Detroit Free Press

TEMPE, ARIZ -- Hey, it's hot in the desert. Things melt. Like your defense. Your concentration. And, apparently, your calculator.How else do you explain coach Bobby Ross deciding Sunday to go for a two-point conversion late in the fourth quarter -- when logic said go for an extra point?What was he doing? I know about aggressiveness. But there is no way, when you are down 23-19 late in a game, that you don't go for an extra point, pull within three, and hope a field goal ties it and takes you to overtime.That's Beginners Coaching. Or Math 101.

So many voices inside Doug Collins' head, like an army of transistor radios all playing at once. There is the voice of his mother, urging him to succeed, and the voice of his father, stricken with lung cancer, saying, "Doug . . . I don't want to die."There are voices of his two grown children, whom he adores, and voices of players, coaches, friends, philosophers -- all these voices, snapping sparks in his brain, making him run, then stopping him in his tracks.If you wondered why Doug Collins is so frantic on the outside, you should see what's going on inside.

The Philadelphia Eagles made chopped liver out of the Lions in the playoffs last Saturday, but coach Ray Rhodes still hasn't eased up on Detroit.Rhodes couldn't help but get in one last dig on Lions tackle Lomas Brown's ill-fated victory guarantee."For a guy like myself, I like that kind of stuff," Rhodes said. "That was the missing ingredient that I needed."Rhodes wouldn't reveal what Brown said to him in their brief postgame conversation, but one Eagles assistant coach said Brown told Rhodes to keep him in mind when free-agency season begins.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- I am standing over a cauldron of hate. I am watching it bubble and boil. I am getting in the mood for tonight's showdown between Michigan State and No. 1-ranked Duke."Igor, give me the photo of the coach!" I scream. "We will burn him in hatred! Ahahahahahaha!""Yessss, maaaaster," Igor says.Igor hands me the photo of Mike Krzyzewski, Duke's coach for the past 19 years."Look at how evil he is!" I exclaim, ready to drop his photo into the smoldering pot. "Look at how, uh ...uh . . ."

Ihand the map of Sweden to Nick Lidstrom. I ask him to circle his home town. It's in the southern half of the country. "Vasteras," he says. "Very nice place.""And where is your teammate Tomas Holmstrom from?" I ask."Tomas?" he says, snickering. "He's from ...up north."I go to Holmstrom. I hand him the map of Sweden. He circles his hometown. It is indeed in the north. "Pieta," he says. "Very nice place.""And where is Lidstrom from?""Nick?" he says, rolling his eyes. "He's from ...down south."

* Detroit 28, Tampa Bay 10: The Bucs, having missed the playoffs, can't wait to end the season and get out in the sun. Wait a minute. They live in the sun. Pick vs. spread: Detroit.* San Diego 30, NY Giants 20: The Giants can't wait to finish this year and get the heck out of New York. But then, that goes for anyone who lives there. Pick vs. spread: San Diego.

There were four people interested in buying Mike Vernon's house. He had their names and numbers. One day, not too long ago, he told his wife, "Maybe we better call them." This is how you think when you're not playing. Brace for the worst."I figured they had no reason to keep me if I wasn't playing, so I'd be traded somewhere else," he says. "When that happens during the season, you get on a plane and your wife gets stuck with the movers. I was trying to help her out."

We laughed at him, poked fun at him, maybe whispered behind his back about those silly ties and those corny cheers he led. But deep down, we all felt we should have been a little more like him -- this strange, thin man with the thick glasses who wandered through the aisles of our lives, yelling happily at the top of his lungs.The Brow is gone. And the stadium just got very quiet.