Cinderella Clock Strikes Midnight

There is no joy in Jacksonville.

The mighty Jaguars struck out.

A Super Bowl was in sight. The visitors from Florida could see it. They could see it all week long, even through New England snow and fog. They could see it all day Sunday, even when the electricity went out. They could see it with 3:43 to play, off in the distance, the way Paul Revere once saw lights in a church.

And then it disappeared.

On second down, with his Jaguars seven points behind and five yards away, Coach Tom Coughlin let his quarterback, Mark Brunell, try a dangerous pass to New England’s end zone. It was intercepted. And just like that, this Patriot game was history.

Jacksonville never recovered. It lost the AFC championship, 20-6. It lost the chance to play Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXI. Some teams wait a lifetime for an opportunity like this. Green Bay itself has been waiting since Super Bowl II.

It hurt.

“Expansion team?” “Young?” “A team of the future?”

Try telling that to, say, Clyde Simmons, the Jaguar defensive end, who is 32 years old, who crumpled in a heap during the first half because of a knee injury.

Try telling that to, say, Bryan Barker, the punter from Santa Clara, who is also 32, who couldn’t get off a kick after a high snap, costing Jacksonville dearly in the first quarter.

Try telling that to, say, John “Yurko” Jurkovic, the 29-year-old Jacksonville tackle, who spent the last five years as a Green Bay cult figure, with his own radio show called “Yakkin’ With Yurko,” who won’t get to play the Packers in the Super Bowl after all.

Old or young, it hurt.

Tony Boselli, Rob Johnson, Jeff Kopp . . . three young men from USC on the Jaguar squad, they wanted this one just as much as their old Trojan teammate, Willie McGinest, did.

Willie got it. They didn’t.

Super Bowls mean so much to these guys. Drew Bledsoe, the Patriot quarterback, knows so many other NFL quarterbacks who keep “hanging on, maybe longer than they should,” he said, simply to get one more Super Bowl shot.

Dan Marino has never won one. Neither has John Elway, nor Jim Kelly.

So don’t tell Brunell he will have several chances. He may never pass this way again.

“To miss an opportunity like that, stop the drive and come away with nothing . . . that’s what’s going to bother me, I’m sure, for a while,” Brunell would say.

With 8:42 to play, Brunell went to work after a missed New England field goal. The score was still tight, 13-6. Jacksonville took over at its 37.

Brunell had been quiet, for him, all day. Natrone Means, his running back, had been quiet, for him, all day. Means had an excuse. His ankle was mildly sprained. Brunell, though, was simply having an off day. And so was James Stewart, the backup running back to Means.

It was make-or-break time.

Brunell passed to Keenan McCardell for 15 yards. That quickly, the Jaguars were across midfield. Stewart ran for a couple yards behind Boselli, off left tackle. And then Brunell got hot. He found Pete Mitchell for 13 yards, Stewart for eight, McCardell again for nine more. The ball was at the New England 16.

Coughlin and his offensive coordinator, Kevin Gilbride, now had to be careful. A turnover could be deadly. They kept the ball on the ground.

Stewart slashed off right guard to the Patriot 10, before safety Lawyer Milloy could stop him. Means went up the middle for four more yards, for a Jaguar first down.

They could see it.

Means tried going behind Boselli again, but this time Patriot tackle Mark Wheeler was waiting. He gained only a yard. It was second down, and tradition dictated to play it safe.

But Jacksonville wasn’t built on tradition.

Gilbride suggested a pass. Coughlin consented. Game, set and season.

Brunell tried to thread the needle, looking for Derek Brown, his tight end. He picked a crowded place, the center of the end zone. There lurking was Willie “Big Play” Clay, a Patriot free safety with an apt nickname. He picked off the pass.

Coughlin explained, “It was a multiple crossing pattern. There was some delay in the timing. I don’t think we saw Clay.”

Momentum was gone. So was the Super Bowl.

A minute later, Jacksonville did get the ball back. But it was poked from Stewart’s grip by Patriot linebacker Chris Slade. It popped into the hands of cornerback Otis Smith, who several weeks ago was at the low point of his life, being cut by the New York Jets, the NFL’s worst team. Smith ran 47 yards for a touchdown. He flew like a runaway Jet.

All the Jaguars could do was watch.

“All year long,” said Means, who gained only 43 yards, “it has not been a matter of if we make a big play, but when. The when never came for us today.”

His coach, Coughlin, said, “I think it’s very important for all of us to realize, it’s one team that feels good at the end of the year in professional football. The rest of us go home to try to figure out how to be that team.”

Brunell tried to be equally philosophical.

The quarterback said, “It didn’t work out today, and that’s OK, because before every game we pray that God’s will be done. We’re gonna fight on. Next year is a new year.”

Teams have said that before. Teams a lot older than Jacksonville’s.