Monday, January 08, 2001
Strange cast for conference title games
By Mike Lopresti
Gannett News Service
Come with us back to Labor Day weekend when this current NFL crusade was turned loose. And now we'll all try to guess the four teams to be left in the basket on the front porch of the Super Bowl come the conference championship games.
Oakland ... Baltimore ... Minnesota ... the New York Giants.
Well?
Nahhhh.
Ah, but here they are in January. An NFL Final Four mostly from last season's discount rack.
Oakland and Baltimore were 8-8, the Giants 7-9. The Vikings were 10-6 but supposedly with an unsure future.
Supposedly.
Defense did a lot to get them here.
Well, except for maybe Minnesota, where the Vikings send out Randy Moss one way and Cris Carter the other and let Daunte Culpepper find one of them, which he usually does, even if he is 23, or five years younger than Chris Weinke, the guy who won the Heisman.
But meantime, Oakland comes off a shutout. Balti more has given up 13 points in two games and is rewriting defensive history. The Giants stuffed Philadelphia.
Even the Vikings' defense returned from sabbatical in time to stop New Orleans.
Perseverance did a lot to get them here, too.
Good thing for them this NFL season was screwball enough to be forgiving.
That way, the Ravens could get this far despite going five games without a touchdown in October, an NFL offense's answer to the Sahara Desert.
And the Vikings could get this far despite losing their last three regular-season games, when the enemy touchdowns fell like sleet.
And the Giants could get this far despite a mid-season slump that worried their coach enough, he guaranteed the playoffs to take the media heat off his players and put the laser beam on himself.
And Oakland could get this far despite being barely able to win on the road the last two months of the season.
Now they're all one game from the happy land of Roman numerals.
We are talking here of putting jumper cables to cities that have known glory in the past.
The Super Bowl? Minnesota hasn't been in 24 years. Oakland 20 (not counting 1984 when the Raiders had the unfortunate fling with that hussy, Los Angeles).
New York hasn't been there in 10, Baltimore not for 30, long before the Colts blew town.
It is a gang with juicy subplots, from the owner's box on down.
Al Davis back in the Super Bowl?
Art Modell finally in the Super Bowl? (We pause here, to allow the city of Cleveland to gag.)
Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis, going from murder charge — later downgraded to obstruction of justice — to defensive player of the year and Super Bowl starter in a few busy months?
All is possible.
“At what point are you going to take that asterisk off?” Baltimore coach Brian Billick grumbled about the ever-present Lewis questions. “I know I'm howling at the moon here, because it's probably asking too much ...”
Yeah ... well, wait until he sees Super Bowl media day. If the Ravens get there.
They might. The winning streak is nine. The defense is taking no prisoners. The sacking of Tennessee leaves Baltimore as the only team in the playoffs to win on the road.
But it will be hard work. Oakland is 8-1 at home, where the Raiders have given up two touchdowns in 15 quarters.
Meanwhile, the Giants have the Vikings right where they want them, meaning the Meadowlands.
Minnesota has won one road game since Oct. 15, and the frightening din of the Metrodome can't help them now.
“Either you win or you take your butt home,” Moss said of the playoffs.
For four teams not entirely expected at this door, it is as simple as that.
Sports Stories
Xavier 81, LaSalle 66
DAUGHERTY: XU's West no flash in the pan
McAfee is winning the battle
Coaches drop UC from poll
UC women 66, South Florida 52
Strange cast for conference title games
