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No question this one was tops
Posted: Friday February 04, 2000 08:02 AM
Got a comment or question for Dr. Z? Click here. Super Bowl XXXIV was the best one I ever saw. My favorite until now was the 1980 game, when the Steelers came from behind to beat the Los Angeles Rams, the last hurrah for an aging dynasty. My second favorite was 1991, Giants over Bills, tainted by the fact that I couldn't swing the election for Thurman Thomas as the game's MVP, the erroneous theory being that you couldn't choose a player from a losing team. My third favorite, and the most exciting until this one, was 49ers over Bengals in 1989 on Joe Montana's last-minute drive. Jets-Colts in '69 was the most significant from a sociological and historical standpoint, but the game itself couldn't match last Sunday's. What made this one so special was that it represented, at least to me -- a kind of morality play. Raw courage against a vast array of armaments. The battle of Stalingrad. Gettysburg and the battle for Little Round Top, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's beleaguered 20th Maine against the massed forces of the Confederacy. The desperate bayonet charge when the ammo ran out. That was Tennessee -- desperate, outgunned, battling its way back almost through sheer force of will, finally falling inches short on one hopeless lunge, stopped by a tiring Rams defense that rose up for one last game-saving play. That was one level on which to take this fascinating contest. Another was on the plane of intellect. Two different styles at work, two different philosophies. The Rams, dedicated to the quick strike, the deep thrust, exponents of the true West Coast offense of Sid Gillman and Don Coryell. They were embarrassed by Tampa Bay in the NFC Championship Game when the Bucs played them tough and shut down their flashy receivers and great tailback, Marshall Faulk. They shifted gears and pulled in their horns and went to ball control and underneath passing and they almost lost. Who knows, if Jerry Markbreit up in the replay booth hadn't chosen to review a play that needed no review, it might have been the Bucs battling the Titans in Supe XXXIV. This, by God, would not happen again. We are a big-play team and that's how we'll go out. For the Titans it was dedication to a philosophy that once was the reigning credo in the NFL: Big games are won by defense and ball control, with a heavy concentration on the ground attack. This thinking got its strongest test in the Giants-Bills game, when Bill Parcells' old-fashioned approach outlasted the dashing Bills, with their multiple-wideout, no-huddle package. I remember asking Parcells afterward if the game had vindicated his philosophy. "It's never needed vindication," he said. "It's the other thing that had to prove itself." Tennessee, with a tough, attacking defense passed down from Buddy Ryan to his old cornerback, Jeff Fisher. And a tireless, punishing back in Eddie George. And, unfortunately, a passing attack that was strictly small change, hopeless when it had to go downfield. But a team with tremendous heart and resilience, as the game proved. As I watched the first half last Sunday, two things struck me. The Titans were mixing a little zone into their traditional man-to-man defense, but where was their blitz package? They went to it only when the Rams were threatening deep, and it bothered Kurt Warner and limited St. Louis to three field goals and no TDs. But why hadn't they come up with some sort of exotic package to try to force a turnover on the Rams' end of the field? The second thing was that they had changed their style and had gone to the air early, and except for one screen pass to George, the gains were minimal and the Rams had no trouble adjusting. One missed field goal -- and nary a sniff at the end zone thereafter -- was Tennessee's offense in the first half. I had the game, at that point, figured as about a 23-7 ho-hummer, and an early trip to the locker-room area to beat the crowd. On the Rams' first possession of the second half Warner completed a pass to tight end Ernie Conwell down to the Titans' 10-yard line and Blaine Bishop, the strong safety and the heart and soul of the Tennessee defense, didn't get up. They wheeled him off the field with a scary looking neck injury. "Game's over," I said to Peter King on my left. He nodded in agreement. Two experts. What I didn't understand was that the Titans hadn't gotten that far by rolling over. This was a team with tremendous courage, tremendous inner strength. And except for one subsequent Rams' play, they were the only team on the field for the remainder of that second half. No panic. No three-or four-wideout offense to try to get on the board in a hurry. Just the same, old deliberate attack, but the intensity level was up a few notches. Crunch. George slamming between the tackles, bouncing outside when he was pinned; McNair galloping for yardage on his scrambles, every now and then completing a little dink pass. Twelve plays, 66 yards for the TD to pull within 16-6. Rams, trying to get a little running game working now, go three-and-out. Next Titans' possession, 13 plays, 79 yards for TD No. 2. Rams defense tiring badly. Rushing three men on occasion. McNair, with time to throw, starting to find his receivers in the mid-range areas, scrambling and breaking tackles when someone manages to filter through. With the score 16-13 the Rams go three-and-out again, and now they're in big trouble because their defense is exhausted. Terrible punt by Mike Horan sets up the Titans on their own 47, and they get down to the St. Louis 25 and miss the first down when McNair's pass to Frank Wycheck, running an out pattern, sails over his head. A big play which highlights the Titans' one big weakness: McNair's habit of sailing his passes at the worst possible time. So they kick the tying field goal, and now it's their game. In the the Titans' 16-0 run they've had the ball for 32 scrimmage plays, the Rams for six. St. Louis sets up on its own 27 with 2:02 left and there's only one way to play it: Work the ball downfield and eat up the clock. Give the defense some rest. "I kept asking, 'What are we going to do?'" Conwell said. "I figured we'd be picking them apart, that they'd be playing a deep zone and we could get things going underneath, and then if we scored, they wouldn't have enough time left to come back at us. I never expected the call that Mike Martz came up with." Twins Right, Ace Right, 999 Halfback Balloon. Three wideouts running deep routes -- 9's -- clearing the deep middle for Faulk to run the balloon -- the deep cross -- his trademark. Except that Warner went with one of his 9 routes, Isaac Bruce, streaking down the right side, covered by Denard Walker, who had been on Torry Holt until then. The pass was slightly underthrown, a terrible situation for a cornerback, who must put on the brakes and try to come back for the pass. Walker was pinned. He made a lunge for the ball and slipped and Bruce was home free, 73 yards on one play for the game-winner. The rest is history. Tennessee took the ball on its own 12 and died on the Rams' one as Mike Jones, the left linebacker, wrapped up Kevin Dyson and confetti filled the air. The Rams defense was spent, finished. If the game had gone into overtime, it's hard to see how they could have stopped the Titans, assuming Tennessee won the toss. Martz's call defied all logic. But it won the game. "All year long we lived by the big play," Conwell said. "And we have an offensive coordinator with the courage to call it." The true West Coach offense. Martz used to sit in Balboa Stadium as a high schooler, watching Gillman's Chargers, with the lightning bolts on their helmets, light it up. The deep strike to Lance Alworth and Gary Garrison. He watched the offense pick up nuances and wrinkles as it filtered down through Coryell to Ernie Zampese and Norv Turner, both of whom he worked with. And now Martz's down-the-field attack has given the Rams a Super Bowl ring. Perhaps historians will someday look on this game as a kind of landmark, a return to the deep strike -- no, not just that one play, but the whole season-long philosophy -- and the rejection of the quick slants and underneath patterns of the Bill Walsh attack, which held sway for so long, bearing the misnomer of West Coast offense. But I'm getting analytical here, and that's not the way to treat Super Bowl XXXIV, which, after all, came down to a lot more than that. Tremendous courage by both teams. Resilience. Refusal to panic. It was the best one of all. 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