Season’s Beatings From the Bears to the Lions

After losing a playoff game years ago on Christmas Eve, Coach George Allen was asked if the flight home would be in time for his players to celebrate the holiday.

“When you lose,” said Allen, “there is no Christmas.”

Several teams can identify with that statement today while others are soaking up the holiday cheer after a wild Sunday full of heroic finishes and heartbreaking defeats that sent some teams home for the rest of the holiday season while giving others new hope of stretching their season all the way to Super Sunday.

From 1:06 to 1:28 Sunday afternoon, fortunes rose and fell faster than the stock market on a chaotic day.

Give us 22 minutes and we’ll give you the NFL playoff alignment.

* At 1:06--In New Orleans, the St. Louis Rams hold off the Saints, 26-21, but are still holding their collective breath. The defending Super Bowl champions won’t get a chance to repeat, won’t even get into the playoffs, unless the Chicago Bears can somehow beat, or tie, the favored Lions in Detroit.

* At 1:07--With two seconds remaining at the Pontiac Silverdome, the Bears, having trailed 10-0 in the first quarter, complete an unlikely comeback when rookie Paul Edinger kicks a 54-yard field goal to give Chicago a 23-20 victory and knock the Lions out of the playoffs.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Detroit receiver Johnnie Morton says. “We were favored by 10 points over a team that already had their stuff packed because they had nothing to play for.”

More than a 1,000 miles away, the Rams erupt in joy for the second time in a little over a minute.

“The whole Chicago Bears’ organization can come to my house for dinner tonight,” St. Louis defensive tackle D’Marco Farr says. “I’ll put Edinger, the kicker, at the head of the table.”

Bobby Ross knew what he was doing, after all. He had the good sense to quit as Lion coach almost two months ago, thus assuring himself his holiday wouldn’t be ruined.

Obviously, he was a student of George Allen.

* At 1:12--In Foxboro, Mass., Olindo Mare kicks a 49-yard field goal into the wind with nine seconds remaining to give the Miami Dolphins a 27-24 victory over the New England Patriots and the AFC East title.

* At 1:14--Martin Gramatica has a chance to end all sorts of streaks, from his Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 18 consecutive losses when the temperature at kickoff is 40 degrees or below, to Green Bay Packer quarterback Brett Favre’s 26-0 home record when the thermometer is at 34 or below, to Green Bay’s 11-year winning streak at home against the Buccaneers.

Not to mention the fact that a Tampa Bay win would give the Buccaneers the NFC Central title.

All Gramatica had to do was make a 49-yard goal with nine seconds remaining at Lambeau Field.

He misses.

* At 1:28--Ryan Longwell doesn’t miss.

His 22-yard field goal in overtime gives Green Bay a 17-14 victory.

ANOTHER FLORIDA RECOUNT

While Mare’s field goal was the game-winner for Miami, it took an additional 35 minutes to make it official.

Victory in limbo while officials deliberate and deliberate. What else would you expect from a team from Florida?

Rather than a hanging chad, at issue in this case was a hanging pass by Patriot quarterback Drew Bledsoe.

It was at first ruled that Bledsoe had fumbled, allowing time to expire.

But after 35 minutes of deliberation, the officials ruled that it was an incomplete pass, stopping the clock with three seconds to play.

That meant both teams had to come back onto the field in the cold darkness, some of them literally pulled out of a warm shower.

Miami guard Kevin Donnalley, figuring only the defense would actually be required to take the field since the Patriots, trailing by three, were well beyond field-goal range, came out wearing only a towel.

A desperation pass by New England failed, making the Dolphin victory official.

“If you’re from Florida,” said Miami receiver Hunter Goodwin, “expect anything.”

ROTTEN TO THE CORE?

The Packers weren’t saying why they benched receiver Antonio Freeman for Sunday’s game, but it was reported that Freeman arrived almost an hour late for practice Saturday, skipped two meetings and then got into an argument with Coach Mike Sherman when he wasn’t permitted to practice.

“We have so much talent in this locker room,” Longwell said, “if you have one bad apple, it’s not really beneficial anyway to have him around the team.

“I’m not saying Free is that.”

Of course not.

GOOD FINISH/BAD FINISH

The Minnesota Vikings knew that their quarterback, Daunte Culpepper, shouldn’t be playing because of the ankle injury that had caused him to miss most of the week’s practices.

But they also knew that they needed to beat the Indianapolis Colts or have Tampa Bay lose to Green Bay in order to clinch the NFC Central title.

As the Viking-Colt game was beginning, Gramatica was lining up for his potential game-winning field goal.

So Minnesota coach Dennis Green put Culpepper in.

Culpepper was hit in the ankle on the second play of the game, when Chad Bratzke rolled into it. He was hit in the ankle again after throwing a 13-yard completion to Chris Walsh with 14:09 left in the half. Culpepper limped badly after the play and was forced to call timeout.

Culpepper finished that series, but turned the quarterback duties over to backup Bubby Brister on the Vikings’ next possession.

Tampa Bay wound up losing, giving Minnesota the division title.

But did the Vikings also wind up losing in the long run by playing Culpepper?

SAD FINISH

Center Dan Turk, who played for the Raiders, Buccaneers, Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins in a 15-year NFL career, died Saturday night of cancer. He was 38.

Although Turk enjoyed a successful career, he ended it last January on a bitter note. The last snap of his career was a bad one, a one-hopper that caused the Redskins to miss a field goal in the final minutes of the team’s 14-13 loss to Tampa Bay in the playoffs.

The Redskins didn’t re-sign Turk and then traded his brother, Matt, a punter, to Miami.

But three months after his playing days ended, Turk learned that he had far more serious concern when the cancer was detected.