King Kaufman's Sports Daily

NFL playoffs: Chargers and Giants deliver surprise knockouts a day after Packers and Patriots cruise as expected.

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Jan. 14, 2008 | What a difference, goes the saying, a day makes. Everything went the way it was supposed to in the NFL playoffs Saturday. On Sunday, almost nothing did.

The Green Bay Packers routed the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots stayed undefeated by slugging out a win over the tough Jacksonville Jaguars Saturday. Natch. A day later, the San Diego Chargers and New York Giants reached the conference championship games with upset wins.

The Chargers, their quarterback, star running back and best receiving threat injured, stunned the defending champion Indianapolis Colts on the road, 28-24. The highlight of the eight-play, 78-yard fourth-quarter touchdown drive that won the game for the Bolts was a 27-yard screen pass and run from Billy Volek to Legedu Naanee. Volek to Naanee! You saw that coming, right?

In the nightcap, the New York Giants, also on the road, capitalized on about a season's worth of mistakes by the Dallas Cowboys and bounced them 21-17. The Cowboys established themselves as the top team in the NFC with a 37-27 win over the Packers in Week 13, then never played another good game.

Sunday's festival of dropped passes, boneheaded penalties, missed tackles and wasted timeouts rendered Dallas the first NFC top seed to fail to reach the conference championship game since the current playoff format was introduced in 1990.

The Cowboys dominated the first half, quarterback Tony Romo leading marathon touchdown drives of 96 and 90 yards, the latter a ridiculous collection of short gains or incompletes on first and second down, then a third-down conversion, a pattern that repeated five straight times at one point on the 20-play march. Marion Barber piled up over 100 yards in the half.

But the score at the break was 14-14. Amani Toomer had scored on New York's first possession, collecting a pass from Eli Manning in the left flat, exchanging pleasantries with the four Cowboys who could have tackled him, then heading for the end zone and a 52-yard touchdown. The Giants also scored late, following the Cowboys' 10-minute, 90-yard drive with a 71-yard trek that took 40 seconds. Fifteen of those yards came courtesy of a face-mask penalty, a sign of things to come.

In the second half, the Cowboys fell apart. They lost the ability to run and Romo became jittery in the face of a fierce pass rush, flinging wobbly passes off his back foot. But for all that he deserved better. Patrick Crayton dropped two passes that would have resulted in first downs and stopped running hard on a pass pattern that, had he stayed with it, likely would have resulted in a touchdown.

Next page: Chargers reserves, dropped passes do in Colts. Plus: Packers and Patriots