It's easy to say Kurt Warner is living a football version of "Field of Dreams" because he played at Northern Iowa and for the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena League.

	Kurt Warner joined Dan Marino in the exclusive 40 touchdown pass club.

The more apt literary and cinematic comparison is Roy Hobbs, "The Natural."

Consider this:

When Trent Green was injured in the third exhibition game and Warner became the St. Louis Rams quarterback by default, Dick Vermeil crossed his fingers.

"I figured that he'd be OK by midway through the season," Vermeil said Sunday after Warner threw five touchdown passes as the Rams broke a 17-game losing streak against San Francisco. The 42-20 victory left St. Louis at 4-0 and the NFL's only unbeaten team.

Vermeil is delighted to be wrong.

A quarter of the way through the Rams' schedule, Warner has 14 touchdown passes and just three interceptions. He threw for three TDs in each of his first three games and then five Sunday. At that rate, he would throw 56 in a season, shattering Dan Marino's 1984 record of 48.

He almost surely won't -- every quarterback stumbles and young ones tend to struggle after hot starts.

But Warner is hotter than most, particularly against the 49ers, who were a perfect fit for continued success -- San Francisco's secondary is one of the NFL's worst.

But the Rams certainly have weapons -- their receivers have been so good that Marshall Faulk, the big offseason acquisition, has had little to do at running back.

Isaac Bruce, who missed most of the last two seasons with nagging injuries, caught four TD passes Sunday. When healthy, he might be the NFL's best receiver, right up there with Randy Moss, who has spent his sophomore season whining about the lack of passes thrown his way.

Warner is due for a bad day, perhaps this week in Atlanta against the Falcons. They've already seen him once, and they've finally got a little momentum with their first win.

Yes, things can change quickly. Even for a natural like Warner.

	Dan Marino Quarterback Miami Dolphins Profile
	1999 SEASON STATISTICS COMP ATT YDS TD INT RAT 83 140 1080 6 4 86.0

Dan's still the man
You can credit Jimmy Johnson for pushing Dan Marino's button at just the right time or you can simply say that Marino is still one of the best crunch-time QBs in NFL history.

Whatever, Marino reverted to his form of a decade ago Sunday, pulling out a 34-31 victory over the Colts with heroics that included a 48-yard completion to Oronde Gadsden on fourth-and-10. That set up his winning touchdown pass to Gadsden with 27 seconds left and capped a 25-point fourth quarter.

Marino finished with 393 passing yards, the most he's had since Johnson took over from Don Shula in 1996.

His performance came five days after JJ put a major part of the blame for last Monday night's 23-18 loss to Buffalo on Marino, probably the harshest public criticism of No. 13 in his 17 NFL seasons.

"I don't always say the right things, but I say what I feel," said Johnson, whose strength as his coach seems to be the ability to push the right buttons at the right time.

Marino apparently didn't feel Johnson's pressure.

"After 17 years, you don't know how long you're going to play. So you want to keep having fun," he said. "Throwing the winning touchdown with 27 seconds left is still big."

The time is right for Favre
Brett Favre officially joined the senior QB crowd when he turned 30 on Sunday. He pulled out Green Bay's first two wins with TD passes to complete winning drives that began with 1:52 and 1:51 left and were capped by touchdowns with 11 and 12 seconds to go.

So maybe Tampa Bay felt safer Sunday night when it took a four-point lead with 1:45 left.

Sorry. Favre needed only 40 seconds to find Antonio Freeman for the winning TD Sunday night.

Another "senior" QB
"You have to play the guy like he's Barry Sanders," Pittsburgh's Levon Kirkland said after Doug Flutie, another senior quarterback, threw for 261 yards and ran for 39 yards, escaping Pittsburgh's pass rush time after time.

Take that!
Akili Smith, who felt the Cleveland Browns should have drafted him with the No. 1 pick, got his revenge Sunday. In his first start, he led an 80-yard drive that was capped by a 2-yard TD pass to Carl Pickens with five seconds left. That gave Cincinnati, which took Smith with the third overall pick, its first victory and left the Browns winless in five games.

"That's the way I dreamed it up, and dreams do come true," Smith said.

Smith began the drive with the Dawg Pound behind him and raised his arms to invite more jeers. After the winning TD pass he thumped his chest toward the Browns bench, angering quarterback Tim Couch among others.

"It was like he was taunting our crowd, saying we should have picked him over me," Couch said."

Sure. Smith has another talent -- rivalry building. It could put fans in the seats in Cincinnati, providing more money that Mike Brown might spend on players.

Miracles are possible.

Flag football
Tennessee, which leads the AFC Central despite scoring just 20 points more than its opponents, beat Baltimore 14-11 Sunday despite an NFL-record 212 yards in penalties. That's three more than the Bears had against Cleveland in 1951 and more penalty yardage than Arizona had yards (206) in its 14-3 victory over the Giants on Sunday.

"We had every kind of penalty known to man," coach Jeff Fisher said.

Keeping it close
Ten of the 13 games played Sunday were decided by three points or less. That's another indication, along with Philadelphia's victory over Dallas, that absolute parity has arrived.

The previous mark for three-point games was eight of 14 on Nov. 8-9, 1981, and again on Nov. 15-16, 1992.