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Look down at your arm, which is probably halfway extended, connecting your shoulder to your mouse. Now straighten that arm out. Unless you're Muggsy Bogues or Shawn Bradley, your arm is probably just over two feet long. Almost one yard. And after 32 games, that one yard is the difference between the seasons posted by Shaun Alexander and Curtis Martin.

Think about that for a second. Those two combined for 724 carries and 3,393 yards, and it all came down to three feet. That's one juke here, a shoulder dip there, a spin move somewhere, diving forward just once instead of ducking out of bounds.

A decade from now, we'll be able to look at the 2005 NFL season leaders and see that Martin led the NFL with 1,697 yards rushing. Dig a little deeper, and perhaps we'll see that at 31 years old, Martin became the oldest player to lead the league in rushing. Mark it down, turn the page, look ahead.

Only it almost didn't end that way.

The Seahawks played a late afternoon game yesterday, so they knew the Jets had lost to the Rams in overtime and Martin had posted 158 yards rushing on 38 carries. This meant Alexander needed 81 yards to overtake Martin, considerably less than Alexander's season average of 107.7 yards per game.

As the Hawks and the Falcons kicked off, the FOX TV crew began touting Alexander's run for the record. Tony Siragusa, the roving sideline raconteur, reported that the Hawks planned on getting Alexander plenty of carries and yards. Daryl Johnston swore that getting Alexander a personal record was important to the rest of the team and the coaching staff, although that might have been only because Johnston played so long with Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin.

Anyway, halfway through the fourth quarter, leading by one point, Seattle mounted a long drive, eventually finding themselves at the 16-yard line with Alexander exactly 16 yards short of the mark. Common sense and the law of averages seemed to combine to suggest that the Hawks wouldn't be able to get Alexander all 16 yards, even on a series of runs, if only because the Falcons were surely just as aware of the situation as the Fox crew and would stack the line to stop the run.

The subplot running beneath this situation was that the Seahawks needed a win to take the NFC West and secure home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. The Falcons, meanwhile, had fit Michael Vick with a fluffy parka and planted him on the sideline, content to rely on rookie Matt Schaub for an essentially meaningless game. With a first-round playoff bye on lock, the Falcons were mainly looking to rebottle their "mojo," Vick said.

The Hawks managed to get the first fifteen of the 16 yards with Alexander on the ground. With the ball at the 1-yard line, Atlanta put about 37 guys in the box.

And Seattle called a quarterback sneak.

They scored, yeah, and took a 28-20 lead with 4:32 to play. But Alexander, their workhorse, was still one yard shy.

Thing is, it made sense. Alexander had just shouldered the load and was due a break, as much to give him a rest as to give the Falcons another option to guard against. And with the Falcons likely to pass the ball down the field, chances were pretty good that Seattle would get the ball back.

But they didn't. Atlanta meandered down the field and scored as time ran out, but missed a two-point conversion that would've sent the game into overtime and given Alexander a few more shots at the title. Time ran out on Alexander, but not the Seahawks, who won their division and guaranteed their fans a home playoff game. Alexander will have another shot at making the record books next season. But for these Seahawks, yesterday's result was why they came here.

The Falcons know from rushing misadventures. In 1972, in a game at Kansas City, Atlanta RB Dave Hampton hit the 1,000-yard mark, becoming the Falcons' franchise first 1,000-yard runner. Hampton then lost 6 yards on the very next play, and he finished the year with 995.

Yards are a funny thing. We don't use them on highways, on baseball fields, when measuring apartment size. But in football, they tend to matter.

Maybe just not as much as to one person as to an entire team.

Something I Learned This Week In An NBA Locker Room

While discussing returning from the injured list with an Eastern Conference forward, he said: "When you come off that list, you always cramp up in that first game back. It happened to me a few years ago. Because when you're on the list, you just spend the whole time, you know, partying and drinking."

Photo Of The Week

There are many things to say about this picture, but you can check it out yourself and see just how surreal it is. One thought: looking at this trio 15 years ago, who would've guessed that John Stamos would make it to 2005 in the best condition?

Headlines Of The Year

You know all those odd headlines that show up almost daily on Yahoo.com? Here's an article that rounds up some of the year's best. I particularly liked the cost-cutting German theater that mounted a production of Snow White using just four dwarves.

Customization Of The Week

During the holidays, I've been catching up on my MTV viewing, which included a ton of Pimp My Ride. But now the Feds have caught 'em, fining the crew at West Coast Customs for replacing an airbag with a TV screen. Wait until they see that episode where they replaced the seatbelts with coffee makers.

Lang Whitaker is the online editor at SLAM magazine and writes daily at SLAMonline.com.  He, too, hopes the Falcons have found their mojo.