Pennington Sends His Old Team Packing

Dolphins 24, Jets 17

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., Dec. 28 -- On his field of redemption Chad Pennington ran Sunday night. The Giants Stadium stands had all but emptied and the New York Jets had been eliminated from the playoffs. His Miami Dolphins teammates had already passed joyously through the tunnel -- the worst team in the league last year, suddenly division winners. And after the television interviewers were done, the Dolphins quarterback suddenly had his old stadium to himself.

So he ran.

He ran across midfield, across the turf that served as his home field for eight years, across the end zone where he had led so many post-touchdown celebrations as the quarterback of the Jets until they abruptly chose to terminate his employment this summer when Brett Favre came along and they thought they had found someone better. And just before Pennington ducked into the same tunnel as his teammates, he looked up in the stands, shook his fist, then dropped his head and sprinted for the locker room.

It would be all the emotion he would allow on the day Miami's 24-17 victory over New York won the Dolphins (11-5) the AFC East.

Later, under a blaze of television lights in the decidedly unglamorous visitor's interview room, he laughed dryly at the irony of the fact that his greatest moment would have to come in this stadium against the team that had cast him away.

"I just had a funny feeling that it would," he said. "It shouldn't, couldn't be any other way."

In the tiny locker room behind him the Dolphins players celebrated their division championship with a zeal few NFL teams have shown in similar situations. Players stared with wonder at the gray division champions caps they were given by team officials. Some stood at their lockers posing with silly grins, holding up their hats. A group of linebackers stood together with arms crossed against their chests in menacing poses. At one point, as the Dolphins diminutive, first-year coach Tony Sparano stood at a lectern gushing about his team, screams of elation came from the other side of a wooden wall.

"Oh, I'm tremendously emotional about it," Sparano said as something or someone in the locker room banged against the wall, causing people to look up wondering if it might cave in.

But who could blame the Dolphins if it did. Last season they were the NFL's worst team, the joke of the league. It took a late-season victory against the Baltimore Ravens to ensure they wouldn't finish the year winless. Even still, the Dolphins' 1-15 record glared as a colossal humiliation. A mark so bad that it cost former general manager Randy Mueller and coach Cam Cameron their jobs. In came former Jets coach Bill Parcells to run things. He hired Sparano, changed much of the roster and then signed Pennington after the Jets released him upon their signing of Favre.

Parcells has a record of turning teams around quickly. Still no one could have seen this coming, a run in which the Dolphins won nine of their last 10 games to win the division in a tiebreaker over the New England Patriots.

"Imagine where we were last year, 1-15," Dolphins defensive end Vonnie Holliday said. "Words can't even describe what that feels like right now."

After the game, Holliday said, he broke down in tears.

They might all have. Davone Bess, a rookie wide receiver from Hawaii, said he can "still see the pain in guys eyes," when they talk about last season. The taste of the 1-15 season is still that raw.

Then Pennington arrived, as worn as them all, having been hailed as the future, then booed and scorned and mocked for much of a decade in New York. A week into training camp, as Pennington was supposed to be competing to be the Jets starter, they traded for Favre. Pennington was cast away in the transaction. The Dolphins signed him the next day. And things took off almost immediately.

"Who comes to the team one day and the next is designated as a captain?" asked defensive tackle Jason Ferguson. "I mean, no one."

And as their captain Pennington has led this motley team to a place none of them could have imagined, relying on short, accurate passes and a dedication to not making mistakes. He went the whole year with just seven interceptions.

Sunday was no different as he passed for 200 yards and two touchdowns that were both perfectly thrown out of the reach of Jets defenders.

Favre was as reckless as Pennington was controlled. Favre threw for more yards, 233, but was intercepted three times -- the last coming when he fired a ball at wide receiver Laveranues Coles, who never even saw the pass. It killed a great chance the Jets had to tie the game not long before its end.

After the game, Favre did not stick around to shake hands and savor what might well have been his last game. He sprinted off the field, his helmet still strapped on. He looked nothing like the player who had dazzled football for much of the past two decades with his wild, out-of-control style that always seemed to work. Sunday, as in the past few weeks as the Jets went from 8-3 and certain division champions to 9-7 and out of the playoffs, his wildness betrayed him.

Later, when asked if he was considering retiring, he shrugged and said he wasn't sure, that there was an immediate, "emotional" decision and that he shouldn't let that be the answer now. He said he needs time to think.

On the day of Chad Pennington's redemption, it was assured he would have plenty of that.