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NFL trend Three wild-card upsets, but the seedings held
NEW YORK (AP) -- After a season of contradictions, the wild-card weekend was no different. Although three of the home teams were underdogs, all won, and so did favored Baltimore at home. If the home teams continue to win, it will be Tennessee against the New York Giants in the Super Bowl. Unlikely, but for those who need to know, the Titans beat the Giants 28-14 in Nashville in the regular season. And, as usual in the playoffs, the victories went to defense over offense (Miami against Indianapolis, New Orleans against St. Louis, Baltimore against Denver and Philadelphia against Tampa Bay in a battle of big defenses). The second-round matchups:
Both the Dolphins and Ravens, the lower-seeded teams, have positive histories against their opponents. Miami has won in Oakland the last three seasons, with Dan Marino on the roster but without Lamar Smith and Jay Fiedler. Baltimore gave Tennessee its only loss at Adelphia Coliseum -- 24-23 on Nov. 12, when Al Del Greco missed an extra point, then a 43-yard field-goal attempt that could have won the game. Overall, the edge among these four probably goes to Tennessee. Even though they don't win pretty and they don't win big, the Titans are the only one of the six preseason favorites still alive. (Washington, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville and Indianapolis were the others.) Nobody runs on the Ravens. But the Titans beat them 14-6 in Baltimore in a game in which Eddie George carried once, injured his knee, and missed the rest of the game. Word around Nashville was that Baltimore was the one team the Titans didn't want to see. "It didn't come from us," head coach Jeff Fisher says. "Why would we not want to play a team that we're familiar with? We have respect for everybody. When you get a chance to play a team where there's familiarity, it makes the preparation week a little easier. Footnote: In 1988, the Houston Oilers (now the Titans) lost to the Cleveland Browns (now the Ravens) on the final week of the season in Cleveland. They had to go back the next week and won a wild-card game, 24-23. Bruce Matthews was playing for Houston then, as he does for Tennessee now. The players don't change, only the cities do.
The one team the Raiders didn't want to see was Denver, which beat them twice in the regular season and has won 11 of their last 12 meetings. Miami-Oakland is one of those nostalgic playoff rivalries, a trip back to the '70s, when the AFC was the dominant conference and these two managed to win three Super Bowls in a decade when Pittsburgh won four. The key is the health of Oakland running backs Napoleon Kaufman (thigh) and Tyrone Wheatley (knee). Healthy, they give the Raiders the kind of balanced attack that's hard to stop, even by a defense as good as Miami's. Rich Gannon and Fiedler are similar quarterbacks, resilient and tough, although Gannon has far more experience. Fiedler showed a lot by coming back from three first-half interceptions against the Colts to lead the game-tying and game-winning drives.
How quickly things can change in the salary cap era. These four teams were a combined 25-39 in the 1999 regular season and the only one with a winning record, the Vikings, was picked for fourth or fifth in the NFC Central. The Saints showed their playoff inexperience by tightening up in the last 12 minutes and almost blowing a 31-7 lead to the Rams. This week, they get the next closest thing to St. Louis in Minnesota on the road. How much longer can New Orleans keep losing players and plugging in spare parts? Journeyman wide receiver Willie Jackson for Joe Horn was the latest. Did the Vikings get their bearings back during their bye week? They seemed a lock to get home-field advantage, then lost their last three games and would have ended up a road wild card if Martin Gramatica hadn't missed a field goal in Green Bay that could have given Tampa Bay the Central title, a week off and a home game. Still, it's all relative. "If you were to tell me before the season that we would be division champs with a first-round bye, everyone would be jumping up and down," free safety Orlando Thomas said. In only three games this season did the Giants look like a top seed. Two of them were 33-18 and 24-7 wins against the Eagles. In only two games this season were the Eagles not in the lead or within range in the final minutes -- in the losses to the Giants, who now have beaten them eight consecutive times. Yet the Eagles were optimistic after Sunday's 21-3 win against Tampa Bay. "We're a different team now," defensive end Hugh Douglas said. New York's edge has been its ability to run against Philadelphia. The Giants rushed for 167 yards in the first game (Tiki Barber 96, Ron Dayne 50) and 152 in the second (Dayne 92, Barber 52.) It's also used Pro Bowl linebacker Jessie Armstead to spy on Donovan McNabb and keep him in the pocket. But Barber will play this week with a broken left arm and Dayne finished poorly, perhaps a rookie hitting the wall in a 16-game season. And Tampa Bay used Derrick Brooks and John Lynch, both All-Pros, to spy on McNabb Sunday and it didn't work.
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