It’s Garbage Time in Pro Football
T his week in the NFL . . .
CHICAGO--The trash-talking Rams meet their match at Soldier Field, where Chicago Bear offensive linemen begin to loudly chant, “5-11! 3-13! 6-10! 5-11! 4-10!”--the Rams’ won-lost records for the past five seasons. Discombobulated, the Rams lose, 24-0, as Jerome Bettis, needing 30 yards to reach 1,000 for the season, is held to 29 yards in 39 carries. After the game, Ram trainers pry loose the hands cupped over the ears of safety Toby Wright and wrap his shivering body in a flannel blanket. “He’s a rookie,” veteran Anthony Newman explains. “He’s never heard anything like this. People talk trash in college, but there, at least, they have a code of decency.”
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SEATTLE--The Raiders edge the Seahawks, 8-7, to remain in playoff contention despite a sub-par seven penalties, leaving them at 147 for the season, one shy of the 1989 Houston Oilers’ all-time record. Raider Coach Art Shell, trying to hide his disappointment, sets his jaw and tells reporters, “We always said this thing would go right down to the wire.”
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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.--Amid intermittent hail, sleet, snow and boos, the Chargers lose to the Jets at Giants Stadium, 2-0, continuing their quest to become the league’s first team to open a season 6-0 and then miss the playoffs. In San Diego, weekend-long partying over the announcement of Tom Werner’s sale of the Padres ends abruptly at 1:01 p.m. (PST).
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PITTSBURGH--The two best teams in the AFC meet at Three Rivers Stadium, pitting Vinny Testaverde against Neil O’Donnell at quarterback, Leroy Hoard against John L. Williams at best available running back and Derrick Alexander against Yancey Thigpen at go-to wide receiver. In San Francisco, post-Super Bowl ticker-tape parade tickets go on sale.
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PHILADELPHIA--For the second time in four seasons, quarterback Randall Cunningham is benched by the Philadelphia Eagles’ head coach. Then it was Buddy Ryan; it is Rich Kotite today. After the game, Cunningham announces he’s accepting applications for new Philadelphia Eagles head coach and will interview a short list of five candidates some time in January.
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TEMPE, Ariz.--Today’s victory by the Cardinals over the Bengals, coupled with one more Arizona victory next Saturday against Atlanta, will send Buddy Ryan’s team to the NFC playoffs with a 9-7 record. The Rams, who beat Arizona amid much anti-Ryan crowing on opening day, have no comment, seeing as how they were eliminated from NFC playoff consideration seven days ago.
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ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.--Drew Bledsoe throws for three touchdowns and Marion Butts runs for two more as New England defeats Buffalo, 35-31, to eliminate the Bills from the AFC playoff race. “You have liberated the Super Bowl and saved this country’s national pastime,” President Clinton tells the winners in postgame conference calls. “Truer Patriots this nation has never known.”
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WASHINGTON.--Today’s Tampa Bay-Washington game originally was to have matched the two premier quarterbacks in last April’s draft, Trent Dilfer and Heath Shuler, except Dilfer hasn’t been able to beat out Craig Erickson and Shuler only recently reclaimed the starter’s job from Gus (Rhymes With “Tree Rot”) Frerotte. At 5-9 and 2-12, respectively, the Bucs and the Redskins are jockeying for position in next April’s draft, to see who selects Kerry Collins and who gets Steve McNair.
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KANSAS CITY, Mo.--As Haywood Jeffires and the Houston Oilers bid to become the first NFL team to slide from 12-4 one season to 1-15 the next, Jeffires arrives in Kansas City doing some serious second-guessing over his decision not to sign with the Rams last summer. “Could have been 4-12,” he thinks, kicking himself. “Could have had some stability at quarterback. Could have a nice new house in St. Louis.”
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MILWAUKEE--Green Bay plays host to Atlanta in what will be the final game the Packers play in Milwaukee County Stadium, and quite possibly the final professional sporting event ever held there, unless you want to count the 1995 Milwaukee Scab Brewers, as Bud Selig sincerely hopes you will.
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INDIANAPOLIS--The Dolphins, the only team in the NFL where Achilles’ tendon tears are contagious, make Don Shula the league’s all-time leader in regular-season victories by beating the Colts today. Afterward, jubilant Dolphin players will attempt to carry Shula off the field, will grunt and strain, and will finally have to let go of the rear bumper. “I’m going out the same way I came in,” Shula says from the flat bed of the Dolphins’ injury cart, instructing Pete Stoyanovich to get in and drive already.
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NEW ORLEANS--The Cowboys rout the Saints on Monday night, 41-6, and Sports Illustrated decides to devote 60 more pages to “Another Week In The Life Of The Dallas Cowboys,” primarily to push such items from its winter products catalog as the Cowboys’ Double-Star Jersey, the Cowboys’ Heavyweight Double Star Jacket, the Cowboys’ Single-Star Coaches Shirt and “The Cowboys’ Greatest Hits On Jim Everett’s Ribs, Knees And Backside,” now available on VHS.