Al Harris scored on a 52-yard interception return in overtime to lift the Green Bay Packers past the Seattle Seahawks 33-27 Sunday in a first-round NFC playoff game.
Harris, known as much for the dreadlocks that peek outside his helmet as his play at cornerback, picked off Matt Hasselbeck's throw and headed to the end zone -- directly past former Packers coach Mike Holmgren. Only Hasselbeck had a chance to tackle Harris, but he couldn't get there before Harris surged into the end zone.
The defender never got a chance at a Lambeau Leap. His teammates tackled him, setting off a wild celebration that included a victory lap by Harris.
PHOTO: AFP
"I was just praying that he did throw the ball," Harris said, "because I was going to gamble on that play."
Harris' heroics sent the Packers (11-6) to Philadelphia next Sunday, while the Seahawks (10-7) -- and Holmgren -- go home knowing they let a prime opportunity slip away.
"I'm dying inside," Holmgren said. "It hurts bad to lose this game."
PHOTO: REUTERS
Seattle tied the game with 51 seconds remaining on Shaun Alexander's third 1-yard touchdown run. Then Packers kicker Ryan Longwell was short on a 47-yard field goal attempt as regulation time expired.
Seattle won the coin toss, and Hasselbeck told the official, "We want the ball, and we're going to score."
The Seahawks got the ball and punted. After Seattle got the ball back, it was Harris, a six-year veteran in his first season with the Packers, who scored on the game's only turnover.
"I anticipated it," Harris said, "and I know the quarterback ain't going to catch me."
Colts 41, Broncos 10
In Indianapolis, Peyton Manning and the Baltimore Colts routed the Denver Broncos to put to rest any questions about Manning's ability to win a big game.
The Colts (13-4) will face the Kansas City Chiefs in the second-round next Sunday.
The NFL's co-MVP threw for touchdowns on each of the Colts' first four possessions and finished 22-of-26 for 377 yards and five TDs, the third time in 17 games this season he had five or more TD tosses.
That made Manning the first ever to do that.
"It was one of those days that everything seemed to go right," said Manning, 1-3 in the postseason. "It's good to get the monkey off my back, but we've got more work to do now."
When he left the game in the fourth quarter, Manning had a perfect passer rating of 158.3 for the second time this season.
"It was really awesome to see from the sidelines," Colts coach Tony Dungy said.
Manning might have had five TDs in the first half had time not run out and forced Mike Vanderjagt to kick a field goal. No problem: Manning threw his fifth on the first series of the second half.
Denver's day was defined by one play: a 46-yard TD pass from Manning to Marvin Harrison late in the first period.
Harrison caught the ball at the Broncos 30 and fell to the turf. Three Broncos -- Lenny Walls, Kelly Herndon and Al Wilson -- surrounded him, but when no one touched him down, Harrison casually rolled over and started running for the end zone.
No whistle. Touchdown. And though that made it just 14-3 with three quarters left, the game was over. Denver coach Mike Shanahan laced into his brain-dead defenders on the sideline and Manning continued to find open receivers everywhere.
"They just assumed he was down," Shanahan said. "You can't assume anything in this game."
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier