| I don’t think I’m alone in begging the
NFL to limit the time between the AFC and NFC championship games and the Super Bowl from
two weeks to one. Is there any reason why we must be subjected to two weeks of hype for an
event that is already considered to be a national holiday for many people across the
country? Look, the Super Bowl is clearly the biggest sporting event in the United
States. Hands down. No contest. It’s a spectacle with pregame and halftime
entertainment extravaganzas. It’s about high-priced, showy commercials. It’s
about parties and getting together with friends. Heck, I have friends who could care less
about the game but sure love Super Bowl Sunday.
But for those of us who do care about the game — and I know there are still many
of you who do, even if you’re not Rams or Patriots fans — I think we agree that
two weeks of preparation for the big game is one week too much.
Although the reason why this year’s Super Bowl is just one week after the
conference championship games is due to the Sept. 11 attacks, I hope the NFL notes how
smoothly things run and how competitive the game ends up being. It’s no secret that
the time between the championship games and the Super Bowl has a direct effect on the
quality of the game.
This is the sixth Super Bowl out of 36 that has been held with one week of preparation
following the conference championships. Each of the five previous games was relatively
competitive:
• Super Bowl IV: January 1970: Kansas City 23, Minnesota 7. This game validated
the AFC as a legitimate conference as it scored its second straight title. The Vikings
came in as prohibitive favorites, having won 12 straight games, but Hank Stram guided the
Chiefs to a dominant defensive performance. PK Jan Stenerud booted three first-half field
goals.
• Super Bowl XVII: January 1983: Washington 27, Miami 17. The Dolphins led 17-10
at the half and took a 17-13 lead into the fourth quarter before the Redskins rallied for
the win. RB John Riggins scored a memorable 43-yard TD run to put the ’Skins ahead,
and they never looked back. This was the first of three Super Bowl titles for head coach
Joe Gibbs.
• Super Bowl XXV: January 1991: New York Giants 20, Buffalo 19: One of the
closest, and most memorable, Super Bowls of all time ended with a dramatic missed 47-yard
field goal by the Bills’ Scott Norwood. The Giants kept the explosive Bills offense
off the field by controlling the ball for 40-plus minutes.
• Super Bowl XXVIII: January 1994: Dallas 30, Buffalo 13: After getting blown out
by the Cowboys the previous year, the Bills played tough for a half and actually led 13-6
at the intermission. But a fumble by RB Thurman Thomas early in the third quarter seemed
to unravel the Bills, and Dallas scored 24 unanswered points to pull away for the win.
• Super Bowl XXXIV: January 2000: St. Louis 23, Tennessee 16: This one was close
throughout. The Rams went ahead on a bomb from QB Kurt Warner to WR Isaac Bruce, then held
on for the win when LB Mike Jones tackled Titans WR Kevin Dyson on the one-yard line on
the final play of the game.
The proof that one week is best is the fact that the average margin of victory for the
30 Super Bowls played with two weeks of preparation is 17.3 points. The average margin of
victory in the aforementioned five games is just 10.2 points.
Throw Super Bowl IV out of the equation and the four games played after one week of
preparation have an average victory margin of 8.8. Look at the games since ’84 that
have been played with two weeks of preparation, and the average victory margin is an
astounding 22.1 points. Is that enough proof for you? How about for you, Mr. Tagliabue?
It’s obvious that less time to prepare produces a more competitive game.
Let’s make one week the rule rather than the exception. |
