Prediction: Washington to Foot Bills

Rest assured, trouble awaits the Washington Redskins later this month at the first Minneapolis Super Bowl, almost all of it outside the Metrodome.

Outside is where the American Indian Movement demonstrators will congregate to protest this month’s racial-slur-with-a-fan-club, a sports nickname so anachronistically offensive that the Atlanta Braves’ tomahawk chop looks positively PC by comparison.

Inside is where the Buffalo Bills will play the Redskins on Jan. 26 for the championship of professional football, non-Canadian division.

Outside is where the best case against the Redskins is going to be made.

What a football team: Out of reach in 1992, out of touch since 1932.

The Washington (Insert Your Own Doubtlessly More Enlightened Nickname Here) are going to win the Super Bowl, in case another reminder was required after Sunday’s conference championship games. Those scores again:

Washington 41, Detroit 10.

Buffalo 10, Denver 7.

Washington blew out the Lions the way everyone outside of Michigan expected, the way everyone everywhere expected Buffalo to blow out Denver. Washington delivered, and then some; the score would have been 47-10 if Alvoid Mayes’ fumble recovery-and-runback hadn’t been negated by a premature whistle. Buffalo? The Bills nearly got lost in the mail.

This was Marv Levy’s offensive head count before Sunday’s AFC final at Rich Stadium:

“Jim Kelly?” “Here.”

“Thurman Thomas?” “Here.”

“Andre Reed?” “Here.”

“James Lofton?” “Here.”

“Touchdowns?”

“Um, I said: Touchdowns?”

At home, in the biggest game of their season, spurred on by a nation mortified by the prospect of another Bronco Super Bowl, the Bills produced one touchdown in four quarters, and it was scored by Carlton Bailey. Carlton Bailey plays linebacker. He scored on an interception after a deflection. He scored by stumbling 13 yards with the football, and barely got there at that.

He scored when a wounded John Elway, hobbling around the pocket with a badly bruised thigh, threw something called “a middle screen pass” in the middle, all right--between the red helmets of Bailey and Buffalo nose tackle Jeff Wright. Wright swatted at the ball and popped it into the air. Bailey swatted at the ball, too, and managed to grab it.

Then, he eluded a lame attempted tackle by Elway at the Denver five-yard line and staggered into the end zone. The Buffalo Scoring Machine. One touchdown, a pittance equaled by Gary Kubiak, the Denver backup quarterback who played a quarter and a half and passed for more yardage than either Elway or Kelly.

This championship game came down to field goals, which meant Buffalo won in an upset. Scott (No Good) Norwood kicked one. David (Does Not) Treadwell missed three. Because he was better than zero, Norwood became a hero.

Actually, in the pursuit of accuracy in journalism, Treadwell did not miss three. He hit two--two uprights, the right one right after the right one. Ping! Pong! First from 42 yards, then from 37. Give Treadwell another 10 years and he couldn’t have done it again if he tried. Amazing feat.

Amazing feet.

So Norwood lives to kick in another Super Bowl and Elway is spared the grief of 0-for-4 immortality in football games bearing Roman numerals. On occasion, life is fair.

Now that Buffalo has displaced Denver, it can set about replacing Denver. Denver is the only AFC team to have lost four Super Bowls--and to have lost two of them in a row. Minnesota is the only NFC team to lose two Super Bowls in a row and this year, the Vikings’ Metrodome will house the Super Bowl.

For Buffalo, NFL runner-up in 1990 and counting, settings do not get more appropriate.

Washington will win on Jan. 26 because Mark Rypien does not have the kind of afternoons Kelly had on Sunday; because Gerald Riggs inside the five-yard line means touchdown, not field goal; because Chip Lohmiller in the clutch means field goal, not wide right; because if Gary Clark doesn’t hurt you deep, Art Monk or Ricky Sanders will; because the Washington defense held Barry Sanders to one net yard rushing after halftime; and because Joe Gibbs was detected smiling on the sidelines against the Lions, a full two weeks too soon.

Gibbs smiles because he knows. He knows what his team knows, what Buffalo knows, what the rest of the civilized world knows, what the people who actually look forward to Bud Bowl IV--i.e., the rest of the uncivilized world--know.

This is the fourth Washington team to reach a Super Bowl since 1982, maintaining the Washington-San Francisco-New York NFC axis that has been interrupted only once (Chicago, in 1985) during the last 12 years. It may also be the best, considering the current 16-2 record and 65-17 point differential so far in the playoffs.

The rings are coming.

Only 12 more shopping days until the Bills are wrung.

Hail to the Whatchamacallits.