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Sneak Peek Winner of 'Boring Bowl' still gets a championship ring
Updated: Friday January 26, 2001 11:49 PM
By Don Banks, Sports Illustrated TAMPA, Fla. -- Some have mockingly dubbed it the "Boring Bowl," and would have us believe it will be the most vanilla, pointless affair in Super Bowl history. The critics maintain that these are two pretenders to the throne, teams that can't score on offense and made it to the game's grandest stage largely on the watered-down, parity-laden quality of today's NFL. But others are calling Baltimore versus New York the most evenly matched, most evenly rated Super Bowl ever, and laud the great debate of Super Bowl XXXV: Is the Ravens' defense deserving of being called the best of all time? The Giants and Ravens might produce the lowest scoring Super Bowl in history, but for the victor, the accomplishment still will be worthy of high praise. Boring or not. "I like boring," New York defensive end Michael Strahan said. "When we got boring, we started to win. If boring means winning, we'll be boring. We'll let everybody else have the headlines. That doesn't matter to us." If it is Baltimore that extends its defensive mastery to the season's ultimate game, the Ravens will then have made the strongest case possible on their own behalf. "I kind of feel we have to win this championship if we want to be considered one of the best defenses of all times," Baltimore linebacker Peter Boulware said. "If you don't win the Super Bowl, what's the good of playing great defense? You just go down as a good defense that lost the Super Bowl. We want to win the Super Bowl, and if it comes down to a great defense, then that's fine." Fittingly in a game billed as a defensive showdown, much of the attention this week has been on the defensive coordinators, who themselves are participants in another competition that will play out next week. Baltimore's Marvin Lewis and New York's John Fox are expected to interview for head-coaching jobs in Buffalo and Cleveland, and both could be leading their own teams by this time next week. Both Fox and Lewis have played it close to the vest this week regarding their future. It's a style that their units used to dominate this season. "I don't think [Baltimore's defense] does anything very exotic," Giants quarterback Kerry Collins said. "In a lot of their games, they just line up and kick people's butts." Said Ravens head coach Brian Billick of the Giants: "Their defense is outstanding. These two teams are very, very similar and we have gotten here in similar ways. They are physical and there is no apparent weakness. In both our defenses, there is no glaring deficiency that you can really attack." Baltimore limited opponents to just 165 points this season, breaking the 1986 Chicago Bears' NFL record by 22 points. In the playoffs, the Ravens' defense has been even better, holding three opponents to a combined one touchdown and three field goals (5.3 points per game).
Such statistical dominance has brought forth comparisons with the league's storied defenses of earlier eras: the 1985-86 Bears, the 1976 Steelers and the 1972 Dolphins. With one caveat: It takes another win to make those lofty likenesses stick. "You have to win the Super Bowl game," former Bears head coach Mike Ditka said. "There are a lot of teams over the years, like Minnesota had great defenses, and when they don't win, I think people have a tendency to forget about them. "The team that wins is certainly going to be elevated to new levels in the eyes of the media and the people who know the game and watch the game." Hall of Fame defensive end Deacon Jones, a former Los Angeles Rams standout, believes the Ravens' defense has begun to carve out its niche. But the work is still very much in progress.
"This team here, they haven't even finished the season yet and you're already ranking them the greatest of all time. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. They're good, they play great team defense. They move to the ball as well as anybody ever did. But I don't know who brought this garbage up about them being the greatest of all time." The Giants are no defensive slouches either. They ranked fifth overall in the league this season, allowing just 284 yards per game. Their rushing defense was No. 2 (72 yards per game), trailing only Baltimore's record-breaking performance (60 yards per game). And they're coming off that 41-0 blanking of the powerful Vikings in the NFC title game. "I hope people underestimate us," Strahan said. "The Baltimore Ravens had a remarkable year. I've never seen a team go out and impose their will on an offense like their defense does. They deserve all the credit in the world. As for us, we just go out and play and have fun with each other and hope that at the end of the day we have enough to win the game. So far it's been good." For all their supposed offensive weaknesses, the Ravens (15-4) and Giants (14-4) enter the Super Bowl with as much momentum as any two conference champions in quite some time. Their combined 17-game winning streak -- Baltimore has won 10 in a row, New York seven -- is the second-longest ever going into a Super Bowl. Only in 1972, when Miami had won 16 in a row and Washington two, were the Super Bowl teams on more of a roll. "We know what we can do," Giants running back Tiki Barber said. "We stopped worrying about what people were saying about us a long time ago." But there's no denying that the Super Bowl focus has been on the defenses almost by default. For the first time since Super Bowl V, 30 years ago, an NFL title game won't feature at least one starting quarterback who is Pro Bowl-bound. Baltimore's Trent Dilfer and New York's Collins are wonderful reclamation project stories who have brought an underdog's touch to this year's game. They just haven't brought much in the way of statistics. "I don't think there is that dominant quarterback play this year," Billick said. "I think it has kind of swayed the pendulum back to the defensive side of the ball." But with both teams finding a myriad of ways to win in less than pretty fashion this season, that just serves to assure that one of these ugly ducklings will get to hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy late Sunday night at Raymond James Stadium. Even if it might make the Ravens or Giants a tad, well, defensive, to hear themselves described that way. "When you get to the Super Bowl, you really don't care what they say about you," Fox said. "You're there and nobody can take that away from you. It's like what [Giants owner] Wellington Mara said. "If we're the worst team to ever win the Super Bowl, so be it. It won't say that on the rings."
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