When former Sen. George Allen, son of a former Redskins coach and a college football player himself, failed to materialize as a presidential candidate, someone had to pick up the mantle of the candidate with the bad football metaphors.

It turns out John McCain is the guy.

His campaign today sent supporters an e-mail from former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, who employed a passel of football analogies in his appeal for financial contributions to the campaign. Sunday is the end of the third reporting period for contributions.

Among the Staubach gems:

* "It's time to get in the game right now. We can't do our job in the fourth quarter unless we play hard in the third."

* "These next seven days are the last chance we have as a team of McCain supporters to huddle up and get ready for this fundraising deadline."

* "The clock is ticking and we're getting ready to make a final push to victory."

Feel free to add your own football analogies for the McCain campaign, but try to avoid comparisons to the Redskins. That's just too easy.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times