Denver Is in Right Position

The New York Jets made the most major mistakes in the four-game second round of the NFL playoffs last weekend.

Thus, it’s likely that the Denver Broncos will join the Minnesota Vikings as third-round winners today en route to the Super Bowl in Miami Jan. 31.

The long-range Super Bowl pick has to be Denver because of the Broncos’ commanding edge in title-game experience. The Super Bowl is a pressure cooker the first time. But to sports fans, the interesting point is that the game will be played by two passing teams--unless the impossible happens and Atlanta upsets Minnesota today.

In previous years, good running teams often made the Super Bowl one of the dullest games of the season. The event was widely anticipated, then just as widely deplored.

By contrast recently--ever since other NFL coaches, following the lead of San Francisco’s Bill Walsh, have learned how to pass--passing teams have made it a show.

It’s true that this winter’s survivors are all equipped with great passers and great runners, but only Falcon Coach Dan Reeves would rather run.

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Parcells changes: Against Jacksonville last week, the Jets came out passing. That conformed to the postseason format of their tough-guy coach, Bill Parcells, who always turns into a passing coach in the playoffs.

And it was a good thing for the Jets that he did. For no matter how often they scored, they kept making mistakes, and the Jaguars kept coming back, so that in the end it was only 34-24 Jets.

If Parcells had strategically tried to control the ball with his superb running back, Curtis Martin--as he has often implied he prefers to do--the big-play Jaguars would have got him.

Instead, the Jets first established the pass with Vinny Testaverde and Keyshawn Johnson, and then used Martin as a counterpuncher, which, in an air age, is the way to play football. One result was that Martin gained 124 yards.

Meanwhile, the Jaguars tried to establish the run. Led by an old-fashioned run-first coach, Tom Coughlin, the Jaguars also have a superb ballcarrier, Fred Taylor. But because the Jets knew that Taylor would be coming at them, they stuffed him, repeatedly. The Jaguars therefore kept misfiring and losing possession.

The game was won in the third quarter, when the Jets called five consecutive passes the first time they had the ball. After Testaverde’s passing had carried the Jets to the Jaguar one-yard line, Martin ran it over, making it 24-7.

The next time the Jets had the ball in the third quarter, they called six passes in their first seven plays. From the one-yard line, Martin ran it over again, making it 31-14.

So the real matchup of the game was Testaverde’s arm against Taylor’s feet. And the arm won. Today, the matchup will be Testaverde’s arm against John Elway’s--with Martin and Terrell Davis as the counterpunchers.

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Easy this time: When the Broncos won the AFC’s other second-round game last week, routing run-minded Miami at Denver, 38-3, they illustrated two truths about football.

First, in winning so handily after a strange regular season--they started 13-0 before losing to the inferior Giants and Dolphins--the Broncos showed how hard it is these days to win them all.

When the 1972 Dolphins did it, the league was less competitive, the season was shorter, there were few good passers, and there were no passing teams. The ’72 Dolphins simply ran everybody down. Today’s Broncos can be--and have been--bitten by good passers.

Second, in playing so aggressively, the Broncos showed that at this time of year, rejuvenation comes from rest. They’d had two weeks off. When they lost twice in December, the Broncos had worn themselves out winning 13 in a row. Emotionally, such a streak can be a downer.

By contrast, when the 15-1 Minnesota Vikings lost in the eighth week this season--at Tampa Bay--they took the heat off themselves emotionally, physically, and psychologically. It didn’t seem so to the Vikings at the time, but the season’s eighth game is exactly the right game for a budding unbeaten team to lose.

The question this week is whether Elway and Davis can outscore Testaverde, Martin and Keyshawn Johnson. The Jets with Johnson have one more superstar than the Broncos, who have the home field. All that gives the game an overtime look.

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Atlanta lives: The San Francisco 49ers lost the Atlanta game on the first play from scrimmage last week when 49er running back Garrison Hearst went down with a broken leg.

That’s the whole explanation for the Falcons’ two-point decision, 20-18. No other Super Bowl contender has yet lost a player of comparable caliber.

If the Broncos or Jets lose Terrell Davis or Curtis Martin today, they’ll know what happened to San Francisco.

Otherwise last week, Atlanta’s Coach Reeves, with more good players than the 49ers could field, kept the 49ers in the game by running the ball with Jamal Anderson instead of passing it more frequently with quarterback Chris Chandler and his solid receivers, Terance Mathis and Tony Martin.

In the last three minutes, therefore, after quarterback Steve Young had run for a 49er touchdown, the game was close. But 49er kicker Wade Richey shanked the kickoff out of bounds and the Falcons took over on their 40-yard line.

With a decent kickoff, and considering the way Reeves was sitting on the ball, the 49ers might have regained possession in good field position with a minute or two remaining--time enough for Young to work the ball into field-goal range.

As it was, when Young did get it back, only 38 seconds remained, and the 49ers were hemmed in on their six-yard line--too far to go, too little time.

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No huddles: As the Vikings won their 41-21 breather in the last playoff game last week, much of the drama was provided by Arizona’s no-huddle attack. It seemed to bother the Minnesota defense, even though the Cardinals were directed by an inexperienced quarterback, Jake Plummer, whose wide receivers were also less experienced and probably less capable than any others in the second round.

Earlier in the ‘90s, it was Buffalo’s Jim Kelly who pioneered the hurry-up or no-huddle offense, which took the Bills to four consecutive Super Bowls.

Arizona’s objective was the same as Kelly’s. In an era of specialists, the no-huddle keeps the other team’s specialists off the field. The offense, instead of huddling, stands around with the 11 players it wants in the game, thus denying the defense the chance to send in the 11 it wants. If the defense tries to substitute, the offense quickly runs a play, thereby winning a five-yard penalty.

Accordingly, if operated by better players, the Arizona no-huddle, as devised by offensive coordinator Marc Trestman, could have kept the Minnesota game close enough to win with a break or two.

What’s more, a similar approach might give Atlanta its best shot today although, at Minneapolis, the Falcons will also have to collar Randy Moss, Randall Cunningham and all those other Minnesota players, and that’s asking much too much.

Championship Sunday

NFC

Atlanta at Minnesota

Today, 9:30 a.m., Ch. 11

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AFC

N.Y. Jets at Denver

Today, 1 p.m., Ch. 2