Wild-Card Round Is on Ropes

The NFL chose to cancel today’s games--as it should have--and now faces a real decision.

Should it reschedule in order to play a full 16-game regular season, or wipe this week off the books and keep the wild-card games intact?

The answer is easy. Play 16 games.

The league is leaning strongly toward that option, and will announce its decision Monday or Tuesday.

Rescheduling the canceled games for wild-card weekend makes sense on a number of fronts, mostly financial. Team owners don’t want to give up the revenue of a 16th game, nor do they want to pay players for a game that never happened.

Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Assn., said getting paid is the last thing on the minds of the players during this mournful week, and that could be true. But how long will that feeling last?

“I guarantee one thing,” said Tex Schramm, former president of the Dallas Cowboys. “When this is all over with, the players and the union are going to demand to be paid for [today’s] game. Mark my word.”

There are exceptions, of course. Tampa Bay receiver Keyshawn Johnson is donating a week’s pay to the Red Cross. His base salary pays him roughly $31,000 a game.

“It’s not hurting me,” he said. “What the hell is [money] going to do for me?”

Money isn’t the only reason the league needs to opt for 16 games. San Diego was scheduled to be off this week anyway, so the Chargers would play 16 games while the rest of the league played 15.

If the season were shortened, some teams would play eight home games, and others would play seven. That, too, would affect the postseason picture.

Of minimal concern, but still notable, are the record books. Dallas’ Emmitt Smith is chasing Walter Payton’s rushing record, and a 16th game could make the difference. Charger rookie LaDainian Tomlinson has an extra week of work to pad his numbers. In short, asterisks aplenty.

So what is lost in wiping out the wild-card round and reducing the number of playoff teams from 12 to eight?

First, the revenue from four playoff games, which is significant. ABC, CBS and Fox take a hit, because each network has the rights to at least one of those games. And, of course, fewer teams make the playoffs, not a good thing for a league as balanced as it has ever been.

There is no painless solution. Still, the answer is clear.

Close to Home

Among the thousands directly affected by Tuesday’s terrorist attacks are Dick Lynch, the former New York Giant defensive back and the team’s radio analyst, and Newsday sports columnist Shaun Powell.

Lynch’s 31-year-old son, Richard Lynch, was working in 2 World Trade Center on the 84th floor when the second plane hit. He is missing. Powell’s younger brother, Scott Powell, worked at the Pentagon and was killed while trying to escape the fires that followed the plane crash.

Hard Memories

The devastation this week brought back painful memories for Oakland Raider punter Shane Lechler and cornerback Brandon Jennings. Both played for Texas A&M; two years ago when the school’s bonfire collapsed, killing 12 students and injuring 27.

“I thought about it immediately,” Jennings said. “The circumstances were totally different, but a tragedy is a tragedy. I was pulling logs off dead people. I know [the people in New York] are seeing the same thing.”

Eight days after the tragedy, the Aggies upset No. 5 Texas, 20-16, at College Station. Lechler said playing that game was the right thing to do.

“At first I didn’t know whether we should play or not,” he said. “We had some time to prepare mentally, and that was the toughest part.”

Sad Sack

Buffalo’s Rob Johnson threw three interceptions and was sacked five times in a loss to New Orleans. That’s not a good sign for a quarterback who, according to Stats Inc., has the lowest ratio of pass plays per sack of anyone in the modern era.

Before the season, Johnson had been sacked 86 times on 482 pass attempts, that’s once every 5.6 pass plays. Second on that list is Bobby Douglass, who played with four teams in the 1970s and was sacked once every 7.7 plays. Also on the list is Raider backup Bobby Hoying (8.1 plays).

A Wanted Man

When Denver receiver Ed McCaffrey broke his leg in the opener, the Broncos didn’t wait long to find a replacement.

They signed Keith Poole, who had been with them in training camp and was coming off a hamstring injury.

Poole was on the verge of signing with Kansas City when the Broncos called. The Chiefs had him in for a workout and merely wanted him to run a few routes to make sure his hamstring was healed.

Suddenly, he had hooked up with an AFC West rival.

“They were pretty upset,” he said of the Chiefs. “They weren’t cursing, but they were pretty upset and told me I had to find my own way home.”

Poole finagled a ride back to his hotel and, because all of the flights were canceled, caught a ride to Denver with the wife of a Bronco scout, who was visiting family in Kansas City.