Questionable Decisions Mark Wild Card Weekend

REDSKINS 14, SEAHAWKS 35

You don't get a lot of honest commentary on NFL broadcasts, but a surprising amount of what you do get comes from NBC's Chris Collingsworth. 5:38 into the fourth quarter, with his team down 21–14, Washington Redskins quarterback Todd Collins lobbed a long pass downfield toward the left side of the Seattle Seahawks' secondary. It was picked off by cornerback Marcus Trufant at the 22-yard line and run down the sideline for a touchdown. Essentially, that was the game. A 57-yard TD interception return by Jordan Babineaux with 27 seconds to play, making the final score 35–14, was merely icing.

Collingsworth called it correctly: "[Santana] Moss gave on the play. He didn't even try to make the tackle after Trufant made the interceptions." That was harsh, but fair. A former receiver himself, Collingsworth could have let Moss off the hook in the way so many coaches and players do when calling NFL games. But in refusing to do so, he did us all a service. Moss, seeing that he was covered down the sideline, broke back toward the middle. Whether he had the freedom to do this or was improvising at the wrong time wasn't clear, and neither Collins nor Moss enlightened a curious press after the game. Moss simply said, "I thought it was a dead play. Then, all of a sudden, I look up and the guy is catching it like a punt. You hate to be in a situation where the ball is coming down and you don't even know it." Yes, and if you're the head coach of the Washington Redskins, Joe Gibbs, in what is probably your last game, you hate to be in a situation where your star receiver stands and watches a defensive back run a ball back for a TD without even trying to stop him.

There were several bizarre plays in the game, but the one that got the most attention came early in the final quarter, when the Seahawks' Nate Burleson tried to field a windblown kickoff, giving the impression of a man chasing a whiffleball in a wind tunnel. The Redskins recovered and appeared very much ready to seize momentum. But momentum is what you make of it, and Collins was badly off target on a third down pass to tight end Chris Cooley, and kicker Shaun Suisham shanked a 30-yard chip shot (which, considering the tricks the wind was playing with the ball, was perhaps more forgivable than the commentators judged it to be).

The failure to score on that possession was a heartbreaker for Washington, but it was caused in part by the wind. There was no excuse for Moss's mental error, though, except for the wind blowing between his ears.

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JAGUARS 31, STEELERS 29

It took Pittsburgh Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin to halftime to figure out that his quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, should have been passing out of a shotgun with a spread formation. The decision to go with a new offensive plan was pretty much dictated by desperation. The Jacksonville Jaguars were up 21–7, in large part because Roethlisberger, who wasn't being allowed to throw in most cases until it was third and long, had suffered three interceptions.

Taking snaps out of the shotgun all but eliminated the Pittsburgh running game, which was no great loss at that point as running back Najeh Davenport, the replacement for the sensational Willie Parker, had just 11 yards in the first two quarters, and would total only 25 on the day. As usual, when the Pittsburgh coaches turned Big Ben loose, the running game was irrelevant: He led the Steelers to three quick fourth-quarter TDs, and a 29–28 lead with just over six minutes to play.

But as so often happens in the playoffs, what should happen does happen. The Jaguars, probably the third best team in the league (behind the Patriots and Colts), and the NFL's number one overachiever, came back in the final seconds to win 31–29 over the sloppy and erratic Steelers. It was the second win for Jacksonville this season on Pittsburgh's home turf, something that hasn't happened to the Steelers in the team's history. Unheralded Jags QB David Garrard, faced with a fourth-and-two on the Steelers' 43 with 1:56 left, made the biggest play of his short career, finding a seam in Pittsburgh's defense and rambling 32 yards on a slippery field to set up the winning field goal. That single play was not only the biggest rushing play of the game: It was the only run longer than 10 yards. It will be interesting to see whether the New England Patriots take note of Garrard's running ability if the turf is icy for next Saturday night's Patriots–Jags match.

If Collingsworth had been calling this game instead of the fawning ox crew, I bet he would have noted that Tomlin's decisions to go for two-point conversions twice in he fourth quarter — both of which failed — cost his team a chance for an overtime victory. If the Steelers had simply kicked the extra points, the final Jags field goal would have simply tied the score.

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TITANS 6, CHARGERS 17

The San Diego Chargers' 17–6 victory over the Tennessee Titans late yesterday afternoon offered conclusive proof that a team coached by Norv Turner does not have to lose every big game it plays. That the win came against a Titans team who really didn't deserve to be in the playoffs — the Titans were 10–6 during the regular season, but only outscored their opponents by a margin of 301–297 — hardly seemed to matter. By overcoming a 6–0 Tennessee lead at halftime, then shutting out the Titans 17–0 in the second half, the Chargers can pretend they are playoff-worthy until they meet the Colts in Indianapolis next Sunday.

The most punch-less team to make the playoffs, the Titans felt they had to come up with something special to offset the Chargers' big edge in firepower. Their decision to try and bottle up San Diego's running back LaDainian Tomlinson worked — the league's best running back was held to 42 yards on 21 carries with no gain longer than 12 yards — but it was still the wrong one. Linebackers Stephen Tulloch and Colin Allred, and free safety Michael Griffin lined in the middle in an inverted V and on most plays and simply keyed on Tomlinson. They were able to hold Tomlinson to a loss or no gain on seven plays, but as the Chargers evidently learned when studying the game films at halftime, it left Tennessee dangerously vulnerable over the middle.

Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, who came of age in this game, threw 19 of his 30 passes in the second half for 210 yards (he had 292 overall), and repeatedly found wideouts Chris Chambers and Vince Jackson on post patterns for big gains, usually in spots where Griffin would have been. The two accounted for 235 yards overall, just 13 fewer than the entire Tennessee offense.

Unfortunately for the Chargers, they face, in the Colts, a team capable of bottling up Tomlinson without giving up anything on pass coverage.

Mr. Barra is the author of "The Last Coach: A Life of Paul 'Bear' Bryant."