This is the show-stoppingest year for QBs in NFL history, which is how San Francisco 49ers kicker David Akers' story ended up in 4-point font.

Too bad. It would look nice on Paramount Pictures' summer schedule.

Yes, Akers, 37, had the finest kicking season in NFL history this year, but that's just the riding-off-into-the-sunset part.

The crying-in-the-shower part was exactly a year ago last week -- wild-card weekend -- when his Philadelphia Eagles were about to host the Green Bay Packers. The day before the game, doctors found a tumor on the ovary of Akers' 6-year-old daughter, Halley.

They were still trying to figure out what to do with it Sunday morning when a distraught Akers had to drive to the game to kick inflated pigskins through bars of steel.

Just to add a pint or two of sweat to the gallons Akers was already spilling, there was this: The year before, Akers found out he'd been swindled out of most of his life savings in a Ponzi scheme by Texas investor Kurt Barton, who ended up getting 17 years in prison for it. Akers had to testify against him.

His $3.7 million was gone, though, which meant this playoff game was crucial to the Akers family's future.

No wonder his brain was a bowl of Jell-O that day.

Akers immediately went out and blew a 41-yard field goal attempt in the first quarter. That was rare. He'd missed only four tries all season. Then he missed a bunny 34-yarder in the fourth. He can usually make those wearing fuzzy slippers. The Eagles lost 21-16.

The fans booed him. Talk radio slaughtered him. And even Eagles coach Andy Reid singled him out, saying, "We can all count. Those points would've helped."

And so all those demons laid down in bed with Akers on that sleepless Sunday night, knowing Halley would go in for surgery in a morning that would reveal the heaviest -- or lightest -- kind of news.

"He was just so down and worried that night," remembers Akers' agent, Jerrold Colton. "He was so, so emotional. But he knew he had to present a strong front for his daughter and his family."

"My life was kind of a car wreck right then," Akers says.