The surprise team of the young season is the Minnesota Vikings, who already have more wins than in all of 2011. The Vikes opened 1-1, then posted three straight victories, including over San Francisco and Detroit, playoff teams from last season. What is Minnesota's secret? The Vikings threw out complex schemes and went simple.

Which raises the question -- has football gotten too complicated?

Nearly all teams now use multiple checks, "sims" and audibles at the line of scrimmage. Offenses have dozens of formations with hundreds of possible plays. Defenses have multiple fronts, personnel packages for every down-and-distance, complicated twists and rotating coverages. Yet for all this complexity, game statistics have changed only a little in the last half century.

In the end, football is about how you line up and play. Does complexity accomplish anything? Sunday, no one at all from the Atlanta Falcons covered Santana Moss of the Redskins on his 77-yard touchdown catch. Maybe a simpler scheme would suffice.

Then there's the profusion of coaches. The Vikings employ 22 coaches, most in the NFL. Having 22 coaches sounds like having five girlfriends -- way too many to juggle. Players couldn't possibly relate to 22 coaches, while the coaches would engage in busy work by drawing up ever-more-complicated plans, in order to justify their presence.

Does a football team really need separate coaches for inside and outside linebackers? Two defensive line coaches and two wide receivers coaches? (That's the actual for Minnesota.) The Lions have surrendered four kick-return touchdowns in four games, yet employ two coaches who do nothing but special teams. Maybe Detroit would perform better on special teams with fewer special-teams coaches! The Raiders have 20 coaches, including an offensive coordinator, a senior offensive assistant, an offensive quality control coach and two offensive line coaches. Yet their offense is 29th-ranked and their record is 1-3. Maybe they would perform better with fewer coaches and simpler schemes!

There is so much money in football today that the temptation is to hire more coaches, watch more film, design more schemes, add pages to the playbook. Anyone who's ever worked in a large organization knows that too much weight at the top prevents organizations from functioning smoothly. If the State Department and Defense Department had half as many senior managers, they would perform better. In big organizations, senior personnel gum up the works because they must justify their paychecks -- everybody wants input into everything. In sports, the more coaches, the more schemes and the more egos that must be mollified.

Maybe teams should just line up and play!

He's Canton-bound -- and if he were starting out today, he'd be waived before he became a star. Harry How/Getty Images

For years a question about football has been -- what's the next innovation? Recent innovations on offense and defense have consistently led to increased complexity. Perhaps the next new thing will be simplification.

In Hall of Fame news, Drew Brees threw himself in, breaking the Johnny Unitas record for consecutive games with a touchdown pass. If Brees were coming out of college today, is there any chance he would have stuck around long enough to become a star?

For his first three seasons, Brees struggled to learn the NFL ropes, throwing 31 interceptions versus 29 touchdown passes. The news-cycle pace of life has accelerated so much, merely in the short time since Brees joined the NFL, that today, he wouldn't have had a career beyond his third season. Brees would have been benched, or waived out of football, before he blossomed.

In safety news, the league just debuted a commercial in which Tom Brady, Ray Lewis, Lewis's mother, NFL vice president Carl Johnson and a medical researcher talk about plans to make football safer. Except Ray Lewis's mother is not his mother -- she is an actress. More importantly, the medical researcher is not a medical researcher. He's an actor. The commercial is phony.

Wearing a white lab coat and standing in what appears to be a research facility, the fake scientist talks confidently about progress. But he's just reading lines; he might as well be saying, "I'm putting Bruce Willis in my time machine." The phony doctor declares the NFL will donate $100 million to brain trauma research over the next 10 years. Last month the league pledged $30 million to the National Institutes of Health. The league is asking credit for money it hasn't actually given yet.

But the key thing is the commercial deceives the audience. The league does not disclose that the "doctor" presented is a fake.

There are highly credible concussion researchers at Boston University, the Cleveland Clinic, the University of Pittsburgh and elsewhere. So in a spot with real football players and a real NFL official, why was an actor falsely presented as a scientist? Perhaps no genuine, credible researcher was willing to toe the desired PR line. League spokesman Greg Aiello told me an actor was used "to ensure that it was an effective commercial." Truthfulness is effective; the purpose of phoniness is to deceive the public.

In standings news, we haven't even reached United Nations Day, let alone Halloween, and already there is no possible pairing of undefeated teams remaining in the regular season. Meanwhile, San Francisco has won its last two by a combined 79-3. Um, that's adequate.

Stats of the Week No. 1: Bears defensive back Charles Tillman has more career touchdowns (seven) than Bears wide receivers Earl Bennett, Dane Sanzenbacher or Alshon Jeffrey.

What's wrong with this picture? AP Photo/Brian Garfinkel

Stats of the Week No. 2: The Patriots have defeated the Broncos three times in the last 10 months.

Stats of the Week No. 3: On the Colts' game-winning final drive: 15 yards to Reggie Wayne, 12 yards to Wayne, 15 yards to Wayne, 18 yards to Wayne, four-yard touchdown to Wayne.

Stats of the Week No. 4: Michael Vick and Matt Cassel have combined to commit 25 turnovers.

Stats of the Week No. 5: Green Bay and New Orleans have followed a combined 30-2 streak with a combined 3-9 streak.

Stats of the Week No. 6: In the last two games, the Bills' defense has allowed 97 points, 1,201 yards of offense and seven 100-yard performances.

Stats of the Week No. 7: The Rams have a winning record for the first time since November 2006.

Stats of the Week No. 8: Redskins placekicker Billy Cundiff has missed four of his last six field goal attempts.

Stats of the Week No. 9: Against Stanford, the University of Arizona gained 617 yards on offense, made 38 first downs, scored 48 points, and lost.

Stats of the Week No. 10: The Jets have three offensive touchdowns in their last four games.

Sweet Play of the Week: San Diego leading 7-0, New Orleans faced third-and-6 on the Bolts' 40. Devery Henderson, split right, ran an out-and-up. Highly drafted cornerback Quentin Jammer bit so badly, he'll need to see a dentist. Highly drafted Eric Weddle, the safety on that side, bit so badly on a middle fake that he will need new cleats, since his appeared glued to the turf. Henderson took a perfect strike in stride with no defender within 10 yards, and Brees had the record for consecutive games with a touchdown pass.

There's a measure of luck involved in any sports record that involves a long streak, and who cares if touchdowns come by air or ground? But having the record is sweet.

They chanted, "Go FORWARD on fourth-and-goal, go FORWARD!" Jeremy Brevard/US Presswire

Sour Play of the Week: A week ago, Carolina lost to Atlanta when coach Ron Rivera would not go for it on fourth-and-1 late. Now it's Seattle 16, Carolina 10, the Panthers facing fourth-and-goal on the Bluish Men Group's 1 just inside four minutes. Yes, they're going for it! Cam Newton play-faked, rolled right and retreated to the 12 before launching a terrible pass that fell incomplete. You need 1 yard, why sprint backward?

Sweet 'N' Sour Plays of the Week: Jersey/A first-round draft choice David Wilson fumbled on his first carry in the NFL, and had since been relegated to the doghouse. But you've got to fumble to be a Giants tailback! Jersey/A leading Cleveland 34-20 with six minutes remaining, Wilson ran untouched 40 yards for his first pro touchdown. That it was an untouched off-tackle rush -- pretty rare -- made the down sweet.

Score Giants 34, Browns 17, Cleveland faced fourth-and-3 on the Jersey/A 23 late in the third quarter. The visitors had jumped to a quick 14-0 lead, then the home team, renowned for not showing up 'til halftime, roared back. Don't send in the placekicker! Pulling to a 34-20 deficit on the road late against a team that owns the fourth quarter isn't going to help. The Browns needed to seize the momentum, and if risk was involved, you're down by 17 points against the defending champions. Victories don't come in the mail, play to win! As the very sour field goal attempt boomed, TMQ wrote the words "game over" in his notebook.

"Alpha, alpha! Hey 26, your fly is open!" Greg M. Cooper/US Presswire

Sneaky Play of the Week: New England leading Denver 17-7 in the third quarter, the Patriots faced second-and-10 on the Broncos' 17. Tom Brady shouted and gestured, seeming to call a checkoff and making blocking assignments -- "52 is the mike!" was one instruction he shouted, meaning the middle linebacker. Then he barked a hard count, and Denver jumped offside. What hard-count word did Brady bark? "Warren!" Denver employs defensive tackle Ty Warren. Hearing their teammate's name made the Broncos defensive line jump.

The Patriots are pass-wacky, right? That's the conventional wisdom. At 165 yards per game, New England is third in the NFL in rushing. In consecutive games versus the Bills and Broncos, Brady has seen backed-off nickel and dime looks intended to frustrate the pass, and responded by running the ball. How sneaky! Between the usual drip-drip-drip passing of the Flying Elvii offense, and lots of rushes, New England beat Denver with clock-control drives of 16 plays, 16 plays, 14 plays and 12 plays.

Tim Riggins, Brooklyn Decker Defeat Space Armada: The big-budget flick "Battleship" had Taylor Kitsch (Riggins on "Friday Night Lights") leading an improbable counterattack against a space alien invasion that begins off Hawaii. The aliens had faster-than-light starcruisers with force fields. The Earthlings had a shirtless hunk, a bikini model and some geezers on an obsolete battleship. The aliens never stood a chance!

"Riggins, after you defeat the space aliens, maybe you can explain how you became second in command on a large warship just a couple years after being an unemployed drunk." Universal

The aliens cannot locate the good guys at night -- the super-advanced invaders have antigravity devices but don't know about infrared or radar. The climax scene involved elaborately maneuvering the Missouri, commissioned 1944, abeam of the main alien vessel, so the old battlewagon could fire a point-blank broadside from her 16-inch guns. This, though in the Pacific in World War II, battleships rarely were able to get within many miles of enemy capital ships, as air power supplanted cannons in ocean warfare.

The movie begins with exposition about NASA in 2005 discovering an Earth-like planet that is nearby in galactic terms, then in 2006, beaming a greetings message, which attracts an attack. That would mean the alien world must be within six light-years, the maximum distance a radio message could travel from 2006 to 2012. While little is known about planets in the bulk of the Milky Way, the "neighborhood" near our solar system has been mapped and it's unlikely there is an Earth-like world within six light years. Plus if the aliens lived close by galactic standards, and possessed faster-than-light travel, they would have found us long ago.

Needless to say, Hollywood blockbusters do not aspire to realism. But the opening scene of "Battleship" raises a question that needs debate. Now that the Kepler probe, launched in 2009 and designed to detect other worlds, has begun discovering "exoplanets" in great numbers, it seems only a matter of time until an Earth-like place is located. When that time comes, should we send a message?

In 1974, astronomer Carl Sagan and colleagues used the Arecibo radio telescope to beam a message toward the Great Cluster, a star group 25,000 light-years away. The message will not arrive for 25,000 years. Should any intelligent species receive and understand the message, then respond via radio, a total of 50,000 years will pass before the reply. By then the federal budget will be balanced!

The Arecibo radio telescope. If we knew there was another Earth-like world, should we send a message? AP Photo/Brennan Linsley

Sagan's message used binary code to depict stick figures of men and women, had chemical formulas to show that the message was a product of intelligence (men and women surely don't prove that) and included a schematic of the solar system. Most likely the message will never be heard. If it is and a reply sent, human society will have changed so much in 50,000 years -- assuming humanity exists -- that the impact is impossible to project. If an advanced species hearing the message possesses faster communications than radio and sends an immediate reply, this still will happen so far in the future that human society by then may be unrecognizable to us.

But suppose an Earth-like world is discovered within the Gliese zone, the stars known to exist close to us in galactic terms. What about contacting a "nearby" world?

Of course there may be no intelligent species to hear, or if the message is understood, the other world might not wish to reveal itself. If radio contact were established, even problems such as a century-long response lag -- 50 years to reach a world 50 light-years distant, 50 years for the reply -- could be worth the effort. Advanced aliens might give a valuable yes-or-no answer to questions such as, "Is fusion a practical energy source?" Imagine the import of an alien to answer the yes-or-no question, "Does your society believe in God?" And if meaningful communication is hard to establish -- we could be as mysterious to them as they to us -- simply knowing Earth is not alone would have profound relevance for human thought.