NEW NFL COACHES ARE SCARRED ALREADY.

Team owners across the NFL awoke Monday, in satin sheets dampened by cold sweat, to the realization their quick fixes will not be quick and might not be fixes.

We're talking about head-coaching changes.

Six NFL teams, absentees from last year's playoffs, switched coaches in the offseason, hoping to see ticket sales spike, sour veterans smile and the playbook crackle with clarity.

Fresh optimism abounded. Until the games started.

Sunday, those new coaches, four NFL rookies and two retreads, all debuted with ghastly defeats.

To be fair, give credit to two of them, the Kansas City Chiefs' Dick Vermeil and the New York Jets' Herman Edwards, in that their teams managed to score touchdowns. The four others can make no such boast.

Combined, the six debuting coaches were outscored 163-69 and they went 1-4 (with one push) against the point spreads.

``I said all along I wasn't a miracle man,'' Vermeil was quoted saying after the Chiefs lost for the third year in a row at home to the hated Oakland Raiders. ``It takes time to build a football team.''

Surprising, isn't it, how easy it is to forget that.

The same applies to college football.

USC might have forgotten that a new coach is not necessarily an instant answer. The Trojans players fell in love with Pete Carroll in summer practice. After all, he's the man who is not Paul Hackett. They won the opener against San Jose State.

Then they ran into a real opponent in Kansas State last Saturday and lost 10-6, and USC found out how much hasn't changed.

Perhaps Carroll should take consolation in the fact he has company.

Twenty-three Division 1-A colleges changed coaches in the offseason, including USC, Arizona and Arizona State of the Pacific-10 Conference. Five of those teams are off to better starts than they were a year ago. Seven are worse.

This is a major disappointment to the fans and to the men who did the hiring but a major fact of life to the coaches.

``When you come to a new program, you inherit guys who are used to doing things a certain way,'' Arizona State's Dirk Koetter said Monday on the phone from Tempe, discussing new coaches' challenges in making immediate impacts.

Koetter is 1-0 going into Arizona State's game against UCLA at the Rose Bowl on Saturday night. Dan Hawkins, Koetter's replacement at Boise State, is 0-2 with a team that opened 2-0 last season.

``They're used to the way they eat their pregame meals, how they dress, how they wear their socks, how they tape their shoes,'' Koetter said. ``(When you're) trying to implement some new stuff, there are always bumps in the road.''

Sunday, there were no roads bumpier than the ones in New York (where Edwards replaced Al Groh, who left to coach the University of Virginia), Kansas City (where Vermeil replaced the fired Gunther Cunningham), Buffalo (Gregg Williams in, Wade Phillips out), Cleveland (Butch Davis in, Chris Palmer out), Washington (Marty Schottenheimer in, Norv Turner out) and Detroit (Marty Mornhinweg in, Gary Moeller out).

Those six teams went 4-2 in their season openers a year ago.

This year:

--Jets fans began booing in the second quarter and stormed the Giants Stadium exits early in the fourth after watching Indianapolis' Chukie Nworkorie run 95 yards with a recovered fumble to secure Edwards' 45-24 loss. ``It's like joining the Army, and you go through basic training, and you get ready to go to war, and you go to war with your gun jammed,'' Jets running back Curtis Martin told The New York Times.

--Kansas City gave up 18 consecutive points to the Raiders and Vermeil lost 27-24 on Sebastian Janakowski's field goal with with 15 seconds on the clock. ``The last time coach Vermeil was on the field (with St. Louis), he won the world championship. You don't want to bring him back to the game this way,'' Chiefs quarterback Trent Green was quoted saying.

--Buffalo quarterback Rob Johnson, who was supposed to be helped by the Bills' new West Coast offense, threw three interceptions in a game for the first time since his USC days and was sacked five times in Williams' 24-6 loss at home to New Orleans.

--Cleveland was outplayed in a battle of special teams and Davis lost 9-6 at home to Seattle as Rian Lindell kicked a 52-yard field goal with three seconds left. ``We never win the close ones,'' Browns receiver Kevin Johnson was quoted saying at what was supposed to be the dawn of a giddy new era.

--Washington was a complete mess in Schottenheimer's 30-3 loss at San Diego, during which the new coach benched quarterback Jeff George, promising continued controversy.

--Detroit fell behind 21-0 at Green Bay and the Mornhinweg era began with a 28-6 loss. ``Things are going to change,'' Mornhinweg said.

Things are going to change in all six cities, all right. The question is whether they'll change before these coaches are shuffled out, too.

For now, NFL fans, don't worry about the replacement officials. Worry about the replacement head coaches.

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(color) Marty Schottenheimer of the Washington Redskins was among six new NFL coaches who experienced setbacks on Sunday.

Orlin Wagner/Associated Press