NFL: APPROACHING WEEK 10; SAN DIEGO CHARGERS, DENVER BRONCOS // NBA---EARLY FROM THE GATE.

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . 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: APPROACHING WEEK 10; SAN DIEGO CHARGERS, DENVER BRONCOS // NBA---EARLY FROM THE GATE . . . NFL---COMING up on Week 10, three of the NFL’s 2013 eight division last place franchises have but one or zero wins, the National Conference East’s 1-7 Minnesota Vikings, the 0-8 American Conference South’s Jacksonville Jaguars, the NC South’s 0-8 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The remaining back-of-the-grid teams are the AC West’s 3-5 Oakland Raiders, the AC East’s 3-6 Buffalo Bills, the AC North’s 2-6 Pittsburgh Steelers, NC West’s 3-6 St. Louis Rams and the NC East’s 2-6 New York Giants. Combined, that’s 66 games resulting in but 14 wins and an incredible number of losses, 52, compared with the eight division first place teams having accrued 52 wins and just 16 losses from 68 games played. Evident from this is a wide gap between the NFL’s Haves and Have-nots, between the exceptionally gifted organizations and those lacking what it takes to move far forward from a start zone. Were number of combined wins converted to number of weeks within the current season, the eight bottom-of-the pile NFL franchises would still be at infancy, Week 2, worst of surprises being the N.Y. Giants inability to recapture past performance skills. The big surprise within the eight division leading pack is, of course, the undefeated AC West’s Kansas City Chiefs, 9-0 after defeating the Bills on Sunday, 23-13. But at Week 10, no AC division first place team has better than a two game lead over a next-in-line franchise. Within the NC East, the 5-4 Dallas Cowboys can sense the 4-5 Philadelphia Eagles at their heels, and within the NC North the number one 5-2 Green Bay Packers can hear grunts from the 5-3 Detroit Lions, while the NC South’s numero uno 6-2 New Orleans Saints feel the 5-3 Carolina Panthers directly behind them. All of this said, it’s the nine franchises that are roughly in the middle of the total number of NFL teams, that is, the nine teams ranging from 5-3 to 4-3, they keep the entire league’s win/loss ratio from tilting greatly to either the Have or Have-not side, implying that the 2013 NFL is, on average, still a mostly fair and just enterprise. Can any of this change dramatically? Starting on Thursday, the 1-7 Vikings will have to defeat the NC East’s 3-5 Washington Redskins for that to seem possible.So---for Week 10’s possible Sunday results, check with us on Friday, November 8 (We had it right last week re. the lion’s share of picks). . . // . . . BRONCOS, CHARGERS---BY losing to the Washington Redskins 30-24 on Sunday, November 3, the American Conference West’s San Diego Chargers dropped from getting close to being a .600 team, falling to 4-4/.500, the margin that separates winning franchises from the losers. On Sunday last, the Denver Broncos were in Bye with a 7-1/.875 record after defeating the now 3-5/.375 Redskins during Week 8, October 27. This Sunday, the Broncos and Chargers will face off, for the Broncos a second game of the 2013 season versus a team inside its division, the AC West, a most important challenge for the Broncos, in that a win against the Chargers would lift them to an 8-1 record, just one win behind the AC West’s leading franchise, the 9-0 Kansas City Chiefs, a team in Bye for Week 10, which the Broncos will face during Week 11 and again during Week 13. That first AC West win for the Broncos was against the now 3-5 Oakland Raiders, Week 3. If the Raiders beat the N.Y. Giants this Sunday and the Chargers lose to the Broncos, the latter will be a last place AC West franchise tied with the former, each at 4-5 as Week 11 begins. For the Chargers, then, a Week 10 vs. Broncos win can be insurance against being its division’s bottom-feeder. But given the Broncos 7-1 record, and what’s been seen of the Broncos offense since Week 1 of the 2013 season, and of the Broncos defense of the past four Broncos games, the Chargers need to be praying for a miracle. More on this within this Friday’s posting. . . // . . . NBA---THE first few yards of anything out of a breech is a poor space for determining future outcomes, but surprises do give hope that the uncertainties, the lack of predictabilities in a sport, will be as interesting to observe as a movie or TV drama filled with suspense. As of yesterday, only two of the six high-end winning NBA teams of the past season are leading a conference division, the Eastern Conference Southeast Division’s 2-2 Miami Heat and the EC Central Division’s 3-0 Indiana Pacers, while of the six division leading NBA franchises four had remained undefeated, the Western Conference Northwest Division’s 3-0 Minnesota Timberwolves, the WC Southwest’s 3-0 Houston Rockets, the EC Atlantic’s 3-0 Philadelphia 76ers and the EC central’s 3-0 Indiana Pacers. And of teams expected to be snapping, crackling and popping from day one of the new season, three are winless as of yesterday morning, the WC Northwest’s 0-2 Denver Nuggets and 0-3 Utah Jazz and the EC Atlantic’s 0-3 Boston Celtics, joining the 0-3 Washington Wizards. Surprisingly, the 2-1 Oklahoma City Thunder were third yesterday within the WC Northwest, while the 2-2 Los Angeles Lakers were fourth within the WC’s Pacific Division, and the 1-2 Brooklyn Nets fourth inside the EC’s Atlantic Division. . . END/ml.