Is it true the Bears beat the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams and Pittsburgh Steelers this season and had the Houston Oilers beaten until the last minute? When the Bears watch those four teams playing the two wild-card games on TV Sunday, how left out can they feel?
– Two key injuries could offset the home-field advantage of the Eagles and Oilers. Eagles cornerback Eric Allen and Oilers defensive lineman Ray Childress have leg injuries that could sideline or limit them.
The Eagles are favored to beat the Rams, but without Allen, their secondary is a more inviting target for Jim Everett.
Allen sprained his ankle three weeks ago horsing around in the locker room. Coach Buddy Ryan fined him half a game check, approximately $6,000. Everett is football`s hottest quarterback this December, and his top two wide receivers, Henry Ellard and Flipper Anderson, will be hard to handle.
That`s why Ryan says his front four will have to win the game.
”The defensive line won 10 of our 11 games,” he said.
Ryan called Reggie White, Clyde Simmons, Jerome Brown and Mike Pitts better than the Bears` 1985 front four of Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Steve McMichael and William Perry.
The Oilers are favored to beat the Steelers, but Childress is not expected to play after missing Houston`s final two games because of a fractured fibula. Coincidentally, the Oilers lost both games, their first two- game losing streak since 1987.
Childress is the player the Bears tried to get with a free-agent offer that the Oilers matched. If you don`t think the Oilers need him, consider what happened to the Bears after they lost Hampton. They beat the Steelers and Rams but nobody else.
– Everybody is nursing injuries at this time of year. The Rams have lost two defensive linemen, Doug Reed and Bill Hawkins, and two defensive backs, Anthony Newman and Cliff Hicks.
– The Rams have more than the Eagles to overcome. Going back to 1950, they are 0-10 in playoffs in snow-belt cities, including last year`s wild-card loss to Minnesota inside the Metrodome. The other nine losses were outdoors.
For the Rams to reach the Super Bowl, they`d have to beat the Giants in New York next week and either the 49ers or Vikings on the road in the Jan. 14 title game. Coach John Robinson`s playoff record is 2-5, 1-4 away. It`s 0-4 in Philadelphia for the regular season.
– Pittsburgh`s Chuck Noll has less use for Houston`s Jerry Glanville than Cincinnati`s Sam Wyche does. Wyche called Glanville a ”phony” and his team
”undisciplined,” but it was Noll who grabbed Glanville`s hand in a postgame shake in 1987 and warned him his team`s overly aggressive style would haunt him.
Noll, who didn`t win a Coach of the Year award when the Steelers won four Super Bowls, is now being hailed after taking his team to the playoffs following an 0-2 start when the Steelers were outscored 92-10.
”To start the season the way he did and come back the way he did, there`s got to be greatness in you to do that,” Cleveland General Manager Ernie Accorsi said. ”In my 20 years, he`s the best coach in the game.”
Noll would like nothing more than to make Glanville`s future in Houston more shaky than it is. But even Glanville voted for Noll as coach of the year in two polls.
– Philadelphia`s Randall Cunningham led his team in rushing for the third year in a row, an NFL record for a quarterback.
”The more and more we play, I`ve got to get my assignment down,”
Cunningham said. ”I watch a guy like Joe Montana, and that`s what really separates him from the rest of the quarterbacks. He gets his job done every week. If he has an average performance, the 49ers still win because he has such great personnel around him. But if I have an average (passing)
performance, I have to make it up by running the ball, something like that.” – More Cunningham, on Everett, who failed to win a Pro Bowl berth for the second year in a row despite leading the league in TD passes both years: ”I think Jim Everett got dogged. He should have been the starter. He should have been in the Pro Bowl last year. I think he`s the best quarterback in the NFL right now. I don`t want to take any shots at Montana. The stats show Montana is the best-rated quarterback, but Everett has more TDs.”
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– Pittsburgh`s Bubby Brister: ”We`re playing championship football right now. When you make the playoffs, anything can happen, like Franco Harris`
`Immaculate Reception.` We got some bad bounces early; maybe we`ll get some good bounces now.”
The Steelers won five of their last six and enter the playoffs with the 49ers as the hottest teams. The Steelers` only loss in the last six? The Bears. Still, the Steelers ranked 28th in total offense and passing from Weeks 1 through 16. ”Stranger than fiction,” Noll said.
Turnover ratio is the balancing number. The Steelers tied for the AFC lead at plus-13.
– Willie Gault cost the Raiders a No. 1 draft pick in 1988 and a No. 3 pick in 1990, plus $1.45 million in salary over the last two seasons, during which time he caught 44 passes. That`s $32,954.55 a catch.
– Former Jets personnel chief Mike Hickey wasn`t surprised about the housecleaning that cost him and Jets coaches their jobs, not after Jets fans set a record with 55,749 no-shows in their last game.
”It`s like an election. The people have spoken. No way 55,000 Giants fans would not show up,” Hickey said. ”Hold the game in Anarctica and fans would knock the penguins out of the way to get there. They`d show up two days early to tailgate, and they`d all be dressed in blue.”
– A Continental Airlines captain made this announcement to his delayed flight: ”The Los Angeles Raiders made such a filthy mess of this aircraft, it took us two hours to clean it up.”
The question is: Where were they going, Oakland or Sacramento?