<p>No one is rooting harder for Jim Mora in the NFL playoffs than his dad, the guy whose name he proudly shares.</p><p>Nothing unusual about that, right? Doesn't every father yearn for his son to be a success in life?</p><p>Well, in this family, it runs a little deeper than bloodlines.</p><p>The elder Mora went to the playoffs six times during his long, successful coaching career. Each time, it was one-and-out.</p><p>This weekend, his son gets a chance to remove that blemish from the family tree _ and maybe ease whatever pain still lingers in his father's heart.</p><p>"I know he's worried sick this week," said the younger Mora, who guided the Atlanta Falcons to the NFC South championship in his rookie season as a head coach.</p><p>The Falcons, who had a first-round bye, host the St. Louis Rams on Saturday night.</p><p>"My dad really wants us to win," Mora said Monday, standing in a hallway at the Falcons' suburban headquarters. "If we don't, he's worried that I will get stuck with his label."</p><p>Papa Mora guided the New Orleans Saints to the first four playoff appearances in franchise history, but they never got any farther. He also coached in Indianapolis, overseeing the greatest one-season turnaround in NFL history.</p><p>The Colts went from 3-13 in 1998 to 13-3 the following year, winning the AFC East title. But the playoffs didn't get any easier after the Mora left the Big Easy, that remarkable season ending with a 19-16 loss to Tennessee.</p><p>Indianapolis made the postseason again in 2000, but the ending was just as familiar. In a wild-card game at Miami, the Colts blew a 14-point lead in the second half, gave up the tying touchdown in the final minute of regulation and lost 23-17 in overtime.</p><p>Mora was fired after the 2001, having tied an NFL record with those six straight playoff losses. Now retired and living in California, he's the only coach in league history with 100 victories (in his case, 125) and not even one postseason win.</p><p>"I did the best job I could do," he said, reached by telephone at his home. "You can always look back and think about things you could have done differently to make games turn out better. But I don't worry too much about all that stuff."</p><p>Mora's son, who was at five of the six playoff losses, believes his father was a victim of his regular-season success. He got more out of his teams than he should have _ only to have their weaknesses exposed in the bright glare of the postseason.</p><p>And the younger Mora is also quick to point out that his father has won a playoff game, just not in the NFL. During the 1980s, Papa Mora captured two USFL championships with the Philadelphia-Baltimore Stars.</p><p>"Just the other day," the son said, "I found an old Stars football while cleaning out a storage room."</p><p>With a radio gig keeping him busy on the weekends, Mora Sr. was able to attend only one of the Falcons' regular-season games. But he wouldn't miss this one.</p><p>"Watching games is stressful because I'm living and dying with how he's doing," the father said. "For this to be his first year, I'm pleased with what he's done. I only hope he can win a few more."</p><p>Mora's USFL success landed him a job with lowly New Orleans, which had never even had a winning season when he arrived in 1986.</p><p>A year later, the Saints won 12 games and made the playoffs for the first time ever. Not that it did them much good _ New Orleans was blown out by Minnesota, 44-10.</p><p>And so, a trend began.</p><p>Mora's teams found all sorts of ways to fall on their playoff faces, from blowouts to excruciatingly close loss. While his son believes much of the accompanying criticism was unfounded, he did try to learn a thing or two.</p><p>"I think he may have worked his teams too hard," the Falcons coach said. "They reached their maximum level during the regular season, but when it was time to fire it up a notch for the playoffs, they weren't able to do it."</p><p>His father disagreed.</p><p>"Every one of those six games was different," Mora Sr. said. "The only time I took a tired team into the playoffs was the first one. ... Other than that, I don't think so."</p><p>Whatever the case, the Falcons rested Michael Vick and most of their key players over the last two weeks of the regular season, more concerned with being fresh for the playoffs than finishing with a two-game losing streak.</p><p>Mora insists that he's not burdened by his father's record or any burning desire to write a new ending to the family's playoff legacy.</p><p>"This is me," the son said. "It's a natural question to ask, but it doesn't have anything to do with me."</p><p>Still, beneath Mora's public stance, one can't help but get the idea that this playoff game is especially important to this family. Here's a son who wants to make his father proud _ and show that a Mora can coach a team to victory in the playoffs.</p><p>"My father did some amazing things during the regular season," the younger Mora said. "But the thing that sticks with him is his lack of success in the playoffs."</p>
