What separated the champs? Urgency
Posted: Wednesday February 03, 1999 12:55 PM
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Either I'm getting old and jaded, or there was an undeniable dead quality to
this Super Bowl. The problem was that after the first few series I never felt
that the Falcons were in the ballgame. And in the second quarter, when Rod
Smith caught the 80-yarder that gave the Broncos a double-digit lead they never
lost, I said that's it. Atlanta will never come back. There have been many
Super Bowl blowouts, but the only other time I remember feeling that way, that
early, was in the Bears-Patriots game in
'86.
During the week leading up to the Super Bowl, you're always pestered by radio
and TV guys looking for a quickie quote, a sound bite, anything that will
indicate that you're drawing breath. And the opening line is almost invariably
the
same:
"Well, Dr. Z, it should be a great
game."
And in idiot-lockstep, my answer is always the
same:
"Either that or it won't
be."
I don't bother to explain, because by then they've usually tuned out anyway, but
generally, I don't care whether it's a crowd-pleaser or not. To me it's a
puzzle to be solved. What happened and why? Thrills and chills? I leave that
to the guys hyping the contest, although, of course, if it comes down to the
wire, as the Broncos-Packers did in '98, so much the
better.
All I ask for, really, is something that's fairly competitive, but I didn't get
that from Supe XXXIII. What I got was a weird approach by the Falcons, an
adherence to status quo that doomed them fairly
early.
The problem was that they played the game as if they were seven-point favorites
instead of seven-point 'dogs. They seemed to say, this is our thing and
we'll do it. Never mind what the scoreboard
shows.
I'm not talking about offense. Jamal Anderson ran hard and got his yards.
Chris Chandler moved the ball at times, but the pressure of an unrelenting set
of blitz packages did him in, along with passes that just missed, a big
interception off a deflection, etc. But even if he had put more points on the
board, I never felt that they'd be able to catch up to the
Broncos.
Even with Shannon Sharpe down with a twisted knee and Ed McCaffrey a non-factor
and Terrell Davis, as we found out later, cramping up from a pulled groin,
Denver had 17 points and 266 yards by halftime. Then it was all downhill. John
Elway sat back in the pocket and picked the zone apart. It was like stealing.
The Falcons rushed four -- granted, it's one of the premier front fours in the
game -- but when it became apparent that they weren't getting to Elway, there
was no fallback position, no "specials" or "exotics" or
blitzes that the Broncos hadn't seen on film, no creative ways of bringing
pressure. No boldness, no sense of urgency -- geez, we've got to do
something, anything, to rattle the QB. Rarely would they bring a fifth
rusher, and when they did, the Broncos adjusted and picked him up as
well.
Was this a lack of courage by defensive coordinator Rich Brooks , or just
a reliance on a standard defense that had held up during the season? The
Falcons are not a blitzing team. During the year their DBs and linebackers (not
linebackers who drop into a down position for the rush, like Chad Brown or Bryce
Paup, but stand-up 'backers) recorded only seven sacks, third lowest in the NFL
behind Chicago and Jacksonville, both anemic pass-rush teams. But when the game
is slipping away and your zone is springing holes and your tackling is
miserable, as the Falcons' was, good grief, do something, do anything. This is
the Super Bowl, fellas, the big
one.
There's another reason why the Falcons should have put Elway to the test. He
was coming off a very shaky performance against the Jets. He hadn't looked good
in three of his final five games coming in. I got hold of Bubby Brister during
the week and asked him what was wrong with the
QB.
"You mean against the Jets?" he
said.
"Well,
yeah."
"The wind," he
said.
"Testaverde handled it
OK."
Brister paused for a moment. "He didn't have his base under him," he
said. "His leg's been acting up, or his pulled hamstring, or something.
He just wasn't throwing
right."
"Is it the kind of thing that can heal in two weeks?" I asked
him.
"Fingers crossed," he
said.
So you bring the rushers and see what's what. Instead the Falcons sat back and
handed him an MVP day. Which doesn't mean that Elway doesn't deserve all the
credit in the world for running a terrific offensive show, it's just that it
might have been interesting to see what would have happened if he'd been forced
to do more on the
go.
The Broncos, in describing the defense that forced three interceptions and
severely limited the Falcons in the red zone, made the double-zone, with the
corners playing up and the safeties deep behind them, sound like some kind of
master stroke. Sure it can work, especially with some of the variations they
gave it, but only with pressure in front of it. The Broncos didn't hold back.
On the sack that ended the Falcons' first series when they got in deep, Denver
came with cornerback Darien Gordon, who used up the last remaining blocker,
followed by linebacker Bill Romanowski, who brought Chandler down.
"Venus" was the name the Broncos gave that stunt. They blitzed their
linebackers all evening, together and in tandem, at times bringing all
three.
Sure, it put pressure on their DBs to hold their coverage, but they figured it
was worth the gamble. The Falcons have just as good cover people as Denver
does, but they wouldn't take a chance. The double-zone that worked for the
Broncos killed Atlanta, especially on the
80-yarder.
That should have been the tipoff that things weren't right in the secondary,
particularly in the area patrolled by Pro Bowl free safety Eugene Robinson. In
his 11 years with Seattle he was one of the game's finest, and least-known,
safetymen, blessed with great ball instincts and coverage ability. At Green Bay
in '96 and '97 he achieved elder-statesman status, clever, wise, terrific at
keeping things together. The Falcons brought him in, at age 35, to unify their
secondary, which he did. His legs weren't what they used to be, but he knew the
angles and he didn't miss many
tackles.
The Super Bowl should have been the winding down of a great career, then within
24 hours it all fell apart for him. The Saturday night bust on 22nd and
Biscayne, the hours in the police station, the sleepless night ...God knows what
kind of agony he and his family went through. Lunacy from the go ... what ever
made him do it? Maybe I'm too soft, but I can only feel compassion for a man
I've respected as an athlete and a person for 14
years.
He took a bad angle on Smith, on that 80-yard run. Worse, he seemed locked to a
spot. His legs looked dead. During the game he was missing tackles. His worst
play came in the fourth quarter, on a little circle route to Davis that turned
into a 39-yarder when Robinson, off-balance, grasped
air.
The play set up the TD that made the score 31-13, but the game was over long
before that. Elway saw to that. So did the only team on the field that played
with any sense of
urgency.
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