All Right Now, Let’s Hear It for Humility

This is the look of NFL past: Green Bay and Baltimore cracking helmets at Lambeau Field, gnarled fingers pawing the Wisconsin mud, a Hall of Fame-bound quarterback filling the chilled sky with footballs, a man named Bubba making one big play after another.

This is the look of NFL present: A full dozen teams at either 3-2 or 2-3 after five weeks of regular-season games.

Is this the look of the NFL’s future: Jamie Martin handing off to Trung Canidate for a game-winning St. Louis Ram touchdown?

It happened Sunday, Canidate scoring from the one with 4:16 left to secure a 15-14 victory over New York Giants.

Reports out of St. Louis are calling the Rams the last undefeated team standing, but they are not entirely accurate. At 5-0, the Rams are the league’s only team without a defeat ... but standing?

Not Marshall Faulk, who hobbled off the field in the third quarter after spraining his right knee, the same knee that has twice required surgery and sidelined him for two games last season.

Not Kurt Warner, who wore Giant defensive end Michael Strahan like an autumn overcoat, getting pounded all afternoon, sacked four times by Strahan and twice by others before finally being knocked out of the game during the decisive drive.

In came Martin, in came Canidate, and now we know this about the Rams’ offensive depth chart: It’s deep enough to drive one yard against the Giants’ defense. How the ball got there in the first place, first and goal on the New York one, was an eye-of-the-beholder moment.

The play: Warner throws into the end zone for Canidate, whose jersey is given a good tug by Giant safety Sam Garnes.

Referee Gerry Austin beheld the play this way: Pass interference.

Canidate beheld it the same way. “Any call like that is a good call,” he said. “He kind of tugged on me a little bit.”

What say the Giants?

Behold the many shades of crimson Coach Jim Fassel’s face turned during an embittered postgame interview session.

“I don’t want to talk about the officials, I don’t have enough money,” a seething Fassel said. “I’m not that wealthy of a man.”

Woozy, Warner was able to return to the game, but did so without Faulk, who is expected to be sidelined three to four weeks. Suddenly, the unbeaten Rams have the look of a highly endangered species.

On a Sunday when three games went into overtime and seven others were decided by seven points or less, anything pretty much seemed possible--including Green Bay taking Baltimore’s World’s Greatest Defense of This Millennium or Any Other (the Ravens’ words, not mine) and running it through the cheese grater.

Brett Favre stared into Ray Lewis’ eyes, looked him off and threw 34 passes into the purple haze. Only seven fell incomplete. Three went for touchdowns--two to tight end Bubba Franks--as Favre passed for 337 yards and the Packers defeated the defending champions, 31-23.

Also: Ahman Green rushed for a touchdown against the Baltimore defense, crushing another myth.

Also: Green Bay became the second team in four games to defeat the Ravens, joining Cincinnati.

Good men might be humbled by such events, but you know the Ravens.

“Every dog has his day,” was Lewis’ analysis of the Packers’ victory.

“I hope we never play them again,” said Raven Coach Brian Billick, his voice leaking sarcasm all over the microphone. “We couldn’t beat them.”

Favre has heard the Ravens talk; as U.S. citizen, how could he not? Still, Favre noticed earlier in the week he outnumbers Billick in Super Bowl appearances, 2-1, and plays for a team that took a 3-1 record, same as the Ravens’, into this one. “In the back of my mind, I’m thinking, ‘I’m pretty good, too,”’ Favre said. “[But] I don’t feel like I have to say it. I’ve played a long time in this league. I’ve earned a right to be respected to a certain degree.”

Now Favre is 4-1 with a defense that could give him a crack at Super Bowl No. 3 and Baltimore is 3-2, tied with Cleveland and Cincinnati in the AFC Central a half-game behind, of course, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Trivia quiz: Something happened on Sunday that hasn’t happened in the NFL since 1989. Can you name it?

Yes, you’re right, Kordell Stewart did throw a touchdown pass in the Steelers’ 20-17 victory at Kansas City, but no, that’s not the answer.

Here it is: At 3-2 after Bengals’ 24-14 victory over the Browns, Cincinnati and Cleveland are both over .500 at the same time in 12 years.

(This is a something of a trick question, considering Cleveland didn’t have a team in the league from 1996 through 1998.)

No one is out of the running in the AFC Central, which is a sentence that hasn’t been typed since the 1980s. Even Tennessee has won--31-28, in overtime, at home, over Tampa Bay, on a 49-yard field goal by Joe Nedney.

In fact, the entire AFC is wide open, thanks to Trent Dilfer, a man capable of sucking the life out of any party, dumping cold water on the Denver Broncos’ Super Bowl run by overseeing the Seahawks’ stunning 34-21 victory in Seattle. Dilfer didn’t pass much--just 18 times, completing 12 for 110 yards--which is usually a good thing. He was also flawless in giving the ball to Shaun Alexander and getting out of the way and watching Alexander run the Seahawks into a three-way tie for second place in the AFC West with Denver and San Diego.

The Chargers also lost, in overtime, to the New England Patriots, 29-26, which sounds like news, but really isn’t. San Diego quarterback Doug Flutie had been 12-1 in games at Foxboro Stadium, but the Patriots, with or without Flutie, simply do not lose to the Chargers. It doesn’t matter which quarterback plays--Steve Grogan, Drew Bledsoe or Sunday’s 364-yard star, Tom Brady--the Patriots are perfect in their last nine meetings with San Diego.

In a chaotic, ever-changing NFL, it’s reassuring to have at least one thing you can count on.

Oh, and Detroit lost to Minnesota, 31-26, to drop to 0-4. That’s two.