professional football

Remember all the terrible things people said and wrote about the Oakland Raiders during their wild, rocky preseason?

Those people (OK, I'm one of them) were way wrong. Or were we?

Are the Raiders really back from the dead, rescued from the abyss of slapstick? Or are they headed for another disastrous season?

This just in: Tom Brady's still Terrific, and the Buffalo Bills still stink.

Talk about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Or, in the case of the Bills, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Buffalo had an upset of Niagara Falls proportions all but locked up after taking a 24-13 lead over their perennial nemesis New England with 5:32 remaining Monday night.

The Minnesota Vikings begged Brett Favre to come out of retirement for this? They gave him a $12 million contract for this season for a 110-yard passing day? They risked the delicate chemistry of their championship-caliber team for, as coach Brad Childress put it, a "workmanlike" performance?

Absolutely, they did.

They're pretty happy about it, too.

Quick hits on a just-started NFL season:

-- For Brett Favre, it's another season without an old, familiar asset: the deep pass, traveling like a bullet. With the Minnesota Vikings, he might not need it. Just dink away and hand the ball to Adrian Peterson.

The dreams of Minnesota Vikings fans for a Super Bowl return after a 32-season absence will be fulfilled, as long as the path to Miami goes through the Seattle Seahawks. Any other NFC playoff opponent and it becomes problematic with Brett Favre at quarterback.

The shock of the Richard Seymour debacle is not the realization that Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis has lost his magical aura.

The shock is the realization that Davis doesn't realize that his magical aura has ceased to exist.

Can he be that out of touch?

It seemed like such a good play at the time. Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Aaron Smith blocking a Tennessee field-goal attempt late in the first half Thursday night. The big, throbbing Heinz Field crowd, out on an absolutely delightful late-summer night for the opening game of the NFL season, erupted. So did the Steelers' bench. the game remained scoreless.

Capsule previews for Week 1 around the NFL. All times Eastern with 2008 regular season records in parenthesis.

SUNDAY:

Miami Dolphins (11-5) at Atlanta Falcons (11-5), 1 p.m.

The only team that made a bigger turnaround than the Falcons in 2008 was the Dolphins, who won 10 more games than the previous year. What's more, they have won their past five games on the road.

As reigning Super Bowl teams go, the Pittsburgh Steelers are in a class by themselves. Returning 20 of 22 starters in any season is considered rare, for Super Bowl teams to do it is almost impossible in this age of free agency and the salary cap. The Steelers of 2009 look more like the Super Bowl teams of the 1970s, when there was no free agency.

Imagine living in an NFL city and having the TV broadcast of every home game blacked out.

It could happen. Here in Florida. In a part of the state that is supposed to be crazy about football.