The Imperfectionists

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Later today, the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens will meet in Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans.

As you have no doubt heard, there are many dramatic storylines in this year's Super Bowl — the first time brothers will be coaching against one another, the final NFL game for Baltimore's Ray Lewis, etc.

And CSNCalifornia.com's Lee Siegel writes that, if they win today, the 49ers will be 6–0 in the Super Bowl, matching Michael Jordan and the Bulls in the NBA.

As dynasties go, I guess Jordan's Bulls have become the gold standard.

But the comparison of the Bulls and the 49ers is a bit of a stretch. Jordan really did participate in six championship–winning efforts in Chicago. The 49ers won their first four Super Bowls in truly Jordanesque style — behind the leadership of Joe Montana. But the fifth was won behind Montana's successor, Steve Young, and today's squad will be led by a fellow who was in elementary school the last time San Francisco hoisted the Lombardi Trophy. He hadn't been born when Montana won his first two Super Bowls.

And Siegel acknowledges that fact — albeit somewhat grudgingly — when he writes that, even though it will have taken three quarterbacks to accomplish it, a victory today still will be "yet another feather in the cap of this area and this franchise."

The game's final outcome will determine which storyline is the most relevant and the most intriguing, I suppose.

But today's Super Bowl will have to go some to match the drama of the Super Bowl that was played five years ago today.

On that day, the New England Patriots were the first team in 35 years to enter the Super Bowl with a perfect record — and, if they won the game, they would be only the second team to win every regular season and every postseason game — the first since the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

That alone probably rendered that game more dramatic than the one that will be played today.

But then the Giants, who were 12–point underdogs, snatched history away from the shocked Patriots, who had become the Dolphins (well, perhaps, more like the Steelers — or even the 49ers) of their generation with three Super Bowl appearances in the previous six years.

The Patriots had won all three of those Super Bowls, including a last–second triumph over the St. Louis Rams, widely regarded at the time as the NFL's greatest franchise.

Considering how Tom Brady and the Patriots had ruled the NFL in the first decade of the 21st century (not to mention the AFC's Eastern Division), it was logical to assume that an unbeaten New England team, with all that postseason experience on its roster, would crush the Giants, a mere wild–card entry.

Wild cards, of course, weren't part of the NFL's postseason landscape in the 1960s, but ever since 1970, there has been at least one in every playoff picture. In those 37 seasons, only eight wild cards had ever made it as far as the Super Bowl — only four had won it all.

It's safe to say that nearly everyone (with the noteworthy exception of Giants fans) assumed New England would win — and most probably assumed Brady would win his third Super Bowl MVP as well.

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Not only had wild cards rarely prevailed in the Super Bowl, but there had been relatively few Super Bowls that were truly competitive — at least in the first 30 or 35 years of its existence — regardless of whether a wild card played in them.

Football fans in the 21st century have grown accustomed to close scores in Super Bowls — thanks largely (but not exclusively) to the Patriots, who may have dominated their conference but won each of those three Super Bowls by three–point margins. Perhaps, in hindsight, that was something of a warning of what to expect.

For decades, the Super Bowl was frequently seen as a rather anticlimactic championship game in which one team dominated the other. There were some competitive games — but they were considered the exceptions to the rule.

The first decade of the 21st century produced more single–score margins than any decade since the Super Bowl era began yet, when the game began five years ago today, the two most recent Super Bowls had been won by more than a single score.

Those scores hadn't been nearly as lopsided as many Super Bowls that were played in the 20th century, but they were sufficient to make some people (especially football people, not just casual fans) wonder if the NFL was returning to a time when wide margins were the norm.

What happened on this day five years ago drove such thoughts far from observers' minds. What happened five years ago today was probably one of the most astonishing upsets in football history — more astonishing than when Broadway Joe led the Jets past the Colts in Super Bowl III.

I guess it took a team from Broadway to do it.

It was dramatic from the start. The Giants opened the game with the longest drive in Super Bowl history (including a record four third–down conversions). The drive consumed nearly 10 minutes, but the Giants ultimately had to settle for a field goal.

After taking a 3–0 lead in the first quarter, the Giants fell behind at halftime, 7–3. That was still the score when the fourth quarter began. It's safe to say that few who were watching that day, either at University of Phoenix Stadium or on TV, anticipated what happened in the fourth quarter.

There were three lead changes in that fourth quarter — first, Eli Manning led the Giants down the field for a touchdown, giving New York a 10–7 advantage. Then Brady retaliated with a touchdown pass to Randy Moss (who will participate in the Super Bowl later today), giving New England a 14–10 lead with less than three minutes to play.

But then came the kind of moment that can define a football player's professional career, for good or ill.

And, in the case of Eli Manning, it was for good. He drove the Giants more than 80 yards and threw the winning touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with about 30 seconds to play.

But he might not have been in the position to throw that pass if he had not completed an improbable third down pass to David Tyree, who caught the first go–ahead TD pass earlier in the quarter.

In a catch that really defied description, Tyree outleaped the defender and made a one–handed grab in which the ball appeared to be stuck between his hand and his helmet.

The catch gained more than 30 yards for the Giants, who scored the go–ahead touchdown a few plays later. Manning, who completed 19 of 34 passes for 255 yards and two touchdowns, was named the game's MVP.

When Manning and the Giants beat the Patriots again four years later, he eclipsed his older brother Peyton, who, to date, has one Super Bowl title.

But even if Peyton matches his brother in Super Bowl victories, he will probably never match what his brother did five years ago today ... when Eli denied the Patriots their bid for perfection.

The Longest Night

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Twenty–five years ago today was the last Super Bowl Sunday that I had to work — although, at the time, I probably thought I would never be able to sit and watch another Super Bowl like anyone else.

I was working on the sports staff of the now defunct Arkansas Gazette. Before the year was over, I moved to Texas to begin working on my master's degree, but, on this day in 1988, I was working on the copy desk of the Gazette.

When I first started working there, we had no TV in the newsroom, but on special occasions, like the Super Bowl, someone usually brought in a portable TV, and we could at least keep up with what was happening (remember, this was before the internet).

One of the things I learned in my years of working on a newspaper's sports staff on Super Sunday is that there are a few sporting events scheduled in the afternoon of that day — but after the game kicks off, there is nothing else happening in American sports. No games of any kind.

I don't know if it is still that way or not. Frankly, I haven't really paid close attention, but I can't recall any sports events that tried to compete directly with the Super Bowl.

And, with the NHL having recently resolved a somewhat messy strike and trying to work in a certain number of games in a comparatively short period of time, there might be some hockey games planned on Sunday. I don't tend to follow hockey so I don't really know.

I do know that, 25 years ago today, the football game started around 5:30 Central time, and, under normal circumstances, those of us on the sports staff figured a football game would be over in roughly 3½ hours. Our final deadline was around midnight, but we knew it would be an hour, maybe an hour and a half after the game ended before our writers could complete their postgame interviews, write their stories and transmit them over what I suppose was a state–of–the–art system (but would now be regarded as quaint, even primitive).

The sports editor had complete confidence in the system, though, and his faith turned out to be well founded. We had no transmission issues that night.

Other than that, there were really two things to be worried about.

One was that the game would go into overtime. As far as those of us on the copy desk were concerned, that would only prolong things. The Gazette had been purchased by the Gannett Company a year or so earlier, and the decision had been made to send our own staffers to the game in San Diego rather than rely on wire accounts, even though we had no link to anyone on either team as far as I can recall.

The Gazette was in a newspaper war with its crosstown rival, the Arkansas Democrat. It was a war the Gazette eventually would lose, but, on this night in 1988, the war was raging.

We had some excellent writers on the Gazette sports staff, and I knew they would give us great copy to work with — vivid stories that would be the embodiment of what legendary sportswriter Red Smith meant when he said that "people go to spectator sports to have fun and then they grab the paper to read about it and have fun again."

I had no doubt that our writers would enable our readers to have fun the day after watching the game. I just hoped the initial experience would be fun. And overtime would be fun for the viewers. Not so much fun for the folks who were working the sports copy desks that night.

Those of us back in Little Rock knew we would have to go through a stretch that evening when there would be very little for us to do. If the game went into overtime, we wouldn't get the copy until close to our deadline, and no one wanted to miss deadline.

The game didn't go into overtime. That wasn't the problem.

The other thing to worry about was a lopsided score. That was likely to mean that the team on the short end of the score would be throwing the ball a lot, which probably would mean a lot of incomplete passes. That, too, would prolong things.

It turned out that was a problem.

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You never would have expected what happened in the second quarter after watching the first quarter.

Denver QB John Elway was competing in his second Super Bowl. He had played in his first Super Bowl the year before when the New York Giants won, thanks to a nearly perfect performance from Phil Simms. Now, in his second consecutive Super Bowl, the (supposedly) more mature Elway seemed ready to claim an NFL championship.

The oddsmakers made Denver a three–point favorite.

The Redskin offense was led by Doug Williams, a backup when the season began but elevated to starter midway through the season and was, on this day, the first black quarterback to start in the Super Bowl. He was facing plenty of pressure.

In the first quarter, the Broncos seemed to be living up to pregame expectations, taking a 10–0 lead.

But then The Quarter happened. Washington struck — and struck and struck and struck and struck. The Redskins scored five unanswered touchdowns, big play after big play, in the second quarter. Four of the five touchdowns were passes from Williams, who finished the day with 18 completions out of 29 attempts for 340 yards.

The Redskins went to the locker room with a 25–point lead. To this day, no other team has scored as many points in a single quarter as the Redskins did 25 years ago. A few teams have scored more points in a single Super Bowl than Washington did in 1988, but none has scored five touchdowns in a single quarter.

I don't remember how long that game went on, but I know it went on longer than expected. Denver coach Dan Reeves clearly didn't want to give up at halftime. Elway wound up throwing nearly 40 passes in an ill–fated attempt to erase the deficit; the Broncos got no touchdowns, but Elway was sacked five times.

The Redskins did their part to speed things along by running the ball on virtually every down when their offense was on the field. Rookie Timmy Smith, who hardly touched the ball during the regular season, ran for a Super Bowl record 204 yards and scored two touchdowns.

But the MVP went to Williams (whose NFL career was finished a few years later), and he certainly deserved it.

After the game was over, those of us in the sports department waited for what seemed like hours before the photos and copy began coming in, and the sports section finally began to take shape.

Everyone sprang into action with less than an hour to go before the scheduled deadline — and, once again, we accomplished what we had come to call the "nightly miracle." Somehow we got it all done on time that night. I honestly don't know how we did it. Until we actually did it, I wasn't sure that we would!

I can't speak for anyone else who worked that night, but when I got home that night, I collapsed in my bed exhausted. Most of the nights I worked at the Gazette, I needed a little deceleration time after work before I could go to sleep.

But not that night.

When the Orange Got Crushed

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Before the 1977 NFL season, the Denver Broncos were practically invisible.

They never made the playoffs — so it follows that they had never been to a Super Bowl. In fact, they rarely had a winning season.

But that changed in 1977.

The Broncos didn't win with their offense that year. Half the teams in the AFC scored more points than Denver did.

Denver won with defense. No team in the AFC and only two teams in the NFC allowed fewer points than the Denver Broncos, whose defense earned the nickname "Orange Crush." Only one team — division rival and defending NFL champion Oakland — scored 20 points or more against Denver during the regular season.

My memory is that Denver's defense captured the imagination of the sports world that year. But, in the end, the Broncos couldn't capture the NFL title.

They've played in several Super Bowls now, but, on this day 35 years ago, the Broncos played in their first–ever Super Bowl. Appearing in the Super Bowl became almost a routine thing for Denver fans in the 1980s and less so in the 1990s (although the '90s brought the Broncos their first triumph), but in 1977 it was a brand–new experience for them and for their team.

And, as has been the case with most first–time Super Bowl teams, the outcome of the game wasn't favorable.

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I guess the enduring memory for me from Super Bowl XII is of Dallas' Butch Johnson snagging a Roger Staubach pass that seemed to be just beyond his reach, tumbling into the end zone and bouncing to his feet, ready to pounce on the ball — and he would have, too, if the official had not signaled a touchdown.

To this day, I still don't know if it was a legitimate catch, but in that pre–challenge era, there was no way for Denver coach Red Miller to dispute it.

It was just one of those can't–miss kind of games — for the Cowboys, not the Broncos.

Staubach completed more than two–thirds of his passes, helping the Cowboys race to a 13–0 halftime lead. Eventually, the Cowboys won, 27–10, giving Dallas coach Tom Landry his second — and last — NFL title.

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But even more remarkably, the most valuable player award went to not one but two defensive players, Dallas' Randy White and Harvey Martin.

White and Martin combined for seven tackles and two sacks of Denver quarterback Craig Morton.

Once upon a time, Morton had been Dallas' quarterback, but Morton was stymied in Super Bowl V, and Landry alternated between Morton and Staubach for the first half of the 1971 season before settling on Staubach.

Morton's career in Dallas was over. He stayed in Dallas a few more seasons, but Staubach was the starter, and Morton looked for a fresh start. A few years with the Giants didn't work out for him, and, in 1977, he found himself in Denver.

Morton completed only 42% of his passes that season — but, as I say, the Broncos only gave up 20 points or more once during the regular season so Denver really didn't need him to contribute much.

The Steelers scored 21 on the Broncos in the first round of the playoffs, but the Broncos unexpectedly scored more points than they had in any other game all year (even though Morton completed less than half of his passes) and advanced to the AFC championship game, where they beat the Oakland Raiders.

But Dallas' Doomsday Defense overwhelmed Morton, who completed about one–fourth of his passes and was intercepted four times.

The Perfectionists

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Forty years ago today, the Miami Dolphins beat the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII, capping a perfect season.

Only one other team since that time, the 2007 New England Patriots, has gone into a Super Bowl with a perfect record, but the Patriots lost that game to the New York Giants. True, the Pats had to win two more regular–season games than the Dolphins did — and, with their two playoff victories, the Patriots were 18–0 going into their Super Bowl.

That means that, when they were 18–0, the Patriots actually had compiled a better record than the '72 Dolphins did, but they failed to win the Super Bowl, and that is how teams are judged.

Not by perfect seasons.

Championships. That's what counts. In the 39 years since the '72 Dolphins' 17–0 season, 39 NFL champions have been crowned. Only one team has gone into the Super Bowl with a perfect record, and it did not emerge with its perfect record still intact.

But a single moment of imperfection on that day, as I have written here before, threatened the Dolphins' achievement.

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The Dolphins led, 14–0, in the fourth quarter when kicker Garo Yepremian lined up to attempt a 42–yard field goal that, for all intents and purposes, could have put the game on ice. Instead, it only put the outcome in doubt.

Yepremian's attempt was blocked, and he chased the ball as it bounced toward the sideline. But instead of falling on it, he picked it up and tried to throw the ball, but it slipped from his grasp and Redskins defender Mike Bass grabbed it in mid–air and ran 49 yards for a touchdown.

More than two minutes were left in the game, but the Dolphins held on to win the game and give Don Shula his first Super Bowl championship.

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To this day, Super Bowl VII is the lowest–scoring Super Bowl — and would have been even lower if Yepremian had fallen on the ball or, better still, made the field goal.

Thus, it was appropriate, I suppose, that a defensive player — Miami's Jake Scott — was named the game's most valuable player. Scott picked off two Billy Kilmer passes in the contest and racked up 63 return yards.

Super Bowl MVPs typically are quarterbacks — or, at least, an offensive player. Only eight defensive players have been named Super Bowl MVP, and two of them (Dallas' Randy White and Harvey Martin) shared the honor in 1978.

In fact, had it not been for Chuck Howley winning the MVP in a losing cause two years earlier (still the only member of a losing team to be named the game's most valuable player), Scott's triumph would have been as ground–breaking — on an individual level — as the Dolphins' team achievement of going through a season without a single blemish.

On this day 40 years ago, it was often suggested that Larry Csonka, the Dolphins' hard–nosed fullback, deserved to be considered. He carried the ball 15 times for 117 yards.

But Csonka's time would come the next year when the Dolphins won their second consecutive Super Bowl.

That was quite an achievement, especially since the Dolphins lost only twice in their 1973 encore. When you consider that everyone on Miami's schedule wanted to beat the team that had been undefeated the previous year, the pressure must have been unrelenting.

Miami's '72 accomplishment was even more impressive in that the Dolphins' starting quarterback, Bob Griese, went down with a broken leg midway through the season and did not return until the playoffs. Veteran backup Earl Morrall led the offense until the second half of the AFC Championship game against Pittsburgh.

Eli's Coming

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When I was a boy, Three Dog Night was one of the most popular bands around, and one of its earliest hits was a tune called "Eli's Coming."

That song wasn't related in any way to football, but, nevertheless, the title sprang to mind as I watched, for the second time in the last five years, Eli Manning lead his New York Giants to a come–from–behind victory over Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

On Saturday, I observed that it was the fifth anniversary of Eli's brother's one and only Super Bowl triumph — and I also noted that, with another win over the Patriots, Eli would notch his second title "and, in the process, probably secur[e] his spot in the NFL's Hall of Fame."

That's how it tends to be with multiple Super Bowl–winning quarterbacks, I wrote, and, in the aftermath of Sunday's game, I see I'm not alone.

Don Banks of Sports Illustrated wrote of the "pretty select club" Eli joined with his victory.

"Quarterbacks with multiple Super Bowl wins have a cache all their own in NFL history," Banks wrote, "and we best start wrapping our minds around the reality that Peyton Manning's little brother is in the fraternity, and the Colts' long–time great isn't. That last shall be first stuff really does come to pass sometimes."

Banks reeled off the names of the multiple winners and observed that nearly all of them are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. That certainly improves the odds that Eli will wind up in Canton as well.

Lord knows he wouldn't get in on the strength of his regular–season numbers. For that matter, his numbers on Sunday were good but not great. He completed 30 of 40 passes for just under 300 yards and one touchdown.

Good enough to get the job done, but not eye popping.

Of course, unlike his older brother, Eli's life is hardly at a crossroads. He's a hot property, having won not only his second Super Bowl but his second Super Bowl MVP award as well. And that makes up for a lot of things.

Success is fleeting in the NFL — just ask the last three quarterbacks who won the Super Bowl — and someone else may well be on the mountaintop in the space of another year.

But today it is Eli who stands astride that mountaintop, surveying the NFL's terrain below and basking in the praise that comes his way for his achievements.

That praise is certainly deserved, but I can't help thinking of how slender the gap between winning and losing a Super Bowl can be. After Manning's Giants opened the game with an impressive and workmanlike — but ultimately futile — possession, they had to punt and succeeded in pinning the Patriots deep in their own territory.

On the first play from scrimmage, Brady threw a pass that went 45 or 50 yards in the air easily — but the officials ruled that no eligible receivers were in the vicinity of the pass, which is the definition of intentional grounding, and threw a flag.

Ordinarily, the penalty for intentional grounding is loss of both yardage and down. Since Brady was in the end zone when he threw the pass, it resulted in a safety and a 2–0 Giants lead.

It has been my experience that some people believe that, for intentional grounding to have occurred, a quarterback must be in the grasp of a defender — and clearly in danger of being tackled for a loss — and throws the ball away to avoid the lost yardage and/or to preserve time on the clock.

But it is not essential for the quarterback to be under duress. It is only necessary for no eligible receiver to be in the vicinity of the pass — whether that pass is short or long.

An old friend (a colleague from my sports desk days) observed on Facebook that it was "the longest intentional grounding play I've ever seen," and I had to agree.

It also seemed to me that, given the fact that Brady's pass covered about half the length of the football field, it was unreasonable for anyone to expect him to be precise about his target — or whether the receiver would stay in the vicinity of the pass in the time it took for the ball to reach its destination.

But that is how the rule is written — currently. I think it would be wise to revisit that rule during the offseason.

Anyway, the game proceeded with the usual scoring — touchdowns and field goals — until late in the game, when the Patriots led, 17–15, and the Giants scored what proved to be the winning touchdown. They went for two on the conversion and came up short, making the final score 21–17.

Now, imagine if the Patriots had not been penalized for intentional grounding but failed to put together a scoring drive on their first possession and wound up punting.

And everything else unfolded as it did (which you really can't assume because everything that happened after the penalty was predicated, to some degree, on the fact that it did, in fact, happen).

That would have made the score 17–13 when the Giants began their game–winning drive.

As it was, the Giants were under no pressure to score a touchdown. All that was needed to take the lead was a field goal, and perhaps that made a difference in the way they played in those final minutes.

But, in the alternate scenario, a touchdown would have been necessary. Under the additional pressure, would the Giants have crumbled? Would they have called different plays? Would the Patriots have followed a different strategy on defense? We'll never know.

If we assume, however, that the Giants would have scored the touchdown, as, of course, they did, it would have made the score 19–17, and my guess is the Giants would have settled for one point on the conversion instead of going for two.

Extra–point kicks are almost always successful, and this one would have given the Giants a 20–17 lead — nearly the actual final score but with a crucial difference. That one–point variation could have made all the difference for New England.

The Patriots' strategy would have been to get within field goal range and try to force the game into overtime, not to get into the end zone, and their play calling would have reflected that.

But the game turned out the way it did — and that first–quarter safety made it possible for the Giants to gamble on a two–point conversion. Whether it was successful or not, they knew the Patriots would have to score a touchdown, they didn't have much time and they were almost out of timeouts.

Eli Manning certainly contributed to the victory, but so did everyone on the team — and, indirectly, Brady did, too. I'm not sure if he deserved to be named MVP.

But he got his second title, and that may be what matters most. Eli is in his prime and could still win another title or two before time catches up to him as it has his brother. He might not, though. You never know.

Eli's coming? He's here. But he might not be back.

Time will tell.

Return to Titletown

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I remember, as a child, watching the Green Bay Packers play on TV.

Vince Lombardi was their coach, and I was becoming interested in football cards. My cards of Bart Starr, Ray Nitschke, Willie Wood, Donny Anderson and all the others were my prized possessions.

I believed the Packers were the best in football — and they were. But I believed it would always be that way — and it wasn't.

Frankly, it seemed like kind of a dirty trick to me, hooking me as a Packers fan at an early age and then reducing the Packers to NFL bottom feeders for many years.

I can't tell you how often I longed on Super Sunday — as I watched the Dolphins or Steelers or Cowboys or 49ers win it all time after time — for the Packers to just get to a Super Bowl.

I always told myself I wouldn't mind if they lost the game. I just wanted them to play in the Super Bowl, the game everyone watched.

Of course, that wasn't true. The longer I waited, the more I wanted to see the Packers win. Just getting there wouldn't be enough. Eventually, I had to acknowledge that.

But, for a long time, the possibility of the Packers being in the Super Bowl was extremely remote. The Packers usually failed even to make the playoffs. In fact, they typically did so spectacularly. They were frequently among the first to be mathematically eliminated from the playoff discussion.

A Packers Super Bowl appearance was strictly hypothetical for Green Bay fans.

That changed 20 years ago. With a few exceptions, the Packers have become fixtures in the NFL playoffs, and they have actually been to three Super Bowls in those two decades, winning two and losing the NFC Championship game on two other occasions.

It changed when Brett Favre took over as the Packers' quarterback. Not right away. Favre led Green Bay to the playoffs almost from the start, but the Packers in those days reminded me of the Tin Woodman in "The Wizard of Oz" — a little creaky at first but gradually picking up speed as the oil spread to its extremities.

The Packers of the early '90s returned to the playoffs as a wild–card team in 1993 and 1994, then won their division in 1995 and made it to the NFC title game, where they lost to Dallas.

It was 15 years ago that the Packers finally returned to the Super Bowl for the first time since Lombardi's day. Their opponent in the New Orleans Superdome was the New England Patriots.

That might seem rather unremarkable to modern football fans, who have seen both teams in multiple Super Bowls in recent years, but it certainly made Super Bowl XXXI intriguing. At the time, the Patriots had only been to one other Super Bowl more than a decade earlier and had lost in rather spectacular fashion to the Chicago Bears. And the Packers, of course, hadn't been to the Super Bowl in three decades. On the basis of that, I wasn't sure that either team had an advantage.

The Packers, however, had made an impression on the guys who determine the point spreads in athletic contests, presumably based on Green Bay's recent upward trajectory in the playoffs. New England, on the other hand, was considered something of a flash in the pan, having rarely been seen in the postseason since losing the Super Bowl to Chicago.

Anyway, the Packers went into the game favored by 14 points. As a lifelong Packers fan, I felt a certain amount of gratification, naturally, but I also felt a bit anxious as Super Sunday approached. Everyone was treating the outcome as a foregone conclusion, and the last thing I wanted the Packers to do was to treat the game as if victory was assured.

Initially, it seemed my fears were justified. At the end of the first quarter, New England led, 14–10, but the Packers scored 17 unanswered points in the second quarter and went to the locker room with a 27–14 halftime lead.

In hindsight, I needn't have worried. As it turned out, the Packers won by precisely 14 points, thanks to a jaw–dropping 99–yard third–quarter kickoff return for a touchdown by Desmond Howard, who became the first special teams player to win the Super Bowl MVP.

Howard's return certainly deserved recognition, but I always felt that Green Bay's victory on that day was more of a team effort, with many people making significant contributions.

Howard's return did, in fact, stop New England's momentum dead in its tracks. The Patriots had just scored a touchdown that brought them within six points of the Packers, and Howard's return took all the wind from their sails.

But defensive lineman Reggie White did his part as well, setting a Super Bowl record for sacks. I can vividly remember seeing White pick up Patriot offensive linemen and toss them aside as if they were rag dolls.

And Favre, who is considered by nearly everyone to be a lock for the Hall of Fame, threw for two touchdowns and ran for another. He was the first Super Bowl–winning quarterback to account for three touchdowns or more and not be named MVP.

That didn't seem to bother Favre at the time. "We etched our place in history today," he said after the game, putting the team's accomplishment over everything else.

Favre, like most observers, probably figured he would have other opportunities to be named the Super Bowl's MVP. But he didn't.

He did play in another Super Bowl — the following year — and lost it. Only once has the Super Bowl MVP come from the losing team — and it wasn't Favre.

When Favre is inducted into the Hall of Fame, there will be many achievements to be listed beneath his name — but Super Bowl MVP will not be among them. And, in some ways, that seems unfair. All the other Green Bay quarterbacks who took the Packers to the Super Bowl were named Super Bowl MVP — including Aaron Rodgers, Favre's successor.

But Favre has a special distinction that may not always get the attention it deserves. He revived a proud but moribund franchise — as did Bart Starr in the 1960s — and is responsible for the virtually dynastic status the Packers enjoy today.

It sure is a different world from the one in which I grew up.