Aren’t You Glad You Didn’t Have to Watch?

Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, commenting before the winless Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys played on Monday night.

“So instead of the Super Bowl, we’ve got the Stupor Bowl. Two once-proud teams, now 0-4 and stumbling through the season like zombies.

“And if you think the Cowboys are bad [and they are], the Redskins are so bad that every few plays you have to put a mirror under their noses to make sure they’re still breathing.

“There is no way America is going to stay awake for this.”

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Trivia time: Who holds the NCAA Division I record for touchdowns in a season?

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Don’t fall: Rick Telander in the Chicago Sun-Times: “The league [NFL] is wide open. The playoffs, a division title, even--yes--a Bears’ February trip to New Orleans, it’s all sitting there like a picnic basket at the edge of a tree limb.

“A 20-13 win over the lowly Arizona Cardinals has made the Bears (3-1) suddenly seem like a bunch of wild-eyed tree-climbers.”

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A real kicker: Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Sebastian Janikowski slips on a dance floor, falls down, bangs head. Police report says he was ‘incoherent and wildly flailing on the floor.’

“You so seldom get this kind of reaction in the typical dance-and-fall incident.”

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Contrast: Detroit Tiger knuckleballer Steve Sparks on teammate Matt Anderson, whose pitches have been clocked at 100 mph: “When he changes balls to the umpire, he throws as hard as I do.”

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Show-off: Randy LaJoie won the Sam’s Town 250 in Millington, Tenn., after a one-day rain delay. He celebrated by spinning his car, but it got stuck in the muddy grass because of a locked front brake and his pit crew had to push him out.

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Turn for the worse: Bernie Lincicome in the Rocky Mountain News after the Denver Broncos’ 34-21 loss to Seattle on Sunday:

“When we were looking at, oh, 14-2 or 13-3 then, we are looking at 7-9 or 9-7 now and the playoffs are a pipe dream, not an assumption.

“The Broncos can not be defined by losing to champions like the Ravens but by yielding to footwipes, the perpetually soft-chew Seahawks.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1954, UCLA defeated Stanford, 72-0, at the Coliseum. The Bruins went on to an undefeated season and were accorded the national championship by United Press International.

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Looking back again: On this day in 1985, St. Louis’ Jack Clark hit a three-run homer off the Dodgers’ Tom Niedenfuer in the ninth inning of Game 6 of the National League championship series, giving the Cardinals a pennant-clinching 7-5 victory at Dodger Stadium. First base was open when Manager Tom Lasorda had Niedenfuer pitch to the Cardinals’ most dangerous power hitter.

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Trivia answer: Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State, 39, in 11 games in 1988.

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And finally: C. Jemal Horton of the Indianapolis Star on the status of quarterback Jeff George: “What puzzles me is that George has not been picked up by another team. His agent, Leigh Steinberg, says several teams have inquired. ... That doesn’t seem like enough, though. All those clowns on NFL rosters, but no team for George?”