Adherents of the Cleveland Browns (Release 2.0) should quit griping about the turn-back-the-clock call that ended their hopes against Jax. Yes, it was bizarre, as if the game had fallen into a temporal anomaly or perhaps a chronosynclastic infindibulum. But the purpose of replay is to ensure that the right team wins, and the right team won. The Browns' fourth-down pass on the previous snap incontrovertibly had been incomplete. The ball indeed should have been awarded to the Jaguars, as it was following the time-travel intrusion.

Plus the home crowd is in no position to whine after acting like cut-rate Sal Mineo juvenile delinquents by hurling beer bottles onto the field. Though since it was Cleveland, you could be sure the bottles were empty. When executive Carmen Policy and owner Alfred Lerner made excuses for the fans after the game, the word "backbone" kept floating into TMQ's mind. As in, wouldn't it have been nice to see some from Cleveland management? Policy is something of a juvenile delinquent himself, flying the coop from San Francisco after lying to the league about Niner contracts. And pray tell what might Lerner have in his closet, that makes him sympathetic to lawbreakers?

(TMQ counterintuitive thought: The advent of the plastic beer bottle, a "branding" gimmick now standard in NFL stadiums, helped create Sunday's disgrace. Previously beer was sold in plastic cups, which are so insubstantial you couldn't thrown them all the way to the field if you tried.)

But if we're going to establish a new standard that officials can void downs to go back and alter previous plays, Tuesday Morning Quarterback sees no reason to stop there. Why not previous games or seasons? Next time the Jets take the field, zebras should wave their arms after the first snap and go back to alter the ridiculous 1998 play on which New York/B was awarded a last-second winning touchdown it clearly didn't deserve. Next time the Bills take the field, zebras should wave their arms and go back to alter the ridiculous 1998 sequence on which Buffalo lost after New England was awarded a last-second first-down conversion, though the league later admitted the Pats receiver had both feet out of bounds and was a yard shy of the marker. Correcting these two plays would have deprived the Jets of their bye in the 1998 playoffs, given Jax a bye, awarded Buffalo a home rather than road playoff game and Miami a road rather than home game. OK, then we'd have to replay the entire 1998 postseason to see if Denver still wins the Super Bowl. Time travel will make this possible!

And why stop at revisiting recent calls? Next time the Arizona Cardinals take the field, zebras should wave their arms, stop play, and have a look at the 1974 pass from Jim Hart to Mel Gray, grasped for a nanosecond in the end zone and ruled a touchdown, allowing the club then known as the St. Louis Cardinals to beat the club not yet known as the Chesapeake Watershed Region Indigenous Persons. And what about the 1966 Packers-Cowboys championship game, did Bart Starr really make it on that sneak? Maybe Fuzzy Thurston was offsides. Let's review!

In other NFL news, NBC has announced that during halftime of the Super Bowl, it will air a 20-minute special of the drek "reality" show Fear Factor—"reality shows" being the least real things on television—in which the contestants are six former Playboy Playmates of the Year. Swimsuits will surely be required for the so-far-undisclosed event. Maybe it will be a tanning-oil rubbing competition! The segment will start the moment the Super Bowl second quarter concludes, to lure viewers from Fox during the halftime festivities. (Or "festime halftivities," as Official TMQ Brother Frank Easterbrook is wont to remark.) This ratings-driven display of half-naked mega-babies is transparent, cynical exploitation. What channel did you say it will be on?

Best of the Week. Best Simulated Blitz: TMQ is generally anti-blitz, and readers have been asking how come the Steelers can be playing such fabulous defense when they blitz constantly? Answer: They don't. Pittsburgh uses the 3-4 alignment, last NFL team to favor this base defense. On most downs the Steelers bring three DLs plus a LB or DB. This looks like a blitz, but actually only four gentlemen are coming, the conventional number. True, against Tampa in October, when the Steelers amassed 10 sacks, they did send five repeatedly. (And the Bucs, who went into the game planning to "slide" protection right, inexplicably never noticed that all 10 sacks came from the left.) But the Tampa game was the exception that proves the rule. In the fourth quarter on Sunday night, the Steelers real-blitzed four times on 20 Ravens snaps, though Baltimore was behind and passing constantly. Real-blitzing 20 percent of the time is about the Pittsburgh standard, and fine even by TMQ.

When will announcers learn that it's not a blitz if a linebacker comes across but only four total are rushing? The otherwise admirable Mike Patrick of ESPN cries, "It's a blitz!" whenever he sees a linebacker shoot, regardless of the total rush. At one point in the Ravens-Steelers game he cried, "Blitz coming!" on a play on which Baltimore rushed three.

Best Feet: Steve Young, who favored the roll-out version of the West Coast offense, used to say he could tell whether he was playing well simply by watching his feet on game film; if he moved purposefully and efficiently, then the passing lanes would be there. Watching rookie QB Mike McMahon run a roll-out West Coast against the Vikings, TMQ was struck by how close to perfect his footwork was, rolling efficiently for a touchdown run and a big first down on the Lions' winning drive. Keep on eye on this gentleman's feet.

Best Simulated Bunch: Many teams are using "the bunch," a formation in which three receivers pack tightly into the slot; the theory is that as they cross in close quarters after the snap, they can pick defenders without getting the pick-play flag. Last night for its first TD, St. Louis lined up bunch left at the Saints 6. New Orleans defenders braced for complicated crossing moves. Instead Isaac Bruce simply ran a corner, a straight-line pattern to the left corner of the end zone; Saints DBs seemed so surprised that he wasn't doing anything fancy, they immediately lost him. Later Kurt Warner threw a touchdown to Marshall Faulk on the same pattern to the same corner.