The Good and the Ugly

"I guess, but you need old crafty veterans like LaVar," Marshall said. "Older guys know how to play and show the younger guys how to do it by example. You can't teach that."

Joe Salave'a, who tipped the pass that Arrington picked off, sounded as if he would want no other teammate to tuck the ball in and run than Arrington. "A lot has been said about things between him and the organization, but when all is said and done he showed he still has a nose for the ball. I love him more than just as a teammate. I love him like a brother. He has a knack for being around the football that you can't replace."

After knocking off Tampa Bay, all around the visitors' locker room here you heard the same thing: teammates more happy for Arrington than Arrington was happy for himself.

If this team has been through an odyssey this season, so too has their one-time star linebacker. After all he and his team have put himself through this season -- the contract-grievance acrimony, the injury and lack of playing time -- to come through with an interception and a major contribution was almost unfathomable.

"For things to naturally happen the way they have, it's like a storybook," Arrington said. "Let's just hope it has that Hollywood ending to it."

Who knows what happens next week in Seattle, whether some other frustrated soul breaks out and makes Gibbs and Williams believe in him again. All that's certain is LaVar Arrington hopes to be a father today and his team lives to play another day. For now, that's seems plenty for which to be thankful.

And who knows what will happen with Taylor. When he was asked about the play during which he spat on Michael Pittman, he replied to reporters, "Which play?" and walked off, a young Turk too caught up in his own victimhood to understand he was wrong.

It's almost cliche to play villians and good guys off one moment of playoff anger. But if Taylor keeps up with this behavior, this thoughtless machismo junk, it's becoming easier to imagine the day when his list of transgressions leaves him running down the sidelines late in a season, carrying the ball toward the end zone and an uncertain future.