Shell of their former selves

Today's Arizona-Oakland game will be broadcast in the Navajo language through an arrangement set up by the Raiders with an Arizona radio station. The larger question is: Do they need to broadcast it in English?

There cannot be two more lost franchises than the Raiders and Cardinals, with the former seemingly even more out of its element than the latter because at least Arizona knows who its quarterback of the future is. The Raiders barely know where the stadium is.

The Raiders' motto used to be, "Just win, baby!" This season it's, "Just punt, baby!" Oakland is averaging a dismal 10 points per game, is last in the NFL in total offense, and next to last in pass offense. Defensively, the Raiders are No. 1 in the league in pass defense, but that's because they're 30th in run defense and teams know they don't have to risk throwing the ball if they can just score 11 points.

Not surprisingly, there's a coup attempt going on, aimed at offensive coordinator Tom Walsh and led by wide receiver Jerry Porter, whom coach Art Shell suspended for four games last week after Porter cursed at him and wide receivers coach Fred Biletnikoff after he was asked to do something he didn't want to do -- practice.

The Porter problem goes back to his first meeting with Shell last winter. Shell is a disciplined coach and no one to be trifled with, things that seemed to elude Porter. Sources familiar with the situation claim Porter was used to browbeating Shell's predecessor, Norv Turner, but when he tried it on Shell he got slapped down in a way he didn't expect. Ever since, they've been at odds, Shell refusing to activate Porter and Porter refusing to activate anything but his mouth.

"Enough is enough," is about all Shell would say on the Porter matter, but frankly that was enough to cost Porter $235,000 in lost pay. Some of his teammates, including the voluble Warren Sapp, tried to make the case that whatever Porter said wasn't all that bad, and by Raider standards it might not have been, but it was the straw that broke the back of a very large camel. Oddly, as hard as Sapp tried to make a case for leniency, when he was asked if the team was still together following a 13-3 loss to the Broncos last Sunday, he replied, "I know on defense we are. On our side of the ball we've got it. They're working on it on the other side of the ball."

In other words, they ain't got it over there, which is part of the problem. Another is the offensive line Shell inherited, which was just ranked last in the league by Scouts Inc. Scouts Inc. is not the final word on such matters, but at least 40 percent of the starting line belongs on a bread line, and backup Chad Slaughter is so inept he was called four times for false starts after replacing tackle Langston Walker in Denver. One Raider insider attributed that to Slaughter's clear understanding he doesn't belong on the field, which caused him to get the yips. Yet the line and Porter aren't the only problems.

Another was the trading of Doug Gabriel to the Patriots, which created problems on the field and in the locker room. Gabriel was starting all summer ahead of Porter (who has yet to play a game) and was clearly the team's No. 2 receiver. Some in the locker room believe that's why he was traded by owner Al Davis, who they feel favors Alvis Whitted. Whitted is so fast he competed in the 1996 Olympic Trials in the 200 meters. The problem is he can't catch or get open, which is why he had only 29 receptions at North Carolina State. Nothing he's done in nine years in the NFL has convinced anyone but Davis that was a fluke, but Davis has always been smitten with speed and wanted Whitted on the field. The more he proves he shouldn't be there, the more stubborn Davis becomes. This is not the first time this has happened but it comes at a time when there are too many other problems to overcome and the biggest of those, according to three AFC rivals who have scouted the Raiders, is unimaginative game plans.

The game may not have passed Walsh by but spending the last few years running a bed and breakfast in Idaho may not have been the best way to keep up with defensive trends in the NFL. Take what he did against the Broncos. Facing one of the best run defenses in football, Walsh ran the ball on 21 of 24 first-down plays. Two of the times he threw it was because it was first and 15. Not sure if that's a problem of imagination, timidity, or what, but it's a recipe for going 0-16.

As things stand, the Raiders are allowing more than twice as many points (25.2, 27th in the NFL) as they score (10.0). When Davis brought in Randy Moss it was to return to the explosiveness of Oakland's glory years, but the team is 4-17 since Moss's arrival and 13-40 since being trounced in Super Bowl XXXVII. That's not a commitment to excellence. It's a commitment to stubbornness.

Set to steam past Morgan

Perhaps this afternoon Troy Brown will get the six receptions he needs to become the Patriots' all-time leading receiver, passing Stanley Morgan's 534 catches. Yet Brown's receptions have yielded 4,202 fewer yards because Morgan was the kind of deep threat you seldom see in the NFL today.

Patriots receiver Reche Caldwell was asked last week if he'd ever heard of Morgan and said, "Honestly, I don't know who he is." When told of Morgan's 19.4-yard average, Caldwell said, "Wow! He must of been a big-play receiver. Today, 12 yards is good."

Morgan was a touchdown waiting to happen (he scored 67 times for New England), a receiver with world-class speed and the knowledge of how to use it, despite playing at a time when defensive backs were allowed to mug receivers all the way down the field. When asked recently about the changes in pass defense, five-time Pro Bowl cornerback Ty Law spoke with awe about guys such as Morgan and what they accomplished.

"If you caught 70 balls back then, man, you were good," said Law. "Eighty balls is normal today. I wish I could beat up a guy all the way downfield, club you and whatever. Now all the rules are against you on defense."

Back then it seemed there were no rules on defense, at least not for Mel Blount, Willie Brown, and most of the top defensive backs of Morgan's day.

"I think the receivers kind of like the passing game the way it is now," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. "There were a lot of good receivers back then. I remember [defensive back] Pat Fischer and those guys when I first came into the league. They were actually able to cut the receiver on the line of scrimmage and they were backed up over the top with some kind of safety help.

"It was a little different game out there."

So, how did Morgan average nearly 20 yards a reception over 13 years in New England?

"Fast," Belichick said, when asked to recall Morgan. "Really fast. A big-play guy. A good run-after-the catch guy. When he was running those posts, those free safeties had to really get on their horse and get back there because he'd get on top of you in a hurry."

Soon Brown will get on top of Morgan on the Patriots' all-time receiving list, but what Morgan did with those catches isn't going to be challenged any time soon.

"Catching the football, I was able to run with it," said Morgan. "I was able to avoid being hit. When I played, when we threw the football we were basically going downfield with it."

Way down the field if it was going to Stanley Morgan.

Ex-wife fails in bid to get Flair pinned by judge

In Charlotte, N.C., Panthers season tickets are hard to come by. So hard, WWE wrestler Ric Flair's ex-wife was willing to fight him over them.

Last Tuesday, Elizabeth Fliehr (Flair's real name is Richard Fliehr) sought to have him cited for contempt of court and told to abide by a judge's order that she receive her share of this season's Panthers tickets, but things didn't quite work out as she'd planned because Flair couldn't give her what he didn't have.

Mecklenburg District Judge Jane Harper refused to hold the pro wrestler in contempt, claiming she didn't feel Flair had willfully refused to comply with her Oct. 5, 2005, order that he share his Panthers tickets with his ex-wife .

Flair said during the hearing that he had not renewed his seat license and could no longer buy season tickets. He said he hadn't gone to any Panthers games this season and no longer had tickets to share with anyone.

"I didn't have them, and I couldn't get them," Flair said.

Flair's lawyer, Bill Diehl, called Elizabeth Fliehr's motion to have her former husband cited for contempt over the tickets frivolous.

"This was a complete waste of the court's time," Diehl said after the hearing, "and she lost."

Etc.

Maybe Reggie Bush wouldn't have been the answer in Houston even if the Texans had drafted him ahead of defensive end Mario Williams. Houston is last in the league in rushing, averaging 67.6 yards per game and 3 yards a carry. Quarterback David Carr has the only rushing touchdown and Ron Dayne, who has started the last three games, averages 2.9 yards a carry and will likely be replaced today by rookie Wali Lundy, who started the first two games before being benched for averaging what now appears to be an astronomical 3.4 yards a carry. But would Bush have made a difference? Not if you go by his rushing production in New Orleans, which is a far better team. Bush is averaging 3 yards per carry there, which would make him just about average in Houston.

The Titans made a fashion statement last Sunday they may choose to stick with. Tennessee had gone 0-2 in white jerseys and 0-3 in dark jerseys this season, but was 0-0 in dark jerseys with dark pants, a combination punter Craig Hentrich wore at the team's uniform unveiling in the spring of 1999 but had never been seen since. Willing to try anything, coach Jeff Fisher gave the team the option of going with the dark-on-dark look in Washington, and several players responded enthusiastically. The Titans defeated the Redskins, 25-22. "I was one of the many players that wanted to wear the blue on blue," said running back Travis Henry, who ran for a career-high 178 yards. "Maybe we need to wear blue on blue at home. We'll have to talk to Coach Fisher about that."

It wasn't exactly a mutiny, but one reason coach Brian Billick fired old friend Jim Fassel as the Ravens' offensive coordinator last week was not only the public criticism of Fassel's play-calling by some players after a 23-21 loss to the Panthers last Sunday, but also a Monday meeting with Pro Bowl tackle Jonathan Ogden, who spoke with Billick about the deteriorating situation, although he claimed he did not mention Fassel specifically. Sources in Baltimore claim several assistant coaches complained to Billick about Fassel's work habits and there was a growing rift between Fassel and quarterbacks coach Rick Neuheisel, who thought he was getting the coordinator's job in the offseason because the belief in Baltimore was that Fassel would land one of the available head coaching jobs. When he didn't, he returned to a testy situation in which he and Neuheisel often clashed over game plans and offensive philosophy. Although Fassel didn't mention any coach by name, he did say after he was fired that there were too many voices involved in the offense. There's one fewer today, as Billick has taken over the play-calling himself, something he hasn't done since the beginning of his first season in Baltimore, in 1999.

It will be like old home week today when coach Romeo Crennel and coordinator Maurice Carthon try to get the Browns' offense moving against a Denver defense whose entire front is made up of former Browns: ends Ebenezer Ekuban and Kenard Lang and tackles Michael Myers and Gerard Warren. Since March 2, 2005, when the Broncos used a fourth-round draft choice to acquire Warren and began the influx of Browns, Denver is 18-5 and reached the AFC Championship game, while Cleveland is 7-14, including 1-4 this season. Ex-Browns receiver Quincy Morgan, who is Denver's kick returner, said last week, "You know they've got to be kicking themselves because I think they'd be a hell of a team if they still had those guys right now."

San Diego has the league's No. 1 defense in terms of yards allowed -- 218.4 per game -- but it's the Broncos who are really the stingiest, allowing only 7.4 points a game. This same scenario existed in 2000, when the Ravens set a league record for fewest points allowed in a 16-game season (165) but finished second behind the Titans in defense because the NFL ranks by yards allowed per game. Who came up with that idea?

Chiefs running back Michael Bennett returns today from a most embarrassing injury, a hamstring pull sustained in a losing effort to beat guard Brian Waters in a post-practice footrace. Bennett admitted he was hurt trying to catch Waters after giving him a 15-yard headstart. Bennett not only lost the race, he couldn't sleep that night because of persistent pain in his leg and concerns over telling coaches how he'd been hurt. The following day, he explained the injury to coach Herman Edwards and the most-feared man in the building, club president Carl Peterson. Now that he's healthy enough to spell lead runner Larry Johnson, Bennett is insistent he will not seek a rematch with Waters, a former college tight end. "I'd done it once before and I was like, `This big, fat lineman or whatever, I can beat him,' " Bennett said. "But Brian Waters is not fat. He's a big, muscular, athletic lineman. He got me this time. I lost my pride to the linemen. I owe them all a big, greasy pizza one day."

How good was Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher last Monday night against the Cardinals? According to the Bears' film study, Urlacher made 25 tackles out of 29 opportunities, had two pass deflections, three quarterback hits, and the strip of Edgerrin James that resulted in the touchdown that made it 23-17 in a 24-23 victory.

Ron Borges can be reached at borges@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.