Boys Will Be Boys (36 page)

Throughout the week, members of the slighted Steelers griped incessantly. Why, they wondered, had each of them been permitted to purchase only twenty Super Bowl tickets, while the Cowboys were granted thirty apiece? (This was an understandable complaint. Recalls Greg Schorp, a member of Dallas’s practice squad: “Everyone on the team was selling their tickets for two, three thousand dollars a pop. It was a great chance to make a lot of money.”) The Steelers also caught wind of Dallas’s snazzy digs at The Buttes, which was like the Four Seasons compared with their quarters at the $180-per-night Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort. During a team meeting, linebacker Greg Lloyd was fuming aloud about the “cheap-ass accommodations” when
head coach Bill Cowher interrupted him to say, “Greg, I’d like to introduce you to Peter Ottone, the hotel’s general manager, who’s standing next to you.”

As the Cowboys loafed, the 13
¹
/2-point underdog Steelers felt they had something to prove. Under the thirty-eight-year-old Cowher, Pittsburgh had implemented a 3–4 defense that evoked comparisons to the old Steel Curtain of the 1970s. Like Dallas, Pittsburgh’s unit—led by Lloyd, Kirkland, and veteran linebacker Kevin Greene—was built on merging speed, reaction time, and power. “We were the best in the league, and there was no way Dallas was going to take advantage of us,” says Kirkland. “Whether they knew so or not.”

With lines clearly drawn between the “good” Steelers and the “bad” Cowboys, Dallas nestled comfortably into its black hat. The Cowboys were callous and cocky, perfectly represented by the string of expletives Irvin fired at the assembled TV cameras three days after the victory over Green Bay. “The media can’t control my mouth,” he said. “I’m not living on the plantation. Get the hell out of my face with that.” One week
before
kickoff a PR firm announced that, come February 2, the Cowboy cheerleaders would release a video titled
1996 Dallas Cowboy Superbowl Shuffle.
During Dallas’s Media Day session, Sanders said that Arizona was “too white” for his tastes. “I just bought a 747 and I’m telling them to stop in all the other cities and bring some black people in here,” he said. “Someone asked me if I’d like to live here. That’s like asking Rodney King to take a stroll through the LAPD.”

Wrote Dan Shaughnessy in the
Boston Globe:

On the morning of Super Bowl XXX, Larry Brown woke up, brushed his teeth, took a shower, ate some breakfast, and before leaving the hotel for Sun Devil Stadium, heard his wife ask, “Larry, are you nervous?”

It was a fair question, in that Larry Brown was almost always nervous. Whether he was playing for Texas Christian or the Dallas Cowboys, rare were the pregame rituals that didn’t include heaping spoonfuls of anxiety. For some reason, this day was different.

“Nah,” he said. “With Deion on the other side they’re going to be throwing at me all day. I plan on picking off two or three balls by the time it’s over.”

Although Cheryl would later boast of her husband’s Nostradamus-like moment, it didn’t take a starting NFL defensive back to know that, in the battle of quarterbacks, Dallas possessed a tremendous advantage. While Pittsburgh’s secondary had to contend with the strong-armed Troy Aikman and his two favorite targets, Irvin and tight end Jay Novacek, Dallas’s defense would be facing Neil O’Donnell, one of the league’s most
ordinary
signal callers.

A fifth-year veteran out of the University of Maryland, O’Donnell possessed above-average accuracy, slightly below-average arm strength, and an introverted personality that hardly inspired teammates. “Neil was very self-critical,” says Mike Tomczak, Pittsburgh’s backup quarterback. “He was a tough kid from New Jersey who strived for perfection.” O’Donnell’s stats were always more impressive than the actual, in-the-flesh player. Over twelve games during the ’95 season, he threw for 2,970 yards and 17 touchdowns, with a mere 7 interceptions. “Was Neil a good quarterback?” asks Andre Hastings, a Steeler wide receiver. “Well, he was pretty OK, I guess. But I would never say he was a Hall of Fame or Pro Bowl type of guy. He did his job.”

“I look at it this way,” says Ernie Mills, another Steeler receiver.
“We ran a lot of four-and five-receiver sets, so somebody was going to be open.”

After the requisite two weeks of hype, Sunday evening finally arrived. The weather was mild—70 degrees, little breeze, a blue, cloudless sky. As America’s Team, the Cowboys were used to charging onto the field and hearing substantially more cheers than boos. Such was certainly the case in the previous two Super Bowls, when the Cowboys were the Rolling Stones playing Madison Square Garden and the Buffalo Bills were Bad Ronald at the Stormville Flea Market. This time was different. The Steelers represented every blue-collar American fatigued by the whole flash-and-dash Dallas mojo. It didn’t hurt that Pittsburgh had won four Super Bowls, a past that made them one of the league’s more popular franchises. “Usually when we came to Arizona, if there were 75,000 fans at the game, 50,000 or so were Cowboy fans,” says Dale Hellestrae, Dallas’s long snapper. “Well, this time we go running onto the field for pregame warm-ups and we’re getting booed. Cowboy fans were outnumbered by Steeler fans and those Terrible Towels were
everywhere.
I remember us looking around and going, ‘What the hell is going on here?’”

Dallas took the opening kickoff and casually marched down the field behind a 20-yard pass from Aikman to Irvin followed by a 23-yard Emmitt Smith run. Though they settled for a 42-yard field goal from a shaken Chris Boniol (“I couldn’t make a kick from twenty-five to forty-five yards in pregame,” Boniol says. “I mean, not one”), the Cowboys had set a tone.

After limiting Pittsburgh to three plays, Dallas dominated again, this time starting at its own 25-yard line and confidently attacking the vaunted Steeler defense. The key play—the sort of play that becomes a game’s signature—came on a first down and 10, when Aikman dropped back and launched a 47-yard spiral to Sanders, who dashed past cornerback Willie Williams to make an artistic, over-the-left-shoulder haul. Four plays later Aikman hit Novacek, and the tight end tiptoed into the end zone from three yards out. When Boniol kicked another field goal on the following series, the score was 13–0.

Across the nation, 94.8 million TV viewers began to wonder whether Diana Ross’s halftime extravaganza would feature songs from her Supremes days or the solo years.

“Those Cowboys sure didn’t lack for confidence,” says Kendall Gammon, the Steelers’ long snapper. “But neither did we. We were new to the Super Bowl, so maybe there were some nerves. But we were too good to lie down and get our butts kicked.”

Following an exchange of punts, Pittsburgh attacked. Facing a third-and-20 from his own 36-yard line, O’Donnell rifled a 19-yard bullet to Hastings. “That was awful,” says Switzer. “[Linebacker] Darrin Smith was supposed to play zone and just stay in the middle. Instead he followed a receiver and [Hastings] was wide open. If the players just followed my damn instructions we would have won easily.”

On fourth-and-1, Cowher’s directive was a simple one: Make a first down and steal momentum; come up empty again, and the night belongs to Dallas. Into the game came rookie receiver/running back/quarterback Kordell Stewart, who gained the needed acreage with a 3-yard dash. As Stewart popped to his feet, thousands of Terrible Towels twirled in the air, transforming Sun Devil Stadium into a swaying black-and-gold ocean. With thirteen seconds remaining in the first half, O’Donnell hit receiver Yancey Thigpen with a 6-yard touchdown strike. A potential blowout had turned into a legitimate battle. Halftime score: 13–7. “We were rejuvenated,” says Hastings. “The rest of the game was going to belong to us.”

In the Steelers’ locker room, Cowher was at his fiery best. Known for shoving his ironworker’s jaw in a Steeler’s face and screaming or crying or laughing, he was all rage. “Those sons of bitches thought you were nothing!” he screamed. “They thought they were going to run all over you! They thought you were a joke. Well, they’re not laughing anymore! We took their best shots! Now it’s our turn! Let’s go take what’s ours…”

As Cowher spoke, not a peep was uttered from his players. Pittsburgh had endured two weeks of ridicule, and it stung. The players stormed back onto the field with a fire Dallas lacked. This was about
disrespect; about payback; about overcoming the odds and doubters. “You hear enough trash, you snap,” says Hastings. “We snapped.”

After unsuccessful drives by both teams to start the third quarter, Pittsburgh began to grind its way down the field, rolling over a sagging Cowboy defense to its own 48-yard line. Facing third down and 9, O’Donnell received the snap, took five steps backward, and was pressured by Chad Hennings, who charged through the middle of the Pittsburgh line. On the verge of being sacked, O’Donnell tossed the ball to the outside, where he expected to find an uncovered Mills. Instead, it floated into the arms of Brown, who returned it 44 yards to the Steelers’ 18. On the Dallas sideline, players leapt with excitement. “I can’t lie,” says Brown. “That one was a gift.” With 6:42 left in the third quarter, Emmitt Smith ran in from a yard away, handing Dallas a 20–7 advantage.

“That was Neil’s fault,” says Mills. “He played great for us that season, but on the one play he made a really bad read.”

The Steelers and Cowboys traded aborted drives, and when Pittsburgh got the ball again, it used nine plays to advance from its own 20-yard line to the Cowboys’ 19. But on third-and-8, O’Donnell was hammered by Dallas defensive end Tony Tolbert, who slammed the quarterback down for a devastating 9-yard loss. A 46-yard field goal by Norm Johnson cut the Dallas lead to 20–10 with 11:20 left in the game.

Then Cowher—a calculated gambler—took a major chance. With the Cowboys lined up for a run-of-the-mill kickoff, Norm Johnson squibbed the ball off the tee toward the right sideline, where Pittsburgh defensive back Deon Figures scooped it up. First-and-10, Steelers, on their own 48-yard line. “At that moment I was thinking, ‘We’re gonna lose this thing; I can’t believe it,’” says Dallas linebacker Jim Schwantz. “Because I thought it was gonna be an easy game. I thought we’d throw our helmets out there and win.”

Nine plays later, Pittsburgh running back Bam Morris rammed through on a 1-yard touchdown run, cutting the deficit to 20–17. “Once we got the jitters out,” said Steelers cornerback Carnell Lake, “we out-played them.”

It was going to happen. It was really going to happen. The Pittsburgh Steelers were about to beat the Dallas Cowboys. Impossible. Unimaginable. With 4:15 left in the game, the Steelers got the ball back on their own 32-yard line, momentum on their side, the fans in a frenzy, one of the greatest upsets in Super Bowl history within reach.

And their quarterback was nervous.

Extremely nervous.

O’Donnell’s eyes were wide and his breaths were deep. “I talked to some offensive guys later and they said Neil wasn’t looking so good in huddle,” says Jerry Olsavsky, a Steelers linebacker. “I didn’t understand that—we weren’t scared on defense. We were never scared on defense.”

On first down and 10, O’Donnell scrambled left and threw toward Hastings, who dropped the ball.

On second down and 10, two men sealed their eternal NFL statuses:

One turned into Mookie Wilson.

The other—Bill Buckner.

O’Donnell and the Steelers bounded out of the huddle convinced they had a play certain to work. O’Donnell would take a four-step drop and fire a pass to Hastings, who planned on using his speed to run a slant route across the field and in front of the sagging Dallas secondary. Worst-case scenario, Hastings scoots for a first down. Best-case scenario, he outruns the Cowboys and scores the game-winning touchdown.

“We were going to pull it out,” says Olsavsky. “I felt it.”

Aware of O’Donnell’s reputation for being spineless, Cowboys defensive coordinator Dave Campo spent the game urging his linemen to thump the Steelers quarterback whenever possible. “We caught Pittsburgh by surprise by running zone blitzes,” Campo says. “We wanted to confuse their quarterback.” When the two teams had met to open the 1994 season, the Cowboys sacked O’Donnell nine times. The memory was in his head. Had to have been. Now, with a Super Bowl in the balance, Campo wisely called out “Zero!”—code for a nine-man
blitz. Darren Woodson looked toward Brown and shouted, “Larry, be aggressive here! Be aggressive! They’re coming your way!” As O’Donnell dropped back, he was harassed by a collapsing wall of defenders. He did what a good quarterback does—threw to the spot, knowing exactly where Hastings was supposed to be and trusting the route-running abilities of Pittsburgh’s second-leading receiver.

Yet instead of slanting one way, Hastings went the other. For the second time that evening, Brown was in the exact right location at the exact right time—all alone with a football fluttering his way. It was Christmas and Easter and Kwanzaa and Purim rolled into one, and Brown eagerly caught the ball and dashed 33 yards to the lip of the end zone.

“It was like a cartoon—
noooooooooooooooooo!
Poof!” says Hastings. “It was a pretty bad feeling—like, ‘This cannot be happening.’ It’s one thing to get blown out and say, ‘OK, it wasn’t our Sunday.’ But to be that close, it’s pretty heartbreaking.”

Emmitt Smith scored shortly thereafter, and the game was done. The Steelers had held Smith to 49 yards rushing, limited Irvin to 5 catches for 76 yards, contained Aikman to a single touchdown pass…and still lost.

Cowboys: 27.

Steelers: 17.

“We gave away the Super Bowl,” said running back Erric Pegram. “We gave the darn thing away.”