Come nightfall Feb. 4 at Dolphin Stadium in Miami, some owner/coach/quarterback will be hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy, emblematic of the winner of Super Bowl XLI. It’s just that right now, on the eve of the NFL playoffs’ wild-card weekend, it is hard to figure out just who that might be.
It might be equally difficult to determine if there’s a team, apart from the San Diego Chargers and their league-best 14-2 record, that truly deserves it. And even the Bolts have issues heading into the postseason. From that standpoint, they fit right in with what, on the surface, would appear to be one of the most motley groups of championship aspirants in recent memory.
Last season, every playoff qualifier won at least 10 games. Kansas City won 10 and didn’t make it, while four teams – San Diego, Miami, Dallas and Minnesota – couldn’t get in with 9-7 marks. On Sunday, the New York Giants, with an 8-8 record and almost certain lame-duck coach Tom Coughlin, will be facing Philadelphia.
The Giants, the first 8-8 team to make the playoffs since Dallas in 1999, almost blew their chances by losing six of their final eight regular-season games. Yet they seemingly have as good a chance as anyone to hit South Beach, particularly in the NFC. The Eagles won the NFC East after the Cowboys blew a two-game division lead by losing three of their last four games. As a reward, the ‘Pokes hit the road to face a Seahawks team that is defending conference champion in name only. Seattle is 1-3 in its last four games.
“Our record isn’t what we had hoped, to be honest with you, but there’s something about 9-7 being a lot better than 8-8,” Holmgren told Seattle-area reporters earlier this week.
And, as Mike Shanahan or Bill Cowher would attest, there’s something about just being in the playoffs after a season with the kind of turnover only the bakers at Pepperidge Farm could love. In the AFC, the only returnees from a year ago are the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. In the NFC, Seattle, New York and Chicago are the only repeaters.
In speaking with Kansas City-area reporters Thursday, Chiefs coach Herman Edwards, one of the seven new postseason teams from a year ago, admitted he felt his team was “a little behind” where he expected it to be. That expectation was winning the AFC West. However, he wasn’t about to pass on the opportunity that begins Saturday in Indianapolis against the Colts.
“For me it’s going to be very enjoyable to watch us play because this is another step in this program. I want to see where we’re at. We’ve gotten this far, so let’s go play,” Edwards said. “At the end of the day, it’s a game. It’s the same game you played during the regular season except there’s only 12 teams in the tournament, not 32.
“That’s what makes it special. All the pressures come to play. Everything is magnified. Every little play you run will be magnified 100 times. You know that. That’s part of it and part of the process of growing up and learning how to be a playoff team – a consistent playoff team, a team that understands the mentality.”
From that standpoint, the most fascinating matchup of the opening weekend will be the New England Patriots hosting the New York Jets. When Patriots coach Bill Belichick let defensive coordinator Eric Mangini escape to Gotham at the end of last season, he couldn’t have envisioned a playoff meeting between the teams. The Jets were 4-12 a year ago, with extreme uncertainty at running back, where Curtis Martin was a battered shell, and at quarterback, where Chad Pennington was coming off his second shoulder operation in two years.
Martin has been forced to retire, but Pennington is the NFL comeback player of the year. The team around him has done pretty well, finishing 10-6, a record that includes a 17-14 win on Nov. 12 in Foxborough, Mass., in the teams’ previous meeting.
As expected, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady downplayed that outcome.
“How we played eight weeks ago has zero bearing on this game,” he said.
But even a three-time Super Bowl champion has to be mindful of a team that has played eerily like Belichick’s in recent weeks, and during a season in which the unexpected has become the norm.
“It’s the playoffs; you have to play your best or you won’t be working next week,” Brady said. “You are playing against teams that are the best in the league and your margin of error there is that much more slim, so you can’t go out and make a bunch of mistakes or else it’s much easier to get beat.”
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
