NFL KARMA KNOCKS SOME OFF THEIR FEET PLAYOFFS ARE PLAYING OUT LIKE MORALITY PLAY: SOME ARE ANTAGONISTS, OTHERS PROTAGONISTS.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

Cosmic comeuppance isn't supposed to count for much in football. Skipping across the middle of the field with the football under your arm, believing you have some sort of four-leaf clover tucked in your thigh pad, is a good way to learn the difference between fate and fatal.

Karma, in football, is of less use than Kabeer (Gbaja-Biamila).

Yet, as we watch the NFL season unfold, maybe there is someone keeping track of who's naughty and who's nice.

There have been hints all season. Defending-champion Tampa Bay, with Jon Gruden, Warren Sapp and Keyshawn Johnson serving as the poster boys for self-indulgent petulance, fell flat on their overexposed faces.

So, too, did the Raiders, who embrace Machiavellian ideals like a long-lost brother. Nobody got his more than linebacker Bill Romanowski, one of the league's dirtiest players. In training camp, he crushed the eyesocket of a teammate with a sucker punch and by the end of the season he was ensnared in the THG drug scandal and contemplating retirement after a series of concussions.

Although some got just desserts, others received just rewards. None more so than Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, who took the high road when Rush Limbaugh claimed he was a patsy of the media. McNabb played splendidly the final half of the season and helped Philadelphia to the best record in the NFC.

The postseason, too, is looking for all the world like one big morality playoff.

In Indianapolis, Colts quarterback Peyton Manning and coach Tony Dungy already have established that nice guys don't have to finish last. Now, they've shown that you can score a touchdown in a playoff game - and win one to boot.

Dungy and Manning are not only two of the best in the business, they appear to be genuinely good people. If nothing else they're courteous, diligent and humble - a rare trifecta in the Boo-yaa Nation.

Not that those qualities had ever counted for much. Manning, in his fourth playoff appearance, never had won a postseason game and the tag of Can't-Win-The-Big-One followed him from the University of Tennessee, with Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt doing his best to transport it.

Much the same issue has been nagging the defensive-minded Dungy. In his four previous playoff games for the Colts and Tampa Bay - all losses - his teams have failed to score a touchdown. It took them just over three minutes to do so Sunday and not much longer to answer their critics with a 41-10 rout of a Denver team that had thumped them two weeks earlier.

They did so not with a finger pointed, but with a shrug.

``Everyone else seems to be more fired up about this than me,'' Manning said after a five-touchdown, 377-yard passing performance.

Another tale of vindication played out in Baltimore. After the Ravens had beaten Tennessee five consecutive times, it was suggested that the Titans - particularly tailback Eddie George - didn't want any piece of Baltimore and middle linebacker Ray Lewis.

George hardly looked like he was running with his tail between his legs Saturday. He suffered a dislocated shoulder in the first half, played the second half with a brace and finished with 88 well-earned yards on 25 carries - including one in which he put Lewis on his back - in Tennessee's 20-17 victory on the road.

There was another feel-good story in the NFC, but it had less to do with validation than with the prospect of destiny - or whatever you want to call the ride the Packers have been on since the death two weeks ago of quarterback Brett Favre's father.

He played superbly the next day in a must-win Monday night victory over Oakland, then his team miraculously got into the playoffs the following weekend when Arizona beat Minnesota on a fourth-and-24 touchdown pass on the final play.

They survived Seattle when cornerback Al Harris, playing a hunch, jumped a hitch route, intercepted the pass and returned it 52 yards for a touchdown in overtime.

Packers coach Mike Sherman was asked if he believed in divine intervention.

``I'm more of a believer in the chemistry in that locker room and the men in that locker room than I believe in any intervention outside the locker room,'' Sherman said, before pausing. ``But we'll take whatever help we can get.''

If, indeed, there is a higher power, then there were more than a few lessons to be learned this week.

The next time Seattle wins a coin flip, Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck simply will inform the referee that his team wants the ball and not why.

When a receiver catches a ball and falls to the turf, as Indianapolis' Marvin Harrison did, members of the Broncos defense shouldn't make like another member of the equine family - a donkey - and not bother to touch him.

And Baltimore coach Brian Billick, who looks down his nose at anyone who questions his play calling, might want to remember that his team didn't win 10 games by letting Anthony Wright throw 37 passes and Jamal Lewis run 14 times.

There was no lesson, though, worth remembering more than the one taught by Baltimore offensive tackle Orlando Brown. He picked up two personal-foul penalties, including one which improved Tennessee's field position on the Titans' game-winning drive.

That this would happen to Brown, who is infamous for his temper, is not really much of a surprise. In fact, it is something that could be seen all the way from China, where the calendar says we are currently in the Year of the Goat.

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Photo:

(color) Peyton Manning passed for 371 yards and five touchdowns in his first playoff win Sunday as Indianapolis defeated Denver 41-10.

Michael Conroy/Associated Press