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By ERNEST HOOPER
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 21, 2000
Perspective may be one of the biggest mental factors in the NFL.
How a team looks at itself, its opponent and its playoff chances changes week-to-week, game-to-game and in some cases, play-to-play. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fierce battle being waged in the AFC East, the league's best division.
With an 8-3 record, the Dolphins are one game ahead of the Bills, Jets and the Colts, who were the preseason favorite. It's a four-way battle and all four still have a chance, so everyone should feel good.
But the outlooks vary.
The Bills are teeming with confidence and the Jets are simply relieved. But the Dolphins are fretting about injuries and the Colts are questioning their worth.
Perhaps Buffalo should be confident. Of the four, it has the easiest schedule when you look at current records. And it also has momentum after winning four consecutive games. Make no mistake, the Bills will pull off an impressive double if the can win back-to-back road games at Arrowhead Stadium and Raymond James Stadium, but half of the quinella already has been accomplished thanks to quarterback Rob Johnson.
It was Johnson's gritty fourth-quarter rally that helped the Bills win for the first time in Kansas City since 1986, and at least for a week, the quarterback controversy that has gripped Buffalo can be put aside.
A victory against the Bucs on Sunday would leave the Bills with Miami, at Indianapolis, New England and at Seattle. None of the other four AFC East contenders has two teams on the schedule with records worse than .500.
In fact, the Colts have the most difficult remaining slate, with their opponents having a combined record of 39-16. It doesn't help that Indy has lost two of its past three to the Bears and Packers.
"Coaches can yell and scream at us all they want to, but until we take it upon ourselves to go out and perform well, all we're going to do is just get a lot of screaming for the rest of the season," linebacker Cornelius Bennett told the Indianapolis Star. "We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and decide if we want to be a good football team or just a team that everybody talked about from the beginning of the season."
Indianapolis does have one asset. In the past five weeks, it plays all three contenders, including Miami twice. There is no better way to take control than by smashing the other contenders.
The Colts might have benefited this week from a rash of Dolphins injuries, but reports out of Miami have quarterback Jay Fiedler, running back Lamar Smith and linebacker Zach Thomas all hoping to play Sunday in what guard Kevin Donnalley deemed a must-win.
"If we want to win the division, we have to bounce back and get a win," Donnalley said after his team was manhandled by the Jets. "We can't lose two in a row, especially with a division opponent."
The schedule does not offer Miami any breaks. Consecutive road games against the Colts and Bills will be challenging, followed by home games against the Bucs and Colts. Even the finale against New England is not a given because it'll be a Christmas Eve battle at Foxboro.
The Jets, who snapped a three-game losing streak Sunday, were just happy to find a cure for whatever was ailing them.
"We had to stop the bleeding. I was saying all week we have to stop the bleeding," safety Victor Green said. "If we had lost, instead of one bloody nostril, it would've been both of them."
The Jets face Chicago at home this week before hosting Indianapolis Dec. 3 in its final division game of the year. But games outside of the division -- at Oakland, Detroit and at Baltimore -- will be just as challenging.
It's possible that of the four contenders, only two or three will make it. Tennessee, Oakland and Baltimore are likely to take three of the six spots. The leaves three and you can't discount Denver.
Said Jets coach Al Groh: "I still believe this is going to go down to Dec. 24."
MO-TOWN: The deft touch of new Lions coach Gary Moeller has everyone feeling rejuvenated in Detroit. Moeller has brought a rah-rah attitude to a team that apparently had grown sour with the ways of Bobby Ross. He's already referred to the players as "kids" and he once called the veterans "upperclassmen."
"It doesn't matter if he says upperclassmen or veterans," returner Desmond Howard said. "It's the way he says it. I wish some of the guys in the press would ask Coach Moeller the exact same questions they asked Coach Ross and listen to the difference, not only in what he says, but how he says it."
It remains to be seen how long the coaching change will pay dividends. After this week's Thanksgiving battle against New England, a game Detroit should win to move to 8-4, it has a perilous three-game road swing: at Minnesota, at Green Bay and at the Jets.
-Information from other news organizations was used in this report.