Coach's Corner

Last week I previewed the NFC. In case you missed it, I noted that it takes little technical expertise to do a decent job of prognosticating professional football. There wasn't a sane soul in the world who picked either the Titans or the Rams -- let alone both of them -- to even make the playoffs, let alone the Super Bowl, last year. Nevertheless, this is what transpired. What follows are, as promised last week, the comments of my lovely wife Kelly on the fortunes of the AFC. I might preface this by noting that Kelly is a relatively well informed sports fan ... for a girl, anyway. She can tolerate short-term, moderate doses of incessant channel-flipping between the many choices on the NFL Season Ticket on DirecTV. She's vaguely familiar with most teams and a few players. She has a conversational, working knowledge of the rules and terms of the game. I wouldn't exactly call her a football fan, but she's not just off the ship from Argentina either.

She insisted on going on the record about these points at the start of our interview:

1) She's strongly anti-dome: bad news for Indianapolis. "Teams playing indoors are overwhelmed playing in the wretched heat of Dallas or the cold of Buffalo." The Rams (a dome team) "were a fluke."

2) She has similar feelings about teams playing on baseball fields: not good for Oakland and San Diego. Kelly notes, "Any team playing football on a baseball field has to be mixed up about what sport they're playing. They're losers."

This prelude out of the way, we move quickly to the AFC East:

Though Indianapolis is everybody's favorite this season, they impress Kelly little. Though she's fond of Payton Manning, Indianapolis is "a cold drab place" and, of course, there's the dome thing. As for Buffalo: She quickly pegged the Bills with Doug Flutie. This was not all good. Though she's sympathetic with his charity work, it's Kelly's opinion that "any team associated with Flutie Flakes can't be very good." She likes the Jets, but the loss of Bill Parcells bodes badly. The annually underachieving Patriots have a fan in Texas. She likes Drew Bledsoe and she likes New England. She " ... just likes 'em." The Dolphins (playing on a baseball field) are in deep trouble. Kelly's heard me rant and slobber about how Dave Wannstedt destroyed the Bears. She understands Chicago teams well enough to know that an ex-Chicago coach (by the very definition a loser) is, "a kiss of death for sure."

The wives and girlfriends of last year's Super Bowl entry, the Tennessee Titans, shouldn't start spending all that bonus money just yet. The Titans have " ... bad outfits, a bad name, and big heads. They think they're better than they are." She adds this sobriquet: "Bud Adams is a traitor." Continuing her devastating journey through the AFC Central, another big-name, high-profile team takes a hit. In spite of the presence of ex-Longhorn Tony Brackens, Kelly likes the Jacksonville Jags even less than the Titans. Oft-injured QB Mark Brunell is "an overrated crybaby." Of the Baltimore Ravens she notes, "the murder capital of the United States deserves a bad team." Though the Steelers share Three Rivers with the baseball Pirates, Pittsburgh's a team to consider. "I like 'em! My mom used to watch them a lot when I was a kid. It's a warm fuzzy kinda thing." She can't name a single player on the Bengals. (I can only come up with one.) I'm sure many citizens of the Ohio Valley can't do much better. The Browns may be an expansion team but Kelly "likes them a lot." She continues, "Anybody who could name a team something as drab as The Browns must be pretty cool. They'll win at least five games this season."

As for the AFC West: We were watching the Raiders/Chargers game when Kelly first promulgated her baseball field theory. Both teams play on baseball fields, so little good will come to either club until this problem is straightened out. Her exact words: "They're doomed." She feels for the players and residents of Seattle, where it rains all the time and the suicide rate leads the nation. "How can they win if they're all depressed?" A reasonable question. To this she adds, "They'll be lucky if half the team doesn't commit suicide." The Chiefs are another story. She likes the field. She loves the politically incorrect symbol on their helmets. She's been, all these years, a closet Chiefs fan.

AFC Championship game: New England/Kansas City.

Super Bowl winner: K.C. Chiefs.

Go ahead and track these predictions. I'll bet many experts won't do as well.

Parting Shots: Hear a lone voice from the wilderness. The last time the media was whipping up National Championship fever for the Texas Longhorns was '97. The '96 season had ended ominously with a listless defeat to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl, but it was the year of the Nebraska Miracle in St. Louis, which is what most of us remember from that winter. The 8-5 team returned tons of experienced players. The '97 schedule was a cupcake. Even I thought a 10-1 likely, an undefeated season possible. When the pads were put on, the coffin door snapped shut on beleaguered coach John Mackovic. The "soft" schedule resulted in a 4-7 debacle. And Mack Brown rode into town on the smoldering newspaper clippings of that glorious fall that never was.