Ultimately, Dallas Was Hamstrung

With a 17-7 halftime lead, the Dallas Cowboys could have survived quarterback Troy Aikman’s concussion, as well as running back Emmitt Smith’s broken hand, at Minneapolis Monday night.

The injury they couldn’t overcome was cornerback Deion Sanders’ sore toe.

Although it has been more than a year since he was injured, Sanders, like all turf-toe victims, has found it impossible to work out properly.

And almost always, it’s lack of proper exercise that leads to a hamstring pull.

In this case, hamstring trouble has reduced him to what appears to be about a 60% shell of the real Deion Sanders.

Against Minnesota receivers Randy Moss and Cris Carter, each of whom has Hall of Fame skills, that isn’t good enough.

A Sanders at 100% could have taken either of them out of any play he chose, enabling his teammates to gang up on the remaining Viking threats, Moss or Carter and passer Jeff George.

For want of a toe, the hamstring was lost, and for want of a hamstring, the game was lost, 27-17.

*

League leaders: Among the 18 or 20 NFL teams at or near the top of a 31-team league after the first half of the season, there is a balance of either mediocrity or excellence.

I’d say it’s a balance of excellence.

Pro football players are the best in a country that plays a lot of football.

They are divided up by the various clubs about as equally as possible with all sorts of artificial devices, among them a draft, a salary cap, a free-agency system, and, most important, a pooled-revenue plan that gives every franchise $70 million in TV income annually to invest in coaches, scouts and playing talent.

True, football players all make some mistakes, but on 18 or more NFL clubs the performers are still good enough to be fighting today for first place.

*

Balance of differences: It’s as groundless to say that pro teams are all alike as it is to say they’re all mediocre.

For example, St. Louis, Washington and Indianapolis are good passing teams that don’t win all the time, and Kansas City, Miami and Detroit are good defensive teams that don’t win all the time.

And although Jacksonville’s Super Bowl favorites are better balanced than most of their opponents, they went through a three-week stretch last month when they scored only 22, 17 and 19 points.

They romped last Sunday, 30-7, but that was against a discouraged, depressed Atlanta team that is getting to be a soft touch.

Indeed, the Jaguars’ comparatively soft schedule is a central reason for their being favored to get to the Super Bowl.

*

Dead even classic: If this is a league in which parity has been deliberately induced, it was uniquely reflected for all 60 minutes in the Silverdome last Sunday.

The Detroit Lions and St. Louis Rams summed up the whole closely played NFL season in the game’s first half, when the Rams opened 2-0 before Detroit moved ahead, 7-2, after which the Rams regained the lead, 9-7, then lost it again, 10-9, before stretching out to 12-10 at halftime.

All that was just a prelude to a second half in which Detroit recaptured the lead, 18-12, built it up with two field goals, 24-19, then lost it, 27-24, before scoring the last touchdown of the game, 31-27.

The Lions showed off their great defense that day, but they were a little lucky on offense, converting regularly on third and long, and converting a crucial fourth-and-26 situation in the waning moments.

A pass on third and six or more is a test of the defensive team, not the quarterback, and the major finding of the game was that the Ram pass defense can be had--even on fourth and 26.

*

Noise mars NFL: In a spirit of fairness and justice to all, the NFL should give off-season priority to the problem created by the league’s thousands of hometown fans, who in most cities are still making as much noise as they can when the visiting team has the ball.

A league that wanted to do something about that could do so--even though it won’t come in time to help the 1999 Kansas City Chiefs, who failed in Indianapolis last week, 25-17, in large part because their offensive players couldn’t hear quarterback Elvis Grbac.

For the second consecutive week, the Rams were likewise disrupted on the road, as were most of the NFL’s traveling teams.

Hometown fans who cheer when the other team has the ball are displaying poor sportsmanship.

Why does the NFL want to encourage that?

*

He’s like Unitas: It might seem unlikely that a second-year quarterback, Peyton Manning, and a first-year running back, Edgerrin James, can get the Indianapolis Colts to the Super Bowl, but this is precisely the kind of duet that could trouble a playoff defense.

The Colts beat Kansas City’s good defense last Sunday by running James when the Chiefs anticipated Manning’s passes, and with passes when runs were expected.

That is the only way to play offense well enough to beat great modern defensive players.

Significantly, on James’ rare third-and-one runs, he was stuffed like any other third-and-one NFL runner.

And on third and long, Manning misfired more often than he connected.

Manning demonstrated again, however, that he is the most promising of the new quarterbacks.

Strangely, in the familiar old Colt headgear, he bears an uncanny resemblance to the old Colt Hall of Famer, Johnny Unitas.

His passes also seem to be as disturbingly accurate as those of Unitas.

But this isn’t a reincarnation. At 6 feet 5, Manning is much taller.

*

It’s just desire: During the week just before last Sunday’s game, the San Francisco 49ers auditioned the players who wished to try out for their defensive team at right cornerback.

That tells you all you need to know about the 49er pass defense, which in the Pittsburgh game was penetrated repeatedly as usual, this time by quarterback Kordell Stewart, whose team won easily, 27-6.

To be sure, Stewart, who completed 16 of 26 passes to set up most of the Pittsburgh scoring, could have done something like that to the other defenses he’s faced this season if allowed to throw more often.

But the Steelers, under Bill Cowher, are one of the league’s many conservative teams.

When you have the personnel, passing is largely wanting to pass, but that attitude is also all but nonexistent in such places as Miami and Kansas City, where conservative coaches Jimmy Johnson and Gunther Cunningham want something else.

It was also nonexistent in Minnesota’s first half Monday night, when, foolishly, the great Viking passing team ran the ball on almost every down.

*

Kicking team’s fault: Green Bay is the one pro club that is or should be better than its record, 4-4.

You know there’s something wrong in Wisconsin when the Packers lose to the Chicago Bears, 14-13, on a last-second, blocked 28-yard field-goal try.

Good teams don’t throw away a certain three points on a blocked kick in the decisive instant of a regular-season NFL game.

If their coaches and players are up to speed, there’s no way, mathematically, for pro clubs to give up blocked field goals.

There simply isn’t enough time for any player representing the other team to get in front of a kick.

Unless the kicking team errs.

The Packers are now, to be sure, only two games behind Detroit, with half the season remaining.

They aren’t out of the race yet.

You know Detroit isn’t going to win all the rest.

Still, in Green Bay these days, there’s nothing whatever to remind you that the Packers, with many of the same players, won the Super Bowl three years ago and until this fall have been contending ever since.

*

Selected Short Subjects:

* Aside from Minnesota’s Daunte Culpepper, who is jumping from Central Florida to the bigs, Philadelphia’s Donovan McNabb of Syracuse is the only rookie quarterback who hasn’t started this season. But after playing a half last Sunday, he’s due to get the whole game today against Washington

* In the 21st century, Paul Tagliabue’s 10-year 20th century run as NFL commissioner will be remembered for, among other things, the 19 stadiums that have been built or renovated or are under construction in most of the league’s cities.

* Continuous labor peace since 1993, one of Tagliabue’s other achievements, can to a large extent be credited to the contributions and philosophy of NFL labor leader Gene Upshaw. Unlike some labor bosses, Upshaw has focused on big money for two groups of people: the men in his union and the men who pay the salaries--the league’s club owners.