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Super Bowl run begins with wild card weekend
Mon Dec 31, 2:29 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - With the New England Patriots' unbeaten regular season installed in the record books, the NFL spotlight swings to the runup for the Super Bowl which kicks off with wild card weekend Saturday and Sunday.
After earning first-round byes, the Patriots, defending champions Indianapolis Colts, the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys will spend the first weekend of the post-season like millions of fans watching from their sofas to see who they will meet in the divisional playoffs.
For the Washington Redskins and Tennessee Titans, who clinched their playoff spots with victories on the final day of the regular season, there will be no time to reflect as they prepare for a wildcard weekend with games played across the United States from Seattle to Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh to San Diego.
In the NFC, the surging Redskins (9-7) travel to the west coast to face the Seattle Seahawks (10-6) while the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (9-7) host the New York Giants (10-6).
The AFC will feature a bruising battle between the 2006 Super Bowl champions Pittsburgh Steelers (10-6) and the Jacksonville Jaguars (11-5) while the San Diego Chargers (11-5) welcome the Titans (10-6).
The Redskins' appearance in the post-season is both unexpected and inspiring.
Reeling from the fatal shooting of Pro Bowl safety Sean Taylor during a botched robbery, mired in a four-game losing streak and without starting quarterback Jason Campbell, who went down with a broken leg, a playoff spot appeared beyond Washington's reach.
"GREAT CHARACTER"
But behind backup quarterback Todd Collins the Redskins fashioned an unlikely four-game winning run to close out the regular season, clinching a wildcard berth with a 27-6 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in their final game.
"To our players, it was really a testimony these four weeks of just great character," Redskins coach Joe Gibbs told reporters.
"To get to the playoffs was a dream of ours and four weeks ago everybody would have said it looked impossible.
"It was a great four weeks. It was guys just playing their hearts out."
The Titans also left it late and turned to a backup to secure their first playoff appearance since 2003.
Needing a win over the Colts to advance, the Titans playoff dreams seemed over when starting quarterback Vince Young went down in the third quarter with a quadriceps injury.
But veteran Kerry Collins came on to complete a 16-10 victory earning the Titans a trip to San Diego to face the red hot Chargers.
After a stumbling 1-3 start to the season the Chargers revealed their Super Bowl credentials going 10-2, including a six game win streak to close the season as running back LaDainian Tomlinson captured his second consecutive NFL rushing title.
The Giants wobble into the post-season losing two of their last three but take on a Tampa Bay team that was even less impressive down the stretch losing three of four.
(Writing by Steve Keating in Toronto: Editing by John Mehaffey)
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Perfect Patriots take giant leap towards ultimate goal
Win is New England’s sixteenth in 16 games; Brady and Moss have record-breaking years
Nick Szczepanik
Perfection achieved: now to improve upon it. The New England Patriots completed only the second perfect regular season in the NFL’s modern era on Saturday night, winning 38-35 away to the New York Giants to record their sixteenth victory in 16 games.
The Miami Dolphins were the first team to achieve the feat, in 1972, when the regular season was only 14 games long. They finished the season with a 17-0 won-lost record after winning two play-off games and the Super Bowl, so if the Patriots go on to claim their fourth Super Bowl win in seven seasons, they can justifiably claim the superior achievement.
Three teams stand in their way and if the NFL play-off seedings pan out they will face the holders, Indianapolis Colts, in the American Football Conference (AFC) championship game - the Super Bowl semi-final. But they will play their AFC play-off games at home and have already beaten the Colts this season. Then they will face the National Football Conference (NFC) champions in the Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona. The top seeds in the NFC are the Dallas Cowboys, whom they beat 48-27 in October.
“It’s special,” Tom Brady, the quar-terback, said after the game. “But we’ve won three Super Bowls and as good as this feels, I think we all know that it’s not the real goal that we’ve set for ourselves.”
The Giants, who had already qualified for the play-offs and could have been forgiven for resting key players, led 28-16 in the third quarter before Brady led the Patriots to touchdowns on three drives in a four-possession stretch, including a 65-yard pass to Randy Moss with 11min 6sec left in the game. “It was a tricky game, because it really didn’t mean too much, but it also meant a lot,” Brady said. “The games that mean the most, though, are still coming.”
However, acclaim has been muted for a team who are more efficient than effervescent. Even the NFL’s official website spoke of a “perfect if somewhat joyless journey through the season” and it was noted that victory No 16 was achieved in the stadium where the Patriots were found to have videotaped the signals of the New York Jets’ coaches in the opening game of the season, a violation that cost Bill Belichick, the head coach, $500,000 (about £250,000) and the Patriots a further fine and a 2008 first-round draft choice.
South Florida, in particular, was not an area that celebrated, although Don Shula, the head coach of the 1972 Dolphins, was quick with his praise. “Going undefeated during the regular season is a remarkable achievement,” he said. “I know first hand how difficult it is to win every game and, just as we did in 1972, the Patriots have done a great job concentrating on each week’s opponent and not letting any other distractions interrupt that focus. If they go on to complete an undefeated season, I will be the first to congratulate coach Belichick and the Patriots.”
Not all the Miami veterans were as magnanimous. “I remember Sir Edmund Hillary was the first one to climb Mount Everest,” Garo Yepremian, the team’s kicker, said. “I don’t remember who did it the second time. Do you? They’re playing well, but they still have three more opponents coming up. I can’t say how I feel because they haven’t done it yet.” In gaining their nineteenth straight regular-season win over two campaigns - breaking their own mark set from 2003 to 2004 - and setting a record for points scored during a season (589), the Patriots also set two individual records.
Brady beat Peyton Manning’s mark of 49 touchdown passes in a season by throwing two to Moss, to finish on 50. The receptions gave Moss, who is in his first season with the Patriots, 23 touchdown catch-es, beating the record of 22 in a season, held by Jerry Rice.
The records will mean little to the players unless they hoist the Vince Lombardi trophy on February 3. “When I came here [as a free agent] in the spring, it was to win a Super Bowl,” Adalius Thomas, the linebacker, said. “Never do you think, ‘Well, maybe I’ll sign with New England because that’s a team that has a chance to be undefeated.’
Honestly, how could you allow yourself to even think that? So the whole 16-0 thing, while it’s great, it didn’t become a goal of ours until these last few weeks. Everybody knows what we’re after.”
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