Rushing to Win, Chiefs Left Waiting

Kansas City won the NFL’s first playoff-before-the-playoffs game, defeating San Diego on Saturday, 20-7, to advance to the next round, also known as the pray-in round. This time next weekend, the Chiefs will be praying for: a) Deliverance over the Cincinnati Bengals, newly minted champions of the AFC North;

b) An assist by the Denver Broncos, of all people, who need to defeat the Chargers in their regular-season finale;

c) An out-and-out miracle: a victory by the Detroit Lions over Pittsburgh, in Pittsburgh, with the Steelers needing to win to clinch the second and final AFC wild-card berth.

They called the Chiefs’ home encounter with the Chargers an “elimination game,” for the loser was indeed eliminated from playoff consideration.

But for the winner, consequences weren’t all that heart-warming either, not when your playoff lives rest in the hands of Joey Harrington, on the road, against the Steelers.

Larry Johnson scored three touchdowns and completed his eighth consecutive 100-yard-plus rushing performance, and for what?

To set the Chiefs up for a potential Sunday full of distraction and anguish, dividing their attention between trying to beat the Bengals and trying not to wince when checking scoreboard updates on Detroit-at-Pittsburgh.

Given a choice to trade places, however, the Chiefs will gladly stay with their long shot and leave the Chargers to spend Christmas wrapped in their Best Team Not To Make The Playoffs swaddling clothes.

We all saw this coming, as soon as the 2005 NFL regular-season schedule was released. The Chargers were up against it from the start, which will teach them to never again win the AFC West championship.

The Chargers made that mistake in 2004, bringing with it the peach pits of victory: 10 games this season against teams that could wind up in the 2005 playoffs and one against the Philadelphia Eagles in October, back when the Eagles were still known as “Defending NFC Champions” and not “That Empty Husk Rustling Across the Loading Dock Behind Lincoln Financial Field.” The Chargers dealt with their brutal schedule pretty much the way you would expect. They won games they shouldn’t have won (at Indianapolis, at New England) and lost games they had no business losing (home to Miami).

So San Diego will sit out the postseason and Jacksonville will not. The Jaguars clinched the first AFC wild-card slot by scoring three fourth-quarter touchdowns to rally, yes, rally for a 38-20 victory over 2-13 Houston. Counting two games against Houston and two more against 4-11 Tennessee, Jacksonville will have played a total of 10 games against opponents with losing records, and only one against a winning team (Indianapolis) since Oct. 16.

But who said life was fair in the NFL?

No, life is mostly peculiar in the NFL. Consider: With its wild card, Jacksonville clinched its first playoff appearance since 1999, when the Jaguars were coached by Tom Coughlin and quarterbacked by Mark Brunell, and guess who were on opposite sidelines Saturday in the big game in the NFC?

Coughlin’s New York Giants were on the road against Brunell’s Washington Redskins, a matchup that ultimately did not end wonderfully for either former Jag, although Brunell could at least crack a smile as physicians tended to his injured knee.

Before limping off the field in the third quarter, Brunell had connected with Santana Moss for two touchdowns. His replacement, Patrick Ramsey, kept to the same strategy, hitting Moss for a 72-yard score that iced the Redskins’ remarkable 35-20 victory.

A week earlier, the Redskins defeated the Dallas Cowboys, 35-7, meaning that in must-win games against the top two teams in the NFC East, Washington outscored the Giants and the Cowboys, 70-27.

Now this is a Redskin team that lost its first meeting with the Giants, 36-0. It also scored nine points against Chicago, 13 against Oakland and, just 13 days earlier, 17 points in a painful-to-watch victory over Arizona.

Since proving themselves slightly less wretched than the Cardinals on Dec. 11, the Redskins have scored 70 points -- 70 points! -- against their biggest division rivals.

This has done some interesting things to their division. Namely, Washington can win the NFC East championship with a victory at Philadelphia, a 27-21 loser to Arizona on Saturday, coupled with a Giants defeat at Oakland in a matchup being billed as “Kerry Collins Gets One More Chance to Ruin Another Giants Season.” Five of six NFC playoff spots remain up for grabs, although Chicago can earn passage today with a victory over Green Bay (or a Minnesota loss at Baltimore). Seattle wrapped up home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs with a 28-13 triumph over Indianapolis in a game that was most assuredly no Super Bowl preview, unless you’re counting on Jim Sorgi playing three-plus quarters for the Colts in the next Super Bowl.

This Seattle-Indianapolis game was notable only in that the Colts obliged Shaun Alexander in his quest to equal the league record for most touchdowns in a single season. Knowing Alexander needed three touchdowns to tie Priest Holmes’ record of 27, the Colts gave Alexander the time and space to rush for two scores and catch another.

The Seahawks close their regular-season schedule at Green Bay in a game that ordinarily would be meaningless, except for a) Alexander’s needing one touchdown to break the record, and b) Mike Holmgren’s wanting to strut around Lambeau Field showing off his 11-game winning streak with the Seahawks.

From there, Seattle will rest a week and then attempt to record its first postseason victory since the 1984 season, when Eric Lane led all Seahawk running backs with five touchdowns.

Alexander probably doesn’t remember. He was 7 at the time.

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Most touchdowns

Most touchdowns scored in an NFL season:

*--* Player, team Year Rush Total Priest Holmes, Kansas City 2003 27 27 Shaun Alexander, Seattle 2005 26 27 Marshall Faulk, St. Louis 2000 18 26 Emmitt Smith, Dallas 1995 25 25

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