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Definition — comeback: Clawing out of an unsettled grave to beat your opponent.
Definition — collapse: When the loser knows exactly where to point the finger.
It wasn't one of last Sunday's headliners, but Colts-Texans earned a shiny plaque in the record book as Indianapolis became the only NFL club in history to rally from 17 down in the last five minutes and win — in regulation.
And if you were watching, and you had a soul, there must have been some sort of pang for Houston QB Sage Rosenfels, proud son of Iowa State, the plucky backup who busted his fanny all afternoon (246 yards passing, five scoring drives) to build up a 27-10 Texans' lead, only to commit a pair of mortal sins late in the game to give it all away. Fumbles ... two of them, back-to-back, one returned by the Colts for a quickie touchdown, the other secured by the Indy "D" way behind enemy lines. Which promptly led to a short TD dagger from Peyton Manning. Texans lose.
Crime scene survey — yes, Rosenfels deserves all the heat for the first fumble. He was careless. On third-and-eight the call was for a naked bootleg left, a designed clock-bleeder. "And if you don't have anything," begged his coach, Gary Kubiak, "just run it, then we'll punt it, and they'll be out of timeouts and we'll make them work."
So Rosenfels caught an alley of daylight and snorted a little steam ("I could smell a first down."), and then he went airborne to grab an extra yard. Three Colts decked him — a full whirlybird — and out popped a surprise.
LB Gary Brackett's fumble return brought Indy back to life, down only 27-24.
Which was promptly followed by sin No. 2. But this time Rosie didn't act alone. He had some unwanted assistance from his right tackle, Eric Winston. Another designed rollout, this one a pass play, and the QB coughed it up again.
(Zinger from Gene Collier of the old Pittsburgh Press: "If he coughed it up, why would anyone want to recover it?").
Winston had whiffed on his blocking assignment. Indy DE Robert Mathis ripped by him and hunted down Rosenfels, creaming him with a blindsider. That set up Peyton and Co. neatly at the Houston 20, as "Taps" began playing off in the distance.
Which, of course, led to the obligatory idiocy in the postgame interrogation room.
Media to Kubiak: "How do you feel right now?"
Kubiak: "??"
So how does Rosenfels' day rank in the realm of all-time individual meltdowns? Well, it's certainly up there in terms of damage, but maybe not in style when compared to some of the other freakies I've witnessed over the years.
There are the old standbys, like the "Miracle in the Meadowlands" epic. Giants versus Eagles in 1978, Joe Pisarcik and mighty Larry Csonka blowing the handoff exchange when a simple kneel-down would have closed the deal.
(Sidebar — an NFL insider once gave me his surprising hush-hush take on the lore that has always surrounded that game.
"NFL Films has always hyped that play to be the greatest fluke ending in history," he said. "One or two, maybe behind Franco's Immaculate Reception. Why? Simple. Because Steve Sabol and those guys are Eagles fans. Other games have ended in similar fashion, with some kind of crazy bounce of the ball. It just so happens that Sabol's team won the game so they were all giddy over there in Mount Laurel (N.J.)." No comment.)
Another cuckoo ... Dolphins versus Cowboys, 1993. The sleet of Texas Stadium. The insensate Leon Lett sliding into a blocked Miami field goal, a live ball. Dolphins recover, giving Don Shula's kicker another crack to win it.
"You don't ever give (Pete) Stoyanovich a second chance," Shula grinned. And down went the Cowboys, as Lett hid in shame from the media and his teammates and the clergy.
And I remember the coaching brainfreeze at the end of a Lions-Colts game in 1977. Baltimore leads 10-6, pinned deep in its own territory, only nine seconds to go. But it's fourth down, and coach Ted Marchibroda has a choice — hand the Lions a safety or pray his punt protection holds up. Coaches hate giving away free points. It goes against their nature.
"Well, Ted didn't make a point of asking us linemen for our opinion," laughs Robert Pratt, the left guard on the Colts' punt team that day. "But taking the safety would have been the right thing to do. At least we could've had a free kick and run out the clock.
"I still remember all the yelling and screaming by the Lions, trying to confuse us over whom to block," says Pratt. "Lots of confusion. We really didn't work against an 11-man rush in practice, but in those situations, it's still all zone blocking. You're covering an area of the line. You know they're going to try to overload one side, you just hope nobody slips through and gets a crack at your punter."
The Lions threw a desperate surge at the Baltimore front wall. One player found the crack ... Leonard Thompson, a reserve receiver. He snuffed the punt then took it into the endzone for the shocker. Detroit escapes, 13-10.
So is there a big picture meaning to all this? Sort of. I can't remember where I heard it, but the sentiment shows up in the locker room on occasion.
"To err is human; to blame the other guy even more so."
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