Minnesota Collapse Has Some Company

Dumbest team in America?

Bill Callahan says it’s his Oakland Raiders, but on the last Sunday of the year, during the final hours of the NFL’s 2003 regular season, three more entries were filed, and all of them must be seriously considered.

The new nominees are:

a) The Minnesota Vikings, who needed only a victory at Arizona to clinch the NFC North championship, only to botch an onside kick, push off on a Cardinal receiver and fail to keep Arizona out of the end zone on fourth and 24 on the game’s final play -- losing, 18-17, to fall out of the playoffs.

b) The St. Louis Rams, who needed only a victory at Detroit to clinch NFC home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, only to blow a 20-10 lead, reopen the Marc Bulger/Kurt Warner can of worms on the eve of the postseason and lose to the 5-11 Lions, 30-20.

c) The Cincinnati Bengals, who needed a home victory against a team coming off a 35-point home loss to remain in playoff contention, only to flunk clock management just before the end of the first half, with quarterback Jon Kitna freezing instead of throwing a time-saving incompletion, allowing the clock to run out and the Cleveland Browns to sack him. The missed opportunity came back to bite the Bengals, who wound up disappointing the largest home crowd in its history with a 22-14 loss.

“Just a mental error,� Kitna said as he discussed with reporters his unique spin on the old Statue of Liberty play. Kitna’s version involved holding the football up like a torch and, then, as with Lady Liberty herself, just standing there and not doing much while visitors climbed all over him.

Kitna pulled the play out of his bag of tricks with the Bengals down, 13-7, and the ball on the Cleveland six-yard line, third-and-goal, seven seconds left in the second quarter. Kitna dropped back and couldn’t find an open receiver.

Still, Kitna had time to throw the ball out of the end zone, stopping the clock to allow his team to regroup for one more play or a field-goal attempt.

Instead, Kitna held the ball, and the final seconds of the half ticked away until the clock showed 0:00 and the Browns were dragging Kitna to the turf for a loss.

A Paul Brown Stadium crowd of 65,362 was stunned, if not speechless. Kitna and his teammates were booed as they left the field for intermission, and you could already sense it. The feel-good story of the NFL season was headed for another sad, horribly typical Bengalesque ending.

Cincinnati, 8-6 and in control of the AFC North two weeks ago, lost its last two games and will spend its 13th consecutive January outside the playoffs.

But that was child’s play compared to Minnesota, which became the first team since the 1978 Washington Redskins to miss the playoffs after starting a season 6-0 -- except the Redskins didn’t finish their season quite like this:

With two minutes to play, the Vikings led the Cardinals by 11 points, 17-6.

After Arizona quarterback Josh McCown hit Steve Bush for a sliding, four-yard touchdown reception, the Vikings still led, 17-12, with 1:54 to go.

Everybody in Arizona knew that the Cardinals’ next move would be an onside kick. Everybody in Green Bay knew it too. With Green Bay needing a Viking loss to win the NFC North title and sneak into the playoffs, the Lambeau Field crowd divided its time between the final moments of the Packers’ 31-3 triumph over Denver and the live feed from Arizona splashed across the stadium’s giant video screen.

As expected, the Cardinals chipped an onside kick.

Two Viking players went up for the ball, touched it, but failed to grab it. The ball ricocheted into the hands of Cardinal Damien Anderson. Arizona had regained possession, on its 39-yard line, bringing on the most hellish two minutes in the career of Viking defensive back Denard Walker.

First, Walker tried covering Arizona’s Bryant Johnson on a deep pass route. He wound up frisking him like a nervous airport security guard. The officiating crew noticed. Walker was cited for pass interference, advancing the ball 30 yards to the Minnesota 31.

Moments later, with the Cardinals down to their last throw, fourth and 24 on the Viking 27, McCown scrambled desperately to his right and threw on the run as time expired.

Straddling the right corner of the end zone, Arizona wide receiver Nathan Poole leaped and caught the ball. He landed with one foot inbounds -- but Walker pushed him in the back as he tumbled out of bounds.

Had Walker been a step slower, or simply left the receiver alone, untouched, Poole probably would have landed the same way -- with one foot out of bounds, the final play going incomplete. Instead, officials ruled that Walker had forced Poole out of the end zone -- meaning the catch, and the touchdown, stood.

Or at least it wobbled, unsteadily, as officials paused to review the play.

The ensuing moments were surreal: Fans in the stands in Arizona, fans studying the stadium screen in Green Bay, and fans watching at home in Minnesota all waiting nervously for the result of a game-ending play review that would decide who made the playoffs and who didn’t.

Finally, the referee returned to the field to issue his verdict.

He raised both arms in the air.

While Viking fans visiting Sun Devil Stadium slumped in their seats, Packer fans at Lambeau roared their delirious approval.

The Packers were in. The Vikings were out.

And in Detroit, the Rams might have torn up their ticket to the Super Bowl by losing to the 5-11 Lions, costing St. Louis the No. 1 seeding in the NFC playoffs. Should Philadelphia and St. Louis advance to the conference final, the game would be played in Philadelphia -- not under a dome, not on artificial turf, not amid artificially controlled climate conditions.

At the same time, Ram Coach Mike Martz replaced Bulger with Warner in the fourth quarter. Martz claimed that he was concerned about the pounding Bulger had taken from the Detroit pass rush. Ram trainers claimed that Bulger had a bruised forearm.

But it was Bulger’s left forearm, not his throwing arm. The move smacked of desperation, it stoked the once-cold coals of the Bulger-Warner controversy, and if the St. Louis media didn’t know how to spend the next two weeks before the Rams’ first playoff game, they do now.

Meanwhile, the Indianapolis Colts clinched the AFC South title when Mike Vanderjagt, derided last off-season as “our idiot kicker� by Peyton Manning, kicked a 43-yard field goal as time expired, giving the Colts a 20-17 victory over Houston.

The kick was Vanderjagt’s 41st consecutive successful attempt, an NFL record, strangely appropriate on this final NFL Sunday. On a day dominated by dumbness, an idiot kicker made the smartest play of all.