NFL: WEEK THREE, ABOUT-TO-BE; RAIDERS & THE BRONCOS // 2 BY GREATNESS--N.Y. YANKEE MARIANO RIVERA AND ROCKIES TODD HELTON RETIRING.

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---WEEK 3 of the NFL season will begin with eight teams being 0-2, “winless.” Meanwhile, eight other teams have won every one of their games, entering Week 3 at 2-0, with last night the Kansas City Chiefs at 3-0 for Week 4 entry, having defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 26-16. Fifteen of the remaining 16 franchises are at 1-1, the Eagles looking at Week 4 as a 1-2 team. Given these Week 1 and Week 2/3 results, it’s difficult to determine whether the rest of Week 3 will produce startling or minor shifts in the rankings, or both, for instance, National Conference West’s leading team, the 2-0 Seattle Seahawks, will play against the American Conference South’s 0-2 Jacksonville Jaguars, while the AC East’s 2-0 New England Patriots will be facing the NC South’s 0-2 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the NC North’s 2-0 Chicago Bears will go against the AC North’s 0-2 Pittsburgh Steelers. These cited contests look like “Best against “Worst,” suggesting that “Best” will dominate easily if we are to determine end-of-game outcomes from the Week 1 and Week 2 win/loss stats. . . Yet from their Week 1 and 2 win/loss results alone, seven other Week 3 match-ups appear to be toss-ups, anyone’s guess as to which teams will succeed and which will fail, e.g., the NC West’s 1-1 San Francisco Giants versus the AC South’s 1-1 Indianapolis Colts, the 1-1 NC East Dallas Cowboys game vs. the 1-1 NC West St. Louis Rams, the AC West’s 1-1 San Diego Chargers against. the AC South’s 1-1 Tennessee Titans, and the AC East’s 1-1 Buffalo Bills challenging the AC East’s 1-1 New York Jets. So, too, will the NC North’s 1-1 Green Bay Packers meet the AC North’s 1-1 Cincinnati Bengals, while the NC North’s 0-2 Minnesota Vikings will face the AC North’s 0-2 Cleveland Browns, and the NC East’s 0-2 N.Y. Giants will meet the NC South’s 0-2 Carolina Panthers. These certainly more evenly balanced seem to be the mid-section of the NFL, involving 14 teams with the same rankings. . . But not as evenly matched for Week 3 are the AC West’s 2-0 Denver Broncos against the AC West’s 1-1 Oakland Raiders. And Thursday’s 2-0 Kansas City Chiefs 10 points ahead win over the NC East’s then 1-1 Philadelphia Eagles reflected the less evenly balanced contest. Similarly, the AC South’s 2-0 Houston Texans will go against the AC North’s 1-1 Baltimore Ravens, plus the NC South’s 2-0 New Orleans Saints will face the NC West’s 1-1 Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. In addition, the AC East’s 2-0 Miami Dolphins will be facing the NC South’s 1-1 Atlanta Falcons on Sunday; while the NC North’s 1-1 Detroit Lions will meet the NC East’s 0-2 Washington Redskins. Yes, that’s six unevenly matched games without any of them the makings of a humiliating blowout. . . . Summarizing, there are eight NFL franchises entering Week 3 as being perfect when it comes to number of games won, that is, they are, referencing baseball, batting .1000 by being 2-0, and three of these teams will be facing three opposing franchises that are at opposite ends of the win/loss pole, Zero, Zip, i.e., 0-0. In addition, seven NFL teams entering Week 3 at .500 will be facing the same number of 1-1/.500 teams, while five .1000 franchises will go against five .500 clubs and two 1-1/.500 franchises will battle two teams that are still 0-0. . . So, across the NFL’s 32 team spectrum, the lion’s share of Week 3’s games contain quite a lot of fairness, until we note that three of the perfect, i.e., three of the .1000 teams (Seahawks, Patriots and Bears) will go against three 0-0 teams. These .1000 teams were high-end winners throughout much of last season, implying that for them Week 3 is another chance to keep on winning almost hands behind their backs---this if we decide it to be so only from Week 1 and Week 2 stats, ignoring the many variables that can become game-changers. . . RAIDERS (1-1) CHALLENGING THE BRONCOS (2-0)---STATS favor the Broncos over the Raiders come Monday night, Week 3 of the NFL 2013 season. For example, Raiders Quarterback, Terrelle Pryor, has completed 64 percent of his Week 1 and Week 2 passes, and Broncos QB Peyton Manning has completed 67 percent of his Week 1 and Week 2 passes. Not much of a difference here until noted that Pryor’s passes have added up to 343 yards and but one touchdown, while Manning’s has reached 769 yards and gone for nine TD’s. And, out of the Raider’s 1-1 record exists a total of 36 points, while from the Broncos 2-0 record there’s a total of 90 points, seventh highest for Weeks 1 and 2 in NFL history since 1967, year of the first Super Bowl. The Raiders loss to the currently 1-1 Indianapolis Colts during Week 1 was only by four points, 21-17, and a Week 2 win versus the now 0-2 Jacksonville Jaguars was by 10 points, 19-9. The Broncos Week 1 win against the presently 1-1 Baltimore Ravens was by 22 points (49-27), and the Broncos defeat of the now 0-2 N.Y. Giants during Week 2 was by 18 points (41-23). Too, the Raiders total number of rushing yards would seem an advantage for the Raiders, 397 vs. the Broncos 174, except that the Raiders total allowed for two TD’s and the Broncos total also for two TD’s. And, when one reviews these Week 1 and Week 2 stats and also thinks of the Broncos receiver pack (Demaryius Thomas, Julian Thomas, Eric Decker and Wes Welker, all having received for TD’s in Weeks 1 and 2) and of Broncos running back, Knowshon Moreno (121 yards to his credit since September 5), surely easy is imagining the Raiders defense unable to prevent the Broncos from high double-digit scoring. Yet there’s a possible downside for the Broncos, a Broncos defense squad with players benched from injuries that has allowed opposing teams to accrue more than 20 points in each of two games played since September 5. . . MLB---WHEN high-above-the-margin athletes retire from their sport, it can be a crossroads, a street of gladness meeting up with an avenue of sorrow, gratitude that the athletes are leaving while still on top of their game + sadness that the game will soon be without their amazing contributions. Sooner than later, N.Y. Yankee Mariano Rivera and Colorado Rockies first baseman/super-hitter Todd Helton won’t be reappearing in major league contests. Of course, their legacies will maintain. Presently, what the two have in common is mutual respect, and that in the early 1990’s the Rockies had an opportunity to acquire Rivera, so the two might have been teammates. They also have in common the data that creates awe and causes up-and-coming ballplayers to want to emulate them. For example, Rivera’s 95 mph cut fastball, mostly unhittable, and that it has helped Rivera accumulate more than 650 saves, the most in MLB history, 90 of these being post-season saves. In 15 seasons, Rivera has been chosen as an All Star and over his total of 19 MLB seasons his ERA has been an incredible .2.22, his lowest post-season ERA an amazing 0.70. Too, Rivera has helped to close five World Series for the Yankees, and was chosen as WS-MVP in 1999, unusual for a closer. . . Like Rivera, Todd Helton is the owner of an attribute of bygone days, team loyalty his having by choice spent all of his 17 MLB years with the same ball club, the Colorado Rockies. Of equal reason for much respect that has moved in Helton’s direction is Helton’s .317 career batting average and his .415 On Base Percentage, and that across 17 MLB seasons he has hit 367 home runs and 586 doubles. That averages roughly into 22 HR’s per year and roughly 35 doubles per year, his best 49 HR’s in 2001. Too, Helton’s HR and extra-base hits have overshadowed his high-end skills as a first baseman, proven by Helton having won three Golden Glove awards. . . From my talk with Helton a few years ago, I learned much, that he is amazingly down to earth, has a fine sense of humor and won’t judge anyone too soon and without careful thought, and that he sees hitting a baseball as being as much of an art as a science, with emphasis on power and skill, especially re. “seeing” the baseball as it approaches the hitter, especially when the ball is near that five feet from home plate blind spot. He is also an advocate of deliberate opposite-field hitting as significant means for becoming a base runner and producing RBI’s, which few ball players can activate deliberately, they just hope for it. And, Helton “pays it forward,” shares what he knows with teammates whenever possible. So, missed as much for his ability to help the Rockies win games via his mix of power and skill will be Helton’s numerous positive character attributes. The Rockies are in a hole now, National League West last place; the team will be experiencing a big hole internally with Helton gone from the line-up next Spring. END/ml