimore newspaper. “I think the [Ravens] band should play the Colts’ song, just for the hell of it. We just hope [the Colts] get their butts kicked. You never want them to win a game.”

Art Donovan, who played for the Colts during great times in Baltimore, said, “People act like it’s a tragedy. A tragedy is going to a hospital and seeing a sick kid. Kids with cancer, that’s a tragedy. You can always get a lousy football team back.”

Keep that in mind, Los Angeles.

Cincinnati running back Corey Dillon spoke this week for the first time to reporters since Aug. 5. He didn’t say anything worth repeating.

EAST / Kraft Suffers From Big Memory Lapse

In the Patriots’ media guide there is a sad story in the bio of owner Robert Kraft, quoted as saying, “The [Boston] Braves were my team. To this day I regret that they left. A part of me died that day.”

Kraft is now moving the Patriots to Connecticut.

The Bills have won seven of their last eight games with Doug Flutie standing tall as the reason why. Stand up, Doug. Oh.

“It’s very flattering that they’re as loyal as they are,” said Flutie, a former player for Boston College who is mobbed for autographs every time he appears in the area. “For some reason in that area, when you capture that niche . . . I don’t know how to describe it . . . but guys like Carlton Fisk, Bobby Orr, Larry Bird, John Havlicek, whoever it may have been over the years, people seem to stick by you and follow you wherever you go.”

Jimmy Irsay, owner of the Colts and son of Bob Irsay who moved the team to Indianapolis, said he’s not sure how he will be received by fans in Baltimore. “I don’t know what I’m going to do [in Baltimore]. Paul McCartney one time attended a Rolling Stones concert, third row center in 1966, dressed as a 90-year-old man. Maybe he’ll lend me his outfit.”