Friday, January 28, 2000
Matchup not super, but party should be
BY SCOTT MacGREGOR
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Is it the game that matters, or the party? In the year of one of the most anonymous Super Bowls ever, that's an easy question.
“There's more to it than football,” avid football fan Jason Burlew said between sips of a beer at BW3 sports bar in Norwood. “There's the halftime show, the commercials, the parties. It's just another excuse for everyone to kick it.”
To some fans, this year's matchup seems to have all the sexiness of a date with Linda Tripp. The St. Louis Rams and Tennessee Titans aren't exactly marquee teams, and despite the wonderful story of their rises from trash heap to penthouse, their biggest fame before now came from moving between cities.
They are not traditional powers. In fact, they haven't even been powers for more than one season.
The last two Super Bowls, we had the legend of John Elway. The year before, the return to greatness of the famed Green Bay Packers. What happened to the powers we're used to seeing, like Dallas and San Francisco and Denver?
Then again, maybe you like the unknown. Perhaps the freshness of the teams makes it more exciting, like the wonder of a first date.
So when the 34th edition of Super Sunday starts at 6 p.m., will you care?
“It's not really my team,” said Jim McCabe, a Buffalo Bills fan and bartender at Jillian's in Covington. “But yeah, I'm going to watch the game.”
Does it really matter who's playing? It is the Super Bowl, after all, one of our sacred national holidays. It's more event than contest, more party than game. And it's very often not a good game anyway, with one-sided blowouts a sad fact of its history.
You wouldn't skip Christmas just because Santa sent one of the elves instead, would you?
“I don't know the teams, but as long as we make money, I'm cool,” said Amy Weckesser, a bartender at Jillian's, which will show the game on 42 large-screen TVs and hopes to host about 500 fans.
That's what local sports bars — and all those people hosting parties — are betting. Bartenders figure the joints will still be packed come Sunday evening.
“Any other game during the season, it matters who's playing,” said Mike Magons, BW3's regional manager. “But the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl. The big names get more fans, but we'll be just as busy as last year.”
St. Louis and Tennessee are good teams, no doubt, but many casual Super Bowl watchers don't know their stories. Because neither was very good last year and neither was picked as a pre-season Super Bowl contender, neither was televised to the entire nation until the playoffs began three weeks ago.
Fans in the Cincinnati market got to see the Titans play the Bengals in the season's first week, and saw the regularseason game between St. Louis and Tennessee won by the Titans.
The Rams' rocket turnaround has been one of the best NFL stories ever. They went from losing all but four of their 16 games last season to winning 13 of 16 this year. They did it with flash, behind a rags-to-riches quarterback (Kurt Warner) who just a few years ago was bagging groceries and playing in the Arena Football League, and a high-powered offense that scores a ton of points.
The Titans, meanwhile, got new a new name (they used to be the Oilers), a new home (they played in four stadiums in four years, moving from Houston in 1997) and new uniforms (powder and dark blue). They went 13-3 behind a tough defense, a workhorse running back from Ohio State (Eddie George) and a black quarterback (Steve “Air” McNair) from tiny Alcorn State; and got a miracle kickoff return to win in the closing seconds of the playoffs' first round to stay alive. Many say they are a team of destiny.
“There's still some good hype,” said Joe Mullen, manager of the Norwood BW3.
But it's not Terry Bradshaw and the Steel Curtain Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Roger Staubach's Dallas Cowboys in the 1970s, the Joe Montana San Francisco 49ers vs. the John Elway-led Denver Broncos of the 1990 Super Bowl or even Elway vs. Brett Favre's Packers in 1998.
We may eventually think of Warner vs. McNair in those terms, but we don't yet.
“It's not going to be San Francisco and Dallas every year anymore because of the salary cap,” Bengals offensive lineman Rich Brahm said of the device that ensures parity in the NFL. “It's going to be different teams. That's what makes it exciting.”
Many fans agree. “I think it's fantastic,” said Chris Fabri, having a drink at Willie's Sports Bar in Covington. “It's what's right about sports. I think both teams are very romantic. It's great for small-market teams to have something to celebrate. This is one of the few Super Bowls I'm looking forward to.”
Super Bowls in the 1990s were dominated by a handful of powers. Of the 20 Super Bowl entrants in games played from 1990-99, 14 were split among five teams: Buffalo (four), Denver and Dallas (three each) and San Francisco and Green Bay (two each). There were one-year wonders like San Diego (1995) and Atlanta (1999), but each game featured at least one traditional power.
The Rams have been to one Super Bowl, in 1980, when they were still in Los Angeles. The Titans franchise has never been. The Rams were heaped with the Bengals as the losingest team of the 1990s before this season, making the playoffs for the first time since 1989. The Titans made it for the first time since 1994.
The last time a Super Bowl featured two such unknowns was played in 1982: A then-upstart San Francisco squad beat the Bengals.
The 49ers went on to build a dynasty, and the Bengals returned to the big game once more seven years later. Perhaps instead of seeing two unknowns in St. Louis and Tennessee, we're getting in on the ground floor of two new powers.
“It really doesn't matter as long as it's a good game,” Ms. Weckesser said. “I just don't want it to be a blowout.”
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