Class Reunion

When Gary Anderson had the Vikings’ ticket to the Super Bowl on his foot and a roaring Metrodome crowd behind him late in the fourth quarter Sunday, the Falcons gulped--but they didn’t choke.

“The crowd started yelling, ‘Super Bowl!’ and I was thinking, ‘The game is far from over. What part of the game are we out of?”’ Atlanta cornerback Michael Booker said. “I was thinking there was too much time left. We didn’t let the crowd bother us. We didn’t let the Vikings bother us. We didn’t want to go out and beat ourselves. We let them beat themselves.”

Anderson’s first miss in 47 tries, a 38-yard, left-drifting kick, gave Atlanta’s “Dirty Birds” a clean opening to reach unprecedented heights and win their first NFC championship.

Continuing a brilliant season in an otherwise mediocre career, quarterback Chris Chandler led the Falcons on a 71-yard drive that tied the score with 49 seconds left in regulation and in overtime led them into range for a 38-yard field goal attempt by Morten Andersen, whose unerring left foot propelled the Falcons to a 30-27 victory over the Vikings and a spot in Super Bowl XXXIII against the Denver Broncos Jan. 31 at Miami.

Sunday’s drama made the triumph all the more satisfying for Falcon Coach Dan Reeves, who coached the Broncos from 1981-92 and led them to three Super Bowls.

“If I can stand today, my heart is going to be in good shape,” said Reeves, who underwent a quadruple bypass Dec. 14 and isn’t carrying a full workload. “It was just a great game. When I think about it, five weeks ago, I was laying in the operating room. I’m thankful the good Lord allowed me to witness this game.”

While the Viking playoff-record crowd of 64,060 quietly filed out and Minnesota players knelt on the field in stunned silence, the Falcons hugged each other and savored their unlikely opportunity.

“I heard a lot of people say if they stopped our running game, they would win. There’s no question running the football is a big part of our game, but we had made a lot of big plays throwing the football, so I took that a little personally,” said Chandler, who drilled a 16-yard pass to Terance Mathis with 49 seconds left in regulation to bring the Falcons even for the first time since the first quarter and was 27 for 43 for 340 yards and three touchdowns.

“We kind of faced that all year. Everyone in the NFL has got to respect us now. We beat the 49ers twice and we beat the Vikings here, which is a tough place to play. You’re looking at as good a football team as there is.”

They were good enough to win despite trailing, 27-17, in the third quarter against a team that led the NFL with a record 556 points during the regular season. They were good enough to win despite the superb job Minnesota’s defense did on running back Jamal Anderson, who was limited to 67 yards in 23 carries.

And they were good enough because injuries robbed the Vikings of several key defensive players and running back Robert Smith, who was injured during the drive that preceded Anderson’s failed field-goal attempt. Smith gained 45 yards on that drive, but thigh and knee bruises kept him on the bench during Minnesota’s two overtime possessions. He rushed for 71 yards in 21 carries.

“Any time you score 27 points, you’re doing a lot of things right. We just didn’t do enough things right,” Viking Coach Dennis Green said. “Any time you’re sitting on leads of 17-7 and 20-7 with a chance to pull away, you must pull away, especially against a good football team, and we didn’t.”

Said Chandler: “It helped us that we were tested going into the fourth quarter. Look at the Vikings--they weren’t tested because they were just killing teams.”

Viking quarterback Randall Cunningham seemed to lose his rhythm in the late stages but said he and his teammates weren’t tight, just outplayed.

“I don’t have anything left. I’m so tired right now, I’m drained,” said Cunningham, who was 29 for 48 for 266 yards and two touchdowns. “We didn’t make the plays we needed to make at the end, offensively and defensively.”

The Falcons got a chance to do their “Dirty Bird” dance after their first drive ended with a five-yard pass from Chandler to Jamal Anderson. The Vikings responded with a 31-yard, rainbow touchdown pass from Cunningham to Randy Moss and took a 10-7 lead on a 29-yard field goal by Gary Anderson.

Six plays after a fumble by O.J. Santiago was recovered by safety Robert Griffith, Cunningham scored a touchdown on a one-yard keeper. A 35-yard field goal by Gary Anderson increased the Vikings’ cushion to 20-7 with 2:45 left in the second quarter, but the Falcons came back to pull within 20-14 on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Chandler to Mathis after a Cunningham fumble was recovered by the Falcons’ Travis Hall.

“That touchdown right before the half was huge,” Reeves said.

Andersen made a 27-yard field goal to cut Minnesota’s lead to 20-17 with 5:36 to play in the third quarter, but wide receiver Matthew Hatchette eluded Booker to grab a five-yard touchdown pass from Cunningham 79 seconds into the fourth quarter that put Minnesota ahead, 27-17. After Mathis couldn’t corral a third-and-seven pass from Chandler in the end zone, Andersen converted a 24-yard field goal that narrowed the gap to 27-20.

When Gary Anderson took the field for his 38-yard attempt, the Vikings were counting the minutes to Miami. “If we would have gone up by 10 points with two minutes left and the Falcons only having one timeout, you would think the game would be over,” receiver Cris Carter said. “After that, the defense didn’t get the job done. But the offense had a chance to score a touchdown, so it’s on us collectively.”

The Falcons stopped the Vikings twice in overtime thanks to a strong effort by their secondary. “Atlanta came here and played a perfect game,” Moss said. “They were down and they stuck with their game plan. I think we got a little rattled in the end and we couldn’t make anything happen.”

Chandler kept the Vikings off balance throughout the final five-minute 20-second drive by mixing handoffs to Jamal Anderson, two passes to Santiago, one to Mathis, another to Ronnie Harris for 29 yards and a six-yard keeper. Andersen was then ready to do his part. In practice, he invents pressure situations to sharpen his concentration, so he wasn’t fazed in the game-winning situation.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve made Super Bowl kicks,” he said. “They just haven’t counted yet.”

In two weeks, they will count.

“We did it. We believed we could do it and that was the key,” Harris said. “Even when we were losing with two minutes to go, we still believed we could do it. Everybody just came together and it’s a dream come true.”

*

SYMPATHY VOTE

The kicker of the winning team says that he can feel for the kicker of the losing team. Page 8

* NEW POSITION

Former UCLA football coach Terry Donahue will become director of operations for the 49ers. Page 10

* SUMMARY: Page 8

Super Bowl XXXIII

Atlanta (16-2) vs. Denver (16-2)

Sunday, Jan. 31, 3:15 p.m. at Miami

TV: Channel 11