A Miracle Goes Amiss

Sunday night highlight shows are going to be a lonelier place without the New Orleans Saints, who didn’t need an end-zone phone call to dial up one of the NFL’s strangest paths ever out of playoff contention.

Taking up Joe Horn on his can-you-top-this offer of the previous weekend, the Saints, in seven seconds, 75 yards, one forward pass and three laterals, showed that they could ... followed by John Carney’s doling out the worst case of anticlimax in team history.

In a wild, desperate final play, the Saints, needing seven points to force overtime against Jacksonville, played keep-away from the Jaguars -- Aaron Brooks to Donte’ Stallworth to Michael Lewis to Deuce McAllister to Jerome Pathon -- long enough to traipse all the way down the field, Pathon diving into the end zone with the ball with 0:00 on the game clock.

Where was Horn’s cell phone when he really needed it?

Hey, kids, we’re going to overtime!

Hey, kids, we’re still alive for the playoffs!

Then Carney, the ever-reliable kicker, lined up his conversion attempt and made contact.

Hey, kids, Daddy’s got all of January off!

Carney, mighty Carney, had struck out.

No Saint had ever seen it happen before. Carney last missed a point-after try in 1999, when he was with the San Diego Chargers. Carney was perfect with New Orleans, and nearly perfect in his career. Before stepping into that ball in Jacksonville, Carney had made 403 of 408 point-after attempts.

But on No. 409, he was wide right.

And one of the most memorable finishes in recent league history goes down as just another Saint defeat. Jacksonville 20, New Orleans 19, eliminating the 7-8 Saints from postseason consideration.

For Horn, it was a costly conclusion to a very expensive week. First he was fined $30,000 by the league for his end-zone phone-home routine the previous Sunday against the New York Giants. Then he watched Fred Taylor mock him with a hand-to-mouth phone gesture after scoring a second-quarter touchdown for Jacksonville. Then he injured his shoulder with 14 minutes left and did not play again.

Finally, he watched his teammates pull off the nearly impossible to possibly extend the Saints’ season, only to have Carney shut it down by shanking the nearly automatic.

An incredible long and winding road had gone for naught. Which sounds like the working title for the Detroit Lions’ season-in-review video.

Going where no NFL team has ever gone before, the Lions went on the road again Sunday and lost again Sunday, becoming the first team in league history to lose 24 consecutive away games. The record-breaker was a 20-14 loss at Carolina, efficiently assisted by eight Detroit first downs and a combined seven-for-19, 53-yard passing performance by Joey Harrington and Mike McMahon.

More numbers for the Lions to consider:

The team has gone three full seasons without winning on the road.

Matt Millen has been Lion team president for three seasons.

Millen also slurred a former Lion, Johnnie Morton, by using a derisive term for gays after Detroit’s Week 15 loss to Morton’s Kansas City Chiefs. On the same day, Horn thumbed his nose at the football gods by hitting speed dial after a touchdown.

One week later, Horn’s Saints lost a must-have game in unprecedented style and Millen’s Lions set an NFL record for futility on the road.

Instant karma is going to get you.

Another formidable record might have fallen in Cleveland if Baltimore Coach Brian Billick hadn’t sat Jamal Lewis for the final 8 minutes 23 seconds of the Ravens’ 35-0 rout of the Browns. In the first Raven-Brown meeting this season, Lewis rushed for 295 yards, a league game record. In the rematch, Lewis was at 205 before Billick called off the dogs in the Dawg Pound.

Unlike Mike Shanahan, Billick wasn’t about to risk injuring his star running back on a meaningless carry. Billick needs to win one more game to clinch a playoff berth, and probably isn’t going to get there with Anthony Wright handing the ball to Chester Taylor.

Still, it would have been interesting to see what Lewis might have done with that last 8:23, because in the first 21:37 of the second half, he had rolled up 164 yards.

In two games against the Browns this season, Lewis has netted an even 500 yards. That’s an NFL record. With one regular-season game left, Lewis has 1,952 yards rushing. With 154 yards against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Lewis would have another record. He is that close to Eric Dickerson’s 1984 season rushing mark of 2,105 yards.

The Ravens (9-6) can clinch the AFC North championship with a home victory over the Steelers. That would put Wright in the same Super Bowl tournament with his old Dallas teammate, Quincy Carter, who clinched a playoff berth Sunday by passing for 240 yards in the Cowboys’ 19-3 victory over the New York Giants.

Wouldn’t that be something? Wright and Carter, NFL playoff quarterbacks in the same season. Two years ago in Dallas, Dave Campo thought so much of the Wright-Carter combination that he brought in Ryan Leaf.

Leaf didn’t stay long. Neither did Campo. Campo won exactly 15 games in three seasons with the Cowboys. His replacement, Bill Parcells, has won 10 games in his first 3 1/2 months -- making Parcells the league’s first coach to take four teams to the postseason.

At 10-5, Dallas will be no worse than a wild-card team -- and can still win the NFC East title if Philadelphia loses at Washington and the Cowboys win at New Orleans. That would leave the Eagles and the Cowboys each at 11-5 overall, with Dallas owning the tiebreaker because of a better division record.

Elsewhere, St. Louis (12-3) clinched the NFC West championship, and closed in on NFC home-field advantage, with a 27-10 triumph over Cincinnati. And Tennessee is even with Indianapolis atop the AFC South standings at 11-4 -- the Titans rallying to defeat Houston, 27-24, and the Colts losing at home to Denver, 31-17.

In that Tennessee victory, Houston’s second touchdown was greeted by a jog to the goal post by Texan center Steve McKinney and quarterback David Carr.

McKinney tugged at the goal post padding, looking for a nonexistent cell phone. Coming up empty, McKinney shook his head and Carr gave the no-go signal. Sorry, no phone here.

Just another joke at Joe Horn’s expense. Sadly for Horn and his New Orleans teammates, a crueler one was yet to come.