Looking Ahead: The Tecmo Bowl

We've come a long, long way together, through the hard times and the good. But there's no praising yet, as we've still got one game left. After seventeen weeks of regular season play and three playoff games, we're just as ready as all of you to walk away and pretend none of this ever happened. That would be unfair to all the Ernests of the world, however, and so we look ahead to the game that makes this all worth it in the end: The Tecmo Bowl.

It's been a long road for both teams in this year's Tecmo Bowl, even if one was been paved with slick, new tar and the other with the jagged bones of its quarterback. Houston rides into the great white north on a winged stallion that is Warren Moon, followed by a throng of titans in Haywood "Jeffries" and Ernest Givins. Losing only three games all year and never really facing a challenge within their own division, the Oilers ended the season strong to take the number one seed in the AFC and the best record in the NFL. They breezed past the surprising Seahawks in the Divisional round, and took advantage of their home field and an advantageous Tony Zendejas kick to beat a favored Bills team in the Conference Championship. And now they appear in the Tecmo Bowl very heavily favored, ready to wear the heavily bejeweled tiara for the first time in their franchise's history.

Washington hobbles into the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome with some aches and pains as this year's Cinderella team after a very dramatic postseason. After their star quarterback, Mark Rypien, went out on the first drive against the mighty San Francisco 49ers, the unlikely Stan Humphries hitched his apple cart to Art Monk and Earnest Byner's stars and the team upset the 49ers on a dramatic double jump catch in the end zone on the last play of the game. The next week they came to Minnesota to boot the number-one seeded Vikings out of a home-game championship after tackling Herschel Walker just yards away from the end zone. After a season that appeared to have the Redskins looking to fight and scrap for a wild card spot, they beat the division-leading Giants in a late season game and leapfrogged both New York and San Francisco, who lost in Week 17, for the number 2 seed.

We could continue to go on and on about the merits of both teams' accolades, but it may be best to break out the yard stick instead.

                     Washington                           Houston

                           10-6      Season Record        13-3

                            3-1      Featured Games       4-0

                            5-4      Same Opponents       9-0

                        375/279          PF/PA            436/335

                     12th (2810)      Pass Ranking        1st (3923)

                     13th (1633)      Rush Ranking        27th (919)

                           15th      Overall Offense      8th

                      1st (2186)      Pass Defense        17th (2941)

                     19th (1721)      Rush Defense        12th (1534)

                            2nd      Overall Defense      14th

                        Canadian      QB Ethnicity        Black

       Drunken gamblers that were        Mascots          Blue collar workers that

       wiped off the American map       Known For         put America on the map

   Named for President of the USA         Cities          Named for President of Texas

Explorers of modern day democracy         Known           Explorers of the moon

                Outlaws with guns          For            Outlaws with guns

Oh yeah, and I suppose we should mention that Houston beat Washington, 23-21, in Week Ten's installment of Monday Night Football...

So there you have it, a rather annoyingly detailed breakdown of the Championship game. Will we see the league's leading passer come out heaving? Or will Stan Humphries march his glass slippers up and down the Astroturf? Perhaps Mark Rypien will have healed up enough to cap off a rather productive season for his Redskins, and win another championship in the very stadium he won a Super Bowl in. While we're sure anything can happen in a game between these two teams, one thing remains a constant: the controlled atmosphere of the Metrodome in Minneapolis. On to the Tecmo Bowl!

Conference Championship Weekend

We're only one game away from the Tecmo Bowl, but before we get ahead of ourselves we'll need to dive into the second-most overblown weekend of the season, Conference Championship weekend. Only the Buffalo Bills remain of the final four we predicted in our Preseason Analysis, and we're still quite confident they have what it takes to overpower the Oilers and get to the championship. The only thing Houston has to their advantage is a rare home game in the playoffs being the number 1 seed, which should make this a game that goes down to the last possession. Meanwhile, in the NFC is another game of the top two conference seeds, but between two more unorthodox teams in the Washington Redskins and Minnesota Vikings. The Redskins played one of the more exciting COM-COM games in Tecmo history, knocking out the heavily favored 49ers on the last play of the game behind back-up QB Stan Humphries. They'll face another defensive challenge against the Vikings at the stadium scheduled to hold next weekend's Tecmo Bowl. Will they be sent packing after their fluke win? Or will Washington get to book an extra weekend in Minneapolis? Let's get to the business.

AFC Championship

2 Buffalo Bills (13-3-1) at 1 Houston Oilers (14-3)

Highlight below for an analysis:
After a quarter of no scoring, this game lit up in a hurry. Ultimately, it was a big gain that Buffalo gave up before the half that led to the 3-point win by the Oilers, despite there being plenty of other opportunities for QB Bills and Andre Reed to burn Houston as they've burned other teams all year long. Houston advances to their very first championship game with a relatively healthy team after a quietly dominant season. While they rightfully deserve a spot in the final game, they're the Newt to Buffalo's Mitt, obviously leaving no real winners for the rest of the viewing public.

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NFC Championship

2 Washington Redskins (11-6) at Minnesota Vikings (13-4)

Higlight below for an analysis:
The Vikings couldn't recreate the late-game magic of their opponents, as Herschel Walker's triumphant return fell a yard short of putting Minnesota in a home-field Tecmo Bowl. It was a see-saw battle for the most part, but Stan Humphries' star shone brighter than Wade Wilson's, and the Vikings' time-consuming reverse plays and a costly Walker turnover outdid them in the end. The Redskins are a true Cinderella team, first stealing their division in the last game of the season and then beating two conference juggernauts to get into the Tecmo Bowl; however we must remember that they represent a team that actually went to their season's Super Bowl, although now they'll have to pose a mid-week cage match between Humphries and Mark Rypien, should Rypien miraculously return from what we suspect was a Joe Theismann-level injury.