Some show up in Sunday best

It was a perfect Sunday: The Detroit Lions lost their finale, becoming the first NFL team to finish 0-16.

It was a stormy Sunday: Icy gusts reaching 60 mph in Buffalo, actually blowing the goal posts out of alignment.

It was a perfect-stormy Sunday: Heading into Week 17, the Philadelphia Eagles were all but finished. That was until the Oakland Raiders pulled off a shocking victory at Tampa Bay -- giving former coach Jon Gruden a silver-and-black scuttling -- and the Houston Texans came back at home to beat Chicago.

For the Eagles, it was as if a secret wall panel suddenly popped open. The Dallas Cowboys were standing in their path and were promptly trampled, 44-6, as Philadelphia grabbed the final NFC berth.

“They just handed us an old-fashioned butt whipping,” receiver Terrell Owens said, and he might have been understating it.

Dallas quarterback Tony Romo suffered an undisclosed rib injury and, according to ESPN, collapsed in the shower. The report said players called for medical staff and a stretcher was brought into the shower but Romo was able to walk out on his own. Later, after speaking to reporters, Romo needed to be helped from the podium.

As for the Cowboys in general, saying they blew their chances at the end of the season is akin to saying it was a little breezy in Buffalo. Dallas needed only to win one of its last two games to secure a postseason spot. Instead, the Cowboys withered down the stretch with losses to Baltimore and Philadelphia.

What’s more, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said last week he was happy with the coaching staff, win or lose. After the Philadelphia game, Jones repeatedly said, “There will not be a new head coach.”

But owners could be changing the locks to coaches’ doors in places like Cleveland, where the Browns swiftly fired General Manager Phil Savage after Sunday’s loss at Pittsburgh, and with the New York Jets, where Coach Eric Mangini’s team -- bolstered by the acquisition of Brett Favre -- did not reach the playoffs after an 8-3 start.

Then, there are the success stories. San Francisco removed the “interim” from Coach Mike Singletary’s title, and the 49ers reportedly are prepared to reward him with a long-term deal. Across the bay, Oakland has to give serious thought to keeping interim Coach Tom Cable after his Raiders became only the second visiting team to win at Tampa Bay this season.

More important to the Raiders, the victory denied Gruden a spot in the playoffs. To some in that beleaguered franchise -- OK, Raiders owner Al Davis -- the wounds of Gruden’s Super Bowl victory over Oakland are still fresh. Notably, Davis did not make the trip -- the first Raiders road game he has not attended since 1979 -- because, a team spokesman said, of swelling in his knee and ankle caused by a recent fall.

So he missed his team’s handing Tampa Bay its fourth consecutive defeat.

“We went after the game that whole way,” Cable said. “Our goal was to match the intensity of a team trying to get into the playoffs.”

The Baltimore Ravens and Minnesota Vikings understand that intensity. They both won Sunday to claim playoff berths.

As a result of the victories by Miami and Baltimore, New England will be out of the playoffs despite an 11-5 record. That makes the Patriots the first 11-win team to be left out since Denver in 1985.

In Pittsburgh, the playoff-bound Steelers didn’t want to take their foot off the gas -- and it cost them. Instead of resting quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in a meaningless finale, they kept him in the game. In the second quarter, he was sandwiched by two tacklers and slammed to the ground. He suffered a concussion, was strapped to a backboard and carted off the field. Tests later revealed no additional injuries.

“We are optimistic of where he is going to be” in the playoffs, said Coach Mike Tomlin, whose team has the AFC’s No. 2 seeding and a week off. “The bye is going to be helpful.”

The Carolina Panthers will second that. They secured the NFC’s No. 2 seeding with a 33-31 victory over New Orleans, a game decided by John Kasay’s 42-yard field goal with one second to play.

Had the Panthers lost, they would have received the No. 5 seeding -- unthinkable for a team in the running to be top-seeded only two games ago -- and would have been on the road for the wild-card round.

“It’s a huge relief,” Carolina receiver Steve Smith said. “If we lose this game . . . the cards would have been stacked against us.”

The Cards would have been stacked too, considering the Panthers would have opened at Arizona. Instead, Carolina is the NFC South champion.

Also heading to the postseason from that division is Atlanta, little more than a year removed from the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal. If there were a comeback-franchise-of-the-year award, the Falcons and Dolphins would have to split it.

“We came a long way,” Atlanta running back Jerious Norwood said. “Whoever would have thought we’d be in the playoffs?”

Strange? Yes. But on a stormy Sunday when fortunes swayed like goal posts in the wind, when secret panels appeared out of nowhere, strange was the norm.

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sam.farmer@latimes.com