Coach's Corner

Odds and Ends:

Cedrick Trout and I are working on a comprehensive NFL preview column, but weeks in advance of the start of the football season I'm telling you the AFC champion will be the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts were 6-10 last year ... a good thing since the past three Super Bowl winners had losing seasons the year before. Last season, everything that could go wrong in Indiana did. Peyton Manning, with no running game and no defense to help, tried to win games by himself, with disastrous results. Tony Dungy will, I repeat, will make a significant immediate difference on one of the league's perennially poorest defensive units. Dungy's stumbled into the perfect coaching fit: an in-place scoring machine and a defense he can mold. I love the Colts, though Trout, who I've learned actually can read, doesn't agree...

I've stopped reading baseball stories because what's the use, the season's about to end. I considered paraphrasing British Foreign Secretary Edward Gray's prophetic remarks in August of 1914 about the lights about to be snuffed in Europe, but I told myself to get a grip, it's only a game, not a World War. The team I feel most sorry for is the Atlanta Braves. As the Buffalo Bills, once mocked for losing Super Bowls, are now starting to gain the respect they deserve, so will the Braves' stunning accomplishment of winning 11 straight NL division titles, though only one World Series, be better appreciated as time goes on. Braves GM John Schuerholz's ability to retool, patch and improvise in the most trying of economic conditions makes him the game's best-ever executive ... move over Branch Rickey. Atlanta has the best record in baseball and John Smoltz, another example of the team's ability to evolve, has emerged from the starting rotation into the bullpen (as Dennis Eckersley once did for Tony La Russa) as the game's most dominating closer. This team seems destined to win the World Series -- if only there were going to be one...

Regardless of lip service paid to the sacred fan, you are -- at best! -- a peripheral concern of players and owners. They both know you'll come back. Don't take this personally; it's just business...

Aside from escaping the August heat, one of the fine things about being away from Austin is not being driven totally batshit by day-to-day, second-by-second Longhorn football propaganda. Two days back in Austin last weekend made me grateful for the Vail Daily and their pastoral concern over sick goats, plummeting stream flows, and the odd car break-in: not a mention of a steer...

I played golf with a grocery salesman who looked exactly like PGA winner Rich Beem in the SYSCO golf tournament a few months back. It was a sublime pleasure to watch a golfer actually beat Tiger, instead of exhibiting mild, meek submission, the norm for the "big name" pros. A jolly hip-hip-hooray for Beem, who very well might have been at the SYSCO tournament...

Last year, the big fall debate was about Monday Night Football and Dennis Miller: Would the bizarre Miller boost sagging ratings? It was a ridiculous premise in the first place. In retrospect, Miller added nothing; in fact he was a detraction. Good games bring viewers. That simple. This year it's the same story, substitute Madden for Miller. Same answer: Nobody watches a game to listen to an announcer. However, the one improvement to MNF is that they've finally ditched the three-man booth they got lucky with a quarter-century ago. Since that long-gone day, they've been shoving three-man combos down our throat. Madden and Michaels will make for a better telecast...

Did I ever mention Phil Mickelson will never win a major?...

And finally, this: Being in a different media market can provide a fresh perspective. The story of Terrell Davis' retirement from a short but brilliant seven-year career (that for all intents ended after four seasons when he suffered the first of a series of devastating knee injuries) has rocked the Intermountain West. In the weeks leading up to last week's inevitable announcement, I was struck by Davis' obvious intelligence and, like Emmitt Smith, lack of macho NFL hubris. No running back has ever had a greater impact on a franchise than did the brief but fantastically productive four-year run of Terrell Davis. A sixth-round afterthought pick by the Broncos in 1995, it was without question Davis who dragged John Elway to two Super Bowl victories. He was a Super Bowl and league MVP and in 1998 rushed for over 2,000 yards, a feat accomplished by only four other backs. The consensus in Denver is that TD's a sure Hall of Famer, but I'm not so sure. Other backs with short careers, most recently Gale Sayers, are in the Hall, but Sayers' (1965-71) mercurial skills were obvious to anyone with one eye. Davis is more of the Smith-style lunch bucket runner. A blue-collar guy who probably needed more time to make a national impact. In any case, his departure from the game is a loss to all pro fans. His final words -- "Football is great, but it's not everything ... it was fun while it lasted" -- are a fitting epitaph to a too-short career. Watching his blue and orange number 30 explode between snowflakes on dreary November Sundays at the extinct Mile High Stadium is something I'll miss. Adios and farewell, Terrell.