In 1981, the San Francisco 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals, each 6-10 the previous year, qualified to meet in the 1982 Super Bowl.

	Edgerrin James and the Colts hold a two-game lead in the AFC East.

The 49ers won and went on to win four more titles, coming back to earth this year as they're already 3-7, the first full season since 1980 they'll finish with less than 10 wins.

But the turnarounds by those two teams will look minute if the St. Louis Rams play the Indianapolis Colts for the title this season, something that's at least a decent possibility 10 games into the wacky 1999 season.

Those two teams were a combined 7-25 last season, with the Colts winning three games, the Rams four.

Now?

They're each 8-2 while the Rams have just about wrapped up the NFC West -- they lead Carolina by four games in the division with no one good enough to challenge them. Given the muddled mediocrity of the NFC's other divisions, there's also a good chance they will clinch home field for the playoffs -- a major advantage in their noisy dome.

"The mystique has ended," Rams coach Dick Vermeil said after the Rams, who had lost 17 straight to San Francisco until a 42-20 win in St. Louis earlier this year, beat the 49ers 23-7 Sunday.

"There are a lot of problems in San Francisco right now," Vermeil said. "Maybe it's time for the Rams to dominate."

The Colts, another dome team, have it a lot tougher.

They're tied for first with Miami in the AFC East and have only one easy game left, with expansion Cleveland. Still, with Peyton Manning and Edgerrin James, they've got a realistic shot at the Super Bowl -- if they can win in Miami in two weeks, a game that will probably decide who wins the AFC East, the league's toughest division.

Coming back is sometimes mental for teams that have been down so much -- the Rams are second only to the Bengals in losses this decade and the Colts' high point in Indianapolis was a "Hail Mary" pass that failed at Pittsburgh and kept them from the Super Bowl four years ago.

But Indianapolis, too, has become dominant.

Leading 44-3 in Philadelphia on Sunday, coach Jim Mora lifted Peyton Manning, who had taken every snap in his first 26 professional football games. Not that Mora had lost his competitive edge -- he challenged the official's call on the first touchdown pass of Donovan McNabb's NFL career, one that cut the deficit to 44-10.

"Why let them score if they don't deserve to score?"

That's Mora -- no nonsense.

Before Sunday's game, he suspended two veteran defensive players, Tito Wooten and Shawn King, for unspecified violations of team rules. Both King and Wooten have had troubles before King with the Panthers and Wooten with the Giants -- and Mora wasn't about to let them get away with anything, even if the team was winning.

There's another parallel here.

Mora and Vermeil, both Californians, are very close friends, each soliciting the opinion of the other before making major career decisions.

Vermeil, who had retired to the broadcast booth after the 1982 season, helped Mora land in New Orleans in 1986, when he was the year's most sought-after coaching prospect after winning two of the three titles in the old USFL. Mora talked to Vermeil about coming back, to Indianapolis, after quitting the Saints midway through the 1996 season.

Now the two will probably battle each other for Coach of the Year honors.

And meet in the Super Bowl?

"We've caught up," Vermeil said Sunday after beating the 49ers. "Teams never stay where they are. We're not as bad we used to be."