League’s Studded With Tie Fighters

Tony Dungy won a game in Philadelphia and Matt Hasselbeck won a game in the NFL on Sunday, thus debunking two of the longest-standing myths in football.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta Falcons and the Pittsburgh Steelers combined for 1,092 total yards, 767 passing yards and 68 points to obliterate another myth propped up by the coaches, pundits and stuffed shirts who have worked overtime to keep their sport clouded in its hyper-masculine mystique:

There’s no tying in football.

It simply isn’t supposed to happen. It has been outlawed at the highest level of the college game, with teams forced to engage in an inflate-your-final-score carnival rather than leave the field on even terms -- or, in the parlance of football coaches, “in disgrace.”

On the professional level, the tie was thought to have died in 1974, when the NFL instituted the playing of “sudden death” extra periods -- or, in the parlance of NFL inter-office correspondence, “how we crack back on Al Davis.”

Since 1974, 333 NFL games have failed to produce a loser by the conclusion of regulation play. This is not a good thing. We cannot have this happening in a capitalistic society.

So, at the end of each of these 333 unresolved competitions, a coin, fittingly enough, is flipped and the teams play on for another 15 minutes, or until one exhausted side yields a score, whichever comes first.

And 317 times out of 333, a loser has been declared, often without ever getting its hands on the football. Including last season’s Snow Bowl against New England, the Oakland Raiders have seen their last three overtimes end the same way -- lose the coin flip, lose the game without running a single offensive play.

As the league office sees it, sudden death has been a spectacular success.

By now, after 28 years of sudden defeats, NFL coaches and players are conditioned.

Falcon quarterback Michael Vick, after rallying his team from a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit but failing to score an overtime point in an eventual 34-34 tie with Pittsburgh, called the result “very, very, very disappointing ... I’m hurt right now.”

Steeler Coach Bill Cowher, after watching quarterback Tommy Maddox pass for a club-record 473 yards, including 50 on a completion that left Plaxico Burress inches short of the winning score as overtime expired, didn’t know how to react.

“I’ve never been here before,” he said. “I told the team I don’t know what to tell them. I’ve never had a tie.”

Cowher set his jaw and paused, because this is a procedure that takes some time, and defiantly added, “I do know we didn’t lose. I will say that. We did not lose today.”

No one associated with the Steelers had been associated with a tie since 1974 and the NFL’s very first regular-season overtime game. Joe Gilliam was Pittsburgh’s quarterback that day. Denver was the opponent. Final score: Steelers 35, Broncos 35.

The NFL hadn’t seen a tie in five years. The last one was a 7-7 draw between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins on Nov. 23, 1997. In some cultures, a deadlocked outcome is considered the most honorable result a sporting competition can yield. But not NFL culture. Redskin quarterback Gus Frerotte was so frustrated by events that day, he head-butted a wall and knocked himself woozy.

A little perspective, people: Atlanta and Pittsburgh, two of the league’s hottest teams, both began the game with four-game winning streaks. Now, after putting on as good a show as pro football fans have seen this season, the Falcons and Steelers leave with five-game unbeaten streaks.

(Of course, the Falcons, at 5-3-1, dropped another half-game off the pace of NFC South rival New Orleans, which won Sunday, 34-24 over Carolina, to improve to 7-2. Which could be the reason for Vick’s hanging head.)

Maddox was involved in history on several fronts. First, his 473 yards broke a 44-year-old Steeler record, eclipsing the old mark, 409, set by Bobby Layne in 1958. Second, he and St. Louis’ Marc Bulger, who threw for 453 yards in the Rams’ 28-24 victory over San Diego, became the first pair of NFL quarterbacks to pass for more than 450 yards on the same day.

Think about that one for a minute. Maybe sit down and pour yourself a cold beverage.

In the 83-year history of the NFL, in a league that has been graced by Unitas and Starr, Bradshaw and Namath, Marino and Montana, Elway and Favre, only once have two quarterbacks passed for 450 yards on the same Sunday ... and their names are Maddox and Bulger.

This just in: Kurt Warner reports the little finger on his throwing hand is feeling much, much better.

This is life in the new NFL, where nothing (with the possible exceptions of Favre and the Cincinnati Bengals) is reliable and everything is disposable.

Case in point: Dungy, who couldn’t win a playoff game in Philadelphia when he was armed with Tampa Bay’s arsenal, arrives at the Vet with a slumping Indianapolis team down to its fourth-string running back ... and reels off five touchdowns in a 35-13 rout of the Eagles.

The fourth-string running back is suddenly unstoppable, rushing for 114 yards and two touchdowns against Philadelphia’s second-ranked defense. The name is Mungro, James Mungro, which sounds like a character out of “Blazing Saddles” -- Mungro like carries! -- instead of an anonymous rookie making his first NFL start under hostile conditions.

But then, this is the league of Tom Brady, who pioneered the bench-to-stardom bit a year ago, and continued to push the credibility envelope Sunday. Down by 11 points with 5:22 to go, Brady rallied New England to two touchdowns and a 33-30 victory over Chicago, saving the Patriots’ season and effectively crushing the Bears’.

Suddenly luckless, the Bears lost their seventh straight game when they lost two late video reviews. The first negated a potential game-clinching interception by Chicago’s Brian Robinson, officials declaring that the replay showed Robinson never had possession of the bobbling ball. The second upheld Patriot David Patten’s back-of-the-end-zone reception with 21 seconds left, officials ruling that Patten touched down with both feet in bounds, just barely.

That left the Bears 2-7 and winless since September. All things considered, they probably would have been happy to take a tie.

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Their Passing Goes a Long Way

Tommy Maddox of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Marc Bulger of the St. Louis Rams became the first pair of quarterbacks in NFL history to throw for 450 yards on the same day (* Team record):

MADDOX’S LINE

*--* Attempts...41 Completions...28 Completion percentage...68.3 Yards...*473 Touchdown passes...4 Pass rating...129.4

*--*

BULGER’S LINE

*--* Attempts...48 Completions...36 Completion percentage...75.0 Yards...453 Touchdown passes...4 Pass rating...131.7

*--*