Finally, there's the Devin Hester effect. Hester may have been the MVP of a team that went to the Super Bowl last season. He scored seven times on special teams for the Chicago Bears, including a couple of kickoffs.

Kickoffs are the biggest chunks of free yardage a team can gain during the course of a game. Josh Cribbs is averaging almost 31 yards per kickoff return for the Cleveland Browns this season. He's an elite returner who gets to gain as many yards as he can running upfield against a squad of the opponent's backup players.

"There's been a change in philosophy," said Browns special teams coach Ted Daisher. "Teams now see you can gain a significant advantage if you can get a great returner, so people have focused more on it. That's why there are more big plays.

"People have been searching for that guy who can take them to the next level. There's greater awareness now, from general managers to head coaches – 'Look what Devin Hester has done. We need a guy just like that.' "

Hopefully, that helps explain the plethora of kickoff return touchdowns this season. Now, here are some observations after 14 weeks of the NFL season:

I'm back in the saddle with the Green Bay Packers and the unbeaten New England Patriots. The 12-2 Packers are playing their best football in December with romps over the Raiders (38-7) and Rams (33-14). The 12-2 Cowboys are not. They barely survived Detroit and didn't survive Philadelphia. Another loss by the Cowboys and the NFC title game will be played in Green Bay. The Cowboys finish the season with their last two games on the road, and with the way they've played the last two weeks, expect Carolina and Washington to give America's Team all it can handle.

The Dolphins won their first game of the season Sunday with Samkon Gado rushing for 43 yards on 18 carries. Imagine what the Miami offense would be like with Darren McFadden running the ball 18 times in a game. Think Adrian Peterson in aqua.

The Pro Bowl team was to be announced Tuesday. Why? There are still two weekends left in the regular season. What's the rush? Let's make sure we pick the best players over a 16-week season rather than a 14-week season. Let's make sure that the players who are strong finishers, such as Jacksonville running back Fred Taylor, are not penalized by a premature voting system. If I was the commissioner, I'd conduct the Pro Bowl voting of coaches and players on the Monday after the conclusion of the regular season. Do it once. but get it right.

December is the month the NFL runs to win. The higher the stakes, the more conservative the play-calling. In September, there were 46 individual 100-yard receiving games and 34 100-yard rushing games. But thus far in December, there have been 29 100-yard rushers and 26 100-yard receivers.

I spent almost three hours at the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a tourist last Saturday, something I haven't done in more than a decade. I drove down to Canton early Saturday morning (before the snow) and arrived when they opened the doors at 9 a.m. I was able to leisurely tour the Hall without much of a crowd.

I spent more than an hour in the Hall's gallery of busts. The Hall redesigned the room in 2003, removing the bronze busts from stands and mounting them on the wall, sorting them by induction class.

The Hall also installed high-tech audio-visual equipment that allows you to see and hear slick historical profiles of the each of the 200-plus enshrines. I went through the enshrines of several teams – Cowboys, Chiefs, Packers, Lions, Bills, Giants, Steelers … I could have spent two hours in that room. If there wasn't a threat of a blizzard that afternoon, I might have spent five to six hours at the Hall.

If you haven't been to Canton, I would highly recommend it. The Cleveland Browns bring their rookie class to Canton every year to indoctrinate the newcomers to the NFL – and to football greatness. It's also been suggested that the NFL conduct its annual rookie symposium in Canton for the same reason. It's worth the trip.

I'll be staying in Bloomington this weekend out of nostalgia. I covered the last game played at Metropolitan Stadium on a typical frigid Minneapolis December day during Christmas week of 1981. I was covering the Chiefs then and they spoiled that finale, beating the Vikings, 10-6. The Minnesota PR staff advised us to write fast and leave because "they're going to tear this place down." "They" being the fans, who took anything and everything that wasn't bolted down at the Met as souvenirs. I used to stay at the Bloomington Marriott back then and you could walk across the street to the hockey rink to see the North Stars play. Now the Mall of America sits where the rink and the stadium used to be.

Greg White, DE, Tampa Bay. I'm not sure you'll find an end who's had more of an impact on a good defense than White. Never heard of him, you say? There's no reason you should.

White was a seventh-round draft pick by the Houston Texans in 2002 but didn't survive training camp. Over the next five seasons, he knocked around on the practice squads of five NFL teams and one CFL squad without ever playing a regular-season game. He played in NFL Europe in 2005 and led the league in sacks, and also played two seasons in the Arena Football League, where he set a league record with 15 sacks in 2007.

White signed with Tampa Bay in August after the Bucs had already reported to training camp. The Bucs signed him on the recommendation of his coach at the Orlando Predators, Jay Gruden, the brother of Bucs coach Jon Gruden.

If in fact he made the team, White was supposed to provide depth. The Bucs already had Kevin Carter and Greg Spires locked in as starters and used a first-round draft pick on Gaines Adams to groom into the pass-rush role vacated by salary-cap casualty Simeon Rice.

But White has developed into a key figure on the NFL's third-ranked defense. Coming off the bench in the pass-rush package, White leads the Bucs with eight sacks and the NFL with seven forced fumbles. That ties the franchise record held by Wally Chambers (1979) and Broderick Thomas (1991). White also has two fumble recoveries and 24 tackles for the NFC South champion Buccaneers. I think his days on anyone's practice squad are over.

Devery Henderson, WR, New Orleans. The rise of David Patten as a deep threat in the New Orleans offense has coincided with the decline of Henderson. Henderson opened the season as a starter and turned in a 100-yard game against Carolina in the fifth week and caught his first TD pass, a 37-yarder, in the seventh week against Atlanta. But Patten started in the eighth week against San Francisco and caught five passes for 109 yards. He's had two other 100-yard games since then and scored two long touchdowns. Henderson, who was drafted in 2004 to be the deep threat, did not catch a pass last weekend against Arizona and caught just one pass in each of the four previous games. Patten's play has had something to do with the reduced chances for Henderson. So has Henderson's nine drops this season, according to Stats Inc. Nineteen catches and nine drops is not a winning ratio. Which is why Saints QB Drew Brees is looking elsewhere for his plays.

The Cowboys play their final two games on the road, which is good news for Tony Romo. The Cowboys do a better job of protecting Romo on the road than at home. He was sacked 15 times in the eight home games this season, an average of 1.8 sacks per game. He's only been sacked eight times on the road, an average of 1.3 sacks per game. Better protection produces better results – Romo has four of his seven 300-yard passing games on the road in 2007.

If the Pittsburgh Steelers ever draw up an all-opponent team, Fred Taylor would be the captain. The Jacksonville halfback rushed for 147 yards against the Steelers on Sunday – a single-game record for an opponent at Heinz Field. Taylor also set the opponent single-game record for rushing yards at Three Rivers Stadium, the Steelers' previous home, with a 234-yard outing in 2000.

If I'm buying an NFL ticket this week, here's how I spend my money:

Luxury box, Washington at Minnesota. Yes, I'm old enough to remember the great Vikings teams of yesteryear when Minnesota would run the ball down your throat on offense – first with Dave Osborn and Bill Brown, then later with Chuck Foreman – and maul you on defense with the Purple People Eaters. This Minnesota team more closely resembles the character of those teams than any other Vikings team I've seen in the last 20-some years. Adrian Peterson is a violent runner who punishes tacklers and himself, and Minnesota's defensive front four, anchored by tackles Kevin and Pat Williams, swallows up running backs. The Vikings lead the NFL in both rushing and run defense. Minnesota holds down the sixth and final NFC playoff spot with an 8-6 record. I'm anxious to see if these Vikings have the same grit as the 1970s Vikings that played in three Super Bowls.

Club seat, Houston at Indianapolis. The Texans selected defensive end Mario Williams with the first overall pick of the 2006 NFL draft because in order to win their division, they were going to have to find a way to beat Peyton Manning and the Colts. You do that with the pass rush. The Texans were the last team to beat the Colts in 2006 before Indy's run of five consecutive victories that produced a Super Bowl championship. At 7-7, the Texans have turned the corner and are a competitive football team. Williams and his AFC-leading 13 sacks are a big part of that turnaround.

Downstairs on the 50, NY Giants at Buffalo. The Giants have a playoff-caliber defense featuring the NFL's best pass rush. But New York is still turning the ball over way too much on offense. Its 29 giveaways are tops among the playoff contenders. The absence of tight end Jeremy Shockey and the chance for miserable weather conditions make this an interesting game.

Dallas at Washington, Dec. 30. If the Redskins can't win a Super Bowl, they want to make sure the Cowboys can't, either. A victory by the Redskins in the season finale could cost the Cowboys home-field advantage and force them to visit Green Bay for the NFC title game.

Most NFL teams want the ball in their quarterback's hands as much as possible. Not the 3-11 Atlanta Falcons. They ought to consider installing the single-wing offense with direct snaps to the running backs – anything to keep the ball out of the hands of their quarterbacks. Atlanta's QBs have given opposing teams six touchdowns this season on returns of interceptions and fumbles. That's 42 points courtesy of Joey Harrington, Byron Leftwich and Chris Redman. Here's the damage:

Week QB Turnover Defender, team Yards 1 Harrington Interception Kevin Williams, Minnesota 54 1 Harrington Interception Antoine Winfield, Minnesota 14 5 Harrington Interception Vincent Fuller, Tennessee 76 11 Leftwich Fumble Ronde Barber, Tampa Bay 41 14 Redman Interception Roman Harper, New Orleans 31 15 Redman Interception Ronde Barber, Tampa Bay 28

Jeff Triplette is my new favorite referee. I like a fast-paced game with few penalties. Let the players decide the outcome. Triplette's crew has officiated the two quickest games in the NFL this season – the Miami-Pittsburgh Monday nighter in Week 12 that lasted 2 hours, 35 minutes and the Atlanta-Tampa Bay tilt on Sunday that lasted 2:34. His crew assessed only 17 combined penalties in the two games.

Clevelanders finally got their dream game Sunday. The Browns survived blizzard conditions and the Buffalo Bills for an 8-0 victory that strengthened their hold on an AFC playoff berth with a 9-5 record. Kicker Phil Dawson is the only player left on the Browns from their expansion season in 1999. He said, "This is the first game in this stadium that, when this organization started out nine years ago, kind of envisioned, 'This is what Cleveland Browns football is all about – a game late in the year … at home … a chance to go to the playoffs … with horrible weather … and the Browns coming out on top.' "

That said, it may have been great inside the stadium Sunday but not out. Cleveland has been a bad news travel stop for me. I was in Cleveland the day of the great Eastern blackout in 2003 and again Sunday when the city was paralyzed by a sequence of two inches of snow Saturday evening, freezing rain overnight that left a glaze on the city, then six more inches of snow downtown Sunday with wind gusts of 45 mph. I've always said the best thing about Dallas is stepping off an airplane in January when it's 60 degrees. In my 18 years in Dallas, I've never had to shovel sunshine.

■ With the successful season the Browns are having, the club continues to sell season tickets. Just like in Dallas, prospective ticket buyers must purchase a PSL (personal seat license) for the right to buy a season ticket. The Browns are charging $1,500 for a PSL in the club level – not quite the $100,000 PSL the Cowboys are charging for their club seats in the new stadium.

■ Emmitt Thomas became the 11th interim head coach in the NFL this decade when he took over for Bobby Petrino on the Atlanta sideline last week. He became the eighth consecutive interim coach to lose his debut game as the Falcons were vanquished by Tampa Bay, 37-3. Only one of the 11 interim coaches this decade managed to win his debut game – Detroit's Gary Moeller, who prevailed over the Falcons in 2001.

■ Speaking of the Lions, I find it interesting that they have used four first-round draft picks on wide receivers this decade – yet the team's most productive wideouts are low-profile free agents. Last season it was Mike Furrey, who led the NFC in receiving. This season it's Shaun McDonald, who leads the team with 72 catches. Both were undersized backups at the Rams before joining the Lions.

Eagles running back Brian Westbrook can play for my team any time. He was in the clear on a 25-yard touchdown run in the closing minutes against the Cowboys last Sunday – but turned down the TD to take a knee at the 1-yard line. That was one of the most selfless, team-first acts I've seen in the NFL in a long, long time.

If Westbrook had scored, the Eagles could have opened up a 17-6 lead – but the Cowboys would have one, possibly two more possessions to steal a victory or force an overtime. By taking a knee, Westbrook ensured a Philadelphia victory. The Cowboys had no timeouts left, so Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb could wind the clock out by taking knee after knee. By sacrificing the personal glory of a touchdown, Westbrook ensured that the Cowboys would not touch the ball again, thus guaranteeing a 10-6 victory.

The NFL has been consumed of late by the "me" generation. It was refreshing to see a player put team before himself for a change.