Come Saturday night, that warm glee that washed over me in expectation of my day of football intensifies. I have trouble sleeping. I typically try to fix this with beer. The excitement is turning into panic. I bolt awake gasping for air. The room is bright, it’s a new day. It’s 1:30PM. Dammit, missed checking 1PM starters for fantasy. No matter there is the 4:15, Sunday and Monday Nighters. NFL Football is on TV right now!

My Game of Some Considerable Note in Week 3:

The San Fransisco 49ers with head coach Mike Singletary at the helm narrowly lost a battle of 2-0 teams to Brett Favre and the Vikings. I say ‘Favre and the Vikes ‘ not ‘Adrian Peterson and the Vikes’ with the benefit of having seen the game. Favre won the game in classic gunslinger fashion. As a result the broadcasting grandfathers of Bristol, ESPN HQ, are and will continue fussing over Favre and his childlike zeal for football like Grandpa Simpson and his Retirement Castle compadres fuss over Matlock and his zeal for “putting young people behind bars where they belong”. I say out with the old and in with the news!

Mike Singeltary who famously made his name in Chicago is a bit more newsworthy than Brett Favre. The former Bears LB led the Monster of the Midway with intense and intelligent play from the moment he walked onto the field his rookie year. Now the legendary player is trying to train, manage, organize, motivate, mentor and lead offensive and defensive units out onto the field 16 weeks in the Fall to get one of 6 spots in the NFC playoffs. This is the first season he has started as head coach after taking over interim head coaching duties last year when the fashionable Mike Nolan was fired after starting out 2-5. Singletary made a splash – I mean, hell, he is a legend. Of course he is going to get something going and it’s probably going to grab attention. After getting the team into a competitive state of mind, Singletary found men to lead his offensive and defensive squads: QB Shaun Hill and LB Patrick Willis.

Hill made a name for himself under center with the Maryland Terrapins and even though he wasn’t drafted, he was signed by an NFL team – the Minnesota Vikings. Oh the irony! He rode pine in Minnesota, but tired of that and so flew to Amsterdam and signed up to play QB in NFL Europe. In 2008 after a year of throwing passes in the Netherlands, Hill found himself on the SF Niners, a franchise with some history at QB, with a chance to prove himself to a legendary football player come head coach. And he did! To cap off an impressive nine games as starter, he led the team to a victory in the season finale with cool-headed late game signal calling against the Redskins.

His arm is nothing to scoff at either. In this Sunday’s heartbreaking loss Hill slid a pretty TD throw through a vanishing window to TE Vernon Davis who was running a very quick route. Accurate and precise throwing means throwing the ball at a very small physical and temporal target. Samurai would likely make good quarterbacks. Hill probably wouldn’t make a good samurai. But he did have his team up 24-20 with that pass with 8 minutes in the 4th quarter.

Stopping the run requires similar accuracy and precision. Understand what the offensive blocking scheme is, compare it to your run stopping scheme, and fill the gap quickly while still keeping your balance to make the tackle. LB Patrick Willis has been doing this very effectively for the past two years as the leader of the Niners defense. Butkus Award Winner, AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, two time Pro-Bowler – all since 2006. He had 10 tackles this game, 8 solo, and held the brutality of Adrian Peterson to 85 yards on 19 carries. His defense had hit Favre 6 times, sacked him twice and INT’d him once. Willis can be trusted with a 4th quarter lead.

This is what Singletary is thinking as the Vikings begin a drive with 3:26 left on the clock. Willis and his men deliver the ball on downs. With their star running back, Frank Gore, out after a 1st quarter injury, the Niners must run the ball with Glen Coffee, the talented rookie back out of Alabama. The run the ball three straight times, even on 3rd and 6th, in order to play if safe. They punt the ball back to the Vikes after burning on 20 seconds off the clock, giving the inestimably unpredictable Brett Favre a chance. Trust in our defense.

Favre led the Vikes 80 yards in 10 plays, 7 of them from the shotgun. The drive was capped off by an off-balance 32-yard TD toss from Favre as he was being hit to a tightly covered Greg Lewis, the Vikes 5th or 6th receiver. Not much the Niners DEF could have done about it. With only 2 seconds left on the clock, there was nothing the offense could do either.

Singletary is leading the Niners well, but can he lead them to Championships if he makes the mistake of letting Brett Favre beat him? It’s not that Favre has actual magic, despite what the ghosts of football past in Bristol have to say. He improvises well and is therefore unpredictable, hard to defend. He will take risks down field which with time running out is exactly what you have to have the stomach and vision to do so.

Hill and Willis can and will give this team the ability to win. I think the Niners are a very good team. Contenders! I think that Mike Singletary will see this as an opportunity to preach more aggressive play and play calling, especially with the game on the line. I don’t want to belabor the point, but burning just 20 seconds off the clock when you have the ball and the lead with less than 2 minutes left? That’s a mistake. The Niners will be news late in the season for a few years to come. On the other hand, Brett Favre’s news making days are coming to the close, hopefully its more of what we say today.

For example, Mwelde Moore caught a pass in the flat for a short 5 yard first down. Madden, may he rest in peace (I know he’s not dead), would have gone on and on about Mwelde and how tough and smart of a player he is. Fine, great…I think Mwelde Moore is a pretty good football player and am impressed he continues to play. Nevertheless, the interesting part of the play was the Titans were blitzing and the Steelers line picked it up brilliantly. Not only that, but the prescient play calling of the Steelers offensive coordinator, 16 year veteran Bruce Arians, pulled the dangerous DE Kyle Vanden Bosch out into coverage on Moore.

Collinsworth managed to break all of that down for us in all of 5-7 seconds. And that’s what he does every play. Thank the NFL Football Gods. Too bad I won’t be in the country to enjoy it all season.