The Herald:Davis couldn't have asked for better ending

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http://www.buzzfans.com/sports/story/3031129p-2774414c.html

Davis couldn't have asked for better ending

By Gary McCann The Herald

(Published November 17‚ 2003)

CHARLOTTE -- Over behind the Washington Redskins' bench, referee Gerald Austin stared into the replay monitor with another Carolina Panthers win in his hands, depending on what images danced in front of his eyes.

He didn't waste much time. He walked back onto the field and said the sweetest words any player in the National Football League wants to hear.

"There is not visual evidence to change the call on the field," Austin said, the more than 70,000 fans in Ericsson Stadium drowning out his final words.

"The play stands."

And so do the Carolina Panthers, one more unbelievable time.

Stephen Davis had somehow gotten the ball through that imaginary line called "the plane," with 1:09 to play, and the Carolina Panthers had come from behind again to win 20-17.

Now 8-2, it was their sixth win of the season by three or fewer points continuing some kind of sweat-soaked magic that refuses to go away.

For Davis, the touchdown, disputed or not, was the best kind of ending to the day. Having been cut loose by the Redskins last season, Davis called Sunday's game "personal, very personal."

To get into the end zone, no matter how, to win the game was all Davis was wanted.

Davis had just battled his way to the goal line from 7 yards out on two bone rattling carries, arguably the two toughest on a 28-carry, 92-yard day. On the final carry, the former Redskin lunged toward the line, appeared to get stopped and lunged again, stretching the ball toward the goal line.

Matt Bowen ran in and slapped the ball out of Davis' hands on onto the green grass near the 3-yard line, and the Redskins recovered. With the game inside two minutes, the Redskins couldn't challenge the call, but the refs could, and Austin headed toward the Redskins bench.

Davis wasn't worried.

"When I saw the ref run in with his hands up," Davis said, "I knew it was a touchdown."

In the loud but still business-like Panthers locker room afterward, Davis stared into TV lights and was asked how it felt.

The "wooooooooooooo" that would have made Ric Flair proud bounced off the locker room walls, down into the showers and out into the tunnel toward the Washington locker room. It ended in a wide Davis smile.

"This was very personal," he said. "It was an important game for us as a team and important for me. I had to play it down during the week, but it was personal."

And any questions about the TD not being a TD he took personally, too.

When one reporter asked if there was any doubt about the TD, Davis stopped smiling.

"What are you, one of them Redskins reporters?" he said. "There was no doubt I was over the goal line."

Asked if he was holding his breath while Austin stared into the replay monitor, Davis bristled again.

"You one of them Redskins writers, too! Why should I?"

The ending of the game was as much relief as joy for Davis, who fought off questions about the Redskins all week the same way he fought off linebackers on Sunday. After spending seven years in Washington, the Redskins cut him loose after last season. While he tried his best during the week to downplay what would happen on Sunday, all those around him knew how much the game meant.

He had something to prove to himself and the Redskins.

The Redskins played like they did, too. When Davis touched the ball, the hits seemed harder, the pursuit a little more intense.

There was talking, too.

"They did all the talking," Davis said, "but I wouldn't let it get in my head."

He almost tried too hard.

On his first play from scrimmage, an 8-yard gain that sent him over the 1,000-yard rushing mark for the season, he fumbled at the Panthers' 26, giving the Redskins a fat chance to get an early lead.

But Rock Cartwright fumbled in the end zone, at almost the exact spot where Davis would score, and the Redskins came away empty.

At the end of the game, they came away empty, too, while Davis walked into the Carolina night with the sweetest kind of win, the kind you get from a team who didn't need you any more.

He said he was glad the week was over, tired of answering the question "what you gonna do about the Redskins?"

It was a week that ended in the best possible way.

As Davis faced the TV cameras, tape recorders and pens and pads he was asked if the day finally ends this thing with the Redskins.

"Yeah," he said, "until the next game."

Contact Gary McCann at 329-4074 or gmccann@heraldonline.com