Excuse me Mr. Kelly, you seem to have lost your pants

Tommy Kelly lost his pants.

Such is a lede (lead) that could launch practically any classic tale of the vulnerability or humility of man. But here it is, likely for the Oakland Raiders defensive tackle, a source of embarrassment that will follow him for some time if not ensure him a place in his own locker room’s best jokes.

If you didn’t hear or see the clip on the Web, Kelly’s pants somehow fell off while playing in front of a CBS television audience and only 67,000 some-odd live people at Denver’s Invesco Field at Mile High Sunday. At least the Raiders picked up a win, putting them at a grim 4-9-0 for the season.

No matter how disconcerting the incident in which Kelly was em-bare-assed it is likely that only fools, drunks and drunken fools who aren’t football players will bring up the matter if they run across the Raider in person one day. At 6-feet, 6 inches tall and 300 pounds, yeah, only his fellow pros might make him the butt of their jokes and then likely only those around his height and girth. Certainly few place kickers will deride him.

But all kidding aside, it was an interesting and entertaining week in pro football. And sad.

The weekend games carried the shadow of Cincinnati wide receiver Chris Henry’s death on Thursday. Henry fell out of a pickup truck bed during a domestic dispute. Such things shouldn’t happen during one of the Bengals’ most promising seasons after years of rare winning seasons. But they do and they did.

However, the games go on and are bigger than just one man. That is, unless you are Brett Favre. When his head coach wanted to bench the star Vikings quarterback, the Methuselah From Mississippi just wouldn’t go.

Then, no matter how much the loud and the not-so-loud Saints fans were disappointed, their undefeated streak finally came to end with their loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Oh well, as I (a Saints fan) told an acquaintance watching the game, it’s not the Super Bowl.

As for my main team, the Texans, well, they managed to climb their way out of the hole with a three-point win over St. Louis. There is hope for a wild card berth if they can win their last two games and a hole opens up and swallows half the AFC who knows what other teams have to win and which have to lose.

So why write about the NFL on Monday when I could write about the Senate passing their version of the health care bill and the climate change talks in Copenhagen? Are you nuts? It’s the NFL in December!