Hi Folks,

Here's what happens when you sit an NFL Junkie down in front of multiple
big screens with Sunday Ticket and fresh batteries in the remote.

Newest addition to the Footballguys All Name Team:  Falcons safety Siddeeq
Shabazz. I may make him team captain.

Bills WR Eric Moulds saw 15 targets Sunday. For comparison, the Falcons
wide receiving corps saw a total of 6 targets. He can't do it all by
himself though. Moulds is still the only Bill to score from scrimmage.

Baltimore's Ray Lewis offered this advice on the sidelines to Jamal Lewis
for dealing with his legal troubles "Just put the court case on your
shoulders and carry it. That's what I did with mine". It seemed a little
odd that the two highest profile players on the team were sharing advice
on how to deal with their equally high profile criminal court cases. You
can bet this is a sound bite the league would prefer not to see.
Interesting that while ESPN rolled the clip, it was absent from the NFL
Network footage.

Along those lines, I'm sure many will say Virginia tailback Marquis Weeks
has what it takes to make it in the NFL. Following his 100 yard kick
return touchdown Saturday, Weeks said, "That was just instinct. Kind of
like running from the cops."

Let's be fair though. There are a lot of positive things going on. The NFL
is continuing their "High School Tuesdays" where NFL players visit area
High Schools. One of the players this week was the Jets' Justin McCareins
who visited Hauppauge High School. McCareins met with the football team
and then answered questions for an hour.

Cool quote from McCareins:  "Basically, I wasn't even the best athlete on
my high school team. I just want to emphasize that. I wasn't the fastest
or strongest guy even in my senior year. One thing I have kept doing since
I started playing football is continuing to get better every single year.
I would see what my weaknesses were, and I would fix them. You find
something wrong, and you fix it. Sometimes you have to suck it up and do
what you know you need to do."

Don't look now, but Detroit's Roy Williams is the #3 WR in the league
based on fantasy points per game. So much for rookie WRs starting slow.

Which reminds me of my "Hindsight is 20-20" line of the week. I think the
biggest mistake San Diego made was not choosing Eli Manning or bungling
the Phillip Rivers signing. It was selecting a quarterback at all. Drew
Brees is fine. He won't win the MVP award anytime soon. But he completed
80% of his passes Sunday. The Chargers have arguably the best running back
in the league. But they've got nothing for wide receivers. It's not Peyton
Manning - Edgerrin James - Marvin Harrison, but if I'm a Chargers fan, I
would love to be sitting on Drew Brees - LaDainian Tomlinson - Roy
Williams. The Chargers have to go with Rivers at some point. And he won't
have any wide receivers either. But Brees will be a starter in this league
somewhere and he'll do well.

It seems every network has one of those wife swapping "reality" shows. Do
people really watch this? Why don't they just air Jerry Springer reruns at
night?

I'm not saying Bills running back Willis McGahee isn't living up to the
hype from this summer but through week 4, Buffalo's Brian Moorman has more
rushing yards than McGahee. Yes, that's Brian Moorman the punter.

Speaking of punters, Pittsburgh's Chris Gardocki has over 1,000 punts
without a block. Just thought you'd like to know that.

Arizona QB Josh McCown seemed to enjoy watching Emmitt Smith work Sunday.
"Growing up in Texas and watching the guy my whole life, just to hand the
ball to him was awesome. It was an honor, and hopefully there's more of
that to come. So much is said: 'He doesn't have this left. He doesn't have
that left,'" McCown said. "You could have fooled me today."

Texans coach Dom Capers is one smart guy. He presented the Houston fans
with a game ball at the post game press conference. Think they'll yell for
them next game?

Falcons QB Mike Vick had this to say about Atlanta's improvement: "We're a
complete 360 degree turn from last year," Vick said. "This is a great
defense and they are only going to get better. I'm very excited about the
future of this team." I don't make these up.

If Tennessee's Billy Volek would have passed in the first half as often as
he passed in the second half, he would have thrown the ball 84 times.

Odd stat from the Tennessee - San Diego game:  Tennessee ran 79 plays. San
Diego ran 45 plays. But the Chargers out gained the Titans 393 yards to
329.

How do you stop LaDainian Tomlinson? Don't ask Tennessee. They gave up a
little over 8 yards per carry to him Sunday.

Everything's rosy in New York. "This was a phenomenal win for us,"
defensive end Michael Strahan said. "Our rate of improvement has been
quicker than I expected." It's the surest thing in sports - Winning solves
everything.

Drew Brees took a hard sack from Titans tackle Rein Long and injured his
left shoulder. Phillip Rivers began warming upon the sidelines. Brees was
cleared by the team docs though and on his first play back in the game, he
threw a solid downfield block on a reverse. Never underestimate the
medicinal effects of a high priced replacement warming up on the
sidelines.

Cleveland running back Lee Suggs finally made it onto the field after a
neck injury sidelined him for the first three weeks. On his first play,
Suggs had to pick up a blitzing linebacker. "It was good to get that out
of the way," he said. "After that, I didn't even think about it."

Is there a more frustrating team in the league than New Orleans? At times,
they look unstoppable. Other times, not so much.

Which makes me think of Arizona and the big win for the Cardinals Sunday.
Is there a bigger home field advantage in the league than forcing your
opponents to wear black jerseys in Tempe? At least in September and
October. While I'm at it, did you know that Sun Devil Stadium was built in
1958 for a cost of 1 million dollars? You can't add a concession stand
today for a million dollars. For comparison, the 49ers recently sold their
stadium's naming rights to the Monster Cable folks for 6 million dollars.
And several people behind the deal called it "chump change".

If I was Emmitt Smith, I'd never throw another pass. He can finish his
career with a passer rating of 158.3. Believe it or not, Smith's touchdown
pass Sunday to Obafemi Ayanbadejo was his first ever pass. Michael Irvin
was pretty funny on ESPN saying that the Cowboys called the half back pass
many times, but Smith was "greedy" and never wanted to give the ball up.
Watching his wounded duck pass Sunday, I think Smith always ran because he
understood his passing ability.

There were several game balls from the St. Louis game destined for trophy
cases. The Rams' RB Steven Jackson, WR Shaun McDonald and Footballguys All
Name Team FB Joey Goodspeed all scored their first ever NFL touchdowns.

Why couldn't a team like Kansas City wear their red jersey's pretty much
anywhere? Playing the Ravens Sunday, the red would have been nearly as
contrasting to the Ravens' purple as their white jerseys were. Isn't there
some sort of goofy playoff rule that allows this? I probably dreamt that.

Dan Marino was asked the question: "Moss or Owens?" Marino didn't hesitate
to answer, "Harrison".

San Francisco kicker Todd Peterson probably feels a little guilty about
collecting his paycheck this week. Peterson attempted no field goals and
no extra points. The 49ers attempted two point conversions after both
their touchdowns. And just as strangely, San Francisco opted to punt the
ball from the Rams 30 yard line on their opening drive. I'd be finding
myself a new kicker if I had to punt from the 30. And while I was at it,
I'd be yelling at my punter. Andy Lee kicked it into the endzone giving
the ball to St. Louis on the 20 for a net gain of 10 yards.

ESPN's Michael Irvin couldn't believe they were wasting time talking about
David Carr's haircut after the Texans won back to back games. "You're
cutting into my time to show that?"

Have you ever seen a weekend with so many helmets flying off?

The good news: We projected Shad Meier as the Titans' leading tight end
for week 4. The bad news, we didn't come close to projecting him to see 10
targets, catching 9 of them including 1 for a touchdown. With Derrick
Mason catching 12 of his 14 targets, that's two sure handed receivers
right there.

Speaking of Meier,
anyone ever see Meier and Starsky and Hutch's Owen Wilson in the same room?

My new hardest name to spell: Justin Peelle. Two ee's followed by two ll's
just doesn't seem right. I'll take Roethlisberger over Peelle anytime.

Speaking of Roethlisberger, if the concession stands at Heinz Field don't
already offer a "Roethlis-Burger", they're missing out. I'm sure Big Ben
will be looking to hire me soon once he sees knowledge dropped like that.

It's got to be tough for the losing coach to sit through the dumb
questions at the post game press conference. Carolina's John Fox was asked
if he got a good look at the Delhomme interception that was returned for a
TD: "Yeah, they robbed a safety weak, we threw it to him, he caught it, he
ran for a touchdown." That's probably more patience that I'd have.

Best dressed post game press conference awards this week to Mike Vick and
Tiki Barber.

Between the referees in week 3 and the malfunctioning headsets this week,
Washington coach Joe Gibbs sure seems to be making a lot of excuses.
According to Cleveland's Butch Davis, the headsets go out all the time.
I'm just a lowly fantasy football writer, but here's an idea. Run down to
Wal-Mart and buy every coach a $40 walkie talkie to stick in their pocket.
If the headsets go out, talk on those. I bet Danny Snyder can afford it.

And heaven forbid a team have to resort to using hand signals to send the
play in to the quarterback. That worked pretty well for the first hundred
years or so.

How could you not like seeing Emmitt Smith run Sunday? "Nothing out there
but open grass? All I have to do is run? I just picked up my wheelchair
and pushed myself on into the end zone." said  Smith describing his
29-yard TD run.

Cincinnati's Chad Johnson loves to ask what he calls his "trivia"
question: "How you gonna stop eight five?" I think the Steelers answered
it.

No one was sure what to make of Saints quarterback Aaron Brooks' comments
after the game about his future with the franchise. "It's tough," Brooks
said, "and I know I'm the leader of all of this but I'm tired of it. I
have to sit back and re-evaluate my situation here in New Orleans. I am
going to keep fighting until the change comes." Receiver Michael Lewis
said he thought each of the Saints should evaluate himself. "Not just the
quarterback but everybody," he said. "We don't point fingers around here.
That's something we don't do."

It seems unthinkable, but the Packers are 6-6 in their last 12 games at
Lambeau Field. Green Bay's Mike Sherman looked pretty serious Monday:
"When you lose, it better hurt, because it hurts a lot of people. And when
you do lose, you'd better get it fixed."

New England's Tedy Bruschi is a lot like the Ravens' Ray Lewis: When
something bad happens on offense, you can pretty much figure he's nearby.

The difference in the Jacksonville - Indianapolis game? The Colts were 3
for 3 in the red zone while the Jaguars were 0 for 2.

Does Tony Dungy get skinnier every week?

HBO's Bob Costas had this last week: "It's not only on this program, but
television in general, makes the mistake of confusing foolish and loutish
behavior with colorful behavior. Colorful and quirky characters are the
lifeblood of sports. But over the last many years, we've seen guys who are
just louts. And television flocks to them, we can't get enough of them. We
want to document their every utterance. Which is almost always dopey."

You could put Costas and Stuart Scott in a conversation and it would be
like two guys speaking totally different languages.

I hope I didn't see what I think I saw but it looked to me like San
Francisco's Kevan Barlow slid to avoid taking a hit.

Giants linebacker Carlos Emmons seems pretty focused on the field. During
pre game warm-ups he shouted, "You hit everything that moves today.
Everything that moves. My momma comes out on the field, you hit her too."

Congrats to subscriber Jeff Kleppin who's leading the Footballguys $20,000
subscriber's contest. He wins the first of four very cool front projection
TVs from the folks at ProjectorPeople.com
Who would have thought Emmitt Smith would put him over the top?

Defensive coordinator Ed Donatell wound up losing his job in Green Bay
with the infamous "4th and 26" debacle last year. You know he has to be
enjoying the way his defense has played with the Falcons sitting at 4-0.

I'm having fun watching Keyshawn Johnson get his career back on track in
Dallas. Johnson had a funny line recently, "I'm not one to create a
problem. I might aggravate it, but I won't create it."

Head coaches grab all the attention. But I believe the most significant
coaching change this offseason was Denver's longtime offensive line coach,
Alex Gibbs, heading to Atlanta. It's not just Quentin Griffin; Jim Brown
couldn't have run through the holes (or lack of them) Denver's been
creating. And suddenly, Warrick Dunn has all kinds of daylight to run
through in Atlanta. It's just a coincidence I'm sure.

Washington's Mark Brunell said Rod Gardner and Laveranues Coles were "the
best set of wide receivers that I've ever played with". I wonder what
Jimmy Smith and Keenan McCardell think of that?

6 teams scored a defensive touchdown in week 4. All 6 of those teams won
their game. Hmmm.

Tampa Bay rookie Michael Clayton did something Sunday few receivers have
done this year: beat Champ Bailey.  I'm pretty sure that the eye black
under just his left eye had something to do with it.

It seems pretty clear that neither Jay Fielder nor A.J. Feeley can handle
the starting quarterback for the Dolphins. Maybe they should platoon with
alternating series. I bet Steve Spurrier could come down and show them how
to do it.

When you carry an extra player just to handle kickoffs, like the Ravens do
with Wade Richey, you don't expect him to boot the kick out of bounds as
Richey did Monday Night.

Jets center Kevin Mawae is a tough guy, a team player, and he's
ambidextrous. Mawae snaps right handed but broke his right hand in week 2.
After a bye in week 3, he played Sunday with a cast and used his left hand
to snap.

Pay attention - Kansas City's rush defense is getting better.

Arizona's Troy Hambrick reported to camp this summer out of shape. He
looks in shape now. Here's a stat line from Sunday's game:

4th quarter AZ
1-10-NO37 (3:52) T.Hambrick right tackle to NO 35 for 2 yards
2-8-NO35 (3:11) T.Hambrick right end pushed ob at NO 8 for 27 yards
1-8-NO8 (3:03) T.Hambrick up the middle to NO 2 for 6 yards
2-2-NO2 (2:20) T.Hambrick left tackle to NO 1 for 1 yard
3-1-NO1 (2:00) PENALTY on ARZ-J.Bridges, False Start, 5 yards, enforced at
NO 1 - No Play.
3-6-NO6 (2:00) PENALTY on ARZ-J.McCown, Delay of Game, 5 yards, enforced
at NO 6 - No Play.
3-11-NO11 (2:00) T.Hambrick left tackle for 11 yards, TOUCHDOWN.

Like every other fan in America, I got on Rams coach Mike Martz last week
about not running the ball enough. I love how he's sticking by his guns
though: "We're fast and furious. That's what we do. We'll run it because
we want to run it. Not because somebody says we have to be balanced.
That's just the way it is. Get used to it." Of course, I'd point out that
between Marshall Faulk and Steven Jackson, the Rams rushed 33 times for
167 yards against just 25 passing attempts in their win over San
Francisco.

The Bengals and new QB Carson Palmer have struggled. He's thrown 6
interceptions against just one touchdown lately. Losing to the Steelers
and a very poised looking Ben Roethlisberger didn't help anything.

Funny line from Baltimore's Ray Lewis after he made a tackle: "Don't get
nervous 'cause I'm here.". It's funny since I wasn't the one carrying the
ball.

Do we really need the commercial with the lady talking about how Valtrex
helped relieve her genital herpes?

It was just twelve short months ago when some people were talking about
Dante Hall for league MVP. What were they thinking?

Steve Young was asked who was the hardest hitter he ever faced. Young
answered, "The unblocked guy".

I don't think I've ever seen a defensive back fight harder to return an
interception for a touchdown than Pittsburgh's Troy Polamalu did Sunday.
He would not be denied capping it off by steam rolling over his former USC
roommate, Carson Palmer, at the goal line.

Parallel universe moment Sunday:  While flipping between the Patriots -
Bills and Bengals - Steelers game, Corey Dillon and Rudi Johnson were both
plowing through the middle of the line running hard right to left on the
screen at just about the same spot on the field.

I'm calling it now - Red Sox win the World Series. It's officially "ovah".
Seriously.

What team has the best looking road uniforms? I think you have to give
serious consideration to the New York Giants.

Congratulations to Emmitt Smith. He tied Walter Payton's record Sunday
with his 77th 100 yard game. When you start tying Walter Payton for
anything, you're doing something big.

Arizona's Dennis Green looked smooth sporting the Oakley M Frames.

San Diego's LaDainian Tomlinson became the Chargers all time leading
rusher. That's pretty impressive for a guy just starting his 4th year.

Tampa Bay's Michael Pittman sounds like he's glad to be back in the game.
Speaking about the incident that earned him a suspension, he sounds a
little wiser: "I could've just driven away. At the time, I wanted to talk
to my wife but she didn't want to talk to me. I made the wrong decision."

During his suspension, he worked out near his home at a neighborhood park.
"I had to wait until everybody left (the park)," he said. "I didn't want
people out there to see me running with my shoulder pads and helmet on. I
didn't want anyone to call the police. "It was kind of embarrassing, but I
did what I had to do."

Every time I caught a play of the Bills on offense, Drew Bledsoe was being
hurried, sacked or intercepted.

CBS Sports' color commentator, and former 49er, Brent Jones seemed
genuinely happy to see his ex team mate Jerry Rice. Jones joked that
between them, they had nearly 1,700 receptions. Of course Jones added that
Rice had about 1,600 of them.

I wish Brandon Stokley was a little taller. It'd be easier to compare to
him Ed McCaffrey, which as a member of the media, I'm obligated to do
since he's a white wide receiver.

When watching a Denver game, you can count on one thing. John Lynch is
about to hit somebody. Hard. Lynch did make an error Sunday though when he
failed to tackle Tampa WR Michael Clayton after Clayton fell down.
"There's a new league emphasis. If they're laying down and you hit them,
you're going to get 15 yards. I tried to do the right thing for the first
time in my career and keep (the NFL) out of my pocket, and I get burned."

This week's Hard Luck Awards are being renamed the Dave Ballard Awards.
Dave's a subscriber and described to me the worst hard luck story I've
heard in a long time. As the Monday night game wore down, he needed just
18 rushing yards from Trent Green for the win. With 1:26 left on the clock
in the last game of the week, Green was sitting on 20 yards rushing. But
Kyle Boller's 4th and 13 pass was incomplete and Baltimore turned the ball
over to Kansas City. You know where this is going. Green took three
consecutive kneel downs for a loss of one yard each to end the game. He
finished with 17yards rushing. That hurts my heart to think about it.

On the upside Dave, buck up and be thankful you're not this guy: BUCHAREST
(Reuters) - A elderly Romanian man mistook his penis for a chicken's neck,
cut it off and his dog rushed up and ate it, the state Rompres news agency
said Monday. It said 67 year-old Constantin Mocanu, from a village near
the southeastern town of Galati, rushed out into his yard in his underwear
to kill a noisy chicken keeping him awake at night. "I confused it with
the chicken," he explained.

Week 4 Dave Ballard Hard Luck Awards

HOU QB Carr 29 yard pass to WR Gaffney to the 1 (Wells TD)
HOU QB Carr 62 yard TD pass to RB Wells nullified by holding penalty
HOU RB Wells 4 yard rush to the 3 (Brown FG)
OAK QB Collins 7 yard pass to WR Porter to the 3 (Zereoue TD)
NO RB Carter 1 yard TD rush nullified by holding penalty (Carney FG)
TEN RB Brown rush for no gain from the 5
TEN RB Brown rush for -1 yard from the 4 (Volek to Mason TD)
TEN QB Volek 5 yard pass to WR Mason to the 3 (Volek to Meier TD)
NYG CB Walker 69 yard interception TD nullified by interference penalty
NYG RB Barber 2 yard rush to the 4 (Warner to Shockey TD)
DEN RB Droughns 6 yard rush to the 5 (Plummer to Hape TD)
TB CB Barber 56 yard fumble return TD challenged and reversed (Elam FG)
NYJ QB Pennington 6 yard pass to WR Chrebet to the 4 (Martin TD)
STL RB Faulk 6 yard rush to the 5 STL RB Faulk 3 yard rush to the 2
STL RB Faulk rush for no gain from the 2 (Goodspeed TD)
STL QB Bulger 4 yard pass to WR Holt to the 2 (Jackson TD)
CIN RB R. Johnson 7 yard rush to the 5
CIN RB R. Johnson 3 yard rush to the 2 (Palmer to J. Johnson TD)
CIN QB Palmer 13 yard pass to WR Houshmandzadeh to the 2 (R. Johnson TD)
PIT RB Staley 10 yard rush to the 2 (Bettis TD)
KC QB Green 7 yard rush to the 3 (Green to Dunn TD)
KC QB Green 13 yard rush to the 4 (Holmes TD)
NE PK Vinatieri 31 yard FG nullified by off sides penalty (Brady to Graham
TD)
CAR QB Delhomme 23 yard pass to WR Muhammad to the 2 (Foster TD)

Thanks to Footballguys Mark Rogers, Tyler Chastain and Bob Harris for the
help on this one.

If you've got your own Random Shot observation, shoot me an email at
[email protected].

Have fun and thanks for playing along.

Joe