1. When in doubt, tell the coach, "There must have been some problem with the radio system inside my helmet -- I never heard a thing you said."

2. Fall onto the pile even if you weren't involved in the tackle. That way your mom still has a shot at seeing you on TV.

3. Never, ever take over a head-coaching job from a guy whose name is plastered on the street sign that you pass on the way to work.

	Ray Rhodes inherited a Packers team on the downward swing.

Ray Rhodes knows all about No. 3. A year removed from the end of the Mike Holmgren era in Green Bay, the Packers are stumbling along at 7-6 heading into tonight's huge game against the Vikings in Minneapolis, and people are barking out loud that the difference between that and last season's 11-5 mark is one head coach.

And, hey, that'll happen. It will happen when you work in a market the size of Green Bay, coaching a franchise of such historical significance, taking the reins from the man, Holmgren, who put the pride back in the Pack seemingly for the first time since Vince Lombardi wore white socks with his black shoes along the Lambeau Field sideline.

It will certainly happen when the franchise in question is coming out of a real renaissance, as the Packers are. They went to the Super Bowl after the 1996 season and again after the '97 campaign, and even last season, with Holmgren seemingly already booking his flight to his new destination in Seattle, Green Bay hung up that 11-5 record and had the 49ers beaten in San Francisco before Terrell Owens' great catch near game's end abruptly ended the Pack's year.

So well-built was this franchise that, upon accepting the offer of Packers GM Ron Wolf to succeed Holmgren, Ray Rhodes said all that it needed was some "fine-tuning."

Tune this: After last week's galling 33-31 home loss to resurgent Carolina, a loss magnified by Rhodes' admitted blunder in managing the clock in the game's decisive final minute, things had gotten so dicey around town that Wolf was compelled to issue his coach the dreaded public vote of confidence.

Rhodes' reaction?

"Mr. Wolf came out and made some (supportive) statements, but the bottom line is ... we haven't met some of the expectations that I thought we were capable of meeting," Rhodes said. "Mr. Wolf gave me the opportunity here. I'm very grateful for the opportunity. From my point of view, my expectations and everybody in the organization's expectations, we haven't met them the way that I felt that we should meet them."

Translation: The Packers stink. Not every minute, mind you, and not in every phase of the game. But just enough, and just often enough, to cast a shadow of doubt over the whole enterprise.

Whether this is Rhodes' fault is a question yet without an answer. On the one hand, Rhodes is a defensive specialist in background, and it was his call to hire Emmitt Thomas as Green Bay's defensive coordinator, two facts which look fairly damning when set alongside the Packers' awful recent defense. Against the Panthers, Green Bay often looked disorganized and unprepared -- and those who follow the team closely, such as longtme football writer Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, found numerous blown assignments in examining the film of that defeat.

Rhodes' failure to call a timeout in the final minute of the game, which might have given Brett Favre the ball back with perhaps 35 or 40 seconds remaining, was a giant one. And, of course, there's the matter of the Packers' three home losses this year, an unthinkable total with Holmgren running the show.

That's the one hand. And on the other, there is this intriguing possibility: Maybe the Packers were primed for a fall no matter whose name was stenciled in at the top of the page.

Holmgren's last team in Green Bay had an impressive record, but not so much else. The Packers did win 11 games in 1998, true, but against a schedule rated the fourth-easiest in the NFL. And only one of their victories came against a team that finished with a winning record.

The Packers, who had made a habit of beating the 49ers in San Francisco, were in the end unable to close out that playoff game last January, their defense conking out when it was needed most. Wolf proceeded to lose Holmgren to Seattle, Reggie White and Robert Brooks to retirement, Mark Chmura to injury, some other front-line players to age or free agency -- the talent drain from those elite teams of a couple of years ago is real, and it's significant.

On paper, at least, this simply isn't as good a Green Bay team as its forebears, period. You can argue against hiring Rhodes, with his 30-36-1 career record as a head coach and the dismal way things ended for him in Philadelphia after such a promising start. But even if Holmgren had stayed, this wasn't going to be the best recent Packers team -- and even Holmgren would have had to find a way to make it work without the defensive wizardry of the late Fritz Shurmur, his longtime coordinator.

As for Rhodes, any verdict, even here in Week 15, looks terribly premature. Despite their struggles and their wildly erratic play, the Packers are utterly alive in the "Who Wants It?" NFC. Thanks to Sunday collapses by Tampa Bay and Detroit, Green Bay actually finds itself in a position to win the NFC Central if it can close out with victories over the Vikings, Bucs and Cardinals.

If not? Well, Rhodes says, "This is a business. It's all business. Mr. Wolf knew when he hired me that it was business. I knew when he hired me that it was all business."

And business will be conducted -- right around Lambeau Field, right near that street with Mike Holmgren's name on it. Which makes it, of course, a little bit more than just business.

Mark Kreidler is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, which has a web site at http://www.sacbee.com/. During the 1999 NFL season, he will write a weekly column for ESPN.com, focusing on the Monday Night Football matchup.