Marvin Mitchell is as big a fan of quarterback Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints' NFL-leading offense as anybody. "They've got so much good personnel," said Norfolk's Mitchell, a special-teams scrapper and back up linebacker for the 7-0 Saints. "You can see them each and every day in practice, but you're still impressed when you see them on game day."

OK, maybe I'm gun-jumping here a little. I know Percy Harvin, who plays with true abandon, still must navigate through eight regular-season NFL bruise-fests to complete his rookie season. It won't be easy. But for fun, let's play the "He's On Pace To" game anyway...

PHILADELPHIA Don't be hypnotized this year by the perennial NFC East hype. Halfway through this NFL season, the typically tough, chain-rattling division remains long on reputation, but it's conspicuously short on performance. That's why some of us take the Philadelphia Eagles' 40-17 Sunday drubbing of the New York Giants at Lincoln Financial Field with a lot more than a single grain of salt.

BLACKSBURG

Tough to explain, this one. One of those three-hour, slow-motion demonstrations you see throughout a college football season of why they play the darn games.

The scene: a full Lane Stadium on a clear, sparkling Thursday night. Orange everywhere, in the grandstands and draped on Virginia Tech on the field.

For something so good, the NFL really stinks. Not always, of course, and not even usually. But this season, so much of the NFL reeks so badly, leaf-raking and gutter-cleansing have become promising Sunday afternoon alternatives. Consider the shameful condition entering Week 8:

Landover, Md. One good thing about the Washington Redskins burning down to cinders. It has exposed for good the incompetence as an NFL franchise owner of Daniel Snyder, if somewhere there remained a sliver of doubt. A nation of football fans Monday night saw for themselves, in stupefied degrees, the smoking heap that was further trashed, 27-17, by the Philadelphia Eagles at FedEx Field.

PITTSBURGH Brett Favre stood at his locker within Heinz Field soon after his team's first defeat and called over to one of his favorite Minnesota Vikings. "You all right, Perc?" said Favre, concerned about the direct hits Percy Harvin took Sunday to his injured left shoulder in the Pittsburgh Steelers' 27-17 victory.

Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid actually said this about Michael Vick in one of his usual mumbling, obfuscating news conferences the other day: Declaring Vick's controversial hiring a success to date, Reid said "we signed him as a backup quarterback. We have gotten probably a little bit more out of him than I thought we would have out of our other backup quarterbacks."

LANDOVER, Md. The NFL player who personifies irrelevance beat Washington's band of pipsqueaks Sunday. Chew on that one, Redskins fans. Rookie Ryan "Mr. Irrelevant" Succop, the last guy picked in the NFL draft, kicked four field goals - two from 46 yards - and the dreadful Kansas City Chiefs beat the disgraceful Redskins 14-6 at FedEx Field.

From Denver on the cell phone, Jack Williams was simply logical. "I think winning has definitely changed everybody's perception of our team," said Williams, a second-year defensive back for the Denver Broncos out of Norfolk's Booker T. Washington High.