Seahawks, Jaguars win playoff openers

SEATTLE—In less than 2 1/2 fourth-quarter minutes, the Seattle Seahawks watched a 13-point lead turn into a one-point deficit. Nothing was going right—they couldn't even catch a simple kickoff.

'I was looking at the scoreboard, like, 'What just happened?'' defensive end Darryl Tapp said. 'But you just have to continue to play all the game through.'

And so they did, reversing the tide, stopping a team that had been playing with unbeatable passion for four weeks. So what if the other team scored two touchdowns early in the final period? The Seahawks responded with three of their own in Saturday's 35-14 victory over the Washington Redskins in the NFC wild-card playoffs.

'It's amazing how the tables turn so fast,' left tackle Walter Jones said.

Seattle, 8-1 at home, set aside concerns about a cream-puff schedule by beating a team that finished with a winning record for the first time since Week 1. The Seahawks will travel to Green Bay next Saturday, a rematch of a 2004 wild-card game remembered for Matt Hasselbeck's proclamation of 'We want the ball and we're going to score!' after the Seahawks won the overtime coin flip.

Instead, Hasselbeck threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown.

'I'm just saying it right now: We want the ball and we're going to score,' Hasselbeck said with a laugh as he opened his postgame news conference Saturday. 'OK, I said it.'

The Redskins had been on a mission since the death of safety Sean Taylor, who was shot in Miami on Nov. 26 and died a day later. Determined to win for their fallen friend, they went 4-0 after his funeral to claim the NFC's final playoff berth and appeared to have unstoppable momentum when two quick touchdowns gave them a 14-13 lead with 12:38 to play.

'I can't believe it's over with for us,' Washington linebacker London Fletcher said. 'It just seemed our story was going to be written all the way to the Super Bowl for us.'

The Redskins' offense had come alive with a no-huddle drive capped by Todd Collins' 7-yard touchdown pass to Antwaan Randle El. Then came an interception by LaRon Landry, who took over at free safety after Taylor's death, to set up a 30-yard pass to Santana Moss that gave the Redskins the lead. In the end zone, Moss held up his fingers to signify the No. 21, Taylor's jersey number.

Then came a bizarre play that made the Redskins really look charmed. Seattle returner Nate Burleson couldn't field a wind-blown kickoff. The Redskins recovered and were primed to score again. A pass to Chris Cooley just missed, and kicker Shaun Suisham had his shortest miss of his young career—wide left from 30 yards.

Landry intercepted another pass on Seattle's next drive, but a 33-yard punt by Derrick Frost gave Seattle good field position to set up the go-ahead touchdown.

With the Redskins desperately trying to catch up, Jordan Babineaux intercepted and returned it 57 yards for a score with 27 seconds left. Those were the first two interceptions for Collins since Nov. 30, 1997, when he played for Buffalo against the New York Jets. The score sealed Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs' first playoff loss when leading in the second half—he had been 17-0 with a lead after halftime.

Collins finished 29-for-50 for 266 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, and he was pressured all game. Partick Kerney and Julian Peterson each had four of Seattle's 13 quarterback hurries. Clinton Portis, who had at least 100 yards from scrimmage in each game of the winning streak, ran 20 times for 52 yards and caught four passes for 28 yards.

As they have over the second half of the season, the Seahawks preferred the pass over the run. Hasselbeck finished 20-for-32 for 229 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. Hackett caught six passes for 101 yards.

The Redskins put together their four-game winning streak by starting fast: leads of 14-0, 22-3, 25-0 and 27-3. But they punted on their first six possessions against the Seahawks and were stopped on fourth-and-1 on the seventh. Seattle took a 10-0 halftime lead on fullback Leonard Weaver's 17-yard run and Josh Brown's 50-yard field goal, which tied a Seahawks franchise playoff record.

Jaguars win thriller

PITTSBURGH—Never in the Steelers' 75 seasons had a team beaten them twice in Pittsburgh in the same season. The Jacksonville Jaguars beat history—and the Steelers—despite a memorable fourth-quarter collapse that nearly cost the visitors their season.

Josh Scobee saved the game by kicking a 25-yard field goal with 37 seconds remaining and the Jaguars came back after squandering an 18-point lead in the fourth quarter to beat the Steelers 31-29 on Saturday night in an AFC wild-card game Saturday night that was wild in every sense of the word.

Jacksonville appeared to be done after Najeh Davenport's second 1-yard TD run of the game gave the Steelers a 29-28 lead with about six minutes remaining. But quarterback David Garrard, not a great runner, found a seam on a convert-or-else fourth-and-2 play and rambled 32 yards to the Steelers 11 with 1:56 left.

Garrard aided the Steelers' comeback by throwing two interceptions—one less than he had all season—only to come up with the play that may have saved the Jaguars' season.

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger put the Steelers into a deep hole by throwing three interceptions before halftime, then got rolling after he began lining up in a shotgun formation and threw touchdown passes to Santonio Holmes (37 yards) and Heath Miller (14 yards) in 4 1/2 minutes of the fourth quarter to get Pittsburgh to within 28-23.

The Steelers rallied from 15 points down to tie Jacksonville late in the Jaguars' 29-22 win at Heinz Field on Dec. 16 but couldn't close the deal. They couldn't this time, either, even though Roethlisberger, shouldering the Steelers' offense virtually by himself with no running game, was 17-of-23 for 263 yards and two touchdowns just in the second half.

The Jaguars have beaten Pittsburgh four times in the last three seasons, including their 29-22 win on Dec. 16, and they appeared ready to do easily by building a 28-10 lead behind backup running back Maurice Jones-Drew's playmaking.

Jones-Drew, escaping Jaguars star Fred Taylor's shadow in a performance filled with big plays, scored on a 43-yard swing pass after one of Roethlisberger's interceptions and a 10-yard run that provided the 18-point lead. Jones-Drew's 96-yard kickoff return the first time Jacksonville touched the ball set up Taylor's 1-yard touchdown run and immediately answer the Steelers' opening-possession 80-yard touchdown drive.

The Jaguars came in off six wins in their last eight games, while the Steelers—missing five starters, including star running back Willie Parker—limped into the postseason with three losses in four games and four in seven.

© 2008 The Associated Press.