Plaxico Burress looked up to the big screen and saw Tiki Barber running like mad, and Burress saw an opportunity.
He pushed away a hapless defender, making sure Barber reached the end zone with ease.
Barber and Burress, the Giants' playmaking duo, provided the big plays New York needed to win the NFC East and secure a home playoff game.
Burress had that key block on Barber's franchise-record, 95-yard touchdown run, then hauled in a career-best 78-yard catch and run for a touchdown, and they both made quarterback Eli Manning look good in the Giants' 30-21 victory over the Oakland Raiders on Saturday night.
"I think the people of New York are happy," Burress said. "We came out here and handled our business and now we can go home and give those guys one playoff game. They're going to be rowdy."
Barber ran for 203 yards and Jay Feely kicked three field goals, including a 47-yarder early in the fourth quarter to help New York (11-5) win its first division title since Raiders quarterback Kerry Collins led the Giants to the 2001 Super Bowl.
Collins had a solid game against his former team, which made him expendable when the Giants traded for top pick Eli Manning on draft day in 2004. He didn't have a turnover for the first time since Oct. 2 against Dallas.
"Nothing is ever easy," said Giants coach Tom Coughlin, doused only with water afterward because the Gatorade ran out. "Obviously we had some big plays tonight, and we needed them."
Randy Moss had seven receptions for 116 yards with TD catches of 15 and 44 yards for his first multi-touchdown game with Oakland, and finished his first Raiders' season with 60 catches for 1,005 yards. The Raiders' passing game looked much better than in recent weeks. But in a sequence that summed up Oakland's season, the Raiders couldn't score with four chances from the 1 after getting a first down with 3:44 left trailing by nine.
Barber's touchdown run helped him move into the NFL lead in rushing with 1,860 yards -- 53 more than Seattle's Shaun Alexander, who finishes the season Sunday at Green Bay. Barber's career-long run broke the franchise-record 91-yard TD run by Hap Moran in 1930.
"It's a play we run all the time," said Barber, who gave the team a scare when he tweaked an ankle late. "We have a lot of confidence. I'm just playing good right now, and I know it."
Barber also had six catches for 60 yards and Burress finished with five receptions for 128 yards as the Giants won the division on the road and earned a home playoff game after losing 35-20 at Washington last week.
Chad Morton had a 58-yard punt return that put the Giants on the 3 late in the third quarter, setting up Brandon Jacobs' 1-yard scoring run two plays later that made it 27-14. Moss answered with his second TD.
Manning was shaky at times a week after having a rough game at Washington in which he went 23-for-41 for 244 yards with a touchdown and an interception as the Giants had their three-game winning streak snapped by the Redskins. Manning completed 12 of 24 passes for 204 yards and was sacked twice.
This might have been the final game for embattled Raiders coach Norv Turner. Oakland has three straight losing seasons for the first time since Al Davis came aboard in 1963 to coach and eventually own the team -- and Davis is losing patience. The Raiders (4-12) lost their final six games and eight of nine, finishing with one fewer win than in Turner's first season a year ago.
Turner wouldn't address his status after the game, saying it would be dealt with later. He was disappointed the Raiders couldn't score from the 1 in the closing minutes.
"I'd like to think we could get the football in," he said. "With Zack [Crockett] in there, I like our chances of making it, but we just didn't get it done."
Collins, eager to have a good game against his old team, hit his top two targets to get the Raiders on the board. He completed a 16-yard pass to Jerry Porter before connecting with Moss.
Collins was 26-of-48 for 331 yards and three touchdowns. It also might have been his last game in silver and black, although he said he might be willing to re-negotiate his contract to stay.
"I don't think my mind-set was any different tonight than for any other game," Collins said.
"I really tried to finish this on a positive note. Obviously, playing against the Giants was a pretty big deal for me."
He found Doug Gabriel for an 8-yard touchdown 19 seconds before halftime after completing four other passes during the drive to Gabriel, who set career highs with eight catches for 100 yards. Porter had six receptions for 76 yards.
Oakland Pro Bowl defensive end Derrick Burgess, the NFL sacks leader with 16, established a new franchise mark for sacks in a season, surpassing the 1986 mark of 15 1/2 set by Sean Jones, who was in attendance.
Broncos 23, Chargers 7
At San Diego, John Lynch sent San Diego into a painful offseason.
The Denver safety, who's from San Diego, keyed the Broncos' win by knocking Drew Brees out of the game with a shoulder injury, then forcing Philip Rivers to fumble in the end zone, resulting in a safety.
Tatum Bell scored three touchdowns for Denver, but was held to 52 yards on 17 carries. He needed 131 yards for 1,000. He and Mike Anderson were trying to become the fourth running back tandem in NFL history to finish with 1,000 yards each.
The game, played on a rainy afternoon in front of a crowd that included thousands of Broncos fans, meant nothing in the standings.
Denver (13-3) had already clinched the AFC West title and a first-round bye.
San Diego (9-7), which won the division last year, lost three of its last four games.
Dick Vermeil will retire after the season as head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, one of his players told The Associated Press on Saturday.
The player, who asked that his name not be used until after the announcement was official, said he was present when Vermeil broke the news during a team meeting earlier in the day.
The Kansas City Star first reported that Vermeil was leaving, quoting team official Lynn Stiles.
The 69-year-old Vermeil, the NFL's oldest head coach, could end his career on Sunday when the Chiefs (9-6) face Cincinnati in their final regular-season game. But Kansas City could still make the playoffs with a win and Pittsburgh loss to Detroit.
Stiles, who was at meeting, said Vermeil apperaed at peace with his decision.
"I know so. ... It's the right thing for him to do, for his family, and it's the right thing to do for the organization," said Stiles, the Chiefs' vice president for football operations.
Vermeil, in his fifth season with the Chiefs, took the 1980 Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl, and won the Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams after the 1999 season. He retired after the Super Bowl win and returned to the NFL in 2001 with the Chiefs.
He's 43-36 with Kansas City and led the Chiefs to the AFC West title in 2003, the only time the team has advanced to the playoffs in his tenure. The former UCLA head coach is 124-114 in 15 seasons in the NFL with Philadelphia (1976-1982), St. Louis (1997-1999) and Kansas City.
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