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Rewarding mediocrity Bizarro season has .500 teams backing into playoffs
Posted: Monday January 03, 2000 03:17 AM
By Lonny Krasnow, CNN/SI In an upside-down season in which the meek inherited the NFL, two teams clinched playoff berths in Week 17 despite losing and two others are in with .500 records. Stumbling to the finish line in the AFC were the Seattle Seahawks and the Miami Dolphins. Seattle lost five of its final six games and still won the AFC West when the Kansas City Chiefs fell to the Oakland Raiders in overtime. Kansas City's loss gave Seattle its first postseason berth since 1988, ending the league's longest active playoff drought. The Cincinnati Bengals now hold that distinction, last reaching the playoffs in 1990.
In the NFC, the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys became the fourth and fifth teams to qualify for the playoffs with 8-8 records. No team without a winning record has ever won a playoff game.
The Lions take a four-game losing streak into Washington next weekend; only the 1986 New York Jets had a longer skid and still made the playoffs. The Jets started the season 10-1 only to lose the final five regular-season games. They were knocked out in the first round on the road at New England. It's been the road that has been the Dallas Cowboys' vice this season. The Cowboys claimed the last NFC playoff berth despite a 1-7 road record.
How backwards was the 1999 NFL season? The 49ers, Broncos and Packers are all idle in January, while the Rams, Colts, Buccaneers and Seahawks are division winners for the first time since the 1980s. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
