Life in Daunte’s Infernally Cruel World of Hurt

Yes, Daunte, it can always get worse in the National Football League. Worse than going 2-5 in seven 2005 starts with the party-boatin’, hardly floatin’ Minnesota Vikings.

Worse than blowing out a knee and watching backup Brad Johnson revive the franchise to become the most popular land-locked Viking in what once was known as Culpepper Country.

Worse than going from the Pro Bowl in 2004 to a career-low 72.0 passer rating in 2005 to a trade to Miami for only a second-round draft choice in 2006.

On the bright side, winters are usually more mild in Florida.

In his second start for his second NFL team Sunday, the team he was supposed to resurrect from the depths of Fiedler-Feeley-Frerotte frustration, Daunte Culpepper was sacked seven times (!) at home (!!) by the Buffalo Bills (!!!) in a 16-6 Miami defeat (!!!!) that had the fans at Dolphin Stadium chanting for Culpepper to be replaced by Joey Harrington (?!?!).

It cannot get worse than that. Can it?

It can always get worse in the National Football League. While Culpepper’s new team was falling to 0-2 for only the second time in 37 seasons, his old team received a touchdown pass from the kicker to upset Carolina in overtime, 16-13, enabling Brad Childress to become the first Vikings head coach to begin his career 2-0.

It was one thing for ancient journeyman Johnson to upstage Culpepper in the Twin Cities.

It is quite another when kicker Ryan Longwell turns a fake field-goal attempt into a 16-yard touchdown pass to tight end Richard Owens to force an extra period, which Longwell ends with a 19-yard field goal.

For the day, Longwell wound up with three field goals, one touchdown and one extra point, something Culpepper never did during his Viking career.

Fallout?

You can probably scratch that Miami-Carolina matchup for Super Bowl XLI. The Dolphins have never finished better than 6-10 during a season in which they started 0-2. The Panthers, also 0-2, are already bogged down in third place in the NFC South, two games behind the Atlanta Falcons -- but more crucially, two games behind the New Orleans Saints.

Yes, the Saints, who finished 3-13 while playing no games in New Orleans in 2005, are 2-0 in 2006 after road victories at Cleveland and Green Bay. The Saints defeated the Packers at Lambeau Field, 34-27, despite Reggie Bush’s chewing up 0.8 of a yard per rushing attempt. In six carries in his second professional game, Bush netted five yards.

According to recent published reports, a couple of prospective marketing reps for Bush got a much bigger bang for their bucks last year.

Atlanta is also 2-0 after beating Tampa Bay, 14-3, to prove that the Buccaneers’ 27-0 season-opening loss to Baltimore was no fluke. Baltimore defeated Oakland, 28-6, which means that in two weeks, the Ravens have defeated the contestants of the 2003 Super Bowl by a cumulative margin of 55-6, which means Brian Griese got out of Tampa when the going was good and the Raiders’ second Art Shell Era is looking an awful lot like the Rams’ second Chuck Knox Era.

With the rest of the nation still wasted from Manning Bowl media overload, brothers Peyton and Eli looked refreshed and recharged after pulling out of New Jersey not a second too soon.

Combined, the Mannings passed for 771 yards and six touchdowns as Eli engineered a 30-24 come-from-behind overtime victory at Philadelphia and Peyton broke another Johnny Unitas record during a 43-24 rout of Houston (which has been outscored, 67-34, since not selecting Bush with the top pick in the draft).

Eli completed better than 72% of his passes, good for 371 yards and three touchdowns to rally the New York Giants from a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit.

Peyton passed for 400 yards and three more Indianapolis touchdowns to eclipse Unitas’ Colts franchise record for career completions. Unitas had 2,796 completions with the Colts; Manning now has 2,820.

Worth noting: Unitas leads Manning in league championships won, 3-0. Unitas would have been a member of a fourth champion, except that in January 1969, Joe Namath made this ridiculous victory guarantee and his New York Jets teammates were dumb enough to fall for it.

Ah, those were the good old days for guaranteed victories. Back when a man was only as good as his word, and his word was capable of bringing about the end of the world as we know it.

The concept has been hideously corrupted since then.

Latest example: Roy Williams guaranteed this week that his team would defeat the Bears in Chicago.

One problem with this: Williams plays for the Detroit Lions.

Another problem: Entering Sunday’s game at Soldier Field, the Lions were 4-36 in their previous 40 road games.

You could see this coming: Bears 34, Lions 7. Chicago quarterback Rex Grossman establishes career highs in yards passing (289) and touchdown passes (four).

Harrington bore the brunt for many of those Detroit road defeats, blamed by the city’s sports fans for everything from the Red Wings’ playoff spinouts to the Larry Brown mess. Is it any wonder that the Tigers took off as soon as Harrington was traded to the Dolphins in May?

And on the second Sunday of the new NFL season, Harrington was a hero in Miami because his name wasn’t Culpepper.

As Harrington and Culpepper jointly discovered, their forward passes aren’t the only things that sometimes go full circle, end over end.

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mike.penner@latimes.com