| TAMPA, Fla. — There is a world of difference
between being hungry and being starving. That holds true at dinner time. It also holds
true at Super Bowl time.
In the Super Bowl context, every player that will play in this year’s game is
hungry to win a championship. Certain players, however, are starving.
For the latter, look to the Giants’ offensive line where you will find OT Lomas
Brown and OG Glenn Parker starving for a Super Bowl ring.
The difference between hungry and starving tends to deal with time. The time since the
last meal was consumed. Or in the case of Brown and Parker, the issue is how long has
passed since their last NFL title – which is forever. Which is why they are starving
for a Super Bowl win.
Brown is in his 16th NFL season, but this is the first time he has made it
to the Super Bowl. For too long, it felt like he would never get here.
Parker is in his 11th NFL season, and while this is his fifth Super Bowl
appearance, he was on the losing team in each of his four prior Super Bowl trips. Too many
times he felt so close yet so far. They don’t make victory cigars for runner-up
teams.
Glenn Parker: Close but no cigar
Parker can be forgiven if he once thought that getting to the Super Bowl was no big
deal. After all, he reached the season’s ultimate game in each of his first four
seasons in the NFL while with the Buffalo Bills.
Of course, Parker also knows all too well that you don’t get to do commercials for
Disney if you lose in the Super Bowl. Four Super Bowl trips. Four Super Bowl losses. Four
broken hearts endured.
"Glenn Parker has told me that losing the Super Bowl is one of the emptiest
feelings you could ever feel," said Brown.
Parker said, "Let’s face it, from the time you are a kid growing up, second
place is not good enough. It’s not a bad thing. Losing (a Super Bowl) does not define
my life or career, but you want to win. That’s what it’s all about. Obviously
for a few months you are pretty down and you’re upset."
Of all the Bills’ Super Bowl losses, the most painful had to be 10 years ago when
they lost to the Giants 20-19. That was the game when Bills PK Scott Norwood missed what
would have been a game-winning 47-yard field goal with four seconds to play. Parker was
lined up on the right end of the Bills’ line, which put him in perfect position to
see the agonizing miss.
"Our main thing was not to jump offside," recalled Parker. "Everything
was watch the ball, keep your head ready, watch the ball and just protect. As it was
kicked I keep saying, ‘Hook! Hook! Hook.’ It didn’t happen. It had hooked
all year, and it didn’t happen that time. It’s a bitter pill."
TE Hoard Cross played for the winning team that day and is currently a teammate of
Parker’s on the Giants. Although players always bust their teammates’ chops in
NFL locker rooms, Cross knows that game is a taboo subject.
"I don’t mess with Glenn about that game," said Cross. "I like to
keep our friendship. If I do, he won’t talk to me anymore."
If Parker thought the Super Bowl was something you play in every season after four
trips in his first four NFL seasons, he eventually learned otherwise. In his next six
seasons, there were no Super Bowl trips.
"When you’re really young, in those first one or two years, you think this is
pretty easy," said Parker. "You get old pretty quick and you realize it and
start appreciating it. In the last seven years I really haven’t gotten close (until
this season). You battle every year and there’s a lot of changes in your life and you
see guys go to that game and you never get back."
The fact that the Giants, predicted by no one to be Super Bowl bound when the season
began, have reached pro football’s ultimate game is a great and unexpected gift. And
despite the fact that he has played in so many Super Bowls in the past, Parker says it
does not feel like old news to him.
"It feels like a first time, almost," said Parker. "This is a great team
I’m on and maybe because it’s NFC or maybe because of all the changes, but it
just feels new. I don’t think it will ever get old."
Another Super Bowl loss would get old real fast.
"I’m at that point where I really want to win one," said Parker. "I
think everybody does, there’s no revelation there. You try to tell yourself
you’re happy getting there, but you’re not. You gotta win it.
"After all the trips down to the Super Bowl and everything, honestly, I don’t
remember all the bars or parties I went to, but I remember four losses."
Lomas Brown: A Super Bowl appearance at long last
Brown, quite simply, cannot relate to the pain of a Super Bowl loss. You can’t
feel what you’ve never experienced.
A seven-time Pro Bowl selection, Brown previously played for the Lions, Cardinals and
Browns — not exactly poster teams for the Super Bowl — prior to joining
the Giants.
Before this season he had played in 15 NFL campaigns, none of which ended in a trip to
the Super Bowl. Not as a participant. Not even as a spectator.
"I’ve never gone to a (Super Bowl) game," said Brown. "I’ve
been to the site twice before, but I never actually went to the game. I couldn’t do
it. I couldn’t bring myself to go. I’ve stayed almost until game time and
left."
After the 1999 season, he started to feel more resigned than ever that he would never
play in the Super Bowl.
"Oh yeah, without a doubt, especially after the way I left from Cleveland last
year," said Brown. "Being released from there and really not knowing what
direction I wanted to go in."
When things don’t work out for a team as far removed from a Super Bowl as the
young Browns were, the outlook for an aging veteran does not appear to be good. Brown
wasn’t just questioning his Super Bowl outlook. He was questioning himself.
"For the first time in my career, I was a little shaken in my confidence,"
said Brown. "When you get released by an expansion team, that doesn’t sit well
with yourself or with a lot of people in the league. They start to wonder whether you
still have the skills to play this game."
Sometimes, the saying goes, one door closes and another door opens. Brown didn’t
know it at the time, but in an indirect way getting released by the Browns put him on the
path to the Super Bowl. A day after Brown was cut by the Browns, Giants head coach Jim
Fassel called him up to New York for a visit.
"I liked what I saw and the people I met," said Brown. "I thought the
team had great potential, and I signed with them. (Fassel) laid out all the terms of what
he wanted me to do and what type of player he wanted me to be. It made my adjustment a lot
easier."
Jolted by the Browns’ decision, Brown pumped up the volume on the way he worked
out and played. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, Brown was playing in the
season’s NFC title game against the Vikings in the Giants’ 41-0 win that sent
them to the Super Bowl.
Although Brown suffered bruised ribs late in the second quarter of that game, which by
then had turned into a rout, there was no way he was going to spend the second half on the
sideline resting up for the Super Bowl. Spending the second half on the sideline may have
been the prudent move, but there was no telling that to Brown. He had been an outsider for
too many big-time games for too many years. There was only one place to be, and that was
right in the middle of the action.
"I’ve been waiting too long for this way too long," said Brown.
"There was no way I wasn’t going back in."
Giants head coach Jim Fassel wanted Brown on the bench to finish the blowout. Fassel
never had a chance in this debate.
"I know my career and my window of opportunity is closing," said Brown.
"I want to savor every moment, every play that I can. I didn’t want to go out of
my championship game. I didn’t want to watch it from the sideline. I persuaded Coach
to put me back in there. He didn’t want to put me back in, but I persuaded him
to."
Next thing you knew, the game was over and Brown was lifting the George Halas Trophy.
"It was great," said Brown. "I was a little heavier than I thought it
was going to be, but it felt good. I kissed it and everything. I didn’t think I would
ever get a chance to hold it."
Parker and Brown: A veteran presence on the Giants’ offensive line
If the Giants have given Parker and Brown one more chance to finally win a Super Bowl
ring, this duo has given the team something in return. A veteran presence. Toughness.
Desire.
"Lomas Brown … has been around forever and invented most of the plays that we
run," said Giants C Dusty Ziegler, a fifth-year NFL veteran who, like Brown and
Parker, joined the club this past offseason. "Glenn Parker is a guy who is a genius.
If anyone forgets where to go, he will tell you."
Fassel said, "Lomas Brown and Glenn Parker are veteran guys, and we needed some
personality and confidence along the line. I guarantee we have personality in those guys.
They love to play the game. They’re tough guys. For as long as those guys have been
in the league, they’ve missed hardly any time. When they get nicked, they want to
play. Against Minnesota, we had a 34-0 lead and Lomas did not want to come out of the
game. They have brought a toughness about themselves."
After all these years, Brown is the wily veteran who knows all the subtleties of his
position.
"Players like him know all the tricks," said Ravens DE Michael McCrary.
After all these years, Parker has more than a few tricks of the trade up his sleeve as
well. Especially when it comes to Super Bowl experience.
"He’s just been an encyclopedia of help for us," said Brown. "He
was just telling me some stuff, when we arrived at the hotel, about what to expect and
what to do."
They know a lot of tricks of the trade. After all these years they’ve been there,
done that.
With one exception. Win a Super Bowl.
On Sunday they’ll try to change that. |
