the big fish tank. it's now called land shark stadium. sight of the early bird special in south florida.y bird special two playoff teams from a year ago collide. tonight, peyton manning and the colts face the miami dolphins next, on "monday night next, on "monday night countdown." captioning provided by espn, inc. in south florida, where it's still the heat of the summer, two guys, who can tell some football stories, peyton manning and chad pennington. guys of quarterback various squads, peyton one of them. chad, jets and dolphins. talking football and they'll be playing football. welcome to "monday night countdown." hope you're enjoying the last full day of summer, another day at the beach for us. chris berman along with hall-of-famer mike ditka. keyshawn johnson, cris carter. tom johnson. mort. adam schefter. a cast of thousands from the sunshine state we begin with the big "d." opening night at cowboys' stadium turned from a giant disappointment for the home team. as the winner knew it would be the only team undefeated. how about them cowboys. tony romo, jason witten. oh, boy. kenny phillips. good! but phillips looking for a touchdown. what happened here? off the hand, off the foot, off the thigh. hit of the hands, just like they diagrammed it. good defense. three picks romo. eli manning, mario manningham, manning thrown for 2 3 00 yards. 31-30, dallas, dallas ran for over 250. eli manning. 3:30 if you will. steve smith. manning's pass, when you're hot you're hot. when you're lucky, it helps. manningham on the tip. lawrence, party time for the giants. good 37 yards. >> poor jerry jones. open a new building, giants win 33-31. so certainly an entertaining game. certainly two teams that expect to go some place. giants now two and up. what did we learn, tom? >> we learn you can't turn the ball over. we learn the cowboys lost by two points. giants didn't turn it over at all. giants didn't score a touchdown from the red zone and end up winning a game on the road. i think you talk about the poise of that football team. yes, the dallas cowboys made mistakes but giants countered that with their poises especially easy eli manning. >> what i learn is system work. system that giant have, the way they developed young players. the way they developed five receivers in the last four years in the first four rounds. steve smith and manningham last night really coming to the forefront with an opportunity to injuries to the receiving corps. the ability to make big plays, change the offense. finally recover from plaxico burress not being on that roster. systems work and giants have a great system the way they develop players. >> not just last night but over the first two weeks of football, i learn that, when quarterbacks have throwntree r three or four interceptions, fill low, they are 0-5. tony romo follows into that category. i also learned about tony romo, he has yet to win a big game. the seattle game. giants playoff game or even the philadelphia eagles. you go to that game. seems any time there's a bunch of hoopla in teams around big stadiums, playoffs, all of a sudden he kind of go noose this shet. i don't understand what he's doing. a much better football player, he needs to get his act together. >> i think the giants are a football team that like to run the football. they couldn't run it last night. they couldn't run the football. what do they do? they got two guys nobody knows about. number one receivers, they lost this guy -- they got two guys that catch 20 out of 25 completions for 285 yards. eli manning was outstanding in the football game. eli manning won this football game. his spreading the ball around to the guys open was unbelievable. >> two was always better than one. >> i agree. >> you guys have been involved in drives late and trying to stop them, et cetera. 3:30 to go. eli manning and giants come out and they already had that look. felt like they didn't know for sure. yes, we're going to score. either a field goal or touchdown and going to take all three and a half minutes in doing it. not that many teams, you call him easy eli. i was impressed with the body language of everybody. came out of the huddle. you can see it. >> when you're prepared, you'll do things like that. you know the time-outs, know where ur on the football field. not in a rush to do anything. you kind of ease into the situation. >> they are a well-coached team. >> he let the clock run out. laying on the ground. looking up at the official, he rhett it get down. didn't jump up to call it. it got before he called it from the ground. that's how relaxed he was. >> i guess if you won the super bowl late like that. what's 105,000 in september. by the way. they called time-out the way wade phillips did it. we discussed this. wouldn't that be the one the kicker would be most nervous. they almost missed that. the second was down the middle. >> i hate that rule. >> i don't think it's a great move. i think ill you'll miss first not second. >> it's a practice kick. only time they actually get to really get that is right before the game starts. they're out there warming up. it may be right before they come out on the field. >> i want a team to fake. talk to the rep. then let the guy kick it even without a rush. >> i like that. you don't get to take a tee shot off one and tee it up for real too often except when you play with me. >> other news, giants' defensive end, justin tuck, you saw him injured his shoulder after the trip to the left tackle. big guy throws out of the adams, flows out of the hotel. we bring in adam schefter. what is the zeal here? >> justin tuck did not like what happened the way flozell adams stuck out his leg and tripped him. a big-league tactic flozell adams gained a representation for you saw his lego out. after the game justin tuck said he'll play this week against the tampa bay buccaneers in tampa however spent this afternoon undergoing an mri. obviously some type of shoulder injury. justin tuck believes he'll be good enough to play on sunday when the giants play the tampa bay buccaneers but didn't like what happened last night at all. >> of course they play again this year at least one more time. tuck will not be checking into the flozell hotel, that's for sure. see you later, adam. thank you you and mort. still ahead the program on the new head coach. what do we expect out of peyton manning and colts this season? we'll talk indianapolis. joey porter and the art of trash talking in this week's unmasked. >> she's such a shy guide and miami heat's dwyane wade visits our set to talk what does greatness taste like? step up and order a miller lite aluminum pint. down into the endzone. he's got it! unbelievable... and it's gonna be a touchdown! there's light beer. and then there's triple hops brewed miller lite. taste greatness. this is unbelievable! good evening, everyone. and welcome to monday night primetime national football league television series. ♪ this season is the 40th for "monday night football" a television series that changed the nfl forever. helping launch the explosion of popularity in the '70s and '80s. tonight is the sixth running episode of the reality show. turns out dolphins make the 74th appearance tonight the most for history that's for them. all began in 1970 on abc with the jets and browns. i know, because i was almost there, in my mind. to cleveland municipal stadium. joe namath and the jets against the cleveland browns, december 27th 1970. jo-willie and browns getting set. leroy kelly. watching namath. number 83. 24-21, cleveland. 38 seconds to go. namath, trying to make something happen. the uniforms just look good. on the baseball field, joe picked off by a diving billy andrew, returns it 25 yards. complete browns win the innaug rat "monday night football." 31-24 2 1. keith howard, near one. frank replaced keith in year two and here's jo-willie and 40 years ago. on this date. number one song, look at diana ross "ain't no mountain high enough." number one movie "five easy pieces." key, we all looked like that back then by the way. film revolutionized the process of olding toast and dinner. wasn't that cybill shepherd in there and one of our favorites. young vida blue, lefty, for the oakland a's pitched a no-hitter against the minnesota twins. reggie wayne forges memories. you saw the baseball turf. one of a couple of stadiums that still has the baseball diamond out interest in september. more on tonight's match-up, heading down to south florida, join stuart scott for the "monday night football" launch engineered by the gmc sierra. to our engineer, stuart along with steve and mack. good evening. >> good evening, a balmy night in south florida. last time peyton manning was in this stadium was if called dolphins shame yum. and mvp much super bowl xli. it's now called landshark stadium. when super bowl xlvi roll as round it's dolphins stadium. or joe robby. >> miami-dade. orange. >> the colts are just the colts. always one of the best teams in the league. are they still good with a new coach, and, you know, not so many wideouts? >> yes. that's real simple answer. >> they're still good like the colts have been good. >> yeah. they are. because not a lot of pieces have changed. main thing they have peyton manning, that's the first thing. look to the other side of the ball. to me, that's a great indicator. this team is based on speed which is real interesting, it's built for the carpet. that's what bill bullion did, got speed off the edges but they're a small defense. they're really better with points at their back. that's what the offense has to do. as long as they have peyton manning run thing the offense which is a simple offense, he runs it flawless li. >> it looks complicated when he's doing those hand gestures. >> it is. it's simple out of the huddle. very complicated as the ball is snapped. a lot of individual reads. zone man. not just the quarterback makes those reads. that's all of the receivers do. reading man zone on the run is not easy to do. if that way it's simple yet complex at the same time. talk about the colts, this is an organization that is a top five in the nfl. and because of that, they'll have ebb and flow, they'll have guys come and go, coaches, even peyton manning. matt, you know this, this is like the old days, ourgzs now win championships. i think the colts are going to be good or great for the next foreseeable future. >> i think it still comes down to that guy right there. right now they should be the indianapolis manning's much like the denver elways a few years ago. >> i understand that. there's transitions that can be made. they're doing the coach. do the quarterback at some place and still be good. >> because they do the little things right. they're a disciplined group. polian does a great job. >> was it the san francisco -- >> he camate and ate at my house three nights a week. to chase him off, you know, i had a simple rule. go ahead an tell him. >> come in, eat at 5:30, be gone by 6:00. get out of my house. i don't want you there. it's perfect. come in, eat. get out. he loved it. perfect. >> peyton manning, 178th consecutive start. if he wins tonight he's going to break a tie with johnny unitas and tie johnny unitas. he and unitas has 118 career wins as a colt. he'll beet unitas for colt's all-r time and tie for fifth all time. put your smarts in the gmc engineered to win. visit gmc.com to test your skill was our own tom jackson. >> still to come, much more on the colts and dolphins why tonight's game is just crucial for the defending afc east champion dolphins and miami's chasing a new leader of the afc east. after the pats were mulled at the meadowlands why we're concerned about tom brady's bunch. you can turn the channel if you want but everyone will talk about you if you do. if we're going to rebuild this country, we're going to need the truck that's been doing the job for the last 100 years. sierra, from gmc. put it to the test, with our 60-day satisfaction guarantee. ♪ return there for you and your guilty pleasures. ♪ how long... ♪ how long ♪ - oh, come on. - enough! you get half and you get half. ( chirp ) team three, boathouse? ( chirp ) oh yeah-- his and hers. - ( crowd gasping ) - ( chirp ) van gogh? ( chirp ) even steven. - ( chirp ) mansion. - ( chirp ) good to go. ( grunts ) timber! ( chirp ) boss? what do we do with the shih-tzu? - ( crowd gasps ) - ( chirp ) joint custody. - phew! - announcer: get work done now. communicate in less than a second with nextel direct connect. only on the now network. deaf, hard of hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com. doubleheader, wild card implications at 7:00 eastern, phillies at marlons, general giants trying to stay alive at 10:00 eastern at arizona. thursday night. fourth ranked 'ole miss hit the road to face steve spurrier, all ball coach. south carolina gamecocks 7:00 p.m. eastern. on sfen. ricky williams, there he is. looking good. warming up, dolphins can they get it going? more from miami, where smou i don't think it's chilly yet. check in with suzy kolber for a team report with the dolphins. good evening, suze. >> good evening. we're saying happy birthday wildcat. a year ago it debuted. six direct snaps to running back ronny brown. he scored four touchdowns. now they have a true quarterback to run the wildcat. they drafted pat white, you'll see him tonight. it changed things for chad pennington. i wonder what does he think when they called the wildcats. >> first i wonder whether i'm in or out. then i need to get in and call the play or get out and get out of the way. it's something that we do. i think your team has become synonymous with the term wildcat and wildcat offense. it's one part of our offense. one facet and take pride in it and try to make it work. >> to chad's point. everybody thinks of the dolphins and wildcat. it's really a small percentage of what they do. we all know chad is such a great leader. it's been an adjustment for him to step to the sideline. he's told pat white i'll be your biggest fan from the sideline if you're throwing touchdown passes, chris. >> that would be chad pennington, suzy. we'll get back you to later. we mentioned it, birthday party for the wildcats. you think they would put out cake and you see festivities. you don't have to be crockett and tubbs as you go to miami to figure out the importance of this game. looks great in atlanta. where do we view the dolphins. >> look at them. what is their identity. not an overpowering running game. not a great passing team. defense doesn't dominate. this team was a good football team because they did all of the things well last year. they lead the league in turnover ratio. that's the biggest thing. don't beat yourself. this team is good enough if they don't turn it over. last week four turnovers, you can't win that way. they're not good enough with turnovers. >> because of the way they play football they have to play almost error free. coach alluded to the turnovers. they also -- chad pennington does a lot of things well. one of them is not stretching the football field with his arm. so the defense tends to play up again. again makes them play almost flawless football. if you have some things with this wildcat. suzy talked about percentage. they ran it 103 times. 98 times they ran the ball. now let's see pat white open tings up. i don't think you want to be 0-2. gout to open thins up. if you use the wildcat make it work tonight. >> i believe last week can be a classic example of overreacting. like we saw with buffalo when they chanced. >> other teams recovered. arizona, who, after the super bowl. they came back in jacksonville this week. miami, don't overreact. get back to what you do well. they have to get back their staple and that's running the football. i don't care if it's with the wildcats. they don't have enough playmakers to let chad throw the ball 40 times a game but have to to come up with the big play. especially when they get man to man. receiver is outside. i know from being a residence. chad pennington and tedy ginn is time for him to pay off. >> he's vertical. right? >> yes. >> with a guy who doesn't throw the deep ball really well. le. >> you just want to throw that out there. >> look, you don't have to panic right now. but if they lose this football game. they have to win this football game. there's nothing else worse than going 0-2 in a division where you now have the new york jets, you know, the new england patriots are not going to fall too far off the radar and buffalo bills are o1-1. if you find ourself too far behind you have to have an idea the gimmicks. either you're going to run the football. >> play action fast the football but all of the gimmick stuff, it's just not -- that will catch up to you. everybody in the country from college football. high school football in the pros now, everyone is running this. they have to get an identity. >> somebody up in detroit will tell you, there's something worse than 0-2. >> 0-0-0-0. >> 19 or whatever. >> they don't have -- they played nice defense but not a defensive idea either. just do the numbers. it was aed record, right, last year? 13 turnovers was all they made all year long. five in the playoff game against baltimore. i know who they were. now four last week against atlanta. one is an accident. two is a trend, three is a problem. >> so, they don't want to have a problem. >> and they got to travel to san diego next week. >> one thing at a time. >> from the fish to a guy reeling in information on the tuna. mort, what are bill parcells looking forward -- now, there he is, vice president in charge of all sorts of things. where is he headed next? what's his plans after the year? >> parcells actually almost walked after last season because ownership transferred from wayne huizenga to receiven ross. he had a 30-day one-time walk-away clause with the balance of his money but ross agreed to pretty much stay that cause, that he can walk away at any time. for parcells, what he really wants to make sure, this football operation is stable with general manager jeff ireland and tony sporano before he does that. for those who know the tuna. it's a surprise parcells does not walk after this season, 2009 season. but he got to feel good about where they are as an organization before he does that. >> it's a long way off. seen them here a couple times, who know, we'll keep a light on for him, mort. we'll see. let's go to the colts here quickly. anthony gonzalez, fine young slot receiver out with a knee injury. marvin harris not there. are they concerned about replacing gonzalez in the passing game? >> no, colts' fans were wondering if they try to get marvin harris and try to bring him back in. and they didn't even think about it. two reasons why, rookie receiver austin collie who are starts and pierre garcion. he's a rookie, an older type rookie. they think he'll be next brandon stokely but not this year. former colts wide receiver yet. where's pierre garcon. get this the colts believe he can be a stronger, more explosive, reggie wayne. he is the guy they're pretty excited about in terms of giving them big plays, he can play in the slot. certainly playout side. interesting thing about him. he's a former division three player from mt. union in ohio. drafted him in the sixth round. if you know bill polian's track record, he usually hits on these guys, boomer. >> garcon. there's a fly pattern in my soup. i had to try it. back with you, a little later on. still ahead, patriots get swamped by the jets defense at the meadowlands. is this the blueprint to beat new england. and still early in the season. there are plenty of plays that made us have an eyebrow-raising sunday. why the refs made this week's "c'mon man." we'll be back. this is a honda pilot. and this is the chevy traverse. it has more cargo space than pilot. and traverse beats honda on highway gas mileage too. more fuel efficient and 30% more room. maybe traverse can carry that stuff too. the chevy traverse americas best crossover. introducing the 60-day satisfaction guarantee. buy a new chevy and if you don't love it, we'll take it back.