They Couldn’t Change Luck

So, who had the worst afternoon Sunday? Tony Dorsett or the small group of NFL head coaches who thought Week 11 of the regular season was a fine time to go to the bullpen?

Surely, Dorsett had a lousy day. Awakening in the morning as the league’s fifth all-time leading career rusher, he was No. 7 by sundown, unable to shut down a sports ticker unable to shut down Jerome Bettis and Curtis Martin.

Bettis rushes for 129 yards in Pittsburgh’s 19-14 win over Cincinnati, moves past Dorsett into fifth on the all-time list.... Martin rushes for 88 yards in the New York Jets’ 10-7 victory over Cleveland, moves past Dorsett into sixth on the all-time list....

Dorsett watched history pass him by, but what could he do about it?

Nothing, of course.

Which might have been a better tactic Sunday for Tom Coughlin, Dennis Green, Joe Gibbs and Jim Bates, who benched their quarterbacks, waved in relief pitchers, and more or less over-managed their way to defeats all around.

This was more significant for Coughlin and Green, who coach teams allegedly in the NFC playoff race, than for Gibbs and Bates, who had nothing to lose except just another game.

After nine starts by Kurt Warner, Coughlin’s New York Giants were 5-4. That might not sound like much, and breaking down tapes of Warner getting sacked could have been driving Coughlin crazy, but 5-4 in the NFC equals red-hot playoff contention. So is 4-5, which is the record Green’s Arizona Cardinals took to Carolina, courtesy of their 3-1 run with Josh McCown as starting quarterback.

Coughlin had his team in the wild-card hunt. Green’s team was one game out of first place in the NFC West.

So they both changed quarterbacks, trying something new (Eli Manning) and something borrowed (Shaun King), and got the same results: 10 points and one defeat apiece.

In his first NFL start, Manning completed 17 of 37 passes for 162 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions and a 45.1 quarterback rating during a 14-10 loss to the Atlanta Falcons.

King wound up with 343 passing yards -- but 231 came in the second half with the Cardinals down by four touchdowns. He also threw three interceptions in a game Arizona lost, 35-10, after trailing at the half, 28-0.

With St. Louis losing by 20 points in Buffalo, 37-17, to fall back to 5-5, Arizona could have moved into a second-place tie with the Rams with a victory over the Panthers, who began the day 2-7. Green told reporters he changed quarterbacks because “I think we’ve got to play better offensively.” In their last four games, all with McCown as the starter, the Cardinals averaged 20 points. Those aren’t Indianapolis Colt numbers, but in Arizona, fans have seen worse.

And did again after Green made the move to King, remembered fondly in Tampa as the quarterback who made the Brad Johnson Buccaneer era possible, and necessary.

Green tried to defend his move by pointing to his record, alluding to his 31 years of trying to make decisions that help his team win, and arguing “I’m probably right a lot more than I’m wrong.”

They used to say the same thing about Gibbs, who won three Super Bowls in his first stint with the Washington Redskins and figured there wouldn’t be a fourth if Patrick Ramsey remained the team’s No. 1 quarterback. But Gibbs guessed wrong with Mark Brunell, who appeared to turn 34 in September and 44 in October, so it was back to Ramsey on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the Sunday before Ramsey’s old Redskin coach, Steve Spurrier, officially becomes the coach at South Carolina.

With Brunell, the Redskins were unable to score more than 18 points in any of their first nine games, six of them losses. Recycling Ramsey didn’t get them any closer. The Redskins lost to Philadelphia, 28-6, and have now gone 10 games without hitting the 20-point barrier. The last time that happened in Washington was in the 1930s.

Meanwhile, in Miami, the Dolphins are playing for next year -- only five months until the draft! -- but to get there, they somehow have to get through their 2004 schedule. Already, they’ve moved out Dave Wannstedt and brought in Bates as interim coach, who moved out Jay Fiedler and brought in A.J. Feeley as interim quarterback.

Feeley started Miami’s 24-17 loss to Seattle, and this is the kind of year it’s been for the Dolphins:

Feeley has the Dolphins tied, 7-7, after scrambling for a touchdown, but injures his hip while being sacked in the second quarter and has to hobble to the sideline.

Fiedler rejoins the huddle, sticks around for one series before hurting his neck while fumbling.

Feeley has to limp back onto the field. There, grabbing his right hip and grimacing between pass attempts, Feeley has the Dolphins tied again, 17-17, late in the fourth quarter.

Then, with 56 seconds left, he is intercepted by Seattle safety Michael Boulware, who returns the ball 63 yards for the winning touchdown.

Dallas Coach Bill Parcells changed quarterbacks too, but only after Vinny Testaverde injured his right shoulder in the fourth quarter against Baltimore. This ushered in the moment many Cowboys fans had demanded, and Parcells resisted -- Drew Henson’s NFL debut.

Then again, on second thought: On his first play as an NFL quarterback, Henson fumbled the ball away. Raven linebacker Terrell Suggs recovered at the Dallas one-yard line, setting up a touchdown run by Chester Taylor in Baltimore’s 30-10 victory.

All in all, not a good day to tinker with the quarterback position. The Seahawks made the only switch that worked, bringing on Trent Dilfer to replace the injured Matt Hasselbeck, and Dilfer avoided trouble long enough for Seattle to beat Miami on a last-minute defensive touchdown.

Dilfer made a reputation, and won a Super Bowl, doing that for the Ravens in 2000 -- and creating false hope around the league. Coaches look at Dilfer, and then look at their guy on the bench, and say why not? Most of the time, they find their answer the hard way.