NFC East Doing All It Can to Not Be Predictable

Stunning result from Sunday’s Skins Game:

Washington 13, Philadelphia 3.

Meanwhile, in Ryan Leaf’s favorite sport, Greg Norman supposedly beat Tiger Woods and some others out in the desert by out-validating the field, or their parking tickets, one or the other, the rules were kind of confusing, but no big deal either way.

You want to talk deserts?

How about the one Marty Schottenheimer found himself crawling across in mid-October, with no food, no water, no wins ... only Marty and Tony Banks on all fours, with Daniel Snyder and buzzards circling overhead, and Marty asking Tony to pass him the canteen and the rattlesnake stepping up and intercepting?

On Oct. 15, Schottenheimer’s Washington Redskins were 0-5 after losing to Dallas in the game that almost shut down “Monday Night Football.” The worst team in Redskin history, many were calling it. The off-ramp on the end of the road of Schottenheimer’s coaching career, many were calling for.

Now, after watching Donovan McNabb turn Veterans Stadium into his personal sand trap, the Redskins are (in no particular order of mind-blowing potential) undefeated in their last five games, .500 for the season, owners of the longest current winning streak in the NFL, the first team in NFL history to lose its first five games and then win its next five, in contention for a playoff berth, one game out of first place in the NFC East, a half-game ahead of the defending NFC champion New York Giants, the hottest team in professional football and the benefactors of Ki-Jana Carter’s first touchdown in two years.

That’s a good one.

Ki-Jana Carter’s still in the league?

“Everybody wrote me off,” Carter said as Penn State alums and Cincinnati Bengal fans blinked in amazement and elbowed one another. “But I knew what kind of player I am. I had confidence in myself. I knew I’d get another shot.”

He might have been the only one. The No. 1 pick in the 1995 draft, Carter dislocated a knee in the third game of the 1999 season and wasn’t seen or heard from again ... including his weeks this season on the end of the Redskin bench, as safe from public scrutiny as the government witness protection program.

But Sunday, after Brett Conway missed an early field goal and Stephen Davis hobbled off the field with back spasms (in other words, your usual start to a Redskin game), Carter jogged into the offensive huddle, introduced himself around and then decided to run some more--18 times in all, for 56 yards and the only touchdown of the game.

Remarkably, those points stood up in a defensive tug-of-war in which neither quarterback passed for 100 yards. Banks finished with 96, which, incredibly, were four more than McNabb, who spent most of the day overthrowing receivers (three times in the first quarter), bouncing third-and-two passes (in the second quarter) and firing a fourth-and-three pass behind the back of Freddie Mitchell (in the fourth quarter).

Consequently, the first-place Eagles fell to 6-4, the 5-5 Redskins stepped up into second place ... and did Schottenheimer, in his wildest Oct. 15 dreams, ever imagine this team back at .500 this soon?

“I never even looked at it in that context,” Schottenheimer said. “People get tired of hearing me say this, but I never looked beyond the next game. It was one game at a time, and I know that’s boring, but that’s the way they do it.”

Indeed they do, and after McNabb stopped yawning, he told downcast Eagle beat writers that it’s too early to panic and/or call for his and/or Coach Andy Reid’s job(s).

“It’s close in this division,” McNabb said. “Just like it is in every division.”

Except, let’s get real, no division is quite like the NFC East, a.k.a. .500 R Us.

Sunday, four of the five NFC East representatives played--the Cowboys did their losing Thursday--and the only winners were the Redskins and the Arizona Cardinals, who are 2-0 since Nov. 11 after upsetting the Chargers in San Diego, 20-17.

The only team in the division with a winning record is Philadelphia, which managed one first down during the first half and 186 yards in total offense.

Second place belongs to The Laughing Stock of the Sport as of Halloween.

Third place is the domain of the New York Giants, still battling a Super Bowl blowout hangover at 5-6 after a 28-10 loss to the Oakland Raiders--answering, at last, the question that has been burning since Tony Siragusa sat on Rich Gannon in the last AFC title game, namely, “What would have happened to the Super Bowl if Tony Siragusa hadn’t sat on Rich Gannon in the last AFC title game?”

The Cardinals, at 4-6, are still in the race, only two games out of first place with six to go.

Only Dallas, 2-8, is out of it, which means the Cowboys now loom as dangerous spoilers, with their next two games against Washington and New York, so Redskins and Giants, tread carefully, assuming the Giants still have enough players to field a team then. That possibility was left in doubt after the Raider defeat, when Giant guard Glenn Parker declared, “It’s not over for us. Anybody that thinks it is, we don’t want them in this locker room.”

So, one team from the NFC East is going to the playoffs, because that is the league-regulated minimum and because 7-9 just isn’t going to get the wild card this season. That’s because the best team in the NFC East might finish third in the NFC Central and fourth in the NFC West, which has three teams at 6-4 or better--and not one of them is 2000 titlist New Orleans, now 5-5 after surrendering four touchdown passes to Tom Brady in a 34-17 loss at New England.

Chicago (8-2) and Green Bay (7-3) are pulling away in the Central, the Bears actually winning on the road, 13-6 over Minnesota, this time without the need of a voodoo curse, prayer candle or goat sacrifice.

Now that the Bears have proven, on national television, that they don’t need any of that, the Giants, Eagles, Redskins and Cardinals can now get in on the bidding on EBay.