This is a New York-New York weekend in the NFL, with both the Giants and the Jets scheduled for what figure to be emotional home contests. However, there's a game on the Left Coast about which the league is spreading some unbelievable news.

Yeah, the formerly woebegone San Diego Chargers and Cincinnati Bengals, a couple of franchises known more for pratfalls than perfection, enter Qualcomm Stadium with identical 2-0 records. And not even a call to Miss Cleo and her tarot cards, at $8.95 per minute, could have foreseen such a crucial matchup of one-time misfits.

	Takeo Spikes and the Bengals are smiling for a change in Cincinnati.

That "other" battle of 2-0 teams, with the powerhouse Dolphins and Rams meeting in St. Louis, is compelling. But the Cincinnati-San Diego game is confounding, and it is the unlikely nature of the contest that commands a sort of morbid curiosity factor. What normally would be a candidate for "game of the weak" honors is garnering plenty of attention.

Go ahead, rub your eyes as you scan the standings, because even an industrial-sized vat of Visine won't change the view: The Bengals and Chargers are first-place teams. Then again, fans can be excused their skepticism, since it isn't often the moons are aligned in such a heavenly convergence for these longtime bottom-feeders.

The two teams, after all, combined for just five victories in 2000. The last time both of the franchises advanced to the playoffs in the same year, not counting the strike season of 1982, was the '81 campaign. That was the year the Bengals defeated the Chargers in an AFC championship game featuring a wind-chill factor of minus-59.

Don't count on things being as chilly Sunday in a city that boasts it has America's best climate. Then again, the mere fact the Bengals and Chargers are unbeaten in a season already turned upside down could be enough to melt both polar ice caps, flooding out what appears to be a pretty compelling matchup.

"You don't want to put too much (significance) on a game this early, but the Bengals are unbeaten and playing good football just like us, and it's a pretty big deal getting to 3-0 in this league," said Chargers quarterback Doug Flutie.

Indeed, recent history indicates that a team that breaks from the chute 3-0 is all but sure of a playoff berth. Uh, yes, at the risk of having a squadron of beefy interns burst through the door with straitjackets, we are daring to mention the "P" word with the Bengals and the Chargers. Hey, why not, given the way this wacky season is progressing?

Since 1978, the year in which the NFL adopted a 16-game schedule, 100 teams began a season 3-0, and 80 of those clubs moved on to postseason play. Since 1990, when the league created the current 12-team playoff format, 46 of 57 clubs that began a season 3-0, or 80.7 percent, went to the playoffs. In both instances, the truncated 1982 season, in which a players strike limited the regular season to nine games, was discounted.

In the case of the Bengals and Chargers, both of whom finished last in their respective divisions just three years ago, it might be prudent to hold off on making Super Bowl reservations for a few more weeks. These are, after all, franchises capable of defying even the most empirical statistical data. Cincinnati hasn't been 3-0 since 1990, and San Diego since '94. Prosperity, needless to say, is hardly a shared calling card.

Truth be told, the teams have mostly shared misery and early elimination from the NFL playoff chase in most years.

"But this year is different," said standout linebacker Takeo Spikes, who is just as important to Cincinnati as the more heralded Junior Seau is to the Chargers. "There really is a new attitude here. It used to be we just played not to lose, but now we're going out feeling like we have a chance to win every week."

	“	I think the people here are tired of being doormats, and I'm sure the Chargers feel the same way. Now we're both stepping on people instead of being stepped on. ”
		— Willie Anderson, Bengals tackle

It was chic to predict that the Chargers, just two seasons removed from playing .500 ball, would be dramatically improved in 2001. The purge of quarterback bust Ryan Leaf, in and of itself, was a perfect example of addition by subtraction. But the Chargers also brought in former Buffalo general manager John Butler to head football operations and signed a bevy of high-profile free agents, including Flutie.

Add to that a hardly daunting early-season schedule, one in which the Chargers will not face an AFC West foe until an Oct. 21 date with Denver. The opening contest, against the Redskins, provided an immediate emotional boost and nifty rallying point since offensive coordinator Norv Turner had been fired by Washington last season. And no matter what the pedigree of the San Diego offense, the defense has been rated the past few seasons among the NFL's top dogs.

No one predicted, though, that the Bengals would actually be playing a meaningful game even two games into the season. Their two victories, including last Sunday's upset of the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens, equal as many September wins as the team has mustered in the last four seasons combined. Not since 1995 has Cincinnati managed two opening-month wins.

In training camp, though, it was obvious the Bengals could be better if they just received solid play from the quarterback spot. In two games, Jon Kitna hasn't turned the ball over and the defense is playing spectacularly in stretches. The return of wide receiver Darnay Scott from a broken leg that sidelined him for the 2000 season provides the team a deep complement for offensive centerpieces Peter Warrick and Corey Dillon, who is one of the premier rushers in the NFL.

Not to be overlooked is that coach Dick LeBeau talked management, which previously had purged every player over 30 years of age it seemed, into adding veteran leadership. There were guffaws when the Bengals signed offensive tackle Richmond Webb, for instance. But no one is laughing at Cincinnati's offseason decisions now.

"We've got a lot of high draft choices who are coming into their own, and we mixed in some real leaders," said offensive tackle Willie Anderson. "It's given us a different feel. We feel now like we can shock the world. We did last week, that's for sure.

"I think the people here are tired of being doormats, and I'm sure the Chargers feel the same way. Now we're both stepping on people instead of being stepped on."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.