FOR USE AS DESIRED
NFL-POST–1   12/31/02  

IT’S GOING TO GET WILDER -- HERE COMES WILD CARD WEEKEND!

After the harrowing season they’ve just been through, the 12 NFL playoff teams would love a free pass to San Diego for Super Bowl XXXVII.

That, of course, is not going to happen.  If anything, starting with Wild Card Weekend this Saturday and Sunday, the road to California is about to get even more bumpy.

In the playoffs, the intensity is ratcheted up even higher, the pressure tighter.  And one thing is paramount -- advance, or else.

“You don’t go to the playoffs just to go to the playoffs,” says New York Jets running back CURTIS MARTIN.  “You go to go to the Super Bowl.” 

The Wild Card Weekend that starts the final stretch to Super Bowl:

NFL WILD CARD WEEKEND

Saturday, January 4
 

Sunday, January 5
 

The 2002 package of playoff teams is an impressive one.  Why?  Many reasons:

·         They’re hot:  Since Thanksgiving weekend, the unofficial kickoff to the playoff race, the 12 clubs are a combined 42-17.  That’s a .712 winning clip.

·         They’re hot:  Almost every one of the 12 is on some sort of winning streak, led by Tennessee at 10-1.  Oakland is 7-1, Philadelphia 6-1, and three teams – the New York Giants and Jets, and Tampa Bay – are on 7-2 streaks.   Indianapolis leads the others at 6-2.  

·         They’re good:  Combined, the 12 compiled a 125-64-2 season record – a .660 winning percentage.

·         They’re new:  For the sixth consecutive year, at least five new clubs have made the playoffs.  This year, it’s Atlanta, Cleveland, Indianapolis, the New York Giants and Tennessee.

·         They’ll be new:  For the fourth consecutive year, a different team will win Super Bowl.

Wild Card Weekend kicks off Saturday with the first playoff rematch of Super Bowl III when the Indianapolis Colts (10-6) visit the AFC East-champion New York Jets (9-7) on ABC-TV at 4:30 PM ET. 

It will also be a coaching reunion of two former NFL DBs who are old friends, and a renewal of a familiar division rivalry. 

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NFL PLAYOFF FACTOID

TOP TEAMS:  Nine of the 12 2002 playoff teams have at least 10 wins, with the remaining three having nine wins.

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Jets head coach HERMAN EDWARDS was the assistant head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1996-2000 under Colts first-year head coach TONY DUNGY.

“I talked to Tony last week, and he wished me luck,” says Edwards.  “And he said we will probably see each other down the road.  He was right.”

They will see each other this Saturday.  And everything will seem familiar.  The Colts and Jets played twice a year every year through last year as AFC Eastern Division-rivals.  Indianapolis has a 38-25 edge.  But in the playoffs, the Jets boast a 1-0 margin, as in their Super Bowl III 16-7 triumph in 1969, the last time the teams met in the playoffs.  

“We’ve got a history with them,” says Colts linebacker MIKE PETERSON.  “I knew when I first got here, it was the ‘Colts-Jets’ and ‘Colts-Dolphins.’  I’m ready for it.  I’m ready for the playoffs.”

The Colts will see a lot of familiar faces, but a key unfamiliar one – Jets quarterback CHAD PENNINGTON – will play a major role.

The 26-year-old compiled an 8-4 (.667) record after taking over as the Jets’ starter in early October, and finished as the NFL leader in completion percentage (68.9) and passer rating (104.2).   

Meanwhile, Jets corners AARON BEASLEY and DONNIE ABRAHAM will face one of the most lethal QB-WR tandems in the league in Indy quarterback PEYTON MANNING and wideout MARVIN HARRISON, who this year set the NFL record for catches in a season (143).   

In the late Saturday Wild Card game (ABC-TV, 8:00 PM ET), two of the NFL’s most exciting quarterbacks will meet, as they did in Week 1, when the Atlanta Falcons (9-6-1) and MICHAEL VICK travel to face BRETT FAVRE of the NFC North-champion Green Bay Packers (12-4) and the legend of Lambeau Field. 

But Vick’s young (22), and like most young people, probably doesn’t let history scare him.  But the legend of Lambeau – especially when it comes to the playoffs – is indeed daunting.  The Packers have never lost a playoff game there (11-0).  Throw in what could be below-freezing temperatures Saturday night (New Year’s Eve Day is, after all, the 35th anniversary of the “Ice Bowl”), and anybody, young or old, could be taken aback.

“You hear that talk that we have never lost a playoff game here,” says Favre, who is 35-0 at home when the temperature is below 34 degrees.  “That weighs on the opposing team.  You start believing, ‘Well, we can’t win here.’  We all know that is not true, but our guys start believing we can’t be beat.  I don’t wake up and say, ‘Uh-oh, 32 degrees.  Somebody is in trouble.  But other people do, I guess.”      

The teams opened the season against each other with the Packers pulling out a 37-34 overtime victory, and the vestiges of Falcons new starter Vick started to show themselves.  He completed 15 of 23 passes for 209 yards and a touchdown, and ran for 72 yards.  By the end of the season, Vick would be the 14th-ranked rusher in the NFC (777 yards), Atlanta would rank fourth in the league in rushing (thanks also to WARRICK DUNN), and many of Vick’s electrifying runs would stamp the season.

“He was a better thrower than we probably gave him credit for at that time,” says Packers head coach MIKE SHERMAN.  “We thought he would evolve to that, and he really threw the ball well against us.  Obviously, through the course of the season, we have a young player who is recognized as a possible MVP candidate.  He’s certainly done some tremendous things.  We have a little more awareness of him, what he’s capable of doing and what we have to do to defend against him, against the run and the pass.”

Of course, Atlanta is facing former-Falcon Favre, at 33 still able to strike chills into a defensive coordinator like the Falcons’ WADE PHILLIPS.  Green Bay was handed by the Jets in their season finale their worst non-playoff loss (42-17) in 10 years (31-3 on September 13, 1992).  Not the kind of game you want a guy like Brett Favre coming off of. 

Sunday’s early Wild Card game (CBS-TV, 1:00 PM ET) is like going back in time.  It’s a division matchup of the Cleveland Browns (9-7) at the AFC North-titlist Pittsburgh Steelers (10-5-1).  It’s the “Rust Belt Rivalry”…towns separated by 132 miles of highway…the blue-collar ethic that built the NFL…the jut-jawed snarl of Steelers head coach BILL COWHER, a special teams’ demon in his playing days with the Browns.

So the memories are there, even from this year, when the two division meetings were decided by a total of six points, both in the Steelers’ favor.  On September 29, a TODD PETERSON field goal seven minutes into overtime won it for Pittsburgh 16-13.  On November 3, a late TIM COUCH-to-QUINCY MORGAN TD pass brought the Browns to within three, but a lack of timeouts after forcing Pittsburgh to punt resulted in a second Browns loss, 23-20.

There’s even history in this year’s sweep.  Sunday’s game will be 26th time since 1933 (when the NFL began scheduling playoffs) that a club will meet in the playoffs a team it swept in the regular season.  The sweeping club’s record in the third game?  15-10.  When that club plays at home?  13-5.            

Both quarterbacks Sunday were not starters when the season began.  (And remember that the past three Super Bowl champions were quarterbacked by players who began training camp as backups.)     

The Steelers’ TOMMY MADDOX has compiled a 7-3-1 record after being named the starter in early October, and set a team record for completion percentage (62.1).  The Browns’ KELLY HOLCOMB spelled starter TIM COUCH (elbow) in the season’s first two games (and split), and will do so in the playoffs, with Couch out with a broken leg.  “I’ve got to be ready,” says Holcomb.  “It’s a one-game season now.”

The “Patron Saint” of substitute playoff quarterbacks is JEFF HOSTETLER, who, like Holcomb, started only two regular-season games in 1990 only to lead the Giants to their Super Bowl XXV championship.   

As you might expect with these kinds of teams at this time of year, the running game could be pivotal Sunday.  The Browns’ No. 1 draft choice this year, running back WILLIAM GREEN, has been hot since mid-November, rushing for 726 of his total of 887 yards.  He’ll face the NFL’s top-ranked rushing defense.  Steelers RB AMOS ZEREOUE, subbing for JEROME BETTIS (knee) rushed for his third 100-yard game (104) of the year in Week 17.   

The final Wild Card of the weekend (FOX-TV, 4:30 PM ET) will feature the two teams that started the season off at Giants Stadium on Thursday night, September 5 after “NFL Kickoff Live From Times Square.”

It’s the New York Giants (10-6) – making it the first time that both New York NFL teams have been in the playoffs since 1986, the season the Giants won Super Bowl XXI – at the NFC West-winner San Francisco 49ers (10-6).

“(September 5) gives us a starting point,” says Giants head coach JIM FASSEL.  “We’ve played them one time, we know a little bit about their scheme, although it was a long time ago, so we’ve got to go back over everything because they, like everybody else, have changed.”  The 49ers won the Thursday nighter 16-13 on a 36-yard field goal with six seconds left.

In encapsulated form, the game could come down to two No. 5s throwing to two No. 81s.

That’s quarterbacks KERRY COLLINS of the Giants and JEFF GARCIA of the 49ers connecting, respectively, with the second- and fifth-ranked NFC receiving-yards leaders AMANI TOOMER (1,343, a Giants team record) and TERRELL OWENS (1,300). 

To that passing mix can be added the only rookie to be selected to the 2003 Pro Bowl, Giants tight end JEREMY SHOCKEY (team tight end-record 74 catches).  The spirited first-round draft choice caught the game-tying TD pass last Saturday that led to the Giants’ overtime victory over Philadelphia and a berth in the playoffs.

A one-on-one matchup that should generate interest throughout the day is Giants running back TIKI BARBER, the NFC scrimmage-yards leader (1,984), being trailed by the Niners’ left outside linebacker and Pro Bowl selection JULIAN PETERSON.

WILD CARD SUPER BOWL TEAMS

Wild Card teams have advanced to the Super Bowl eight times – including the Baltimore Ravens two years ago when they became the fourth Wild Card team to win a Super Bowl.  The Kansas City Chiefs performed the feat in 1969, the Oakland Raiders in 1980 and Denver Broncos in 1997.  The eight Wild Card/non-division winners to play in Super Bowls:

2002 NFL PLAYER PLAYOFF SHARES

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE 2002 PLAYOFF SCHEDULE
(All times Eastern)

WILD CARD WEEKEND

2002 NFL STANDINGS

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS
(Home teams in capitals.)

2002 PLAYOFF DATES