"This was just an awful game."Morten Andersen kicked the 25th game-winning field goal of his career, a 33-yarder as time expired, to give Atlanta their fifth successive win, 20-17 over Philadelphia.The outcome extinguished the Eagles' play-off dreams, and shortly thereafter Atlanta's own flickering hopes were snuffed out by Detroit's comeback over Minnesota.The Kansas City Chiefs closed in on home field advantage throughout the AFC play-offs with a 29-7 victory over the San Diego Chargers.The Baltimore Ravens beat the Tennessee Oilers 21-19 in the last game to be played at 43-year-old Memorial Stadium while Chicago beat St Louis 13-10 in a basement battle.. That is Dallas's longest barren spell since losing their last seven games in 1989."We played a pretty good ball game, except for the second and third quarters, when it was disastrous," said the Dallas head coach, Barry Switzer.Scott Mitchell's one-yard touchdown pass to Herman Moore with three seconds left gave the Detroit Lions hope for a possible play-off place with a 14-13 victory over the reeling Vikings, who have now lost five consecutive games.Jim Harbaugh threw a career-high four TD passes, including three to tight end Ken Dilger, as the Indianapolis Colts prevented the Miami Dolphins from clinching a play-off place with a 41-0 rout."Some days everything just goes wrong and this was just one of those days," said the Miami coach, Jimmy Johnson. "They have a young team like us and today was our day."Cincinnati beat Dallas 31-24, eliminating the Cowboys from play-off contention for the first time since 1990.Boomer Esiason passed for 242 yards and two touchdowns as the Bengals erupted for 31 unanswered points and Corey Dillon rushed for 129 yards to become the third Cincinnati rookie to reach 1,000 yards in a season.The Cowboys, who had won the last five NFC East titles, rallied for two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to make things interesting, before losing their fourth game in a row. Bill Parcells' team can now secure a play-off place by winning at Detroit on Sunday."Tampa Bay has seven guys in the Pro Bowl, but they have a young team, we got the jump on them and maybe they had a tough time keeping things in perspective," Parcells said. Only Jacksonville did so, with a win, 20-14 over the Buffalo Bills. Mark Brunell threw for 317 yards and a touchdown and ran for a score as the Jaguars secured at least a wild card berth in the AFC.The other three - Tampa Bay, Minnesota and Miami - all went down to defeats, but the Buccaneers were assured of an NFC wild card place when the Super Bowl champions, Green Bay, defeated the Carolina Panthers in a rematch of last year's NFC championship game.Brett Favre threw for 256 yards and three touchdowns in the 31-10 victory as the Packers eliminated the Panthers from play-off contention with one week remaining in the regular season.That was good news for the Bucs in the wake of the New York Jets' 31- 0 demolition job on them - the Jets' first win in a December game since 1993.The often-criticised cornerback Otis Smith returned two interceptions for touchdowns as the Jets - who finished last season 1-15 - regained control of their play-off destiny by joining Miami and New England at the top of the AFC East with 9-6 records.The rookie Leon Johnson returned a second-half kick-off 101 yards for a TD for the Jets, who had lost their previous two games. The Jacksonville Jaguars went in through the front door and Tampa Bay went in through the back - but two more teams missed their chance to clinch places in the NFL play-offs at the weekend.

And, in a remarkable turnaround from the recent past, the Dallas Cowboys are out and the New York Jets are still in. Four teams had a chance to claim post-season places with victories. "But we are all likely to benefit from his success and with US Tour Commissioner Tim Fincham trying to get golfers to earn the same as other top US stars, you'll see a lot more $1m first prizes in future."Montgomerie, who won the European Order of Merit for the fifth successive time this year, has the chance of the first $1m (pounds 620,000) prize of 1998 when he faces the South African Ernie Els in the semi-finals of the Andersen Consulting Challenge in Phoenix on 3 January.. I almost have done."I used to get upset with myself as I knew I could do better. I just have to accept the bad with the good, which I am doing as I get older."Whatever he achieves personally, Montgomerie believes golf has a money- laden future as Tiger Woods takes the sport to the level of American baseball and basketball, where the likes of Michael Jordan earn pounds 100m a year."There's only one guy in that league at present and that's Woods," Montgomerie said. We're all human and I know I can possibly win a major with 90 per cent of my game Players have won majors making mistakes I can three-putt a green and win a major.

The Scot sees himself taking on the role in around eight years' time but first his main aim is to win that elusive major.Having just won his fifth successive European Order of Merit at the age of 34, he maintains he has finally come to terms with his reputation as the man with the shortest fuse in golf."I'm learning the hard way that nobody has played the perfect game of golf yet and know I never will," Montgomerie said."Nowadays, if I miss a putt, I miss one. It's a terrible thing to take the captaincy and possibly accept that means you're finished as a player You could tell it hurt Seve Ballesteros. He still wanted to play."Ballesteros, who led Europe to victory in his home country of Spain in September, has ruled himself out as captain next time, as has Bernhard Langer.Montgomerie wants a system where the likes of Torrance and James could try to qualify as a player but if they did not, could then take on the reins of the captaincy. There's no rush. "We don't have the likes of a Hale Irwin, a Ben Crenshaw or Tom Kite. The Americans have a choice of 10 or 12 of that type of character."And while Sam Torrance and Mark James spring to mind, they want to play. Why do we need one during the qualification system? He won't tell us what to do at that stage.