On Beason, Jerry Jones and UNCC football

3 quick thoughts, all of them football-related:

** Jon Beason is the ideal choice to get the audio version of defensive coordinator Mike Trgovac's calls, which was explained in an Observer story here by David Scott. Beason wears a helmet with a headset in it. He's smart and he never comes off the field -- he's not one of those "two-down linebackers" replaced by a defensive back on 3rd-and-long.

I talked with Beason about this once and asked him what he does if he doesn't understand the call the first time. He said he always taps his helmet -- that's his sign for "I didn't get it." So if you ever see Beason hitting his helmet out there, you know what's happening.

** Jerry Jones said the 5-4 Dallas Cowboys will "absolutely" make the playoffs while talking to reporters this week. Jones better hope Tony Romo is going to be great starting Sunday against Washington when he comes back from that broken pinkie, because there's no way you can say Dallas will "absolutely" do anything right now. The Cowboys, if they make it, will be a wild-card team going on the road to face a division leader in the first round (can you say Carolina? That'd be fun).

This stat stuns me about America's Team, too -- they haven't won a playoff game since the 1996 season. Yes, 1996. They won a wild-card game the week before they came to Carolina and got beat by Dom Capers' team during Year Two for the Panthers. Weird, huh??

** I was glad to see UNCC's trustees officially approve the move for football today. But where all that money's going to come from -- I don't know. The permanent-seat licenses are only going to pay for a fraction of what this baby is going to cost. Somebody mysterious better show up with about a $15 million check one of these years pretty soon, or that on-campus stadium dream is going to remain only that -- a dream.