By JEFF LEGWOLD, Scripps Howard News Service

Please try to follow along . . .Team promises to build franchise around its quarterback.Team benches quarterback.Team still roars from the gate, continues to win, sits at 8-0 as the league's only undefeated team at the halfway point.Welcome to NFL version 2008.

Seven weeks are down in this season and so are three head coaches.Three guys have already been done in by poor performance, poor ticket sales, poor outlook for the future -- take your pick.

The phone rang roughly 14 seconds after the announcement from the NFL this week that Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam Jones had been suspended yet again.Then it rang again. And again. And just kept on ringing.Many of the scouts who have been on the receiving end of hundreds of calls over the last 20 draft seasons or so just wanted to make it clear once again.

In the topsy-turvy world of all things Bronco, there is Marcus Thomas.A 305-pound defensive tackle who now has an interception this season after his grab of an errant Jeff Garcia throw Sunday, but no sacks.

With a smile born in his own trek through the college football desert, Denver Broncos linebacker Jamie Winborn was making the rounds among some of his co-workers recently."Hey, where'd you go to school?" he'd say, the answer already known before the question was asked."Are they undefeated?"

With far more days remaining in this season than have passed, it's a little odd there already is so much angst in so many places.

Cover your eyes, hide the kids, it's Quarterbacks Gone Wild.The videos are giving defensive coordinators around the league the shivers, or so people have said just two weeks into this NFL season.After all, the Denver Broncos have dropped 80 combined points on their first two opponents.

There is a long-held belief that a diamond, in all of its shimmering glory, is basically a hunk of coal that made good.That the pressure did its thing and in the end, the lump survived, better for it.

Ask 100 football people to name the most important attribute a franchise- changing quarterback needs to succeed, and you will likely get several dozen different answers.Big arm. Big brain. Big heart.Accurate. Calm. Competitive.Work ethic. Gamer.

Those in the NFL with sun-creased faces and a pile of remember-when stories say it's no country for old men.