9201010532 DETROIT FREE PRESS 920106 Monday, January 06, 1992 METRO FINAL

NWS

1A Photo Color MARY SCHROEDER Photo Color GEORGE WALDMAN : Above: Lions Coach Wayne Fontes exults Sunday seconds after Lions players drenched him with a of water. The Lions blew away the Dallas Cowboys 38-6 at the Silverdome. Below: Lions quarterback Erik Kramer, left, and linebacker Victor Jones enjoy the team's romp, which sends theLions to the NFC title game next week against Washington. The Lions hope to avenge a season-opening 45-0 loss to the Redskins. Top: MARY SCHROEDER/Detroit Free Press Right: GEORGE WALDMAN/Detroit Free Press MITCH ALBOM SEE ALSO METRO EDITION, Page 1A Copyright (c) 1992, Detroit Free Press DETROIT 38, DALLAS 6 PERFECTLY AT HOME LIONS SACK, POUND, YELP, ROAR ... WIN For one thrilling Sunday, it was perfect chaos, all these inspired men doing things they weren't supposed to do, exploding like a silver-and-blue volcano after years of bubbling frustration. They took the ball and scored, they took it and scored again, and again, and again, and again, and when that wasn't enough, they sacked the quarterback, they dived on fumbles, they slammed into receivers, they roared and yelped and pounded their collective football fists until all the Dallas Cowboys could do was watch from the turf like some bully who had been decked by a schoolkid. Who were those guys? The Lions? "Have you ever been involved in a more emotional game than this?" someone asked a beaming Lomas Brown, after the Lions romped in their biggest -- and only -- NFL playoff game in Detroit in more than three decades, 38-6, to advance to the NFC championship game next Sunday at Washington. "Never! Not high school, not college, not anything!" he screamed. "Everything was clicking! Everyone was so emotional. People say emotion will only take you so far, but you know what? We're all about emotion now. And look where we are!" Yes, look. The conference championships. One win from the Super Bowl. A team with a losing record last year, a team with an injury list that has more stars than its healthy roster, a team even the fans who buy tickets had their doubts about -- that team came out and squashed the celebrated Cowboys as if they were a cigarette butt? That team didn't allow a single touchdown? That team, at the final gun, was dancing on the AstroTurf, doing the shimmy, whooping up the jet-engine crowd noise of the Silverdome as the scoreboard flashed "D.C. HERE WE COME!" Who were those guys? The Lions? Zoned out "We were in a zone!" Brown bellowed as the Detroit locker room filled with TV cameras and curious reporters. "The linemen were in a zone, the defense was in a zone, the receivers were in a zone. . . . "And that guy" -- he nodded toward Erik Kramer -- "he was in a zone of his own." A zone of his own. What a beautiful caption for the Quarterback From Nowhere. Here was a guy who symbolized this entire raucous afternoon, a backup, a throwaway, a refugee from the Canadian Football League. You are not supposed to be afraid of quarterbacks like this; they are not supposed to beat you, just as the Lions were not supposed to beat anyone important in the playoffs, right? And so Dallas, a team a little too full of itself, stuck a chip on its shoulder, offered a defense that focused almost exclusively on running back Barry Sanders, and pretty much dared Kramer to win with the pass. "Go ahead," the Cowboys seemed to say, "we don't think you can do it." Well. That's a dangerous thing to tell any man, even a guy who once played in the Potato Bowl. Maybe he's tired of hearing that. Maybe, like his teammates, he's tired of seeing people wave a hand and say, "Aw, it's only him." Whatever the reason, the curly haired Kramer, who has the bemused calm of a surfer in an office building, took the challenge, stepped up to the Cowboys, knocked the chip off their shoulders -- and then popped them in the nose. How effective? Try three out of every four passes completed. Try three touchdowns. Try entire scoring drives where every play came off his throwing arm -- and nearly every pass was caught. All day long, he sliced through the Dallas defense, finding Willie Green (eight times), finding Herman Moore (six times), finding Mike Farr (five times), firing the ball as if he'd pulled it from a quiver and shot it with a bow. He completed 29 of 38 passes, a Lions playoff record, and most of his completions were 10- to 20-yard chops, exactly what the foolish Dallas defense continued to surrender, over and over. Hey. Cowboys. We said he was a backup. No one said he was stupid. "Were you surprised they stayed in that same defense all day?" someone asked Kramer. "Yeah, I was," he said, grinning. "But I'm glad they did." Is this a perfect hero for these Lions? He's so anonymous that when out-of-town reporters streamed into the locker room, they had no idea what he looked like. And since he was talking to a few local guys, away from his locker, they didn't find him -- the star of the game -- for a good 10 minutes. Perfect. "Did you have any idea what you were doing out there?" he was asked. "Do you realize you were setting passing records and taking a team to the conference finals that hasn't even had a playoff game since 1983?" "No, I didn't," he said, "but thanks for clearing it up for me." He laughed. He's going to the conference finals. Who are these guys? Lions find themselves This is who they are: a team that has found a collective heartbeat and has discovered it more than makes up for odds, for media, sometimes even for talent. A team that found a mission in a seriously injured teammate and in the process discovered that it wasn't nearly as bad as everyone had been saying. Sunday was more than Kramer playing connect the dots under the Dallas defense. This was the Lions swallowing the Cowboys the way a cave swallows oxygen. This was Dan Owens, a backup, sacking Troy Aikman in a full body slam, and Victor Jones, a backup, making a fumble recovery, and Lawrence Pete, a backup, coming up with another fumble, and Melvin Jenkins, who is not going to the Pro Bowl, timing a beautiful interception and racing like a halfback 41 yards for a touchdown. This was Jim Arnold, the punter, launching one missile after another -- in the fourth quarter he boomed one 58 yards -- and this was Eddie Murray, the placekicker, finally getting another chance to kick in the playoffs, and making it, thank God; eight years he's been towing around the memory of that missed field goal against San Francisco, hearing people whisper "choker" behind his back, and finally, he gets to tell them to shove it. "I have just answered my last question about 1983," he said in the locker room, looking like a man who just shed 20 pounds. This was Barry Sanders. You cannot discount what he did in this game -- even though he had one of his poorer statistical outputs (69 yards on 12 carries). He was the reason the Dallas defense leaned so desperately to the rushing game. He was the reason Kramer could have the day he had. And in the fourth quarter, just to let the Washington Redskins know he was still kicking, he made perhaps the best run yet of his astounding young career, a burst into the arms of several sure tacklers, a dead stop, then a few quick stutter-steps backward, sideways, and a burst into the clear, a 47-yard touchdown that left a pile of Cowboys on the turf, holding their heads in disbelief. Of course, that's the way a lot of us feel this morning, right? The Lions in the NFC championship game? One game from the Super Bowl? It is incredible to think, and only people who live here can understand what Sunday meant, to have the Silverdome pulsing with life, to have traffic jams a mile down the highway, to have all the radio stations -- even the rock- and-roll ones -- wishing the Lions good luck, playing roar noises, to have everyone in the state wake up thinking the same thing: "All right! Football time!" You know something? It would have been enough if they played a good game and lost. It would have been enough if they made us look forward to next year. It would have been enough for everyone -- except the 47 guys in the silver-and-blue uniforms, who have this crazy dream. . . . "How many of these do you have left in you?" someone asked Kevin Glover. "Two," he said, smiling. "One next week in Washington, and one in Minnesota." You can laugh, weep, shake your head in amazement. But this much is undeniable: The Chicago Bears are done and the New York Giants are done and the San Francisco 49ers are done and the Dallas Cowboys are done and 24 NFL franchises and more than 1,000 players are out hunting, walking the dog, doing the dishes -- and the Detroit Lions have a football game next Sunday. You probably don't think they can win it. Go ahead. Dare 'em again. DLIONS; FOOTBALL; GAME; COLUMN; SPT;Lions