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Playoff Picture Finally Clear

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Times Staff Writer

The NFL’s postseason dance officially began Sunday, and while the New Orleans Saints did the hokey-pokey -- they’re out, they’re in, they’re out -- the Minnesota Vikings and New York Jets moon-walked their way into the wild-card round.

“We’re in, but this certainly didn’t turn out the way we mapped it out,” said Coach Mike Tice, whose Vikings lost at Washington yet made the playoffs by virtue of the Saints’ victory at Carolina. “This team is going to drive me crazy.”

Coach Herman Edwards can relate. His Jets lost in overtime at St. Louis but qualified as an AFC wild card before the game even ended, when Buffalo lost at home to Pittsburgh.

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“I hate to lose getting in,” said Edwards, whose team plays Saturday at San Diego. “But we’ll take it.”

The Saints did their part, defeating the red-hot Panthers to stay alive, then gathered around a locker-room television to watch the end of the Jet-Ram game. Had the Jets won, New Orleans would have gotten in.

“It’s a shame because we’re probably the hottest team in the NFC right now and we don’t get a chance to show off what we can do in the playoffs,” said New Orleans Coach Jim Haslett, whose team won its last four games, three on the road. “We dug a hole early and we couldn’t get out of it.”

The wild-card round pits division rivals -- Minnesota at Green Bay and St. Louis at Seattle -- and, in Denver at Indianapolis, a couple of teams who will have faced each other in consecutive weeks. The Charger-Jet game is a rematch of their Week 2 shootout in San Diego, which the Jets won, 34-28.

The Colts played at Denver on Sunday and revealed precious little of their playbook to the Broncos. Peyton Manning played one series and threw two passes. Edgerrin James had one carry for minus-two yards. Both quickly retired to the sideline to watch rookie quarterback Jim Sorgi run the offense.

The Broncos, who haven’t won a postseason game since John Elway retired five seasons ago, will get a chance to avenge their humiliating 41-10 loss at Indianapolis in last season’s playoffs. Manning threw five touchdown passes in that game and finished with a highest-possible passer rating of 158.3.

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“We’re not going to fall for the same [stuff] we did back there last year,” Denver defensive tackle Trevor Pryce said.

The Vikings, meanwhile, will play at Green Bay on Sunday and bring with them an ominous statistic. They have lost 20 of their last 21 regular-season games played outdoors. However, Minnesota’s only outdoor victory during that stretch came at Green Bay in their 2003 opener.

This season, the Packers defeated the Vikings twice by identical 34-31 scores, the second of which came at the Metrodome on Christmas Eve and decided the NFC North.

“Playing a team three times, we’re very familiar with them and vice versa,” Packer quarterback Brett Favre said. “But it really doesn’t matter.”

For the Vikings, a ticket to the playoffs brought more relief than euphoria. After lingering in the locker room for 25 minutes after his game, more than twice as long as the typical “cooling off” period, Tice finally showed up to talk to the media.

“Frankly we were stalling to see if one of the games would end,” he said, referring to the Vikings’ need for a loss by either Carolina or St. Louis in order to sneak in. “I announced [the Panther loss], but there was not a lot of whooping and hollering. Why should there be?”

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There was plenty of celebrating by the Seahawks, who clinched the NFC West by about half a football. That’s how close Atlanta’s Warrick Dunn came to scoring a do-or-die, two-point conversion that would have forced overtime.

The Falcons lost, 28-26, although the game was meaningless for them; they locked up the conference’s No. 2 seeding two weeks earlier.

“I knew I wasn’t in,” Dunn said.

Meanwhile, the Seahawks knew they were in the playoffs, win or lose, but they were vying for the right to play host to a wild-card game.

“You have a better chance at home,” said Coach Mike Holmgren, whose team was swept by the Rams this season. “You should.”

Holmgren knows to hedge. He has seen too much craziness this season to take anything for granted. Take the Buffalo Bills, for instance. Having won six consecutive games going into their finale, they were looking to become only the second team to make a playoffs after an 0-4 start but wound up losing at home Sunday to a no-name collection of Pittsburgh Steelers -- no Ben Roethlisberger, no Jerome Bettis -- and blew their chance to make their first postseason appearance since 1999.

“I’m a little bit in shock,” Buffalo quarterback Drew Bledsoe said after the 29-24 loss. “The bottom line is, if we can’t beat them with their backups on the field, then we probably don’t deserve to be in.”

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NFL Playoff Matchups

Top two teams in each conference receive first-round byes. In second round, highest-seeded team is matched against the lowest (all times Pacific):

NFC

1. PHILADELPHIA (13-3); 2. ATLANTA (11-5)

SATURDAY, 1:30 p.m., Channel 7

5. ST. LOUIS (8-8) at 4. SEATTLE (9-7)

SUNDAY, 1:30 p.m., Channel 11

6. MINNESOTA (8-8) at 3. GREEN BAY (10-6)

AFC

1. PITTSBURGH (15-1); 2. NEW ENGLAND (14-2)

SATURDAY, 5 p.m., Channel 7

5. N.Y. JETS (10-6) at 4. SAN DIEGO (12-4)

SUNDAY, 10 a.m., Channel 2

6. DENVER (10-6) at 3. INDIANAPOLIS (12-4)

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