NFL: WEEK ONE & UP AHEAD, WEEK TWO; BRONCOS VS. GIANTS, MANNING & MANNING // MLB: SEPTEMBER'S RIVALS.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . //. . . NFL---IT’s already a pack of surprises, though too early in the 2013 NFL regular season for any team to be singing the blues. For instance, the entire NFL-American Conference North is 0-1 (Ugh!), within it the 2012/13 Super Bowl winning team, the Baltimore Ravens, losing embarrassingly to the AC West’s Denver Broncos, 49-27. Yet the AC West’s Kansas City Chief’s 28-2 trouncing of the AC South’s Jacksonville Jaguars was the only other Week One huge victory-differential regarding points, continuation of which suggests a highly competitive season within both the AC and the National Conference, another indication of this being that not many football experts expected that Week One would have the AC West’s Oakland Raiders losing to the AC South’s Indianapolis Colts by only four points, 21-17. Nor had analysts shouted that during Week One the NC South’s Carolina Panthers would hold the Seattle Seahawks to 12 points vs. their seven, or on Monday night that the AC West’s San Diego Chargers would lose to the AC South’s Houston Texans by only three points, 31-28, or that the AC East’s Buffalo Bills would lose on Sunday to the AC East’s New England Patriots by just two points, 23-21. Among last season’s playoff-berthed franchises thought to start the new season explosively on the win side, the NC South’s Atlanta Falcons were kneed during Week One by the NC South’s New Orleans Saints, 23-17. . . Grade school math tells us that the aftermath of NFL Week One will always have 16 of the 32 NFL teams at .1000, thus with perfect post-entry week ratings, while the remaining 16 will be absolute losers, their start-of-season averages zero, zip, NADA! Of course, for each of the 32 NFL teams this will change or maintain starting with Week Two. Right now, the Patriots are, because of Sunday’s win over the Bills and Thursday night’s 13-10 win over the AC East’s New York Jets, they are leading the NFL, 2-0. That aside, the informed guesses are that the more contentious and evenly matched Week Two games will be the Broncos vs. the N.Y. Giants, the NC East’s Washington Redskins vs. the AC North’s Green Bay Packers, and the Seahawks against the NC West’s San Francisco 49ers. . . // . . . BRONCOS & GIANTS---FORGET that there could be a fiery sibling rivalry when the Broncos and Giants face off on Sunday, with opposing quarterbacks/brothers Peyton Manning and Eli Manning becoming an NFL version of a last man standing duel, of a sort of Cain and Abel thing prevailing over all else during all 60 minutes of play. Think more of the brothers maintaining a family status-quo for reasons other than rivalry, older brother Peyton showing that he’s still setting an example of sharpened-to-the-hilt athletic prowess and of enviable sportsmanship not only for younger brother, Eli, but because that is what he does no matter which team he is facing during any Sunday, with Eli showing not only his older brother but other QB’s that he’s paid attention, has been and still is among the more worthy of QB’s. We’re talking great quarterback Archie Manning’s offspring here, they’ve been taught to respect the NFL game and especially each other, to set emotional issues aside and play to win fairly. The skills demonstrated on Sunday by the Mannings will be about these levels of respect, which will result in each other’s devotion to QB leadership and field-performance, to playbook execution and any necessary improvisations. And, neither brother has ever thought that an NFL win can evolve only from what a QB does or fails to do. So, to have a sense of what may happen during the Broncos vs. Giants game on Sunday, it’s probably best to look at the entire Chessboard, at all the pieces that will be at play, not only at opposing QB’s. Surely, the Broncos QB protection + WR and RB timely escapes for successful receptions + rushes forward had much to do with Peyton Manning’s seven TD passes during Week One’s Broncos game vs. the Baltimore Ravens, and certainly the Broncos defense performance in the second half against the Ravens stands out as a formidable threat to the Giants offense, but if the Broncos defense vs. the Giants is what it was in the first half against the Ravens and if the Broncos offense is unable to whip up the timeliness for pass completions that failed to exist in that first half vs. the Ravens, well, that’s when the Giants could pull ahead easily. To beat the Giants comfortably, Denver will have to command and control the game from kick-off, with Peyton Manning and his selected receivers positioned safely for the pass or hand-off, which suggests that Giants QB Eli Manning will hope for a Giants defense that excels at the pass rush and can disorient or sack the Broncos QB before Denver can drive ahead via multiple first downs and then end zone opportunity. And, the Giants head coach and QB will hope for zero-defects and speedy pass protection when Eli Manning is in the pocket; and, if that cannot always be, when Denver has the football the Giants leadership will hope that the Giants backs could deploy like Superman and Batman to neutralize Denver WR’s Eric Decker, Julian Thomas and DeMaryius Thomas, who were among Peyton Manning’s partners for those seven anti-Ravens TD throws. This latter effort is where the Giants will have to excel, in that they have the potential to interfere with the Broncos receivers but haven’t a set of equally productive receivers. But---our thinking is that the trade-offs in strengths and vulnerabilities of the two teams could produce a low-scoring game played conservatively, this “by default,” with both sides looking for those few and narrow windows of opportunity that such challenges usually include . . . // . . . MLB---SEPTEMBER is a time during any MLB regular season when some of baseball’s ironies pop up and mystify, for example, teams doing poorly within a division throughout the season to date, they could suddenly be faring a lot better, usually evident among franchises moving into third from fourth positions within their respective divisions. Take the New York Yankees, now in third place after a long stay at fourth within the American League East. The Yankees are nine games back of the AL East’s number one team, the Boston Red Sox, but they are just one back of second place club, the Tampa Bay Rays, with enough games ahead that could position them into second place soon and continue as a rival for the AL East championship and for a go at the playoff’s league championship and then the World Series, all this after being a fourth place club throughout most of the MLB season. Meanwhile, second place clubs, which have held that position throughout most of the 2013 MLB season, they have fewer games in the win column than even when the Yankees were in fourth place---the NL West’s Arizona Diamondbacks, 73 wins as of today and 12 behind leading team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Washington Nationals, 77, 11 games back of the NL East’s leading club, the Atlanta Braves. Of course, achievement of playoff berths for these clubs will be “a Leveler,” and whether having completed a season in third or second place inside a division won’t mean much with regard to post-season status. Other third and fourth place clubs that could still move up and attain end-of-season dignity as playoff contenders or almost contenders are the NL East’s Baltimore Orioles, now two games back of the Yankees, and the NL Central’s third place club, the Cincinnati Reds, just three games behind leading team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, while being two back of second place club, the St. Louis Cardinals, and AL Central’s Kansas City Royals, only one game behind second place club, the Cleveland Indians. Therefore, and as to teams that will be facing the already playoff-situated Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, L.A. Dodgers, the Pirates and Cardinals, the Oakland Athletics and the Detroit Tigers, that’s still anyone’s guess. END/ml