Love for the cowboys... and more

"In sociological news, TMQ's Unified Field Theory of Creep holds that not just Christmas but everything is creeping. For instance, the annual Dallas Cowboys collapse in December. On Sunday at Green Bay, in mid-November, the Cowboys collapsed -- is there now Cowboys Creep? Trailing 17-0 in the final minute, Cowboys coach Wade Phillips left his offensive starters on the field, desperately trying to avoid a shutout. There are no BCS polls and no style points in the NFL -- with a true playoff format, all that matters is W's and L's. But Phillips fears for his job. Knowing there will be an extremely unpleasant year-end performance review session with Jerry Jones, he wanted to keep "we got shut out at Green Bay" out of his file."

Going for it on fourth down is bad?
"Wake Forest took the lead by three points in overtime against Georgia Tech, then Tech faced fourth-and-1 on the Wake 6. Rather than do the conservative thing and kick a field goal, advancing to another overtime, Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson went for it; the team converted and then scored a game-winning touchdown. No sports site was headlined, "Johnson's blunder." "


"On Monday night, trailing 16-0 on the game's final snap, Cleveland attempted a ridiculous Stanford Band play (which should now be called a Trinity of Texas play), for no apparent purpose other than to keep "we got shut out on 'Monday Night Football'" from being on the agenda at Eric Mangini's year-end performance review. In an extreme display of poor sportsmanship, Mangini called all his timeouts in the final moments, when Baltimore led by 16 and was not trying to score but just trying to exhaust the clock. The motive was protecting Mangini's résumé, and the result of the ridiculous final play was a concussion for the Browns' Josh Cribbs. Exposing players to injury on a meaningless final down, just to improve your own employment prospects, is a serious coaching offense -- the football world should be mad at Mangini, not Belichick."

Stats of the Week No. 10: The four teams in the AFC North combined to score one offensive touchdown this week.