Redskins' Taylor Gets Posthumous Pro Bowl Spot

WASHINGTON - Sean Taylor's selection to the Pro Bowl was supposed to be a crowning moment during a season in which he became a truly dominant NFL safety.

Instead, it's a tribute to a player who was tragically lost from the game at age 24.

The Washington Redskins safety was selected as an NFC representative to the 2008 Pro Bowl on Tuesday, three weeks after he was fatally wounded in a shooting at his home in Miami. Taylor was chosen as the conference's top free safety in balloting by coaches, players and fans.

"It is well-deserved," center Casey Rabach said. "If he would have been able to finish the season, he would have been in there. It just shows the respect everybody around the league had for him and what a great player he was."

Taylor is believed to be the second person elected posthumously to an all-star game in a major American professional sports league. Philadelphia Flyers goalie Pelle Lindbergh was voted by fans to start in the 1986 NHL All-Star Game after he was killed in an automobile accident Nov. 11, 1985.

Taylor led the NFC with five interceptions at the time of his death, even though he had missed the previous two games because of a knee injury. He also was leading the Pro Bowl voting among fans at the time.

But the numbers don't come close to vouching for Taylor's vast improvement this season.

This year, Taylor was allowed to roam the field as a true free safety, a hard-hitting ball hawk whose speed made anything deep virtually off limits to the offense. Before Taylor's knee injury, the Redskins had allowed only 21 plays of 20-plus yards in 8 3/4 games.

Falcons' Dunn Puts Family Into First Home

TALLAHASSEE - Atlanta Falcons running back Warrick Dunn has been helping single mothers buy new homes for several years, but Tuesday he chose the first dad for his first Home for the Holidays venture in the city where he starred in college.

Dunn, who played at Florida State between 1993 and 1996 and with the Tampa Bay Bucs from 1997 to 2001, presented a Tallahassee man and his four children with the keys to a new furnished, fully-stocked home.

Osei Nyahuma already knew he and his four children were going to have a new house to live in. The $180,000 house was built by Habitat for Humanity, and Nyahuma had to help build it. He will be responsible for roughly half the mortgage.

But he didn't know Dunn would be there to present him with a $5,000 check for a down payment. Dunn also paid for all of the furnishings inside and stocked the pantry provided by sponsors Aaron's Sales & Lease Ownership and Prudential Tropical Realty.

"I can't remember the last time I sat on a new couch or ate at new table with enough chairs for my family," Nyahuma said. "I have to keep pinching myself to make sure I am not dreaming."

Dunn, who has overcome his own adversities in life, including the murder of his mother, has set up the Warrick Dunn Foundation to help others. Homes for the Holidays is a part of that foundation.

"I just think it was important to come back and let this community know that I still love and cherish my time here," the soft-spoken Dunn said. "Today was a good day, presenting the home, and helping someone else live out their dream."

BRONCOS: Released beleaguered punter Todd Sauerbrun, who faces legal trouble stemming from an incident outside a restaurant in early December. He's scheduled to appear in court Jan. 15 on an assault charge.

COWBOYS: Safety Roy Williams appealed the one-game suspension levied because of his third "horse-collar" tackle of the season, a hit on Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb on Sunday.

FALCONS: Owner Arthur Blank has offered the team's vice president of football operations position to Bill Parcells, ESPN reported.

Parcells could accept or reject the job as early as today, the sources said, and he is giving it serious consideration.

•Five players were fined by the NFL for violating uniform regulations with tributes to Michael Vick during last week's Monday night game. Vick, Atlanta's suspended Pro Bowl quarterback, was sentenced to 23 months in prison on federal dogfighting charges.

After scoring a TD, Roddy White displayed a "Free Mike Vick" T-shirt under his jersey.

He, along with tight end Alge Crumpler and cornerbacks DeAngelo Hall and Chris Houston, were fined $10,000 each. Crumpler, Hall and Houston all wore black eye strips with written tributes to Vick, which the league called "displaying an unauthorized personal message."

Wide receiver Joe Horn was fined $7,500 for pulling up White's jersey to show the black T-shirt with handwritten white lettering. The fines were confirmed Tuesday by NFL spokesman Randall Liu.