Favre up, Brady out

Brett Favre has two good touchdown passes to build on.

Tom Brady might not have two good legs to stand on -- and could be done for the season.

The two star quarterbacks found themselves on the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum Sunday, as Favre helped the New York Jets to victory at Miami, and New England's Brady had to be helped off the field against Kansas City with what multiple reports say is a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Midway through the first quarter, Brady dropped into the pocket and was hit low by Chiefs safety Bernard Pollard. The star quarterback, the league's reigning most valuable player, lay on the turf clutching his knee before limping off the field between two trainers.

Brady, who has started 128 consecutive games, disappeared into the locker room and never came back.

It was Matt Cassel who went on to lead the Patriots to a 17-10 victory. So the franchise that nearly pulled off a perfect record last season could be relying on a quarterback with freakishly pristine credentials.

Cassel: zero starts in college, zero starts in the pros.

Once a clipboard-holding understudy to Carson Palmer then Matt Leinart at USC, Cassel probably will be the starter Sunday when the Patriots play at the Jets. But on "Sunday Night Football," NBC's Al Michaels said the Patriots today will work out free agent Chris Simms.

To say Cassel never notched a start for the Trojans isn't exactly accurate; he did start a game in 2001 . . . at H-back.

But with all the weirdness Sunday, especially at the quarterback position, it prompted the question: What in the H-back was going on?

Check out what happened in Baltimore, where Ravens rookie Joe Flacco upstaged Cincinnati's Palmer, who generated just 99 yards passing in a 17-10 defeat. It was the first time Palmer played a complete game and failed to rack up triple-digit passing yards since Dec. 11, 2005, when he threw for 93 in a windstorm against Cleveland.

This time, he could have used a little help from his friends. The Bengals receiver formerly known as Chad Johnson -- who recently legally changed his surname to "Ocho Cinco" to match his jersey number -- did next to nada, catching one pass for 22 yards.

"We got beat and we got outplayed. . . . It's a pretty sick feeling," Palmer said.

No more sick than the Detroit Lions must have felt than when Atlanta rookie Matt Ryan dropped back and threw the very first pass of his career . . . for a 62-yard touchdown play to Michael Jenkins.