The confusion that led to the NFL making a statement about the officiating from the Giants-Seahawks game is that Mike Holmgren never said the NFL admitted officiating mistakes on two Giants touchdowns. Holmgren said the NFL informed him of officiating mistakes that happened during the game. He never claimed the league admitted to him the Amani Toomer touchdown in the back of the end zone was wrong. Holmgren said there wasn't enough indisputable evidence on replay to overturn it. The league backed up that premise by saying Tuesday the Toomer touchdown was properly called. The dispute is over Jeremy Shockey's touchdown in the first half when he didn't have both feet on the ground when he caught the ball. There wasn't enough visual evidence to overturn it, but the league isn't saying the Shockey call was a touchdown. It's just saying replay couldn't overturn it.

Martz making progress: The Mike Martz story is really much ado about nothing. He is feeling better. That's the good news. He's spent the past couple of weeks in San Diego recovering from his heart infection. He's no longer on antibiotics for the heart and he's supposed to visit his doctor early next week. The idea that he was going to come back to coach the team really isn't an issue. His doctor won't let him coach until the end of the year, leaving him available only for the season-ender at Dallas. Martz will sit down with ownership after the season to see if he will be back in 2006. This isn't some situation in which he's being barred from the facility. When Martz was in St. Louis, he'd drop over a couple of days a week. He's just not allowed to have a long workday because of the heart condition.

Cloud lifted for Dillon to emerge: The Patriots' release of running back Michael Cloud is a sign that Bill Belichick expects Corey Dillon to play this week. Dillon has been nagged by ankle and calf problems for almost two months. Dillon missed the Chiefs game because of the calf injury but said he was targeting this week's game against the Jets. The Patriots could be going with only 52 players this week. Before releasing Cloud, they were only $35,000 under the salary cap.

Staying out for the season: Tuesday was the final day to bring players off the physically unable to perform list. Seven didn't make it and will remain out for the rest of the season. Those players are tight end Kevin Everett of the Bills, center Ben Wilkerson of the Bengals, tight end Bennie Joppru of the Texans, defensive Jerome McDougle and linebacker Greg Richmond of the Eagles and wide receiver Derrick Hamilton of the 49ers. The Bengals activated linebacker Nate Webster on the deadline. The Colts activated cornerback Von Hutchins.

Who loves ya, Lenny Walls? It was a little surprising only one team, the Raiders, put in a waiver claim on 6-foot-4 cornerback Lenny Walls, who is going to be one of the more talented young corners available in free agency. He was a restricted free agent at the first-round tender this year of $1.430 million. Teams that like big corners such as the Patriots and Dolphins were interested but were hoping he was going to clear waivers. Walls began the season as a starting cornerback for the Broncos but eventually lost out to rookies.