Boy, the way the people at ESPN hyped up Sunday's NFL game between the New England Patriots and the Dallas Cowboys, you would have thought they were televising it.

All week, ESPN was calling it "The Duel in Dallas," and that's exactly what it was — at least until Tom Brady stepped onto the field.

Sure it was close for a while, but if Brady's your quarterback, you have no worries. In beating the Cowboys 48-27, he threw for 388 yards and a career-best five touchdowns. At this rate, Brady may break Peyton Manning's record for touchdown passes in a season by the time the Patriots play Manning's Indianapolis Colts in three weeks. He only needs, let's see 29 more.

Hey, don't put it past him. Brady's already set an NFL record for throwing at least three touchdown passes in his first six games of the season.

Certainly, it was a great day for CBS, which did televise the game (thanks for the help, ESPN).

Even though it wasn't shown here in Southern California because of the Oakland-San Diego game, we did get to see most of the fourth quarter because the Raiders and Chargers took care of their nasty little business in only 2 hours and 56 minutes. CBS was no doubt grateful for that as well, and appreciative that the Patriots and Cowboys took 3:31 to complete their epic clash.

Apparently, the Pats are taking after the Boston Red Sox, whose average postseason game clocks in at more than 4 hours.

New England has scored at least 34 points in all six games this season and easily wiped Dallas from the ranks of the unbeaten even though Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens had told reporters to "Get your popcorn ready."

Patriots players were seen walking around their locker room after the game eating boxes of popcorn.

"T.O. said to get it ready," linebacker Rosevelt Colvin told the New York Daily News. "We wanted to know how it tastes."

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It was easy for me to jump on the Colorado Rockies bandwagon, how about you?

My family and I attended a couple of games this season at Coors Field while visiting relatives and vacationing in Colorado. So I already knew what a good ballclub the Rockies had.

In one game we went to, they beat Milwaukee 19-4. But it wasn't one of those "bombs away" games like they used to have at Coors Field before they started keeping their baseballs in a humidor. The Rockies tied a franchise record with 11 extra-base hits and were one shy of the club mark for hits with 23, but only three of those hits were home runs.

We saw how good a pitcher Jeff Francis is. Garrett Atkins went 4 for 4 with two doubles and six RBIs. Troy Tulowitzki went 4 for 5 with four runs scored and three driven in. Kaz Matsui was 3 for 5 and scored another four runs.

We also saw what we now realize is a rarity: The next night, the Rockies lost to the Chicago Cubs.

Hey, whatever happened to the Cubs anyway?

I thought maybe Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba's first name might be one of those names, like Nomar Garciaparra's, that make sense when you spell them backward. But Yorvit just spells "Tivroy."

Sorry I brought it up, but since I did, let me just say that Cleveland Indians Jhonny Peralta's name drives me crazy. The story goes that Peralta's first name was misspelled on his birth certificate and he has refused to change it.

OK, I guess I can understand it, but my eye twitches every time I see it.

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A postscript to last week's column about Marion Jones:

I spotted former Thousand Oaks High girls' basketball coach Chuck Brown at a prep football game Friday night. Brown coached Jones when she played at the school. He was out of the state a week and a half ago when Jones admitted she had used steroids, so at halftime I asked him what his thoughts were about Jones, who for a long time vehemently denied using the drugs, and now faces jail time.

"I'm sorry to hear about it because ever since this has been going on I had always felt that she didn't do it," Brown said. "I am pleased that since she finally said she has done it, that she owned up to it. I only saw parts of the (announcement) on TV, but I read it in the paper and I think that she's very, very honestly sorry for what she did. She's going to have to face a lot of people and it's going to be tough for her, it really is.

"But no matter what comes up now, it doesn't have any effect on the way I felt about her in her years at T.O. High School because there she was one of the greatest kids to have on the team. She was a world-class athlete, but yet in the game she treated everybody on the team as equals. The last girl on the bench was just the same as the starters to her. When she was on the bench and out of the game, she was the head cheerleader on the bench. What has happened has not made me think any less of her as to what she did here. As I said, I'm just really, really sorry, but glad she has stepped forward and admitted to it and can go on from here now."

Brown said Jones had kept in touch during her college days at North Carolina, calling the coach and sending his team posters and T-shirts. He went to an NCAA regional tournament that featured both of his former stars — Jones for North Carolina and Michelle Palmisano for Vanderbilt. "If they had played each other, I don't know what I would have done," Brown laughed.

Brown said Jones attended the dedication of Thousand Oaks' new track and took him and two of her track coaches — the late Art Green of Thousand Oaks and Al Walker of Rio Mesa — to dinner afterward.

"She said she wanted to do that to thank us for being fathers to her while she was in high school," Brown said.

"I really think that the mistakes she has made have been more than anything just taking advice from the wrong people, and you know, that's easy to do.

"But I still love her."

— Jim Carlisle is a staff writer for The Star. E-mail address: jcarlisle@VenturaCountyStar.com. In addition to his Tuesday columns, he also covers TV-Radio sports on Fridays. For more, please visit his blog at jimcarlislesports.blogspot.com.