Spergon Can Get You Fishing for X Factor

Oliver Stone already did his pro football movie, and we certainly don’t want him filming another. But you have to imagine he’s out there somewhere, scoping out the box scores, playing videotapes of “NFL Primetime” backward, studying transcripts of Tom Coughlin’s postgame interviews, hypothesizing.

Thesis: The NFL, fearful of another AFL-style guerrilla raid by Vince McMahon’s new pro-wrestling-in-pads football league, is gradually morphing into the XFL before the XFL can kick off next February.

Evidence?

* One week, the previously redoubtable St. Louis Rams, unstoppable in their first six games, go into Kansas City to play the 3-3 Chiefs and get tagged, by Elvis Grbac and Warren Moon, for 54 points.

* A week later, Minnesota’s previously vaunted Vikings, undefeated in their first seven games, go into Tampa Bay to play the 3-4 Buccaneers and get zinged--four touchdown passes by Shaun King?--for 41 points.

* Six days after blowing a 23-point fourth-quarter lead to the New York Jets on Monday night, the Miami Dolphins return home and rally from a 17-point deficit to beat the Green Bay Packers--ending Dave Wannstedt’s personal 10-game losing streak against Brett Favre.

* Bad-guy Sebastian Janikowski, who earned the wrath of Raiderdom for all of September and half of October, suddenly and without notice switches over to the other side, becoming good-guy “Sea Bass” and the beer-swigging pride of Oakland after scoring every Raider point in a 15-13 victory at San Diego.

* Jacksonville Jaguar Tony Brackens, one week after kicking a good man, Washington Redskin Jay Leeuwenburg, while he’s down, picks up another, Cowboy Troy Aikman, and pile-drives him into the Dallas turf, sending the Ache Man on a woozy path back to the locker room . . . from where he should miraculously emerge Sunday to throw eight touchdown passes against the Philadelphia Eagles.

I’m not trying to sound paranoid or anything.

I’m not suggesting that these results are prearranged or scripted or anything.

But, you know, they do seem to have a certain queasy, uneasy WWF feel about them.

I mean, why is the man they call Moss, clad in his purple superhero costume, accosting another official, bumping this one with his purple facemask, squeezing this one on the arm, and then getting thrown out of the stadium amid the hooting catcalls of the Tampa Bay rowdies?

And then afterward, why is the man they call Moss shrugging it all off as “two friends touching each other, like a handshake or something”? (Right. Randy Moss and field judge Lloyd McPeters are tight. Every Tuesday, they get together for tea while Moss is out in the neighborhood walking his ego.)

And what are the Chargers doing pulling a Mil Mascaras and changing garbs and identities for one evening, dressing up like the classic John Hadl-Lance Alworth Chargers of yore and nearly upsetting the evil Raiders? Two points short . . . and too bad they couldn’t bring back Hadl and Alworth with those powder blues.

And what about that St. Louis tag-team? Kurt Warner is battered and beaten, staggering against the ropes, unable to continue. In a last act of desperation, he slaps the hand of Trent Green, who hops into the ring to pummel the 49ers for 310 yards and two touchdowns for a back-off-the-mat 34-24 victory.

Unfortunately for fans in Baltimore, wrestling with the notion that their team might never again locate the end zone, the Ravens have no such tag team. They are stuck with Tony Banks and Trent Dilfer, who have now combined to lead the Baltimore offense to zero touchdowns in five consecutive games, three of them defeats. That’s more than a month without crossing the goal line. Oh-for-October and part of September. Kicker Matt Stover, responsible for each of the last 46 points scored by the Ravens, has a new nickname around sports bars in Baltimore: Mr. October.

Check out these final scores: 12-0, 15-10, 10-3, 14-6, 9-6.

That’s either the sign of a seriously struggling football team or the result of a Rockies’ homestand at Coors Field.

Raven Coach Brian Billick, somewhat understandably, is not coping well. Once upon a time, before making the mistake of moving to Baltimore, Billick had a reputation as a know-it-all on offense. As Minnesota’s offensive coordinator in 1998, Billick coordinated the Vikings to a league-record 556 points.

A year and a half later, Billick is staring down a growing number of doubting Thomases in the Baltimore media and, it appears, starting to lose it.

After Sunday’s 9-6 loss to Pittsburgh, Billick ranted: “If anyone wants to intimate that all of a sudden I don’t know what I’m doing and that my 25 years is a sham and I faked my way to this point, they can have at it.”

Myself, I wouldn’t go that far.

I would, however, like to know why Billick, if he is so smart about offensive football, didn’t know better than to start a season with Tony Banks and Trent Dilfer as his quarterbacks.

Quarterbacks, they can drive a coach crazy. Just look at Cleveland’s Chris Palmer, another erstwhile offensive guru now stuck in the muck of Lake Erie.

Palmer began the season with one decent quarterback, Tim Couch, but he’s now sidelined for the season because of a broken thumb. After Couch, there is a drop-off. Doug Pederson started Sunday’s loss to the Bengals, fully living up to his infamous scouting report: “The ideal backup quarterback as long as he doesn’t have to play.” After watching Pederson wound one too many ducks, Palmer broke the emergency glass and pulled out one Spergon Wynn, which sounds like a smoked seafood dish from Scandinavia but is really (says so right here) a sixth-round draft pick from Southwest Texas State.

So young Spergon Wynn comes in and completes seven of 16 passes for no touchdowns with one interception. Palmer, who hasn’t seen anything comparable lately, is left raving about Wynn, calling him “a perfectionist,” which makes Wynn a first on the Browns, and ranking him “among the top 10 in the league” in arm strength.

Easy, coach. Scouts were big on Jim Druckenmiller’s arm strength and where is he now? On the roster of Memphis Maniax after being the 78th player selected in Saturday’s XFL player draft. That’s 77 notches below former Tampa Bay quarterback Scott Milanovich, now a Los Angeles Xtreme quarterback, who greeted the news of his selection as the XFL’s very first draft choice with, “I’m excited, but I don’t know a ton about it.”

Rest assured, the NFL does.