These Teams Hit Detour on Way to Easy Street

All right, people, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.

EASY: The Minnesota Vikings are given the chance to clinch the NFC Central title and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs with a victory over Green Bay at the Metrodome, where the Vikings were 7-1 against the Packers since 1992 and 13-0 against the league since October 1999.

HARDLY: The Vikings can’t stop Brett Favre, who throws for three touchdowns, and can’t stop Ahman Green, who rushes for 161 yards, and can’t help themselves, losing, 33-28. And now? To get the home-field advantage, the Vikings must win at Indianapolis, where the Colts must win to sustain hope of a wild-card berth, and the New York Giants must lose to Jacksonville, home of the biggest busts of the 2000 NFL season, also known as the Jaguars, who must decide if the difference between 8-8 and 7-9 is really worth the trouble.

EASY: The Oakland Raiders are given the chance to clinch the AFC West title with a victory over the Seattle Seahawks, who are quarterbacked by Jon Kitna, which rhymes with Sit Ya, which is what Mike Holmgren had been doing with Kitna before Brock Huard got hurt.

HARDLY: Kitna passes for two touchdowns, one of them the game-decider with 28 seconds to play after Raider safety Marquez Pope introduces the own-goal concept to the NFL and turns a fumble recovery at the Seattle two-yard line into two points for Seattle. Result: Seattle 27, Oakland 24, and Denver ready to poach first place in the AFC West.

EASY: The Denver Broncos are given the chance to move past Oakland to the top of the AFC West with a victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, who will soon go into the record book as the only team to lose to San Diego during the 2000 season.

HARDLY: The Broncos, having scored 30 or more points a league-high nine times this season, can’t score an offensive touchdown against the Chiefs, who yielded 30 points to New England two weeks ago, and Tony Richardson, the Kansas City running back whose premature spike set up the Chiefs for their historic loss to the Chargers, rushes for 156 yards, the most by a Chief in a decade. Kansas City wins, 20-7. Denver remains in second place.

EASY: The Miami Dolphins are given the chance to clinch a playoff berth with a home victory over the Indianapolis Colts, who had lost to the Dolphins two weeks ago in Indianapolis. Noting that the Colts had also lost to the Bears in Chicago and the Patriots in New England, Miami defensive tackle Daryl Gardener predicts, “We can shut out these boys.”

HARDLY: Peyton Manning, who has never been shut out in his life, not in 130 games as a quarterback from Pee Wee to the pros (the Indianapolis Star looked it up), is not shut out again, passing for one touchdown and running for another as the Colts win in Miami, 20-13. The Dolphins’ playoff berth is on hold, awaiting the outcome of their season finale at New England.

EASY: The New York Jets are given the chance to clinch a playoff berth with a home victory over the Detroit Lions, who are coming off consecutive defeats by Minnesota and Green Bay.

HARDLY: A hard rain falls on the Meadowlands and a huge offensive lineman named Jeff Hartings falls on a football in the end zone as the Lions beat the Jets, 10-7, sending the Jets to Baltimore for a must-win game against a Raven defense four quarters away from eclipsing the ’86 Bears for fewest points allowed in a 16-game NFL season.

Is this any way to run a stretch run?

To borrow a phrase beloved by football pundits through the ages, If the season ended today, you’d have to like the chances of a Green Bay-Seattle Super Bowl--both teams peaking right before the tournament--except if the season ended today, neither Green Bay nor Seattle would be in the playoffs.

Neither would Indianapolis, despite its impressive road victory. Nor Pittsburgh, which supplanted Dallas as America’s Team over the weekend by defeating Washington, 24-3, and knocking Daniel Snyder out of playoff contention.

Seventy-two hours ago, this laugh riot of an NFL season appeared to be finally rounding into form.

Oakland appeared to be the best balanced team in the league, capable of scoring with Rich Gannon throwing the ball and Tyrone Wheatley running it, with a defense capable of keeping opposing offenses out of the end zone more often than not. Turns out the Raiders are too balanced for their own good, capable of even scoring points for opposing offenses, having perfected the two-point rollover plan.

Minnesota appeared on track to the NFC championship with the Four Norsemen of the Apocalypse--Daunte Culpepper, Randy Moss, Cris Carter and Robert Smith--figuring to unleash hell on all playoff visitors to the Metrodome in January. But the Metrodome winning streak is over and the Vikings no longer have home-field playoff advantage, having ceded it, at least for the moment, to the New York Giants, who lumbered to a cumbersome 17-13 victory over the Cowboys.

Is the world really ready for a Giant-Raven Super Bowl?

Is the world really ready for a scoreless Super Bowl?

Thankfully, the time-tested Trent Dilfer factor kicked in Sunday, reminding the world why the Ravens won’t win the Super Bowl, no matter how many defenders they send to the Pro Bowl.

Dilfer, still viewed in Baltimore as a great leap forward over Tony Banks, was back to his old self against Arizona, passing for all of 70 yards and asking the defense and kicker Matt Stover to clean up the mess again. The Cardinals, 15 1/2-point underdogs, lost by only six--a result so encouraging to Cardinal owner Bill Bidwill that he immediately signed interim Coach Dave McGinnis to a four-year contract.

McGinnis is 1-7 since replacing Vince Tobin. At the same time he was receiving a call-back to do it again in 2001, so was San Diego’s Mike Riley, 1-14 this season after losing at Carolina, 30-22.

Such is life in the year 2000 in the NFL, where up is down, bad beats good, home field is no advantage and the key to getting ahead in the coaching business is to lose as many games as you possibly can.