It’s Come One, Come All in the NFC

Ah, Joe Gibbs. Just about everybody said he’d have the Washington Redskins back in the playoffs.

It’s just that when they were 4-9, we started to lose a little faith.

Welcome to the NFC, where bad teams don’t die, they just need a little more time to figure out a scenario by which they can make the playoffs. With two weeks remaining in the regular season, and the AFC playoff picture in relatively sharp focus -- each division winner has been decided, at least -- every NFC team but 2-12 San Francisco is alive and kicking.

Take the Redskins, for instance. At 5-9, they’re guaranteed a losing season. But with some luck, they could wind up with a wild-card berth. They could even control their destiny heading into the final week, a fact so freakish it’s almost funny.

“Are you pulling my leg?” Redskin defensive tackle Joe Salave’a said when a Washington Times reporter told him that bit of good news. “[Making the playoffs] has been long gone out of our minds. It’s probably going to take a couple hours to sink in that we’re still in the picture.”

Picture this: The Redskins’ fate will be in their hands if they win at Dallas on Sunday, and Tampa Bay defeats visiting Carolina (could happen), Cincinnati defeats the visiting New York Giants (could happen), Atlanta defeats New Orleans (should happen), and Philadelphia defeats St. Louis (will happen).

If that scenario unfolds, the Redskins could make the playoffs by defeating visiting Minnesota in their finale.

And that’s only the Redskins. Nearly every NFC team has a realistic way of reaching the postseason, when by all rights, most of those players should be watching the playoffs from their living-room couches.

Sure, NHL players are locked out. But this is football’s answer to the Stanley Cup playoffs -- everyone’s invited. Ten of the 16 NFC teams have only five or six victories heading into the season’s final two weeks, and one of those teams is guaranteed to make the playoffs. That means there’s a good chance one and maybe two sub-.500 teams will reach the postseason. A team with a losing record has never made the playoffs in a non-strike season.

And how’s this for standing too long in the sun: The 5-9 Arizona Cardinals could actually win the NFC West title by winning their final two games, providing Seattle and St. Louis each lose their last two.

“I think it’s wide open really,” Arizona Coach Dennis Green said with a straight face.

“[The playoffs are] all we’ve been talking about,” rookie receiver Larry Fitzgerald said, also with a straight face.

But Arizona defensive end Bert Berry is a tad more realistic. He’s in his eighth season, after all, and has been around, having played four seasons for Indianapolis and three for Denver. He knows the long odds his team is facing.

“The guys really have to understand that we’ve been given a lot of opportunities, and we’ve squandered a lot of them,” he said. “If we squander this one, that’s it. There’s no coming back from 10 losses.”

Or so we think.

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Now that Terrell Owens has been KO’d, these are just a recycled version of last season’s Philadelphia Eagles, right?

Quarterback Donovan McNabb begs to differ.

“When you bring a guy in who brings a different type of work ethic, a different attitude, a different passion to the game, I think it rubs off on the rest of the guys,” McNabb said.

“I think you’ve seen guys have some great games in this past year. You’ve seen guys elevate their game to where the ball gets in their hands and you never know what can happen.... Yes, it’s tough losing a guy like T.O., but the season’s not over. We’re going to continue this thing on and continue to open up eyes.”

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Some statistical gems of the week from STATS Inc.:

* Tennessee is 1-5 at home, even though the Titans have recorded more total yards, yards rushing and first downs than opponents.

* The Bears have not scored an offensive touchdown in their last three road games, yet have scored three touchdowns on returns in that span.

* After scoring 31 touchdowns rushing in his first 37 home games, Jacksonville running back Fred Taylor has had none in his last seven.

* Should Pittsburgh defeat Baltimore at Heinz Field, the Steelers will complete their first undefeated home schedule since the strike-shortened 1982 season, when they went 4-0.

* Carolina is 0-3 in games decided by three points or fewer. Last season, the Panthers were 7-0 in those games.

* Dallas has been outscored, 127-61, in the fourth quarter, including 20-0 in the last two games.

* Cleveland has scored one touchdown rushing in the last seven games -- but has allowed 13 in those games.

* The Rams have scored one offensive touchdown and have 14 points in the last two games. The last time they were held to fewer than 10 points in consecutive weeks was December 1983.

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Last week, I joined NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and league executive Pete Abitante on a business trip to Germany. We visited Landstuhl Regional Medical Center on the first day and met with soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom had lost limbs suffered disfiguring injuries, bullet wounds and the like.

The memories are especially haunting in the wake of this week’s apparent suicide-bombing attack at Forward Operating Base Marez near Mosul, Iraq. Most if not all of the soldiers wounded there will be treated at Landstuhl.

I can’t help but think about the comatose soldier from Murfreesboro, Tenn., a kid no older than 25, who had an external skeleton of rods and pins holding his arms and legs together. His German wife stood at his bedside holding his hand.

Or the soldier from Taos, N.M., who, as a result of a grenade blast, had a gaping hole in the side of his neck and obliterated knees. Or his buddy in the next room injured in the same blast, a young soldier with crusted blood and dirt still under his fingernails.

Former NFL players Mike Haynes and Merton Hanks, now league executives, joined us on the trip. They spent hours talking to the soldiers, signing autographs, handing out phone cards and get-well cards that I brought from elementary school kids from Glendale and La Canada.

“Any time you can get a tactile situation like this,” Hanks said, “when you can shake hands with those who are putting their lives on the line for my welfare and my family’s welfare, you take it.”

So moved was Tagliabue by the experience that he got up at 4 a.m. the next morning and scribbled 10 pages of notes on what he saw.

“Just the immediacy of it,” he said. “Some of these soldiers were 72 hours removed from the battlefield. They were still trying to comprehend what they’d been through.”