SPOTLIGHT / A GLANCE AT THIS WEEK IN THE NFL

OUR IRREGULAR SEASON WRAP-UP SHOW

Eighteen weeks of injuries, fumbles, fops, flops and occasional flashes of the fantastic are just about history (the pre -Fox network NFL history), and we feel the need to celebrate.

Regular season? No way. The 1993 season was as irregular as Paul Brown or George Halas could have ever imagined.

The Colts, Falcons, Buccaneers, Cardinals, Browns and the rest of their lot are retired until next summer, but really, weren’t they the fun part of this goofy season?

Oh, the handful of actual good teams continue on proudly, as classically showcased by one of the few good, meaningful games of 1993: the Cowboys-Giants division championship clash.

But this was not a season for great games. This was a season for the mediocre, for backup quarterbacks, for December fades, for, well, losers.

MOST EXCITING / MOST DISAPPOINTING

We start with the positive, just to get it over quickly, which is easily done. Our completely subjective list of the happiest developments of Irregular Season 1993:

1. Two running backs who you never heard of until they kept flashing up on the “SportsCenter” highlights in run-and-shoot offenses: Houston’s Gary Brown (who gained over 1,000 yards in only 10 games) and Atlanta’s Erric Pegram. Brown needed an injury to Lorenzo White, and Pegram just needed Coach Jerry Glanville to have one of his rare bursts of sanity to prove that the run-and-shoot is deadly dull without real running backs.

2. Two old men: Phil Simms of the Giants and Marcus Allen of the Chiefs. We thought both of them left their best healthy days behind them in the ‘80s, but both made it through strong, successful and making fools out of everybody who gave up on them. Joe Montana was slightly less successful at this.

3. All those rookie running backs: Has there ever been a draft class that was so good so fast? Jerome Bettis, Natrone Means, Reggie Brooks, Greg Robinson, Ronald Moore, Terry Kirby. . . . And that’s not even counting the class’ top selection, Garrison Hearst, who may or may not begin and end his career at Wounded Knee.

4. Buddy Ryan and the Houston Oilers: Politically incorrect. Cocky. Intimidating. Downright mean, sometimes. Gee, you mean those qualities actually are helpful in football?

5. Jerry Rice and Sterling Sharpe: Who says wide receivers can’t dominate games?

The most disappointing:

1. Jeff George: Began year as a crybaby holdout, which turned out to be the highlight for him.

2. Barry Foster: Think Walter Payton ever missed a crucial stretch drive because of a sore ankle? Has Emmitt Smith? Barry, running backs get hit. The great ones get up.

3. Anybody in a Redskin uniform.

4. The NFC as a whole: So bad that they let not one, not two, but three mediocre Central Division teams into the postseason. Inexcusable.

Here’s your first-round matchups: No offense Vikings vs. no offense Giants. Wildly inconsistent Packers vs. wildly inconsistent Lions.

5. Jim Everett: You saw it. Made T.J. Rubley, Mark Rypien and Jeff George seem bold, courageous and brilliant by comparison. If he was in any other town, he’d be retired by now. Pretty soon, he will be in another town.

MOMENTS FOR THE TIME CAPSULE

The best of 1993, the worst of 1993:

1. Was Cleveland Coach Bill Belichick content with a team that overachieved to be 5-2 in the first half of the season and a gutty, if not quite graceful quarterback leading the way?

Noooo. Instead, he abruptly released folk-hero Bernie Kosar before Vinny Testaverde was healthy enough to start, and went with Todd Philcox for several painful, season-busting weeks and blamed the fans, the media and probably the military-industrial complex for conspiring against him. Story of the year.

2. Leon Lett: He’s living his own “Groundhog Day” existence, cursed to relive his grand mistakes on national television, every year, over and over.

3. Backup quarterbacks: Randall Cunningham and Dan Marino were lost early in the year, and, eventually, so were both of their teams, who tried to make it happen with the likes of Bubby Brister, Ken O’Brien and Steve DeBerg. Dave Krieg backed up in the shadow of Montana and fell down.

4. You have got to love consistency, and you have got to love the Saints and the Buccaneers.

The Saints, all dressed up with no flair to go, are the epitome of what is dreary about the NFL. They win just enough to lose when it counts.

The Buccaneers, exciting in a sloppy way, lose just enough to win when it means nothing.

4. The Oilers: This year, a 1-4 start is a good thing.

5. The NFC on Fox: Is it true that Rupert Murdoch has the option of striking the NFC Central from existence and replacing them with the “Melrose Place” gang?

WHO NEEDS THE PLAYOFFS WHEN YOU’RE A LEGEND?

Nothing quite becomes a coaching monument more than stomping down the backstretch with a five-game losing streak, we always say.

Not so long ago, those mighty Don Shula Dolphins were 9-2, he was hailed as the greatest coach since Vince Lombardi ( better! ), and the sentimental Shula-ites demanded that the Dolphins be universally acclaimed the AFC’s Super Bowl representative this year.

Hey, didn’t Shula deserve it? Hall of Fame? Get Mt. Rushmore ready!

Oops. Turns out, they had to actually win a game or two to do it, maybe play defense a teeny bit, and all that proved to be too much, All-Time Coaching Record or not.

Needing only one victory among their final five games to clinch a playoff spot, the Dolphins coughed and gagged.

Needing only to defeat the New England Patriots on Sunday, the Dolphins--the Don Shula Dolphins--got tracked down from behind not once but twice in the waning moments by Drew Bledsoe, Michael Timpson, Ben Coates and a whole bunch of other guys not coached by Shula and not anywhere close to a playoff berth.

Just an aside: Since he almost certainly will not be performing at Super Bowl XXVIII in any situation more compelling than kicking field goals at the “NFL Experience” tent, Shula now has gone nine years without a Super berth.

His last trip: after the 1984 season, when his Dolphins were bombed by the 49ers. His last Super win? After the 1973 season . . . 20 years ago.

PATRIOT GAMES

Meanwhile, the Patriots--Bill Parcells, Bledsoe, four-game winning streak and all--might have played their last game in the Boston area.

In the next few days, the Massachusetts legislature is expected to act on a bill to finance a proposed domed stadium in downtown Boston to replace creaky Sullivan Stadium.

If the legislature votes for the stadium, observers say, the Patriots will stay. If it doesn’t, owner James Orthwein might sell the team to St. Louis interests.

After all those bad years, the Patriots may be moving exactly at a time when their future seems brightest.

THE BAD SEEDS

Here come the playoffs, and boy are we ready for them.

Since it’s so fun in the NCAA college basketball tournament, we thought we’d go ahead and draw up some seedings for January Madness:

NFC

1. Dallas: If any other of the playoff teams had Emmitt Smith, they’d be No. 1.

2. San Francisco: Their defense couldn’t handle Dallas last year, and nothing has improved this year.

3. New York: Losing the bye is devastating. Will get even more banged up against Minnesota this weekend.

4. Green Bay: Best of the rest, which doesn’t mean much if Brett Favre is going to throw four interceptions every other week.

5. Minnesota: The defense can win it games, and Jim McMahon won’t lose any. But can you see them winning three times on the road?

6. Detroit: Division-winners, yes. Can they beat Packers back-to-back weeks? Probably not.

AFC

1. Houston: Double-digit winning streaks keyed by a swarming defense and a strong running attack heading into January will always get those post-season gods to smile down at you. Love those battling coordinators, too.

2. Buffalo: It’ll be cold, Houston will jump out to a big AFC Championship Game lead and nope, Frank Reich won’t be able to do it again.

3. Kansas City: Tough game in first round (either Jets or Steelers) makes going the distance a tough go, especially with fragile Montana.

4. Denver: John Elway has the ball, clock running down . . .

5. Raiders: Sorry, if you can’t run the ball, you don’t win many games in January.

6. Pittsburgh: The mental strain of just making it leaves them vulnerable for the Chiefs.

BITS AND PIECES

Though it feels very wrong to put these two in the same sentence, Pittsburgh quarterback Neal O’Donnell took aim at some of Terry Bradshaw’s Steeler records Sunday. O’Donnell finished the season having completed 270 of his 486 passes, breaking Bradshaw’s 1979 team records of 259 completions and 472 attempts. . . . Marshall Faulk, the former San Diego State running back who is expected to be one of the top players selected in this spring’s college draft, was at the Bengals-Saints game in New Orleans. Cincinnati, which finished 3-13, will have the top selection. Asked about playing for the Bengals, Faulk said it would be like college. Marshall, the Bengals are a lot like college.