Still talkin' Super Bowl

Now it's time to analyze the analysis of the big game

Thanks for the nice words about this week's column. Seems that I've used that phrase before. I would like to cite all of you by name, but it's not easy. How about if we give it the Uncle Don approach? You remember my old story about Uncle Don, the host of the kids' show I used to listen to on the radio at age 6 or 7. A big chunk of the show was devoted to a mere listing of the names of every kid who had a birthday that day. That's all, but it was enough to send you into a kind of delirium if your name were mentioned. I will intersperse my regular nonsense, uh, regular mailbag replies, with the names of those of you who were particularly kind.

Rick of Pittsburgh; John of Baton Rouge, La.; Gavin of Charleston, W.Va.; Slade of Oregon City, Ore.; Desmond of Newport Beach, Calif.. How's that for an opening lineup?

Super Bowl queries. The spectacle of it all bugs Colin of Orange County, Calif. -- the show, the extended halftime, the noise, the hype-week preceding the game. He hates all of it and he says he's heard players complain about having to go back to the locker room for half an hour after their warmup. He wants my take on the phenomenon. Colin baby, it ain't often that I'm outgrumped, but you've accomplished it. Sure, the extravaganza aspects of it bother me too, but do I really want to show my age and wave a cane at the whole bloody promotion? The noise in the stadium is really punishing, though, and it is a great relief when the kickoff finally comes. I'll say one thing for this year's show: At least it wasn't another tribute to Walt Disney.

A trio this time. Ted of Hanover, N.H., Jim of Lutz, Fla., Lance of St. Paul. Thanks.

David of Durban, South Africa, wonders what happened to Lincoln Kennedy. "At one point I thought Kennedy turned his back on Greg Spires," he says. I know just the play to which you're referring. Spires actually knocked him to his knees, and that was on a power rush. I've never seen Spires do to anyone else what he did to Kennedy. The big Raider just had no balance.

Closing the thank-you brigade with a quartet -- Chris of Carbondale, Pa., Dave of Pasadena, Rich of San Francisco, Jerimy of Windsor, Colo., and the Flaming Redhead was especially touched that you mentioned her dad.

A couple of tweaks at my statement about the about the magnificent job by the Bucs' defensive coaches. "How soon you forget," says Tom of Boston, whose candidate for best Super Bowl coaching goes to last year's Patriots. C'mon, Tom, be fair. I said best one-game defensive coaching job. I can't give that to the Patriots because the Rams scored twice on them late in the game and tied it up. Best overall job, yeah, I'd go with the Pats.

Tom of Pittsburg, Calif., feels that Tampa Bay's performance can't be counted among the greatest because the Bucs had such a read on Oakland's playbook that it almost seemed like cheating. Well, preparation is part of coaching, and if you feel that they knew the playbook because it was very similar to Gruden's, well, where's the law that says that the Raiders couldn't have introduced wholesale changes and put in new wrinkles for this game?

Which brings us to another coaching job in this contest -- Bill Callahan's. James of Ithaca, N.Y., wonders if I feel it rates among the all-time worst. Oh, I don't know. First I think you'd have to identify the real architect of Sunday's offense, and that isn't easy to do. I spent a whole week trying to find out. You cite the Raiders' three dink passes that opened the second half. This is what my chart showed: a three-yard curl to Jerry Porter that middle linebacker Shelton Quarles squashed. Think of this for a moment. The fastest receiver on the Raiders was stuffed by an MLB -- who just happens to run in the 4.4s. Next, a circle-in to TE Doug Jolley that Derrick Brooks held to five yards. Now it's third-and-two. What do you call? I didn't find anything wrong with the play the Raiders ran, an eight-yard square-out. It's just that they were throwing it to Marcus Knight, their fourth receiver, against the starting cornerback, Brian Kelly, who had no trouble reading it, jumping it and burying it. So what's Rich Gannon supposed to do? When he tried looking people off and pump-faking, the Bucs read it. When he tried to hold the ball longer and get someone open downfield, the rush got to him. This wasn't all coaching.

You cite the two-point conversions as more coaching lunacy. You know something? The game was over by then, so who cared? You felt the Raiders should have left a back in to block. Occasionally they did, with the fullback, Jon Ritchie, but this isn't really their style. They like to get five receivers out in the pattern. Maybe they should have max-protected more. Maybe their offensive line should have been stiffer. "Maybe" a lot of things.

Doug of Laurel, Md., brings up the officiating. I didn't like the call on the two-point conversion that you mentioned. I didn't like the idea that an obvious call, Aaron Stecker's non-fumble, had to be overturned by replay. And so was Porter's TD. I didn't like the crew that worked the game. I'm not wild about referee Bill Carollo. If he's the NFL's No. 1, as this assignment would indicate, then we're in trouble. Is it my imagination, or was Johnny Grier, whom I consider one of the league's top two or three refs, shut out of the playoffs? Why doesn't the NFL just decide to shut me up by letting me make all their postseason assignments for them?

Jack of Bethesda, Md., wonders why John Riggins isn't holding down a job as a game analyst. Well, Riggo's a funny fellow, all right, and who knows it better than me, who covered him when he was a Jets' rookie? I remember the day he was drafted. It was late, and I was tired, and I asked him, "What was your greatest sports thrill?" "Watching the neighbor's pigs being born," he said. Are the networks ready for this? Not sure, but I know I am. In answer to your question -- Riggo might be a bit too far out there for the suits. And thank you for what you said.

John of Austin, Texas, feels that I should have included Bruce Smith on my list of the best 3-4 DEs I've seen. Best pass rusher, yes, except when Lee Roy Selmon was single-blocked, which was almost never. Best combination against the run, plus the pass, uh uh. I'll take Selmon and Elvin Bethea.

Ed of NYC wants my most overrated and underrated stats in football. I agree with you that the most overrated is QB rating, since all four grading categories are keyed to the same thing, completion percentage, which rewards the dinkers. I was going to mention, as underrated, third-down completions for a quarterback, minus kneels, which are foolishly included, and minus fumbles that aren't his fault, but I kind of like your choice better -- tackles for loss. I would include tackles for zero as well. The problem is that there are no official statistics for those categories, and only a few teams haphazardly keep them.

Philip of St. Albans, Vt., writes, "I found it hilarious that a Hall of Fame writer dared to whine about New York bias when there is a more tangible bias against players from the Dallas Cowboys during the 1960's and 1970's." Even though you chose to send an insult my way, I'll let it go because emotionally we are closer than you'd think. Please read my column a bit more carefully. Vinny DiTrani is the one who mentioned the bias, not me, and he didn't whine. Vinny is not a whiner, he is an upstanding young journalist and a credit to the Garden State of New Jersey. If I hear an apology from you, I'll proceed with the list of Cowboys from that era that I have supported and will support for enshrinement. What's that? Stop mumbling. You're sorry. Well, speak up, man. Let's hear it. "SORRY, DOCTOR Z!" Much better.

Cliff Harris is my No.1 project, my top guy to push for enshrinement before he becomes a Senior, aka a lost cause. I've written this many times. Ditto Bob Hayes. Ditto Lee Roy Jordan. And Chuck Howley. And Rayfield Wright. I would assume I'll be on the Seniors Committee this summer. The selection of Hank Stram annoys me because I don't think that contributors, i.e, coaches, owners and the like, should have to compete against players for spots. They should come in by a different process. At the last meeting I called for a show of hands among the 38 selectors as to who agreed with me. It was practically unanimous. Then, one of the Hall's Board of Governors started pointing out all the problems involved with such a change, whereupon my hand shot skyward and I remarked that the biggest problem is that the board has a process in place that no one in the room likes, and that's the first issue it should address before they look for ways to once again stifle progress. Linda, get me a glass of water, please. I'm getting all worked up here.

To Klaus of Moenchengladbach, Germany: Danke schoen, mein lieber freund, for your kind words about my work. I wish I could find a 49ers coach for you. I don't know who tops the list right now, but what I feel they'll end up with is someone well within the comfort zone of Donahue and Walsh.

Garrett of Vancouver decries the corporate nature of the NFL, especially in the department of ticket allocation. Super Bowl tickets, playoff tickets, even season tickets to a team in an up-market city -- they're all corporate. Or at least all but a few owned by longtime fans. And how about the season tickets that are tied into those four-figure option payoffs, a concept so outrageous that it dazzles the brain? And then owners want to soak the common citizens, the same ones who are denied decent tickets, out of hundreds of millions to help build a new ballpark. Stunning, huh?

Mornhinweg out, Mariucci in for the Lions? asks John, a transplanted Michigander who now lives in Lithuania ... make that Lithonia, Ga. (yeah, I know, that's real clever... it's also real late at night). Could be. Mooch must weigh his options. He's a great one for weighing his options. I'll bet they weigh less now than they did when he was going through that Tampa Bay tap dance.

Indy kicker Mike Vanderjagt went on the air and said that neither Peyton Manning nor Tony Dungy have the fire to lead the Colts to a championship, and L.L. of Bloomington, Ind., is the second person who has solicited a comment from me on the subject. The first was a guy from an Indianapolis paper Thursday morning. He told me that he tried to get supporting comments from other players, but no one would return his calls. That led me to believe that there was some support for Vanderjagt's opinion. If there weren't, everyone would have been eager to jump in to refute them. But that's there and I'm here, and I'm not privy to inside info from Indianapolis. My feeling? Dungy's a nice guy, and nice guys have won championships. Who? Well, Weeb Ewbank for one. Who recently? How about Bill Parcells? (That latter one was a joke). It can be done. As far as Peyton's leadership, I've often wondered about all that fidgeting and adjusting he does at the line, as he seeks out the right call, the right change-up. If I were a lineman breaking the huddle, I think I'd like to come to the line, get down in my stance and fire out -- at least every once in a while. There has to be a place for stick-it-to-'em football. Maybe I'm being too one-dimensional here, and cerebral football sure is nice, but I wonder if a steady diet of it just takes away that grain of toughness.

Dave of Venice, Calif., points to the frequent announcers' absurdity of giving credit to a DB who reads the quarterback's eyes and makes a pick, while at the same time ripping a guy who gets beaten because he read the QB and not the receiver. Next week, Dave, next week, we'll have a look at all the inanities these guys are capable of. Be patient.

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