Super Bowl
Ray Chen
my beloved Skins got on a roll after it was too late (shades of
the Seahawks anyone?). Other things helped. But be that as it may,
a few comments about the Super Bowl.
Congratulations, 49'ers and fans. No doubt about it, SF is definitely
the team of the decade.
Sorry Denver fans. It was destiny. Like the Red Sox choking against the
Mets in the World Series. Cleveland had to lose to Denver, who then had
to go and lose to the NFC champs, thus ending up with two traumatized
teams. Yeah, I know it's perverse, but then so is life sometimes.
Onto the game itself.
1) The person calling plays for the Broncos offense ought to have
what's left of his brains bashed in. And Dan Reeves, who has
said that he's not going to watch the films of this game, ought
to be forced to watch all the close-up shots of John Elway's face
as the game went on. Then maybe next time when it's patently
obvious that the QB is a little jittery, they'll call some plays
that will settle him down instead of blindly proceeding with the
game plan. QBs are people, too.
2) The 49'er offensive line was just awesome. Or perhaps I should say
that the re-vamped Denver defensive line sucked? Probably both.
Either way, no one got *near* Montana. Any QB will kill you if
you give him all day to throw and if it's Montana back there, you
may as well just pack it in.
3) Montana, the offense, and the offensive game plane were all just
perfect. It was a real treat watching them at work. Likewise,
the SF defensive front did a great job of not letting Elway
improvise out of the pocket and the secondary did a great job
of keeping the Denver receivers too nervous to catch the ball.
A severe case of "alligator arms".
On the recent Montana-deification:
It's real interesting watching the rec.sport.football QB bandwagon.
Elway, Kosar, Montana vs. Young, Cunningham and now this.
Well...
Joe's a great one, no doubt about it. He's a leader and he makes his
team win. I'd put him in the same class as Unitas, Starr, Bradshaw,
and maybe Namath. But some of the comments people have been making
are ridiculous.
Someone said that Joe had a great football "mind" whilst calling
Bradshaw stupid.
Give me a break. Remember guys, Joe doesn't call his own plays.
He even knows the first 15 (used to be 25) plays he's going to run
*in advance*.
To paraphrase Seifert, the 49er offense demands courage and the
ability to make decisions from its QB. And that's why Montana is
great. He's the best I've ever seen at running those 3-step drop
patterns. 3 steps is not a lot of time to decide who's going to
be open, where he's going to be, and then put the ball right on
the money. No hesitation, no self-doubt. Just decide and boom.
If you hesitate at all, the play breaks down. It takes a special
kind of player to run an offense like that.
I wish Montana could call his own plays. But I doubt it will
ever happen, and until it does happen, it's real hard to say
that he's "better" than a guy like Bradshaw who called the plays
in 4 Super Bowl victories.
More on the Skins later. Hint: I'm fairly optimistic.
Ray Chen
ch...@gatech.edu