It's Week Three of the National Football League's 2006 regular season. Here's what happening with your Niners and Raiders.

* Philadelphia vs. San Francisco
Sunday, September 24, 2006. 1:15 PM, PST.
Week 03
The Battle Of The Tee-Owned

Jeff Garcia is comin' back to town with the Eagles. A good local son, he's still worthy being considered Gilroy's second favorite export.

There's been plenty of mentions made about the fact that Garcia and Philly's franchise quarterback Donovan McNabb can swap stories about how Terrell Owens threw them under the bus. In a Chris Webber-like way, Owens helped contributed to death-spiral seasons for both the Niners and Eagles.

And poor Jeff. He deserved better then the walking papers that the foolhardy former 49ers General Manager Terry Donahue gave him while Donahue was busy ruining the team in 2004. Y'know, after he's done with the Eagles, Jeff would be a great fit to mentor Alex Smith after current QB/Yoda Trent Dilfer retires.

Anyways, the Philadelphia Eagles are coming off a loss to the New York American Football Giants last week wherein Philly couldn't finish the game after being ahead by two touchdowns. The Giants came back and won. At least someone's Giants are doing OK. Ours disappoint.

"The Eagles had a thorough whooping on the Giants for the majority of the game," said American Football Spectacular's Philadelphia correspondent Phil Deepthroat, "That does two things: [It] shows that we're one of the top teams in the NFC, and [PHI Head Coach Andy] Reid will most likely not make that mistake again playing so conservatively when placed in that situation, assuming we'll get there in the first place."

We don't know if Philly can yet claim a return to the top of the NFC, but the team is obviously far removed from last season's utter catastrophe of ten losses.

By SFist Christopher Rogers for "American Football Spectacular," contributing

The Eagles of 2006 are a markedly incomplete team even before injury is factored in. Their light-sauce West Coast spread offensive scheme keys on tailback Bryan Westbrook, who is always hurt (a swollen knee this week), they have no solid RB to back Westbrook up, and no consistent wide receivers. These issues have been constant for the Iggles since RB Duce Staley left in 2003. Signing Owens was meant to solve part of the Eagles offensive woes by giving McNabb a proven receiver, and for a time, it worked. But the hassle wasn't worth the production.

So, yeah, the offensive strategy is based around the short dinky pass and when the Eagles need to grind down clock while sitting on a lead -- as they needed to in the NYG game last week -- they can't do it.

On defense, the worst thing to happen to Philly is they lost defensive end Jevon "The Freak" Kearse for the season with a knee injury. Kearse's pass rushing was the most terrifying thing about the Philly defensive line. And without The Freak's speedy self forcing quarterbacks to hurry, the onus is put on the Eagles' defensive backfield; a corps now preciously thin due to injuries. They've been losing cornerbacks like Pearl Jam used to lose drummers before they picked up stalwart Matt Cameron when Soundgarden dissolved.

"Our cornerback situation worries me," said Phil Deepthroat via instant messenger, "We have no dependable second cornerback right now. Sheldon Brown can hold his own. Lito Sheppard and Rod Hood are both out -- our #2 and #3 corners. Last week, our cornerback [Joselio] Hanson got torn-the-f***-up, as well as Dexter Wynn did. So the Niners do have a legitimate chance of beating us through the air. I think the game comes down to whether or not Alex Smith will be able to exploit our s****y CB situation."

Indeed! Will the Niners be able to score enough points to shoot-it-out against McNabb? How vulnerable is this Philly team? Can our Niners string together two wins? Vee shall see.

* Oakland vs. Bye Week
Sunday, September 24, 2006.
Week 03
The Battle Of Scrutiny

This is a bye week for our Raiders. It's no fun though. The fans are restless. Morale is low, shoulders are slumped. To bring Soundgarden into it, the Raider Nation has fallen on black days.

After their poor showings on the field, the Raiders have a week to think about what went (horribly) wrong while the local media scratch their collective heads about how things could improve. Outside the Yay Area, the national media are basically pointing and laughing, in the way one does when a bully has fallen on tough times.

The next game, a Week Four matchup against the still-reforming Cleveland Browns is a winnable game for Oakland, and could well improve spirits within the heart of The Raider Nation.

Here at AFS, it is our strident hope that the Raiders' braintrust (AKA Al, and only Al) will fit a gameplan to the Raiders' personnel, rather than continue trying to force their personnel to fit an outdated gameplan. Well, we can dream, yes?

Next up on your American Football Spectacular: Recaps, tales, and songs. Yeah, you're right, it would have been too easy to go with the bed-and-breakfast joke about the bye week. Let's just let it go.