Another Chapter of Colossal Collapses

We all knew it would come down to this somehow. Even after their good starts, even after their big wins two weeks ago, it still comes to their final game. And to make matters worse, the two biggest choking dogs of memories past are inextricably linked in this final Sunday of the NFL season.

The New York Jets play the St. Louis Rams Sunday. A loss would all but send the Jets home with a 10-6 record but out of the playoff mix. A win, and the Jets are in.

What makes this particularly interesting is the way the Vikings fate is tied to the game in St. Louis on Sunday. If the Rams should lose, it would make things significantly easier on the Minnesota Vikings. Win, and the Vikings are in. But a Vikings loss coupled with a Rams win would just about doom Minnesota's playoff chances.

Why all the pessimism, you ask? According to the latest odds, both teams are favored to win, and all four prognosticators from "Inside the NFL" predicted Jets and Vikings victories. But what the likes of Danny Sheridan and Cris Collinsworth fail to comprehend is the stoic collapses these two franchises have enjoyed with regards to the NFL's second season.

Let's delve into the vaunted history of the New York Jets. True, they did win a Super Bowl ... in 1969. Back then, we had put a man on the moon and the Palestinians and Israelis were arguing about occupied territory.

Since then, well the Palestinians and Israelis are still arguing over the same thing and let's just say Stanley Kubrick's vision in 2001: A Space Odyssey is a little off, but come on, 35 years is still a really long time.

The Vikings counter that with being part of an esteemed club, the exclusive four-time Super Bowl losers club. Four times the men in purple have gotten to the big dance, and four times they have come up lame. At least the Jets have one.

True, the Jets retort. But at least the Vikes have gotten to the final game since '69. The Jets have been to two championship games since their Super Bowl season. Once in 1981, when they managed to score a grand total of 0 points to the Dolphins. And another, in 1998, when Denver stormed back from a 10-0 halftime lead to keep the Jets and their fans mired in a familiar state of great disappointments.

Great disappointments, you say? Minnesota counters with their 2000 squad, who seemed destined for the Super Bowl, before scoring getting goose-egged in the Meadowlands.

That team, though, hardly measures up to the colossal collapse of the 1998 Vikings. That year, the Vikings went 15-1 while setting the all-time scoring record for points in one season. If the 2000 team was destined for the Super Bowl, the 1998 one was pre-ordained.

In the championship game, though, the heavily-favored Vikings found themselves in overtime with the Atlanta Falcons. Even so, a Gary Anderson field goal would send them on their way to the big show.

Gary Anderson, who had succeeded on every single field goal and every single extra point for the entire season. Surely, the dependable veteran could be counted on, couldn't he?

Nope! These are the Vikings. He missed, the Falcons won, and Minnesota missed out on their chance to lose in a fifth Super Bowl.

Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat? That's a Jets institution. Remember 1986? Joe Walton's squad looked like money in the bank. A 10-point lead with 4:14 remaining was all that stood between them and the AFC Championship game. But thanks to Mark Gastineau's roughing the quarterback penalty on 2nd-and-24 to keep the Browns' drive alive, it was Cleveland who advanced.

Fast forward to 1997, when the Jets were in Detroit needing a win on the final day of the season to make the playoffs. They looked like they were going to do it, too, until Leon Johnson inked his name into Jets lore with a half-back option pass that was intercepted in the end zone, killing the Jets' fourth quarter drive and their playoff run in the process.

Or how about 2000, when the Jets were again faced with winning on the final day of the season to make the playoffs, in Baltimore. Home of the greatest defense since the '85 Bears. But despite jumping out to a 14-0 lead, and despite amassing 524 total yards offense, and despite only allowing five first downs, the Jets still managed to lose 34-20, ending their season in typical Jet-like fashion. Now that is an organization truly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Oh, contraire mon frere, the Vikings fan would say. Just look at last year, when Minny got out to a 6-0 record, yet needed a win on the final day to go through, on the road, against the 3-12 Cardinals.

The Arizona Cardinals. The team that annually rivals the Bengals as the worst in the league. Arizona, perennial doormats of the league. Arizona, the Clippers of the NFL. Arizona, who could have sewn up a No. 1 pick with a loss on the final day of the season, were what stood between the Vikings and the playoffs.

And yet, even an 11-point lead with just over two minutes remaining wasn't enough to secure Minnesota a win. Despite allowing a touchdown drive that included two Cardinals fourth down conversions, and a successful onsides kick, the Vikings could still win if they stopped Arizona on the last play of the game from 28 yards out.

But as we all know, the Vikings could not contain the lethal combination of Josh McCown to Nate Poole, and once again, Minnesota added another chapter to an already complete book on implausible finishes.

And now the Vikings' and Jets' hopes rest on the same game. If history is an indicator, there is a better chance that Joe Walton gets re-hired as the Jets head coach, then hires Bruce Coslett as his offensive coordinator, and then brings on Rich Kotite as a consultant, and then there is of the Jets winning Sunday.

It would have been tough enough for the Jets to buck the odds and reverse their own history of repeated failure by conjuring up a win in St. Louis Sunday. But once you hitch Minnesota's wagon to the Jets ambitions, there isn't enough karma in the universe for the gods of retribution to provide a happy ending for either of these two franchises.