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FOR USE AS DESIRED WEEK
STARTS & ENDS WITH NATIONAL TV GAMES;
There are two national TV games…Emmitt facing the Cowboys…Michael taking on Brett and the Packers again…and the debut of five new head coaches. All this, and it’s only the first full week of preseason football. But in the NFL, everything is always full-blast! It all starts Thursday night at 8:00 PM ET on ESPN with two teams with only one thing on their mind: return to where they were only two and three short years ago – the Super Bowl. It’s the New York Giants, participants in Super Bowl XXXV in 2000, at the New England Patriots, who won Super Bowl XXXVI the next year. Anything less than reaching the big game isn’t good enough for these two teams -- or the other 30 in the NFL, for that matter. “I want to get back to Super Bowl more than anything,” says Giants quarterback KERRY COLLINS. “That’s why we’re here.” That’s why every club is in training camp, and will begin putting into game conditions this week the plans they have been developing over the past several weeks. Of course, that’s not to say that certain games won’t have that little extra spark because of who is playing. Take Saturday night in Arizona, for instance, where a certain player wearing a big No. 22 will look familiar, but not in the Cardinal-red shirt he’s wearing it on. Yes, it’s the NFL’s all-time rushing leader EMMITT SMITH (17,162 yards) with his new team, the Arizona Cardinals, facing the team he got all those yards for during the past 13 years, the Dallas Cowboys. “The only thing that’s changed on me has been the helmet color, the jersey color, the shoe color, and the pants color,” says Smith. “Football is football.” And speaking of uniforms, the Atlanta Falcons will prance out their new duds Saturday night – jerseys and pants with red side piping, “Falcons” stitched on the neckline, and a new metallic black helmet with a new Falcons logo – when they host the Green Bay Packers. More important than how they look, though, the Falcons will be seeking to fine-tune the high expectations with which they approach the season. One of the reasons for those high hopes is their memorable victory (27-7) last January over BRETT FAVRE and the Packers the last time these two teams met – in an NFC Wild Card game. It was Green Bay’s first home playoff loss ever. “I can feel the difference,” says the leader and quarterback of the Falcons, MICHAEL VICK. “Last year, there were no expectations. But we made the playoffs and now the fans expect nothing less. At the same time, there’s no pressure on us. We know we can do it.” Expectations are high all over the NFL this week, especially on the clubs whose new head coaches will be making their debuts – Cincinnati’s MARVIN LEWIS (at the New York Jets), Dallas’ BILL PARCELLS (at Arizona), Detroit’s STEVE MARIUCCI (vs. Pittsburgh), Jacksonville’s JACK DEL RIO (at Minnesota) and San Francisco’s DENNIS ERICKSON (at Kansas City). Lewis is the second graduate of the NFL Minority Coaching Fellowship Program in three years to become an NFL head coach, after the Jets’ HERMAN EDWARDS (2001), who he faces Sunday afternoon. The week concludes on Monday night on ESPN (8:00 PM ET), as two teams with playoff expectations square off in New Orleans when the Saints host the Philadelphia Eagles. The Saints have missed the playoffs the past two years after winning a division crown in 2000. The Eagles have not had trouble making the playoffs, but want to take that step beyond the roadblock that has stopped them the past two years – the NFC Championship Game.
THIS WEEK’S NFL SCHEDULE (AUGUST 7-11)
NEXT WEEK’S NFL SCHEDULE (AUGUST 14-18)
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