These Redskins Aren’t Offensive

So an NFL team won a playoff game Saturday despite accruing a record-low 120 yards on offense, with a quarterback who completed seven of 15 passes for 41 yards, with a leading rusher who netted 53 yards in 16 carries, relying on its defense to score one touchdown and set up another.

And, no, nobody changed the first-round schedule at the last minute.

The Chicago Bears remain idle this weekend.

Proving that more than one NFC contender can play the one-dimension-by-necessity game, the Washington Redskins went on the road and won a wild-card round game against Tampa Bay, 17-10, with half a team, getting by with an offense that did little more than burn time between punts.

Forty-one passing yards on seven completions? Kyle Orton ... or Mark Brunell?

A fumble recovery-and-return for a score and a touchdown set up by an interception? The road to success according to the Lovie Smith playbook ... or Joe Gibbs going old school -- all the way back to the pre-legal-forward-pass era -- to win

the 17th, and ugliest, postseason game of his Hall of Fame

career?

Before Saturday, no team had won an NFL playoff game with as few as 120 net offensive yards, including the Trent Dilfer-era Baltimore Ravens, who used to own the record with 134 yards in a 2001 triumph over Tennessee.

How is it possible to win a postseason game on the road while getting outgained by 123 yards?

Let’s ask Edell Shepherd ... oops, he bobbled it.

Shepherd, Tampa Bay’s third-year wide receiver who probably won’t make it to a fourth, had the football, the game-tying touchdown and the Buccaneers’ season in his hands, in the end zone, with 2:55 to play and the Raymond James Stadium crowd screaming with anticipation.

It was all there, for a blink of an eye, for a snap of the fingers.

But Shepherd could not hold it.

It was close. Shepherd had the ball when it hit his shoulder pads, juggled it as it rolled down his chest but lost it about belt-high, the ball popping loose just as he was hitting the ground.

It was so close, Buccaneer Coach Jon Gruden challenged the call. It was the right decision, Gruden had to do it, even if it gave valuable moments of idle time to the ever-excitable broadcast crew of Mike Patrick, Joe Theismann and Paul Maguire.

Marveling that Tampa Bay quarterback Chris Simms could loft a ball that long and that precisely, Maguire studied a slow-motion replay of the almost 35-yard connection and sort of lost it.

“I’m going to tell you what,” he began, and give Maguire this -- at least he warned us.

“This young man threw a ball as well as anybody in the history of the National Football League. This ball is perfect.”

This will come as shocking news to Joe Namath, Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, John Elway, Dan Marino, Dan Fouts, Brett Favre, Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning, Archie Manning and Phil Simms.

This will also make Shepherd feel even lousier than he already does.

Simms threw the Best Pass In NFL History! and Shepherd dropped it.

Truth is, it was a pretty nice ball. Shepherd should have caught it. For a split-second, it appeared that he did. But as a series of replay angles proved, Shepherd failed to maintain possession long enough to call it a touchdown, and there went the Redskins on to the second round, and Gruden went home to grind his molars for the next eight months.

It was difficult to discern from the proceedings Saturday, but Washington remains the so-called “hottest” team in the NFL. This was the Redskins’ sixth consecutive victory, and if they record a seventh next weekend in Seattle, the NFC championship could very well match Chicago and Washington -- first team to score wins.

In Saturday’s AFC game, the numbers of note were 10-0. The New England Patriots defeated Jacksonville, 28-3, for their 10th consecutive postseason victory -- the most in league history by a team, a quarterback (Tom Brady, passing Starr) and a coach (Bill Belichick, eclipsing Vince Lombardi).

Briefly, however, those records seemed put on hold by another dropped touchdown pass, this by New England’s Deion Branch seconds before halftime, preventing the Patriots from entering the locker room with nothing more than a 7-3 lead over the weakest team in the AFC playoff field. Belichick was so steamed he stormed past sideline reporter Michele Tafoya, refusing an interview request.

A 21-point second half brought the customary grimace back to Belichick’s face. Brady passed for two Patriot touchdowns in the second half, to David Givens and Ben Watson, and Byron Leftwich passed for another, to Asante Samuel, the New England cornerback whose 73-yard interception return made it 28-3.

New England next plays either Indianapolis, if Cincinnati defeats Pittsburgh today, or Denver, if the Steelers win. The defending champions are still defending, words that are still ruining sleep patterns in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Denver.