Shaun Alexander set an NFL record for touchdowns, led the league in rushing, and ran away with the AP Most Valuable Player award on Thursday.
And with free agency on the horizon, the Seattle Seahawks running back could parlay his sensational year into unprecedented riches.
Alexander spearheaded the Seahawks' rise to the best record in the NFC at 13-3, including a victory over the league's only 14-2 team, the Indianapolis Colts. It was the most productive season in Seahawks history, one in which Alexander scored 28 touchdowns and rushed for 1,880 yards.
PHOTO: AP
That earned him 19 votes from a nationwide panel of 50 sports writers and broadcasters who cover the NFL. He ended the two-year reign of Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning, who received 13 votes.
"I think that is a team goal," Alexander said of winning the award. "The way I always looked at MVPs was it was a player that did really, really good on a really, really good team. That is why I am even more excited about this year, because I have put together some great numbers, but we have a great team."
Those great numbers included 11 games rushing for 100 yards or more, topped by 173 against Arizona on Nov. 6. He scored 27 TDs on the ground and one as a receiver to break Priest Holmes' season record by one.
His lowest output was in against Philadelphia, a 42-0 romp in which he played only the first half and had 49 yards in the snow.
Alexander became the only player in NFL history with at least 15 TDs in five straight seasons and the fourth with consecutive 20-touchdown years. He became Seattle's career rushing leader this season.
"It's just like all the things -- the rushing title, the MVP, all those things -- it's exciting to talk about," said the sixth-year pro. "But I don't think it would mean that much until after I retire, because then it would actually hit me what it means.
"Right now, we're on this ride and it's just kind of one of those things; everything is kind of numb to us. It's all exciting. We're already in the second round of the playoffs, we've just got a bunch of cool things that we are really not used to."
Seattle would like to get used to having Alexander in the backfield. But he could leave in the offseason.
He was designated the Sea-hawks' franchise player before this season and accepted the team's one-year, US$6.323 million offer -- with a proviso. The team agreed not to use the same franchise tag on him in 2006.
So either the Seahawks come up with a huge financial package, or the MVP could be scoring touchdowns and gaining all those yards elsewhere next season.
"It is a business," he said. "The Seahawks have to make their own decisions. I'm going to be happy for whatever they do."
Alexander is the first Seahawk to win the award. He also is the first running back voted MVP since Marshall Faulk in 2000.
Trailing Manning in the balloting were New England quarterback Tom Brady with 10 votes, New York Giants running back Tiki Barber with six and Cincinnati quarterback Carson Palmer with two.
The New England Patriots strug-gled for most of the NFL season with injuries, winning the AFC East in part because everyone else in the division had worse problems.
But the Patriots are relatively healthy now and begin their quest for an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl today in Foxborough, Massachusetts as an eight-point favorite over the Jacksonville Jaguars, who won 12 games in the regular season, two more than the Patriots.
The Patriots are favored because they're loaded with playoff experience, the same reason the Pittsburgh Steelers are tipped ahead of the Cincinnati Bengals for their match tomorrow.
The difference is no more apparent than at quarterback where New England's Tom Brady, a two-time Super Bowl MVP, will face Jacksonville's Byron Leftwich, who is coming back from a broken ankle to play in his first playoff game.
The Jaguars are playing the "no respect" theme, and leaning on their few playoff veterans.
"I like it that way. When we beat New England, that says it all," says Jimmy Smith, one of four Jaguars left from Jacksonville's last playoff team in 1999.
Pittsburgh and Cincinnati both won at each other's stadiums this season, but the Steelers' depth of playoff talent should count more than traveling to Cincinnati, where they've won their last four matchups.
Pittsburgh also won its last four games to get into the playoffs, and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was a lot wiser than a year ago, when he went 13-0 in the regular season as a rookie but struggled in the postseason.
Cincinnati notched its first winning season and playoff berth since 1990 but it's young, including Carson Palmer, who had a Pro Bowl season in his second year but will be quarterbacking his first playoff game.
The two NFC games on this wild-card weekend pit Washington at Tampa Bay today, and Carolina at the New York Giants tomorrow.
The Washington Redskins will start their first playoff game since 1999 on a five-game winning streak, and hoping to settle a score. They lost to Tampa Bay 36-35 nearly two months ago on Mike Alstott's disputed 2-point conversion run with 58 seconds left. The Buccan-eers also ended Washington's last playoffs run six years ago.
Tampa Bay's defense is ranked No. 1 in the league, and includes veterans from the team which won the Super Bowl three years ago such as Derrick Brooks, Ronde Barber and Simeon Rice. But Washington's Clinton Portis has posted rushing totals of 148 and 144 yards in two career games against the Buccaneers.
Both quarterbacks are lefties. Washington's Mark Brunell has started six playoff games, all with Jacksonville. Chris Simms has started 12 NFL games, none in the playoffs, although his father Phil was MVP of the 1987 Super Bowl.
"At this point we expect him to play as well as any veteran that's ever played the game," Tampa Bay wide receiver Joey Galloway said of his quarterback.
The experience factor at quarterback favors Jake Delhomme, who led Carolina to the Super Bowl two seasons ago, against New York's Eli Manning in his first postseason start.
Carolina also has a 6-2 road record and the Giants have been bothered by injuries. They had four players go down in a 10-minute span in Philadelphia. The most important of those was middle linebacker Antonio Pierce, whose ankle injury has probably ended his season. In fact, other than Nick Greisen and perhaps Reggie Torbor, who has a sore hamstring, the Giants' linebacking corps is mostly a bunch of guys picked up off the street.
Each team has outstanding pass-rushing defensive ends: Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora for the Giants, and Julius Peppers and Mike Rucker for the Panthers. And each team has an offensive player the other fears: The Panthers' Steve Smith, who led the league with 103 receptions for 1,563 yards, and the Giants' Tiki Barber, whose 2,390 yards rushing and receiving are the second most in NFL history.
The National Football League set an attendance record for the third straight year, with an average of 66,453 football fans attending regular-season games.
Total paid attendance for the season was 17,011,986, about 11,000 more than last season, when the NFL topped the 17 million mark in tickets sold for the first time.
That included more than 103,000 attending the San Francisco-Arizona game in Mexico City, a home game for the Cardinals, who otherwise didn't top 50,000 in any of their home games.
The tickets sold this season represented more than 90 percent of stadium capacity.
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