On Sunday, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported that Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck has a bulging disk in his back, and that Hasselbeck received an injection for the condition.

Hasselbeck admits that he has had an injection, and that he has a bulging disk.  But he denies that he had the injection for the bulging disk.

“That is not really what was hurting my back,” he said.  “From what I was told, 85 percent of the world would look the same if they MRI’d [their back].  That is not really why my back was hurt.”

Hasselbeck says that the injection was for back spasms.

The Bills’ special teams delivered two touchdowns, via a Roscoe Parrish punt return and a Brian Moorman pass on a fake field goal to defensive end Ryan Denney.

Said Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren after the game:  “Well, we got kicked around pretty good.”

Bills TE Robert Royal, on Parrish:  “It was like the stuff you see on the Madden video game.  For a guy to be able to change directions, spin, keep his balance and make those moves, that’s a special talent.”  

Seattle P Ryan Plackemeier came within one punt of the franchise record, but two of his eleven kicks went only 22 yards.

Bills DT Marcus Stroud was a difference maker in his debut.

With Seahawks WR Nate Burleson injured, WR/QB Seneca Wallace returned punts.

Burleson thinks his sprained knee is not serious.

Jason Peters?  Who needs Jason Peters?

The Seahawks managed only one sack of Bills QB Trent Edwards.

Former Bills TE Kevin Everett, who suffered a broken neck in the 2007 Week One opener, broke down the team huddle after the game. 

Just when it seemed that the NFL was beginning to get better control of the problem of players playing with concussions, Titans defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth played most of Sunday’s game with a concussion.

How bad was it?

“I remember the last play of the game and that’s about it,” Haynesworth said after the game.

Haynesworth suffered the concussion in the first quarter.  Per the Tennessean, he “stumbled to the sideline” and ”fell to his knees with his head on the turf and remained there for several minutes before moving to the bench.” 

Haynesworth sat out a series, but then returned — over the objections of the staff.  (Of course, if all he remembers is the last play of the game, how does he remember that he came back into the game over the objections of the staff?)

Bottom line?  The fog in which Haynesworth operated is no different than the fog that seems to envelope teams and their physicians when a guy has suffered a concussion, and when the guy still wants to play.

And a guy in Haynesworth’s situation, who is on a one-year contract with the possibility of becoming an unrestricted free agent if he and/or the team meet certain performance triggers.  So, clearly, he’s got it in his mind that he needs to play, and even with a concussion he knew it.

But the team has a conflict of interest, and the doctors have a conflict of interest.  So the league needs to come up with a meangingful procedure for ensuring that good decisions are made during games about whether a player will be thrust back into the fray.

Bears rookie RB Matt Forte had a great pro debut, with 123 yards on the ground and a touchdown, plus three catches for 18 yards.

Said Bears QB Kyle Orton, “We’ve always been a running football team. Any time you can do that, control the ball, you’re going to have a good game. That’s how we play football.”

Colts QB Peyton Manning described the contest as “kind of like a lot of first games for me. The first game, whether you play in the preseason or not, you’re always going to have some excitement.”

Said DE Adewale Ogunleye, “Today you could see how confused Peyton was. “He didn’t know what the hell was going on.”

The Bears’ offensive line exceeded expectations.

Bears NT Dusty Dvoracek was promoted to the starting lineup over Anthony Adams, who was inactive.

Bears K Robbie Gould became the fourth-most-accurate kicker in NFL history among players with at least 100 attempts.

Colts coach Tony Dungy said after the loss, “We certainly haven’t had one like that in a long time where we got thoroughly outplayed. It’s disappointing.”

Said Colts DE Raheem Brock, “We missed a lot of tackles. We missed a lot of assignments.”

The loss could have been uglier for the Colts, who had a couple of questionable calls go their way.

Though the NFL generally hopes to preserve the health and well-being of its quarterbacks since:  (1) it’s still a quarterbacks’ league; and (2) there aren’t many good quarterbacks in the NFL, the absence of Tom Brady for the entire 2008 season makes the 2008 season a lot more interesting.

The absence of Brady opens up the AFC for the entire 2008 season, especially with the Chargers, Colts, and Jaguars losing their openers, and it makes the AFC East a much more intriguing race over the next 15 games.

And dont’ write off the Patriots.  We’ll learn a lot about this team.  Are they a one-player juggernaut?  Or can Bill Belichick truly overcome the absence of any one player by merely plugging in his replacement?

In our view, taking Brady away for the year has the same impact as bringing back Brett Favre.  It shakes things up in a significant and unexpected way, and adds more layers of drama to a sport that already neck deep in it.

While no injury to any player is ever a good thing, the injury to Tom Brady makes things a lot more interesting this year.

So we checked out the new live stream of the NBC game during Thursday night’s Redskins-Giants game.  The video seemed a little choppy, and with the game right there on the 50-inch Hitachi LCD that we’ve had for about four years now and that isn’t looking nearly as good as some of those new Sony models at Circuit City but that I can’t quite persuade the wife that it’s time to get rid of, it made sense just to watch the game on television.

But then last night I turned the TV off an checked it out again.  And it was amazing.  The video was flawless and it looked just like the television broadcast.

The best feature is the ability to choose the camera.  If you so choose, you can watch the entire game via the cable cam, which is like watching a real game through the lens of the Madden video game.

So next Sunday night I’ll be hooking a laptop to the 32-inch Samsung that we’ve had for less than two years and that I won’t start clamoring to replace for at least another three and watching all of the Steelers-Browns game on NFL.com, via the cable cam.

Said Falcons coach Mike Smith of his team beating up the Lions in the first quarter, “We wanted a fast start, and I thought we did that.”

In his first game as a starter, Falcons RB Michael Turner broke the franchise record for rushing yards in a game, with 220.

Said Lions DT Cory Redding, “We’re good, we just didn’t show up today.”

Lions QB Jon Kitna had heated words with some coaches on the sideline, but everyone downplayed the incident after the game.

Said Lions coach Rod Marinelli of the problems on defense, “It’s tackling — it comes down to that. I think anybody could see that. That’s something we emphasize and emphasize, and we didn’t do it.”

The Lions’ performance is described as “a stinging indictment” of Marinelli and defensive coordinator Joe Barry.

Falcons QB Matt Ryan completed 9 of 13 passes for 161 yards, with a touchdown and no interceptions.

Falcons fans are hyperventilating over Ryan’s performance.

By notching one win, the Falcons have already met some experts’ preseason expectations.

Said Falcons S Lawyer Milloy, “It was a great win for our team. I know that there are not a lot of people that have high expectations for our team, but we have expectations for ourselves and I thought that we showed that effort.”

We went into the 7:00 p.m. EDT hour with an open mind, even though we were pre-disposed to embracing ESPN’s new-old Primetime show and finding more reasons not to like Football Night in America.

So we pulled both networks up on the split screen and hopped back and forth until we decided that we have a preference.

It was/is Football Night.

The difference is that NBC has extended highlights, and ESPN didn’t have many — if any.

The content on ESPN was solid, but we can get analysis and other stuff in plenty of places, and at plenty of times.  At 7:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday, we want one thing.

Highlights.   

The lack of the same on ESPN wasn’t the result of some production decision gone awry in Bristol; when NBC bought the Sunday night games, NBC also bought the right to do an exclusive Sunday evening highlight show.

We also liked the reunion of Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick, the former ESPN anchors who seamlessly handed the highlights packages back and forth with enthusiasm and humor, most of which was appropriate.  (Olbermann was poking a bit too much fun at Tom Brady’s blown ACL for our liking, and he impishly snuck in a couple of homages to his Countdown shtick.)

Our primary advice to NBC?  The show needs to show more highlights.

The thing that made Primetime so good was the fact that Chris Berman would narrate extensive, thorough clips of the game in an oft-breathless voice that made us think that each recorded play was happening in real time.  For folks whose can’t follow nine games at once even if they have the hardware in the house to do so, the evening highlights show is the only chance to get a semi-meaningful look at what happened in each game; we want something more than the highlights that will be played over and over again on SportsCenter the next day.

The problem remains that Football Night is cluttered up with stuff we don’t need or want, such as Cris Collinsworth, Jerome Bettis, and Tiki Barber periodically yukking it up.

Still, despite some flaws, it’ll be the preferred destination.

Hopefully, ESPN’s effort to draw eyeballs away from NBC will prompt the peacock network to continue to try to come up with ways to improve the effort.

The best place to start is more highlights.

As you might have noticed, we’ll be devoting a pack of One-Liners to every regular-season game played in 2008.

We’ll be posting the One-Liners for each game the day after each game played, with the workload split among MDS, Tom Mantzouranis, and yours truly.

MDS handled the post-game look at Redskins-Giants, and MDS already has posted one-liners from Jets-Dolphins.

The rest of Sunday’s 13 games will be posted throughout the day.

Last week, our friends at SportsBusiness Journal called us the “pre-eminent blog for professional football.”  (And if they hadn’t, there’s a chance that instead of calling them “our friends” we would have used something less collegial, such as “those bastards.”) 

Based on recent trends in our traffic, it appears that more and more of you are agreeing with SBJ.

In the past, PFT was at workday supplement.  Something folks would check out while on a break from professional duties (and never, ever while they should have been working).

Lately, however, we’ve seen spikes both in evening traffic, and in weekend activity.

On Sunday, for instance, we hosted more than 475,000 page views.  And that’s an increase of more than 300 percent over our traffic for the first Sunday of the 2007 regular season.

So thanks to all of you who keep coming back, and who keep spreading the word.  It makes it much easier for us to spend so much time and effort keeping the site full of fresh and interesting content – such as, you know, stories about things other than how much traffic we’re getting.

Said QB Brett Favre of the Jets’ 20-14 win, “It was shaky, but it’s a good start. It’s a win, and you can never question a win.”

Said Dolphins G Justin Smiley of QB Chad Pennington, “Man, he’s tough. That’s a leader. You want to block extra hard for a guy like that.”

Pennington’s first pass as a Dolphin was exactly the kind of pass that made the Jets decide to replace him with Favre — low and incomplete, fluttering short of its intended target without any zip on it.

For much of the game the Jets were taking away the Dolphins’ wide receivers, so Pennington targeted his tight ends.

Dolphins rookie LT Jake Long, the No. 1 overall pick, was called for a pair of crucial penalties — one for tripping and one for holding.

Dolphins LB Joey Porter said the Jets’ second touchdown, a 22-yard Favre heave, was “all luck.”

Dolphins WR Ernest Wilford, who got $6 million in guaranteed money this offseason, was inactive.

The Jets didn’t have a good backup option when K Mike Nugent suffered a leg injury.

Jets coach Eric Mangini went the conservative route in trying to run out the clock late in the game, and it nearly came back to haunt him.

Said Jets WR Chansi Stuckey of Favre, “He sees everything. I don’t know how, but he sees everything.”

As Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald points out, the Dolphins had talked up their running game for much of the offseason and preseason.

When the real season started, it disappeared.

Ricky Williams had 10 carries for a paltry 24 yards.  Ronnie Brown had six for 23.

In contrast, quarterback Chad Pennington threw 43 passes in a 20-14 loss.

”Those guys just played better up front,” coach Tony Sparano said of the Jets.  “I think they played better up front and got after us a little bit and we eventually made a decision . . . to try to open it up a little bit more to see if we could get some things happening.”

Getting things happening included 12 completions to tight ends.

By the fourth quarter, the Fins were down by 13 and needed the sense of urgency that throwing the ball delivers.  But their inability to get anything going on the ground earlier in the game will make many wonder whether that new-look offensive line and that new head coach whose expertise is blocking can establish the kind of running game that a successful team needs to have.

Though a partially torn MCL reportedly will keep Titans quarterback Vince Young off the field for the next two-to-four weeks, an incident that occurred not long before the injury could be the thing that truncates his career in Tennessee.

According to David Climer of the Tennesseean, Young apparently attempted to take himself out of the game after throwing an interception in the fourth quarter.  Young supposedly tried to blame his reluctance to return on a tightening hamstring, even though he sought no treatment for it while the defense was on the field.

“I came on the field and 10 wasn’t in the huddle,” center Kevin Mawae said of the incident.  “I didn’t know what the situation was.”

Per Climer, Young returned only after prodding from an animated Jeff Fisher.  “From the outside looking in,” Climer writes, ”Fisher seemed to all but throw Young back onto the field.”

Though Young was named the offensive rookie of the year in 2006, his regression last season has caused us to conclude that the jury is still out on whether he’s a bust.  Based on today’s events, it’s looking more likely than ever that Young will never fulfill his potential.

And, hopefully once and for all, Young’s career will get NFL teams to quit building up and/or tearing down college players based on their performances in a bowl game.

Like Bengals receiver Chad Johnson (for now), Bears kick returner Devin Hester has a flair for the dramatic.

Unlike Johnson, Hester is willing to take stupid risks in order to satisfy his desire to show off.

To start the second half of Sunday night’s game against the Colts, Hester took the kickoff deep in his own end zone, and then projected the body language of a guy who planned not to come out.

Then, after a second or two, Hester darted out of the end zone and toward daylight.

The only problem?  Melvin Bullitt of the Colts didn’t go to sleep.  He dove at Hester’s feet, tripping him up and bringing him down inside the five.

The Bears went three plays and out, and now the Colts have a short field to work with as they try to cut into an unexpected 15-6 lead that Chicago has built.

ESPN’s Ed Werder reports that Cowboys running back Marion Barber suffered an injury to rib cartilage on Sunday afternoon against the Browns.

X-rays revealed no broken bones.  However, as anyone who ever has injured rib cartilage knows, it hurts like a bitch.

The team is expected to use pain-killing injections to permit Barber to play on Monday night against the Eagles.

Barber rushed for 80 yards on 16 carries and scored two touchdowns during the Cowboys’ 28-10 win over the Browns.

There was a quarterback injury during Sunday’s Chiefs-Pats game.

Oh, wait.  You already know about that one.

But there was another one.  Chiefs starter Brodie Croyle left with a shoulder injury.  Adam Schefter of NFL Network reports that he’ll miss two weeks.

Damon Huard replaced Croyle.  It remains to be seen whether Huard or Tyler Thigpen will start the next two games.

Some teams will utilize a veteran backup as the game-day understudy, but use the younger quarterback if there’s a full week to prepare for the next game.

Though coach Jeff Fisher said on Sunday that he didn’t believe quarterback Vince Young’s sprained left knee is serious, Adam Schefter of NFL Network reports that Young has a torn MCL, and that he is expected to miss two-to-four weeks.

Young will undergo an MRI on Monday to confirm the initial diagnosis.

A torn MCL doesn’t require surgery unless it’s completely torn.  Otherwise, the ligament can heal on its own.

Schefter also reports that the Titans have contacted free-agent Chris Simms.

Al Michaels mentioned moments ago during the NBC broadcast of the Bears-Colts game that the Patriots will bring free-agent quarterback Chris Simms to town for a workout on Monday.

Simms was cut late last month by the Bucs.  The Ravens worked him out last week, but signed Todd Bouman instead.

Simms likely would step in as the primary backup to Matt Cassel, if reports are accurate that Tom Brady is done for the year.

The big story in the wake of Tennessee’s season-opening win over the Jags is that quarterback Vince Young sprained his knee.

A subplot that could get very interesting down the road is that Young was booed loudly not long before the injury.

Young completed 12 of 22 passes for 110 yards, a touchdown, and two interceptions.

Backup Kerry Collins completed two of two throws for 65 yards.

Coach Jeff Fisher said after the game that he doesn’t think the injury is serious.  And so Titans fans might be as upset right now as Patriots fans.

We’ve been flooded with e-mails and the site has been filled with comments regarding whether the Patriots will be giving veteran quarterback Daunte Culpepper a call.

And, if so, whether he’ll come out of his brief retirement.

We delve into the issue in our first Ten-Pack for the 2008 season on SportingNews.com.

Meanwhile, we’ve sent an e-mail to Culpepper regarding whether he’d join the Pats and his old pal Randy Moss.  Culpepper has yet to respond, and our guess is that he’ll say nothing about his status unless and until the Patriots get in touch with him.

And if they get in touch with him, our guess is that Moss would be guy to break the ice.

One of the drawbacks of being a member of the real media is that the balance between present candor and future access can prompt writers to play it safe, not speaking their minds for fear of not being able to speak with anyone other than the waterboy the following week.

So that’s why we’ve got immense respect for Jason Wilde of the Wisconsin State Journal. 

Wilde led off a recent round-robin interview with Packers coach Mike McCarthy and G.M. Ted Thompson by asking, “Do you guys know what you’re doing?”

“What kind of question is that?” McCarthy said.

Explained Wilde:  “Well, there is a significant number of Packers fans who don’t think you do after the way the Favre saga played out.  This is your chance to tell them that you do.” 

Later in the sessions, Wilde asked Thompson:  “So then it bothers you that people think you’re a raging egomaniac?  Does that get to you?”

Wow.

We kind of know Jason, but not very well.  However, we’ve got immense respect for his decision to pose the questions that the fans would be asking.

After all, that’s what the job should be all about.  Reporters should be getting the information that the fans want to know.  And, given Brett Favre’s performance on Sunday against the Dolphins, most Packers fans would want to hear McCarthy and Thompson make the case for the proposition that they know what they’re doing.

Cardinals receiver Anquan Boldin demonstrated on Sunday that he can be fairly effective when playing with a stick wedged into his buttocks.

Boldin caught eight passes for 82 yards during the Cardinals’ 23-13 win over the 49ers.

In contrast, the team’s $40 million-over-four-years man, Larry Fitzgerald, caught only three passes for 31 yards.  (In fairness, though, Fitz caught one touchdown and, as a reader tells us, dropped two “F” bombs on live TV.)

Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports reports that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is expected to miss the rest of the 2008 season with a “severe injury to his left knee.”

The injury is widely believed to be a torn ACL.  Silver says that there could be other ligament and cartilage damage.

“It’s bad,” a team source told Silver.  “We’re going to have to play without him.”

The starter will be Matt Cassel.  Unless the Pats bring back Vinny Testaverde.  Or Doug Flutie.  Or Steve Grogan.

UPDATE:  Silver’s report has been updated — the ACL tear is confirmed.

Look out for the Panthers.

After a couple of years of failing to deliver on what seems to be one of the most talented teams in the league on paper, the Carolina Panthers shocked the San Diego Chargers with a late touchdown to a little-known tight end who’ll be the subject of a fantasy-league land rush this week.

With no time left on the clock, Carolina quarterback Jake Delhomme, after a hard pump fake that somehow didn’t result in Delhomme dropping the ball, found Dante Rosario in the end zone.

Rosario caught the ball in traffic at the back of the end zone, and the non-sellout sellout crowd in San Diego looked like they’d be collectively clipped with a cattle prod.

Panthers win, 26-24.

And so the AFC now has a much different feel.  The Pats are mortal, the Chargers are beatable.

Meanwhile, the NFC might have another legitimate contender for what could be a wide-open race to the conference title.

Patriots receiver Randy Moss isn’t happy about the hit on quarterback Tom Brady, which could knock Brady out for the entire 2008 season.

“I don’t really want to get into it, but me personally, I think it was dirty,” Moss said, according to Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe.  “Like I said, I didn’t really see anything; I was running down the field.  When I came back in [and watched it], it looked dirty to me.  I’ve never been a dirty player.  I honestly don’t even know how to play dirty.  I just play the game.  Any time you see something like that, that looks foul, it looks dirty, it opens your eyes.  So, me personally, it looked dirty.”

The Chiefs player who delivered the hit, safety Bernard Pollard, disagrees.

“The play was not intentional,” Pollard said.  “People can call me a dirty player, you can call me whatever you want to call me, it’s not a dirty play.  When you have 230 pounds on your back, and you’re trying to go forward, things will happen.  I saw the ball was still in his hands and I tried to get to him.  I tried to get up and get to him.  But I couldn’t get up, so I just tried to grab him.  It was not an intentional play.”

Pollard also addressed what happened after the play.

“All I heard was him scream and yell.  When I heard him scream and yell, I knew something was wrong.  That [stinks], because he’s a great player.  He really is.  He’s a top-notch guy.  I’ve never really personally talked to him, but from seeing his interviews and everything else. . . .  I’m sorry and that’s immediately what I said afterward.  I went to my coach and let him know – ‘Coach, this was not intentional.’ Coach said ‘I know, I saw.’  My coach knows me and my teammates know me.  I’ve never been a player like that, never been tagged as a player like that ever.”

Though there’s no official word on the status of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, several members of the team the Pats play next think he has a torn ACL.

“Everybody I talked to said it’s a torn ACL,” an unnamed Jets player told Tom Curran of NBCSports.com.  ”Players AND coaches.  When we came in here that’s what people were saying, ‘Brady’s got a torn ACL.’”

Said coach Bill Belichick after Sunday’s 17-10 win over the Chiefs:   ”I don’t have any update on Tom.  They’re looking at him, doing some tests on him.  I don’t have any information yet.  Not that anybody would be interested in that.”

UPDATE:  In response to a question in the comments about what this means, if it’s a torn ACL, Brady likely will miss the rest of the season.  In 1995, Steelers cornerback Rod Woodson suffered a torn ACL and returned to play in the Super Bowl.  But, for most players, it means what another commenter has suggested — Brady is “donezo.”

After catching a 35-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter of Sunday’s game against the Browns, Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens lined up at the goal line as if he was preparing to run the 100-yard dash.

Before the gun could sound, the yellow flag was flying.

The premeditated celebration resulted in a 15-yard penalty, and a chant of “asshole” from the Browns fans.

Sure, it’s cute and funny and engaging.  But with the Cowboys kicking off to a potent Cleveland offense from the 15, it also was stupid.

Dallas leads, 14-7.  Quarterback Tony Romo has completed his first eight passes.

Receiver Donte’ Stallworth, a newcomer to Cleveland who could flourish when defenses focus on guys like Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow, has yet to make his debut for the Browns.

Per Pam Oliver of FOX, Stallworth injured a groin during pregame warmups.

The training staff is working on him, in the hopes that he’ll be able to play.

The Browns trail the Cowboys, 7-0.  The action can be followed at the Game Center on NFL.com.

The New England Patriots won their first game without Tom Brady.  But it wasn’t easy.

Playing arguably once of the worst teams in the league, the Pats needed to withstand four cracks at the end zone by the Chiefs in the waning moments.

Trailing by seven, Chiefs backup quarterback Damon Huard found Devard Darling for a catch-and-run that ended at New England’s five.  From there, the Chiefs could get no closer.

And so the Pats escaped with the win, 17-10. 

If Brady is out for more than today, it won’t get any easier next week when the Patriots travel to New York to face their arch-rivals, the Jets. 

Matt Cassel completed 13 of 18 passes for 152 yards and a touchdown.  Randy Moss caught six passes for 116 yards and a score.  Sammy Morris and Laurence Maroney split carries, each getting ten.  Morris gained 53 and scored a touchdown; Maroney gained 51.  Morris also added five catches for 34 yards.

As Emmitt Smith said on Sunday, the Giants provided the “bootprint” for playing the Patriots:  Hit Tom Brady, early and often and with significant force.

The Chiefs did just that early in Sunday’s regular-season opener, and sent shock waves throughout the league.

Brady was hit low by safety Bernard Pollard, buckling Brady’s knee — as this photo of the hit from ESPN.com illustrates.

Every so often, there’s a significant injury in Week One that changes the landscape of the season dramatically.  In 1997, it was a torn ACL for Jerry Rice, courtesy of Warren Sapp.  In 1999, it was a busted Achilles for Vinny Testaverde, courtesy of the green cement that used to cover the field at Giants Stadium.  Remember Keyshawn Johnson’s post-game podium-pounding tantrum?

(There might be others.  PFT Planet, feel free to refresh our memories.)

If Brady is out for the year, it would be the biggest opening-day season-ender in league history. And it significantly would open up the competition in the AFC.

Here are the inactive players for Sunday’s game between the Panthers and the Chargers, as announced by the Chargers:

Chargers:  QB Charlie Whitehurst (third quarterback), CB DeJuan Tribble, LB Anthony Waters, C Nick Hardwick, T Marcus McNeill, WR Buster Davis, TE Kris Wilson, DT Brandon McKinney.

Panthers: QB Matt Moore, WR Ryne Robinson, S C.J. Wilson, LB James Anderson, LB Donte Curry, G Mackenzy Bernadeau, DE Hilee Taylor, T Frank Omiyale.

The Houston Texans are a team that some think could do great things in 2008.

They still might, but they aren’t today.

The Steelers lead the Texans early, 21-0.  Pittsburgh just scored on a touchdown pass from Ben Roethlisberger to Hines Ward, which followed a sweet one-handed interception from linebacker LaMarr Woodley, who seems destined to become the next great defensive force in the ‘Burgh.

The action can be followed right here, courtesy of NFL.com.

Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee reports that 49ers quarterback Alex Smith has a fracture of the coracoid process.

It’s a bone in the shoulder that, per Barrows, rarely is broken.  It’s typically corrected via surgery and the insertion of pins.

The fracture is usually associated with severe trauma.  But Smith was injured while merely throwing the ball.

Doctors are speculating that Smith might have had a pre-existing stress fracture, which gave way during the throw.

Every year, the Detroit Lions are predicted by many to be on the right path, for a change.

And, every year, the Lions prove that they aren’t.

The Lions are losing 21-0 to the Falcons, who were one of the worst teams in the league last year.  And free-agent tailback Michael Turner already has scored two touchdowns.

Turner has gained 117 yards on seven carries.

Pats quarterback Tom Brady limped off with help on the last play of the Patriots’ second drive on Sunday against the Chiefs.

Brady completed a pass to receiver Randy Moss, who fumbled after a 28-yard gain.  The Chiefs recovered.

Stay tuned.  Matt Cassel is warming up.

UPDATE:  Cassel is playing.  Brady’s return is questionable.  (Just like the Pats’ chances if Brady is out for any significant period of time.)

SECOND UPDATE:  And, of course, Cassel led the Pats to seven points on his first drive, throwing a touchdown pass to Randy Moss.