Papal Decrees

Sporting News, The, August 28, 2000 by Mike Kilduff

Pepper mills, Pokemon cards and another parity-busting Super Bowl highlight our WEIRED and WACKY 2000 season

If this escalates into a holy war, then Dennis Miller is to blame.

Within his first few seconds on the air, Miller launched his Monday Night Football broadcasting career on ABC with these words: "It is a game, but it's a game many of you take seriously. It's not like the Vatican, but then again the Pope doesn't have to go across the middle on guys like Ronnie Lott very frequently."

Pope John Paul II shot back with this message, released through his agent: "With all due respect to Mr. Lott, Mr. Miller should know that in my playing days I took my share of hits in traffic from a bunch of Cardinals who could knock the points off the miter atop any holy figure's head."

The pontiff went on to state: "Even today, put me on the field with Michael Bishop and Priest Holmes plus any eight Saints, and we could part the NFL's sea of parity and walk on through to the Super Bowl."

He may be getting old, but the Pope can still trash-talk better than anybody since Deacon Jones.

Because His Eminence won't be playing, here's a less-than-pious look at what could happen in the 2000 NFL season:

WEEK 1: Brittle Bills quarterback Rob Johnson separates his right shoulder when he sneezes during pregame warmups for the season opener against the visiting Titans. The gimpy yet gutsy Doug Flutie steps in as the replacement.

With the Bills trailing, 28-24, and time running out, Flutie scrambles toward the right sideline and encounters a wall of defenders. The resourceful Peter Pan-in-shoulder-pads hurls a lateral across the field to an unattended Peerless Price, who easily goes the final 55 yards for a winning touchdown to be forever known as Musical-Chairs-QB City Miracle.

The Titans protest, but instant replay shows Flutie's lateral to be legal. It also reveals something strange in the shape of a pepper mill stuffed in Flutie's sock.

WEEK 2: Whiny figure skater Nancy Kerrigan and HBO's leg-breaking crime boss Tony Soprano perform a national anthem duet, then swap cartilage and patella tendon tales at midfield with Jamal Anderson and Terrell Davis. In this reunion of Super Bowl 33 running backs, both of whom missed most of last season with serious knee injuries, Davis' Broncos defeat Anderson's Falcons, 5 Mile-High Salutes to 3 Dirty Birds.

WEEK 3: Dan Snyder, owner of the 2-0 Redskins, fires coach Norv Turner during the second quarter of the Monday Night game against the Cowboys after Washington's offense goes three-and-out on its first three possessions. Snyder installs defensive coordinator Ray Rhodes as head coach pro tem and demands that Jeff George replace Brad Johnson as the 'Skins QB.

WEEK 4: Buccaneers receiver Keyshawn Johnson gets reacquainted with his old teammates when the Jets visit Tampa Bay. Johnson fumbles away a reception late in the game, allowing the Jets to recover deep in their own end, then run out the dock on a 12-6 showcase of defense and kickers. After the game diminutive Jets receiver Wayne Chrebet tells the media: "We want to thank Keyshawn for giving us the damn ball."

WEEK 5: Kurt Warner is intercepted five times during a loss to San Diego as the Rams' quarterback continues an early-season slump while his wife and inspiration, Brenda, serves a one-year ban from the Trans World Dome. Team owner Georgia Frontiere boiled over when she was informed that she got less TV face time than the camera-magnetic Mrs. Warner during last season's Super Bowl.

WEEK 6: As the 49ers continue to pay the bill for salary-cap deferments in the '90s, team management comes under fire from the league about its latest rumored accounting maneuver: paying signing bonuses to a youthful squad in Pokemon cards.

WEEK 7: Bill Romanowski is late for Denver's game against the visiting Browns. The Broncos linebacker arrived at the cash register at Wal-Mart and discovered he forgot his health insurance card and cash for the prescription deductible on his pregame meal.

WEEK 8: A PBS documentary team follows Patriots coach Bill Belichick 24/7. Belichick's idea of "letting loose" is ignoring the rinse-and-repeat step on his shampoo directions because it allows more time for breaking down game tape. By kickoff on Sunday against the Colts, members of the PBS camera crew are begging producers for reassignment to the more rousing caterpillar-to-butterfly documentary.

WEEK 9: U.S. Senate candidate Hillary Clinton makes an election-eve visit to Buffalo to stump at a Bills-Jets game. Wearing a blue Buffalo jersey with Eric Moulds' number and the white helmet of Jets' fanatic Fireman Eddie, Mrs. Clinton is asked where her allegiance falls. "I did marry a Bill," she says, "but I understand what it's like being a Jet, you know, representing New York despite coming from another state."

WEEK 10: After Cowboys defensive lineman Chad Hennings is flagged for roughing the passer, he returns to the huddle and is lectured by his linemates: fresh-from-rehab Leon Lett, bipolar-disorder patient Alonzo Spellman and manic-depressive Dimitrius Underwood.