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Brad Childress paid the ultimate price for his team's poor form earlier this week asas head coach of the Minnesota Vikings.

And there were few people in the United States who felt sorry for the departing coach, who clearly put the needs and wants of an individual above those of his team this season.

By allowing quarterback Brett Favre, 41, to skip most of training camp before returning for a second year with the Vikings, Childress blatantly stated that his team would operate with very different rules for its star players.

That must have led to some resentment in the Vikings locker room this summer. While most guys were sweating it out in the unforgiving heat, Favre was biding his time and waiting for the right moment to make yet another heralded return to the NFL.

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The Oakland Raiders and Washington Redskins boast healthy followings among UK NFL fans, in part, due to their successes during the .

The fans that jumped on the Raiders and Redskins bandwagons during the age of the Rubik's cube and the BMX bike are able to boast of former glories. The two clubs have combined to play in 10 Super Bowls, winning three apiece and they remain among the most recognisable brands in American football.

But the boasting from fans of both teams is certainly not related to recent success.

The Redskins have not played in a . The Raiders went to the title game a little more recently but

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I'm off to Florida this weekend to witness one of the more intriguing debuts in recent NFL history as troubled wide receiver

Myself and Greg Brady will provide live play-by-play coverage of the contest from Sun Life Stadium as the hometown Miami Dolphins look to keep their own play-off ambitions on track following an up-and-down start to the season.

These two teams could very well be battling for the same play-off berth come the New Year and that makes this a massive showdown to kick off the second half of the 2010 campaign.

The Dolphins have survived one of the tougher schedules in the NFL with a record of four wins and four losses but there is a growing sense of angst in South Florida given that Tony Sparano's team is still crying out for consistency.

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With the at Wembley Stadium consigned to the history books, I can finally pause for breath and take stock of the NFL as we enter the final two months of the regular season.

As we all suspected heading into 2010, the race to reach Super Bowl XLV in North Texas (why it is not officially labelled as a Dallas Super Bowl is beyond me) is going to feature many teams.

And the eventual winner may be hiding somewhere in the middle of the pack right now. When teams are as closely matched as they are in the NFL at the moment, it can often be the club that gets hottest at the right time who emerges with the big prize.

There have been some high-profile casualties this season as the Dallas Cowboys, Minnesota Vikings, Arizona Cardinals and San Diego Chargers have combined to post a record of nine wins and 20 losses. It bears repeating that these four teams reached the final eight on the road to last year's NFL title game.

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The game might not have been much to write home about for the first 40 minutes or so, but at Wembley Stadium was another unmitigated success for the NFL.

More than 83,000 fans were on hand as the 49ers defeated the Broncos by a 24-16 scoreline in an eventual thriller that had a mix of spectacular plays, big hits and costly mistakes, and the British supporters remain passionate and more committed than ever.

For proof of that you only had to be in central London the day before the International Series game as more than 38,000 fans packed into Trafalgar Square for a good old-fashioned .

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