The stadium announcer's voice boomed: "The Redskins are in the playoffs!" Linebacker London Fletcher held his helmet aloft, pointing to the Redskins insignia on the side. Wide receiver Santana Moss held his hands above his head -- thrusting his index, middle and pinkie fingers up in a "21" as a tribute to slain teammate Sean Taylor. And grown men in the stands all around pumped the air with their fists like teenagers.
Behind them the scoreboard said: Washington 27 Dallas 6, and maybe they all needed to keep looking at those numbers to believe it was really true. The Redskins are heading to the playoffs, and will open the postseason on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. when they travel to Seattle to play a first-round game against the Seahawks.
In recent weeks players have talked about the strange circumstances that occurred -- a gale force wind in New York that blew a punt 20 extra yards, missed opponents field goals in which the wind blew the kicks wildly to one side, passes that seemed to hang in the air an extra second until Redskins could catch them -- and said they believed Taylor was at work for them.
Then as the demolition of the Cowboys, their hated rival began and the score grew from 7-0, to 10-3, to 20-3 and finally 27-6, the players noticed something strange in the numbers. Moss said something first, grabbing Fletcher's arm, imploring him to do the math: subtract 6 from 27 and you get 21. Taylor's number.
"We don't think it was by accident we won by 21," Gibbs said after the game.
Asked about this, Fletcher smiled. "I don't believe in coincidences," he said.....Read article here...
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