20 Quick Hitters

The NFL questions have been stacking up all off-season. This week, we start getting some answers.

Can Joe Gibbs still coach after more than a decade in deep freeze?

Are the Philadelphia Eagles a Super Bowl team, or just a group of chokers with warning-track power?

Can quarterback Vinny Testaverde, who will turn 41 in November, revive and rescue the Dallas Cowboys, or would he be better off getting some R&R;?

Among the Raiders, 49ers and Chargers, can California produce a team with a winning record?

Twenty more questions heading into kickoff weekend:

1. Why shouldn’t you fret if your team loses its opener?

The last four Super Bowl champions have been no better than 9-7 the season before they won it all. For that matter, the last four Super Bowl losers have been no better than 10-6 in the previous season.

2. Why should you fret if your team loses its opener?

Since the league switched to a 16-game schedule in 1978 -- excluding the strike-shortened 1982 season -- the winning teams on kickoff weekend are more than twice as likely to make the playoffs.

The Houston Texans have the NFL’s only unblemished record in openers (2-0), and the Seattle Seahawks are 8-20 in their openers, a hide-your-face 28.6%.

3. Even if San Francisco players don’t rack up victories, what will they collect?

Lots and lots of frequent-flier miles. The 49ers have been upgraded to platinum this season, considering they’ll fly a league-high total of 35,756 miles (including exhibition games). That includes trips to New York, New England and Tampa, Fla.

The Baltimore Ravens, meanwhile, will log a puny 4,650 miles, never traveling farther west than Indianapolis. Hey, didn’t Jamal Lewis run for more yards than that last season?

4. Without Terrell Owens and Jeff Garcia, the San Francisco 49ers are in danger of being held scoreless at least once this season. What would be the salt in that wound?

San Francisco has gone 418 consecutive games without being shut out, a streak stretching back to the 1977 opener, when the 49ers lost at Pittsburgh, 27-0. That is by far an NFL record; the second-longest such streak was 274 games by the Cleveland Browns from 1950-71.

5. How is the Owens experiment working in Philadelphia?

So far, so good. Although Owens was much more involved in the first two exhibition games than in the last two, he said he’s getting more comfortable with the offense and getting in sync with Donovan McNabb. The first real test comes Sunday against the New York Giants, whose secondary has been vulnerable to big plays of late.

6. What do Chad Pennington, Giovanni Carmazzi, Chris Redman, Tee Martin, Marc Bulger and Spergon Wynn have in common?

They are the six quarterbacks selected ahead of Tom Brady in the 2000 draft. Only Pennington and Bulger are NFL starters now. Brady, the 199th pick selected by New England near the end of the sixth round, has two Super Bowl most-valuable-player trophies to go with his two rings. He is 33-12 as a starter (73.3%), joining Hall of Fame members Joe Montana and Roger Staubach as the only quarterbacks to win more than 70% of their first 40 starts.

7. What unofficial distinction is Buffalo’s Drew Bledsoe trying to avoid?

Being labeled the most overrated player in NFL history. When New England gave Bledsoe a 10-year, $103-million extension in 2001, then the richest contract in league history, Patriot owner Robert Kraft explained: “Quarterbacks like this come around once in a lifetime.� Now that Brady has made the Patriots forget all that -- and allowed them to ship Bledsoe to the Bills -- the picture is a lot clearer.

Granted, Bledsoe can look spectacular when everything’s working in his favor, but he has a losing record as a starter (77-78); a career postseason passer rating of 54.9; last season had more interceptions (12) than touchdown passes (11); was sacked a league-high 49 times in 2003; and last season went seven consecutive games without producing an offensive touchdown.

8. What should you never ask Arizona quarterback Josh McCown if you bump into him on the street?

“Didn’t your brother play at UCLA?� He hears that all the time.

“Everybody who knew I had a brother who played college ball just assumed it was Cade McNown,� said McCown, whose older brother, Randy, played quarterback at Texas A&M; and whose younger brother, Luke, is a rookie quarterback with Cleveland. “So I’m answering those questions all the time. ‘No, my brother’s Randy. It’s a different spelling, there’s no N. It’s McCown, not McNown.’

“It’s even funny when I’m doing autographs. When people can look and read my name and they still say McNown, they still say, ‘Is your brother Cade?’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s a different spelling. It’s just like if his name was Smith. It’s a different spelling. We can’t be related.’ �

9. Why is McCown lucky to be coached by Dennis Green?

Green, in his first season coaching the Cardinals, has a track record of turning good quarterbacks into outstanding ones. Just look what he did in his 10 seasons in Minnesota, where the quarterbacks leading the Vikings to the playoffs included Rich Gannon, Sean Salisbury, Jim McMahon, Warren Moon, Brad Johnson, Randall Cunningham, Jeff George and Daunte Culpepper.

Then again, we’re talking about the Cardinals.

10. Why shouldn’t we snicker when Baltimore’s Deion Sanders says he wants to be a head coach?

One-quarter of the 32 coaches in the league played defensive back in college or the pros: Tennessee’s Jeff Fisher, Carolina’s John Fox, Cincinnati’s Marvin Lewis, Indianapolis’ Tony Dungy, Atlanta’s Jim Mora, Denver’s Mike Shanahan, Chicago’s Lovie Smith and the New York Jets’ Herman Edwards.

There are six former quarterbacks who are coaches: San Francisco’s Dennis Erickson, Tampa Bay’s Jon Gruden, Seattle’s Mike Holmgren, Detroit’s Steve Mariucci, Oakland’s Norv Turner and Kansas City’s Dick Vermeil.

Funny, though, no kickers.

11. What has been the biggest problem with the Vikings?

Staying power. In collapsing at the end of last season, Minnesota joined the 1978 Washington Redskins as the only teams to begin with a 6-0 run, then miss the playoffs. It’s no wonder Coach Mike Tice had T-shirts made for his players with this message printed on them: “Don’t admire your work until it’s finished.�

12. When will the Browns lose patience with Butch Davis?

Put it this way: If he doesn’t start winning right away, he’s gone. Davis got a contract extension this summer, but that was mainly for show. Since he replaced Chris Palmer as coach in 2001, Davis’ teams have gone 7-9, 9-7 and 5-11. My guess is if he’s not 10-6 or better this season, he can pack his bags. And he has put all his chips on Jeff Garcia, who at 34 is struggling to learn a new offense and has yet to find his comfort zone. Davis wanted Garcia so badly, he was willing to overpay to get him: a four-year, $25-million deal. With running backs William Green and Lee Suggs and tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. on offense and a top-shelf defensive line that includes Courtney Brown, Gerard Warren and Kenard Lang, the Browns have just about everything -- except excuses.

13. If Oakland is the NFL’s old-folks home, what should we call Tampa Bay?

Jurassic Park. If Tim Brown winds up starting, the average age of the Buccaneer offense will be 32 1/2 , and they’ll have no starting skill-position player younger than 31. Ah, the woes of the 30-somethings -- tailback Charlie Garner just had knee surgery, fullback Mike Alstott is recovering from neck surgery, tackle Derrick Deese had surgery during camp to get rid of bone spurs, and quarterback Brad Johnson, who’ll turn 36 next Monday, is two seasons removed from playing with a broken bone in his back.

The good news about getting old? If you’re losing, you can’t hear the boos as well.

14. Which NFL player has training camp wired?

Seattle tackle Walter Jones. You know how veterans complain about camp every summer, saying it’s too long with too many exhibition games?

Well, not Jones.

That’s because he has been a camp holdout four times in seven seasons, including the last three. He has yet to report this summer because he’s protesting being given the franchise-player designation. Why don’t the Seahawks get rid of him? Because he’s one of the best left tackles in the game, an elite pass protector.

While his teammates are sweating it out in camp, Jones works out by pushing around a Cadillac Escalade in his hometown of Aliceville, Ala.

15. Is Carolina’s Jake Delhomme a one-hit wonder?

We can’t know for sure until this season is over, but virtually every informed observer of the Panther quarterback says Delhomme’s breakout season in 2003 was no fluke. Delhomme reportedly has looked extra sharp at training camp this summer, and his leadership qualities are unquestioned. He orchestrated seven last-minute or overtime rallies to win games last season, completing 75.9% of his attempts and with a passer rating of 122.2 during those spectacular stretches.

16. If Carson Palmer wears No. 9, why does he want to be Cincinnati’s lucky No. 7?

Because this is the seventh consecutive season the Bengals have used a new starting quarterback on opening day, and Palmer wants to put an end to that trend. The opening-day starters since 1998 have been Neil O’Donnell, Jeff Blake, Akili Smith, Jon Kitna, Gus Frerotte, Kitna and now Palmer.

17. Why was tapping himself on the helmet the biggest goof Dallas rookie Julius Jones made all summer?

Because Jones, an outstanding young running back, was trying to send the message to Coach Bill Parcells that he wanted a breather during the third quarter against Tennessee. Parcells doesn’t like players to ask to come out of a game.

“I wouldn’t let him out,� the coach said. “That’s the way it is, man. Don’t tap your helmet with me. I told him that.�

Ah, rookies ...

18. When will Los Angeles get an NFL team?

My guess is there will be a team here around the time my son starts filling out his college applications. He starts kindergarten this week.

19. How did Seattle’s Holmgren make sure his players didn’t speed as they drove home from training camp in eastern Washington?

He told them he’d be driving an unmarked silver car, either an SUV or a sedan, and he’d be adhering to the speed limit. Anyone who passed him owed him $1,000.

Rumor was, he took a flight home.

20. A Super Bowl pick?

New England 35, Seattle 21.