ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown Notes and Quotes: Week 6

ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown host Chris Berman and analysts Cris Carter, Mike Ditka, Tom Jackson, and Keyshawn Johnson previewed the NFL’s week 6 games with Suzy Kolber, analysts Merril Hoge and Bill Parcells, and NFL Insiders Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen. Some excerpts:

Parcells: “If Tony isn’t playing, I don’t think Dallas really could win. He’s a very catalytic player. He’s a guy that can create things on his own. He improvises.  He does all of that. He has to impose discipline on himself in some of these critical situations that are happening near the end of the games.”

Johnson: “You look at the bad, the good outweighs that by far.”

Jackson: “His upside is certainly worth it, but you cannot let him lose games. You have to be willing to do something to help him win a game.”

Carter: “Tony Romo matches up against any quarterback in the league. Tony Romo has what I would call ‘the clutch gene’.”

Parcells: “The reservation I have is, can he pass the ball efficiently enough? And that’s over 60 percent, and it can’t all be behind the line of scrimmage. The accuracy, I’m going to have to see that. Every other single aspect, I think he has.”

Jackson: “My attitude is: let’s give it a chance.”

Johnson: “Whoever was making the decisions to bring guys in. … They made a mistake because these guys don’t fit what they’re trying to do just yet, and the time is running out on them.”

Jackson: “In football, your 53-man squad needs chemistry, and it needs to be built through tough times. They didn’t have a chance to do that, and it’s going to be very difficult to acquire that.”

Ditka: “What they’re doing on defense – and I’m picking on the defense — is not working.”

Carter: “I got a problem with whoever gave that guy the assignment from being O-line coach to D coordinator.”

Parcells: “Just stop turning the ball over, you’ll win.”

Jackson: “I’m buying ‘em because they are built in the image of Al Davis.”

Hoge: “The Raiders didn’t get the memo – that this is a passing league. They didn’t get that memo because they run the football on the perimeter better than anybody.”

Parcells: “If they could cut down a little on that recklessness, cut those penalties down, they’re going to go right to the top of that discipline index, and that usually means winning.”

Parcells: “They just don’t block well enough for the passer to continue that approach. If they continue it, I think they’re going to be short on quarterbacks pretty soon.”

Hoge: “It’s those little things that fall on your offensive line that are not getting done. … it makes it harder to throw the football down the field.”

Parcells: “If the Packers have one, maybe, visible flaw to me it might be in their secondary. They lost Nick Collins. Don’t underestimate that loss. He’s probably their best secondary player. They’re a little bit short on corners. … Sometimes the next man up’s talent isn’t quite the same as the guy you lost.”

Jackson: “They have given up 450-plus yards for four weeks in a row. The last team to do it was the 1950 Baltimore Colts. … That team did it the last four games of the season — and they folded! The organization was extinct. I just want to see what happens if somebody doesn’t turn the ball over against the Bills.”

Mortensen: “It’s no longer the college player adjusting to the NFL. It’s the NFL adjusting to a gifted college player.”

Carter: (laughing) “Oh yeah, we got it fixed up. We’re big homies now.”

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