Rundown By the Run-Down

With the way work has been, this might just be a weekly feature.

In brief:

• By the time you read this, Lloyd Carr will probably have retired as coach of the University of Michigan Wolverines football team. I hope he left on his own terms and not just because his team put Appalachian State on the map. Literally. I know I'm not the only one who didn't know where it was before they beat Michigan.
  

• The Miami Dolphins are now 0-10, dropping to the Philadelphia Eagles without Donovan McNabb, who went down in the 2nd quarter with an ankle sprain. The '72 Dolphins went 14-0. This team may well have the complete opposite distinction. Unfortunately, this won't be a record since the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers also went an entire season without winning a game. Darn. Well since they can't break a record by winning no games at all, maybe they'll try to get one this season.

• Someone explain to me the friendship of Jessica Alba and . . . Baron Davis? Davis plays for Golden State, which is not anywhere near L.A., so I'm not sure how she made her way up there. Apparently her man is/was friends with Davis. He's also friends with Kate Hudson (?) But she was at their game on Sunday night in Golden State, seemingly by herself. "Bestest buds," they said. I bet.

• Roger Federer won the season-ending Masters Cup for the fourth time. I told you, even if he has a hiccup, he's coming through when it counts. And, oh, it counted, to the tune of a $1.2 million check and a new Mercedes CLS 500. That brings Fed to $10 million in prize money for the season. It's no $300 million, but I'd take it!

• Pretty decent day of football. I watched the Dallas Cowboys v. Washington Redskins, which is a huge rivalry that turned out to actually be a rival-worthy game. Tony Romo and the Cowboys prevailed, but the Skins had a chance to win on the last play of the game, but came up short. 4 touchdowns for T.O. . . . The New England Patriots utterly destroyed the Buffalo Bills, taking the Pats to 10-0 on the year. Tom Brady threw for almost 375 yards, and Randy Moss also had 4 touchdowns to match the other #81's total. And most importantly, I'm winning my head-to-head fantasy match-up. Mainly because I'm not playing any team that had any of the 4 guys I mentioned.

• Weird ending to the Cleveland Browns/Baltimore Ravens game. Browns' kicker Phil Dawson kicked a 51-yard field goal as time expired that the refs said was no good. That ended the game, the Ravens thinking they had won, and some players walked back to the locker rooms. One ref says they are reviewing the play. Except field goals aren't reviewable with instant replay, so, instead, they went with the opinion of one of the refs in front of the goal post who said that he saw the ball hit the backside of the cross-bar and trickle through the uprights. The good kick sent the game to overtime, where the Browns won with another field goal. The game had big implications for both teams. If this had been the Patriots instead of the Skins, people would be calling for asterisks on their perfect record. Now, we'll just never hear the end of it from Ravens fans, and that I can handle.
  

• I guess the NBA instituted the dress code because they didn't want them wearing "hip hop attire"? But towels are apparently OK. I watched the Detroit Pistons' Chauncey Billups post-game locker room interview, where he sat in only a towel and proceeded to bend forward and put lotion on the entire time he was talking. I'm glad he feels so comfortable, but at least let the man handle his ashiness first.