BRANDON MARSHALL COULD POSSIBLY BE IN SOME …
Brandon histrion could possibly be in some …
Brandon histrion could possibly be in some more trouble.” According to the scheme site, authorities in Fulton County, Colony have definite to pursue malefactor charges against Marshall. Specifically, misdemeanor battery charges were filed on September 10, stemming from an alleged incident that occurred on March 4, 2008 between histrion and his then-girlfriend, Rasheeda Watley.” [PFT]
Source: feeds.gawker.com
Here’s your chance to check “Miracle” with …
Here’s your chance to check “Miracle” with Mike Eruzione. The real one, not the banter who played him. [Puck Daddy]
Source: feeds.gawker.com
LESNAR: The “Next Big Thing…AGAIN”
By Guest Blogger “ATRAIN” The assemblage is 2002 on an episode of WWE Monday night Raw, the Negro that was to be famous as “THE NEXT BIG THING” Brock Lesnar was on the scene and ready to take the professional grappling scene by storm meet as he did in the NCAA heavyweight division. At that time […]
By Guest Blogger “ATRAIN”
The assemblage is 2002 on an episode of WWE Monday night Raw, the Negro that was to be famous as “THE NEXT BIG THING” Brock Lesnar was on the scene and ready to take the professional grappling scene by storm meet as he did in the NCAA heavyweight division. At that time lowercase was famous about the 23-year-old former University of Minnesota collegiate wrestler, but one thing was for sure the Negro was a transmitted freak.
Led to the ring by WWE personality Paul Heyman, Lesnar blasted everything put in his path including the likes of Hulk Hogan and the The “Rock” to become (at that time) the youngest WWE Heavyweight champion and all in meet the first year. Only 3 eld after the start of a very promising Pro grappling career Brock definite to hang up his grappling boots and pursue a short lived pro career with the NFL. While only playing a few pre-season games, he prefabricated his evaluation on the league. And if you don’t believe me, ask river City chiefs quarterback friend Huard if he is still feeling the effects of a Brock Lesnar sack.
Fast forward to present period and Brock is at it again, but this time testing his skills in MMA. The full Brock in MMA thing seems to have stemmed from a pro grappling match in Nihon with pro combatant and former Olympic metallic medalist Kurt Angle. More than probable perceived as a joke, Angle challenged Brock to a MMA fight. From the looks of things I guess Brock wasn’t joking. Just 2 assemblage after Brock is now a UFC fighter with 3 fights under his belt with a pro record of 2-1. Brock’s terminal fight mitt the MMA concern buzzing and salivating for more. In meet 3 fights the 31 assemblage old newcomer has proven to the concern he is not a jape and shouldn’t be taken lightly, showing some signs of a promising and high future.
So what is the next stop on the Brock Lesnar pain train? Well none other than Randy “The Natural” Couture for the UFC World Heavyweight Championship.
Check out the Brock Lesnar Vs Randy Couture - *Unofficial Promo*
Source: feeds.b5media.com
Could There Be A More Fitting Metaphor For The AL East Race? [MLB]
Don’t tase Boston’s disjunctive title chances, bro! If this isn’t a sign from the baseball gods that the race is over in the East, I don’t undergo what is. This Red Sox fan tried to move the dugout and run onto the field at the Trop on Wednesday, but was met with Epic Failure: security grabbed him, and as you can see, hogtying and threatened tasering ensued. Although as I understand it, the electronic figure was never actually used. The Rays went on to beat the Red Sox, 10-3, moving two games ahead of Boston with 12 to play.
In the process, a pair of myths were exploded. First, rookie Fernando Perez, Willy Aybar and Gabe Gross homered off Tim Wakefield to prove that the conveying is not an unhittable pitch when thrown for strikes. Secondly, there was a sellout gathering of 36,048. And as my pal Jordi Scrubbings points out, most, evidently, were Rays fans. Scrubbings has taken me to task for claiming that Rays fans are uninspired and rarely present, so he took the time to writing his claims to the contrary. Included in his thesis is this example of the Rays Mohawk:
OK, I stand rectified … for now. We’ll see what happens in the playoffs. In claiming intend No. 90, the Rays won the season series with the Sox 10-8, and moved within two wins of claiming a wild-card berth. Tampa begins a four-game series with Minnesota tonight.
UPDATE: Here’s some video of the incident, plus some footage of a second fight in the stands.
Red Sox Fan Arrested After Trying To Run Onto Field [Tampa.com]
Source: feeds.gawker.com
The voting is complete, and the University …
The voting is complete, and the University of New Hampshire has named its new mascot: Gnarlz. It’s a oiler of some sort. Wizard Cat gives this selection: Zero wands. [University of New Hampshire Athletics]
Source: feeds.gawker.com
Tyler Thigpen Will Guide The Chiefs To Victory Right After He Finishes Making Gentle Back Door Love To This Skeleton [Duan!]
What better artefact to squawk off your weekday evening then to have Chiefs’ new starting quarterback Tyler Thigpen mock rear-entering a skeletal model. Maybe Coastal Carolina University had meet recently generated enough funding to support a human anatomy class and he was meet overly excited. Remember, the school’s football program began five eld ago. That actually might be one of the only groupies the team had. Or perhaps this is a more recent photo and Tyler is demonstrating what he’s feat to do to the Atlanta Falcons accumulation this weekend. Regardless of the motivation, rejoice Chiefs fans: your skeleton-banging quarterback is here to resuscitate your offense. Whitlock must be pumped.
*******
Tonight, it’s hump day, so find your own skeleton and intend boning.
Tomorrow, we’ve got an excerpt from Jeff Pearlman’s ridiculously entertaining “Boys Will Be Boys” novel, plus histrion Magary’s weekly Jamboroo fiasco. So, it’ll be a enthusiastic period to be stoned at work.
Thank you for continuing support of the People’s Republic of Deadspin, the #1 sports website for trolls. And thank you for your additional support of Ball Don’t Lie, the #1 sports website for news about Snapple and New royalty Knick media hussies.
Source: feeds.gawker.com
Excerpt: “Boys Will Be Boys” By Jeff Pearlman [Excerpt]
“Boys Will Be Boys”, Jeff Pearlman’s fascinating account of the laurels chronicle of the Cowboys dynasty is making the media rounds this hebdomad and we module happily tie in to promote it. It is ridiculously entertaining. Yes, Charles Haley is the star, but there is so much more to it than meet his dong-flapping craziness. Honestly, buy it. It’s worth its coefficient in White House coke. Pearlman has generously offered up another chapter titled “Chapter 24: Super Bowl XXX (AKA: Attack of the Skanks) for the Deadspin readership
“After the Super Bowl ended, nobody desired to yield the compartment room. It was same being a marine at sea for seven months. You become to realty and think everyone wants to run off the ship. But no one desired to leave. They knew it was the end and they desired it to last.”—Robert Bailey, Cowboys cornerback
When the metropolis Cowboys prepared to yield Texas for Tempe, Arizona, the site of Super Bowl XXX, they prefabricated certain every necessary component was packed and unexploded for the 1,056-mile journey.
Helmets—check!
Pads—check!
Athletic tape—check!
Shoes—check!
Playbooks—check!
Skanks—check!
Skanks?
Yes, you read that correctly. Skanks. Lots of skanks.
Being a veteran team with a riches of Super Bowl experience, members of the Cowboys had scholarly what they needed to survive—and, indeed, thrive—in the hebdomad before the big game. Leading up to the first two Super Bowls, Cowboys players combed the streets, clubs and bars of Los Angeles and, to a lesser extent, Atlanta. Yet such an approach comes with risk. The women, for example, could be stalkers. Killers. They might have STDs. Or older brothers with a quick fingers and unexploded XM8 lightweight assault rifles.
Hence, the skanks. Knowing that the wives and family members would not arrive in Tempe until the Thursday or Friday before the big game, several Cowboys—ranging from Emmitt Smith and Charles Haley to Erik reverend and Nate Newton—paid for a fleet of 11 albescent stretches from the First Impression Limousine Service to intend 16 hours and 1,000 miles from metropolis to Tempe, some with their special skank, uh, female friends along for the ride. The price: $1,000 per night per automobile (Far from objecting, Jerry designer brought along his own party vehicle, the six-bed tour bus that once belonged to discoverer Houston). By the time the Cowboys arrived for check-in at The Buttes, the team’s first-class, $285-per-night hotel, on the Sunday before the game, the tap was filled with tacky high heels and legs that stretched from Minneapolis to Mahopac.
“The automobile thing was as blatant as anything the Cowboys had ever been a part of,” says one team employee. “We had this huge caravan arrive from Dallas, and some guys had a bunch of their partner girlfriends ride out and party with them. They brought the White House to Arizona.”
Irvin enthusiastically endorsed the port-a-skank construct and, in fact, rented his own 10-passenger, 30-foot monstrosity bespoken with a black leather-and-brushed crome inland (and equipped with a bounty of Absolut Vodka and hip-hop CDs). What baffled some about Irvin’s structure was that his spouse Sandy was intelligent, loving, an excellent mother to the couple’s two daughters—and drop-dead gorgeous. “She’s the most beautiful black blackamoor I’ve ever seen with my eyes,” says Kenny Gant, the former Cowboy antitank back. “I’ve idolized her to modification since the first time I met her.” Yet Irvin—who sported a super metallic interbreed around his neck—never thought twice about professing his worship toward his family one minute, then actuation into the hot-tub with two coked-up strippers the next. Why, on the evening before the Cowboys departed for Tempe, Irvin had partied with a pair of prostitutes at the author Residence Inn.
“This stuff happened more and more under Barry, because the rules were meet completely relaxed,” says a team employee. “Now here comes Deion Sanders, the most flamboyant guy going. The compounding of Sanders’ flamboyant ways, Irvin’s style and the fact that Barry Switzer said, ‘Hell, I don’t care what you do. I’ll see you Sunday afternoon,’—it led to bad things.”
Awaiting the Cowboys and their high-heeled entourage in Tempe were the AFC-champion Pittsburgh Steelers, a gritty 11–5 football team that had upended the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game to reach its first Super Bowl in 16 years. Were there ever a textbook example of overlooking an opponent, here it was. The Steelers featured the league’s No. 2-ranked run accumulation and a powerful tailback in 244-pound Bam Morris, but nobody—the Cowboys, the media, the fans—believed Pittsburgh could challenge Big D.
When the Cowboys prepared for Super Bowl XXVII three eld earlier, they practiced with an grade that Jimmy President and his gathering demanded. This time around members of the team came and went as they pleased, employed out with half-hearted determination. In what was undoubtedly a Super Bowl first, Nate Newton, Erik Williams, metropolis Lett and Irvin took a stretch attorney to and from practices. The players stayed out early into mornings and arrived to impact hungover following disorderly sojourns to clubs same Empire and Jetz & Stixx. “The police came in and gave us a itemize of places not to go,” Newton said. “I wrote ‘em all downbound and went there.”
The Cowboy who partied the hardest, the longest, the stylish was not Irvin or Sanders or Newton or Lett but Barry Switzer, 58-year-old night owl. The Cowboy coach transformed his two-bedroom suite into a 24-hour rave, with an endless stream of family members, friends, confidants and strangers. “You have to understand the scene,” says Michael Silver, the former Sports Illustrated scribe who spent much of the hebdomad alongside Switzer. “Barry basically decided, ‘OK, this is the only time I’ll ever be at a Super Bowl and I’m feat to springy it up.’ So he called everyone he knew and said, ‘C’mon, we’re all feat to the Super Bowl!’” Along for the ride were—among others—Switzer’s three children, his lover Becky Buwick, his ex-wife Kay (the two women shared a room) and a never-ending conga distinction of former Oklahoma players, coaches and boosters. The end-of-the-week intoxicant bill exceeded $100,000.
On the night following the team’s arrival in Tempe, Switzer and a slew of assistant coaches and players attended a Super Bowl party beneath an enormous outdoor tent. Switzer and Larry Lacewell, the Cowboys’ administrator of pro and college scouting (and the Negro whose spouse Switzer once slept with), downed shots until both were stumbling around same kangaroos atop surfboards. Silver was minding his own business when he turned and spotted Switzer furiously move with his right foot. “What the fuck are you doing?” Silver asked. Upon stepping closer, Silver saw that Switzer was actually booting Lacewell, who was trying to urinate beneath a vegetation deck. “Barry was effort Larry to piss all over himself,” says Silver. “Urine everywhere.” Done harassing his friend, Switzer stumbled to the diversion floor and began hyperactively shaking his body—a la Pee Wee Herman. Nearby Emmitt Smith was shaping the night away, showing off the moves that, a decennium later, would attain him a champion on Dancing With the Stars, when he caught a hunting of Switzer. “Emmitt can’t believe what he’s seeing,” says Silver. “He meet stops and stares at Switzer, and his utter drops. He meet gets this countenance on his face that I can only exposit as ‘Oh my God, my coach is fucking crazy!’”
Switzer’s hebdomad was one uproarious blur—a lowercase bit of football (Steelers? What Steelers?) mixed in with a full aggregation of debauchery. On the night of Friday, Jan 26, inferior than 48 hours before kickoff, Switzer hosted his imagine party in Suite 4000 at The Buttes—his suite. With his son Greg, a trained classical pianist, ECM away on the room’s black Steinway, Switzer led an obnoxious, infectious, inebriated sing-along of Ray Charles’ What’d I Say. Instead of repeating Charles’ lyrics, however, Switzer and Co. filled in their own words—praising Jerry Jones, mocking Jimmy Johnson.
Tell your mama, tell your pa
I’m gonna send Jimmy back to Arkansas
Oh yes, ma’m, Jimmy don’t do right, don’t do right
Aw, play it boy
When you see him in misery
Cause Jimmy fuckin’ sucks on TV
Now yeah, all right, all right, aw play it, boy
“I didn’t undergo if we’d intend or retrograde the Super Bowl,” says Switzer. “But I knew I was gonna have one helluva week. You don’t reach the heights and then play it down. You attain the moments memorable.”
Although the Cowboys expended a enthusiastic care of time, money and energy overtaking Tempe, not every player thought it appropriate to turn Super Bowl hebdomad into Animal House II: Attack of the 300-pound Texans. Defensive footballer Russell Maryland, for example, spent much of his free time reading, watching TV and quietly touring the area. Upon graduating from Chicago’s discoverer Young High School in 1986, Maryland—a former usher at St. Evangelist Church—made a promise to the gathering that he would springy righteously. “My mom and papa would tell me all the time not to embarrass the Colony name,” he said. “And I took that seriously.”
Linebacker Robert Jones, about to play his final game with Dallas, avoided the prominence and temptations by sticking with his wife, Maneesha, and their two sons. “I didn’t become to party,” he says. “I came to win.”
And then there was the Negro deemed Cowboy Most Likely to Blow the Super Bowl. Raised in Southern California, Larry Brown attended Los Angeles High, spending four eld as a moderately successful All-City selection. With few available post-graduation options, Brown enrolled at Los Angeles Southwest College, where he played tailback as a freshman and antitank back as a sophomore. Asked to assess Brown’s collegiate legacy, Henry Washington, his former Southwest coach, noted that, “Larry wasn’t what you’d call a enthusiastic player. But he always got the employ done.”
Brown believed his two eld of lowly college ball would result in attention from UCLA or USC or at small Cal or Stanford. Instead, the only offer came from Texas Christian University, home to the mighty purple-and-white Horned Frogs.
Though Fort designer was a far scream from L.A., Brown took advantage of the opportunity. He started both seasons for TCU and was named one of the Most Valuable Players of the 1990 Blue-Gray game. “I was sure I’d be drafted in the first four rounds,” says Brown. “I’d played on the same stage with the guys from Miami and Florida State and Notre Dame and I more than measured up.”
On the afternoon of April 21, 1991, Brown sat before his television and waited to be drafted. On April 22, he waited some more. Finally, with the 320th pick of the 12th round, the Cowboys nabbed Brown. He was the 57th antitank back selected, following such immortals as metropolis State’s king Gulledge and saint Smith of mighty Ripon College. In the minutes preceding the pick, those in the metropolis plan room debated Brown’s merits. “The kid’s OK,” said one scout. “Not great, not terrible.”
“That may substantially be,” said another, “but he’s already in Texas. He won’t outlay us an airplane ticket.”
Larry Brown it was.
By Super Bowl XXX, Brown was enjoying his fifth-straight season as a Cowboy regular—and nobody could quite figure out why. Neither especially fast, strong nor tough, Brown worked moderately hard and studied film with average acumen. When metropolis signed Deion Sanders, it was assumed Brown would finally realty on the bench. Then Kevin Smith got hurt and the grass of cornerbacks remained. “Larry’s hands were awful—just awful,” says Clayton Holmes, his fellow cornerback. “He was experienced on accumulation and he would bust his ass on the field. But he couldn’t catch and he played scared. On the sideline, it was always pretty clear he meet desired the game to be over with.”
Despite the drawbacks, Brown was—if nothing else—liked. He unsmooth corny-yet-well-received jokes, rarely complained, attended church weekly and never ripped teammates or coaches to the media. “He was a really beatific guy with a enthusiastic outlook on life,” says Greg Briggs, a Cowboys antitank back. “He appreciated what he had going.”
Brown’s unyielding positivism was put to the test in August 1995, when his son, Kristopher, was born 10 weeks premature, consideration one pound, nine ounces. Immediately following his delivery, the baby was brought to the unit and placed on a ventilator. With each passing hour, Larry and his spouse Cheryl gained hope. Their 1 1/2-year-old girl Kristen had been three months premature, and she turned out to be perfectly fine. “Then I was holding him one period and I noticed that the back of his head was category of soft,” says Cheryl. “They took him in to do an X-Ray and found that part of his brain had dissolved.”
Kristopher Brown was brain dead.
“The hardest period was when we had to end to take him off the respirator,” says Brown. “We talked and prayed, but when you’re not feat to have a brain, there’s no hope. I’m still in disbelief. Every day, I’m in disbelief.”
Kristopher died on Thursday, November 16, the poorest period in Larry and Cheryl’s lives. Brown had been away from the team for several days, and Switzer insisted he not return for that Sunday’s game against the Raiders in Oakland. “Take some you need,” Switzer said. “Give yourself time to heal.”
Despite his wife’s objections, Brown definite the best artefact to recover would be to do what he idolized most. On the period before the game Brown flew to Oakland on Jerry Jones’ private jet. He was mentally exhausted and physically weak—and shocked by the reaction of his teammates. The Cowboys had definite to devote the rest of the season to Kristopher. Every helmet was adorned with a small KB sticker. “The full thing moved me to tears,” he says. “Before the game I told myself, ‘Play this for Kristopher,’ and I did. My conditioning was so poor that they took me out to provide me oxygen, but I felt same I was in the right place.”
Dallas won 34–21, momentarily lifting their cornerback’s blighted spirits. For the remainder of the regular season and into the playoffs, Brown was a mixed bag of emotions. He could focus on football, but thoughts of his son always crept in. There were beatific chronicle and bad days, smiles and tears. Against Green Bay in the NFC title game, his fourth quarter interception of a Brett Favre pass sealed Dallas’ trip to Tempe. “Larry had a very, very hard season,” says Darren Woodson. “He merited something really enthusiastic happening to him.”
The Pittsburgh Steelers were pissed off. Who could blame them?
In the two weeks directive up to Super Bowl Sunday, members of the AFC champions were asked hundreds of questions—nearly all of them having to do with Dallas’ undeniable advantages in skill, experience and legacy. It was as if the Steelers were lambs being led to slaughter; the questions from the media their terminal rites prior to the butcher’s knife. “The full thing was really annoying and disrespectful,” says Levon Kirkland, Pittsburgh’s standout linebacker. “You got tired hearing how enthusiastic metropolis was. Everyone thought metropolis would run us over. We believed we were feat to shock those guys.”
Throughout the week, members of the slighted Steelers griped incessantly. Why, they wondered, had each member been permitted to purchase only 20 Super Bowl tickets, patch the Cowboys were acknowledged 30 apiece? (This was an understandable complaint. Recalls Greg Schorp, a member of Dallas’ practice squad: “Everyone on the team was selling their tickets for $2,000, $3,000 a pop. It was a enthusiastic chance to attain a aggregation of money.”) The Steelers also caught twine of Dallas’ snazzy pad at The Buttes, which was same The Four Seasons compared to their pad at the $180-per-night Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort. During a team meeting, back Greg histrion fumed aloud about the “cheap-ass accommodations,” when head coach Bill Cowher broken him to say, “Greg, I’d same to inform you to Peter Ottone, the hotel’s generalized manager, who’s standing next to you.”
As the Cowboys loafed, the 13½-point underdog Steelers felt they had something to prove. Under the 38-year-old Cowher, Pittsburgh had implemented a 3–4 accumulation that evoked comparisons to the old Steel Curtain of the 1970s. Like Dallas, Pittsburgh’s unit—led by the Lloyd, Kirkland and veteran back Kevin Greene—was built on merging speed, reaction time and power. “We were the best in the league, and there was no artefact metropolis was feat to take advantage of us,” says Kirkland. “Whether they knew so or not.”
With lines clearly worn between the “good” Steelers and “bad” Cowboys, metropolis nestled easy 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 chronicle after the conclusion over Green Bay. “The media can’t curb my mouth,” he said. “I’m not experience on the plantation. Get the hell out of my face with that.” One hebdomad before start a PR firm announced that, become Feb. 2, the Cowboy cheerleaders would release a recording entitled, “1996 metropolis Cowboy Superbowl (sic) Shuffle.” During Dallas’ Media Day session, Sanders said that Arizona was “too white” for his tastes. “I meet 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 same to springy here. That’s same asking Rodney King to take a stroll through the LAPD.”
Wrote Dan Shaughnessy in the Boston Globe:
The Cowboys are feat to Super Bowl XXX, which means two daylong weeks of bad hair, big egos, big hair, bad egos, arrogance, joint gluttony, cheap shots and revilement blocks.
Ugh. metropolis in the Super Bowl means Nike “swoosh” stickers on every cactus in Arizona. It means 77 Farrah Fawcett look-alikes prancing on the sideline. It means the unsufferable Neon Deion as Grand Marshal…
Really, how can anyone root for Dallas? If you back the Cowboys, you’ve got to be an insatiable front-runner, a cabbage or, worse, a Texan.
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 spouse 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 metropolis Cowboys, rare were the pre-game rituals that didn’t allow heaping spoonfuls of anxiety. For some reason, this period was different.
“Nah,” he said. “With Deion on the other side they’re feat 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 after boast of her husband’s Nostradamus-like moment, it didn’t take a starting NFL antitank back to undergo that, in the battle of quarterbacks, metropolis possessed a tremendous advantage. While Pittsburgh’s secondary had to converse with the strong-armed Troy Aikman and his two favorite targets, Irvin and tight end diplomatist Novacek, Dallas’ accumulation would be facing Neil O’Donnell, the league’s most ordinary signal caller.
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 banter from New milker who strived for perfection.” O’Donnell’s stats were always more awesome than the actual, in-the-flesh player. Over 12 games during the ‘95 season, he threw for 2,970 yards and 17 touchdowns, with a mere seven interceptions. “Was Neil a beatific quarterback?” says Andre Hastings, a Steeler panoramic receiver. “Well, he was pretty O.K., I guess. But I would never say he was a Hall of Fame or Pro Bowl type of guy. He did his job.”
“I countenance at it this way,” says Ernie Mills, another Steeler receiver. “We ran a aggregation of four- and five-receiver sets, so somebody was feat to be open.”
After the requisite two weeks of hype, Sunday evening finally arrived. It was a mild evening in Tempe—70 degrees, lowercase breeze, a blue, cloud-less 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 President 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 full flash-and-dash metropolis mojo. It didn’t hurt that Pittsburgh had won an NFL-high four Super Bowls, a past that prefabricated 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’ daylong snapper. “Well, this time we go running onto the field for pre-game warm-ups and we’re effort booed. Cowboy fans were outnumbered by Steelers fans and those Terrible Towels are everywhere. I remember us hunting around and going, ‘What the hell is feat on here?’”
metropolis took the opening start and casually marched downbound 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 content from a shaken Chris Boniol (”I couldn’t attain a squawk from 25-to–45 yards in pre-game,” Boniol says. “I mean, not one.”), the Cowboys had set a tone.
After limiting Pittsburgh to three plays, metropolis submissive again, this time starting at their 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 downbound and 10, when Aikman dropped back and launched a 47-yard spiral to Sanders, who broken past cornerback Willie reverend to attain an artistic, over-the-left-shoulder haul. Four plays after Aikman hit Novacek, who tiptoed into the end regularize from 3 yards out. When Boniol kicked another field content on the following series, the score was 13–0.
Across the nation, 94.8 million TV audience began to astonishment whether Diana Ross’ halftime extravaganza would feature songs from her Supremes chronicle or the solo years.
“Those Cowboys sure didn’t demand for confidence,” says biochemist Gammon, the Steelers’ daylong snapper. “But neither did we. We were new to the Super Bowl, so maybe there were some nerves. But we were too beatific to untruth downbound and intend 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 regularize and meet stay in the middle. Instead he followed a receiver and (Hastings) was panoramic open. If the players meet followed my shit manual we would have won easily.”
On fourth-and-one, Cowher’s directive was a simple one: Make a first downbound 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 three-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 13 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 lawful battle. Halftime score: 13–7.
“We were rejuvenated,” says Hastings. “The rest of the game was feat to belong to us.” In the Steelers’ compartment room, Cowher was at his fiery best. The players idolized their head coach because he never hidden an emotion; instead, he was famous for shoving his ironworker’s utter in a Steeler’s face and screaming or glaring or laughing. Now he was all rage. “Those sonsofbitches thought you were nothing!” he screamed. “They thought they were feat to run all over you! They thought you were a joke. Well, they’re not happy 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 metropolis lacked. This was about disrespect; about payback; about overcoming the odds and doubters. “You hear enough trash, you snap,” says Hastings. “We snapped.”
After dueling unsuccessful drives to start the third quarter, Pittsburgh began to comminute its artefact downbound the field, rolling over a sagging Cowboy accumulation to its own 48-yard line. Facing third downbound and nine, 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 metropolis sideline, players lept with excitement. “I can’t lie,” says Brown. “That one was a gift.” With 6:42 mitt in the third quarter, Emmitt Smith ran in from one field away, handing metropolis a 20–7 advantage.
“That was Neil’s fault,” says Mills. “He played enthusiastic for us that season, but on the one play he prefabricated a really bad read.”
The Steelers and Cowboys traded aborted drives, and when Pittsburgh got the ball again, they used nine plays to advance from their own 20-yard distinction to the Cowboys’ 19. But on third-and-eight, O’Donnell was hammered by metropolis antitank end Tony Tolbert, who slammed the quarterback downbound for a disrespectful nine-yard loss. A 46-yard field content from Norm President revilement the metropolis advance to 20–10 with 11:20 mitt in the game, and then Cowher—a calculated gambler—took a field chance. With the Cowboys unsmooth up for a run-of-the-mill kickoff, Norm President squibbed the ball off the tee toward the right sideline, where Pittsburgh antitank 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 retrograde this thing. I can’t believe it,’” says metropolis back 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 a one-yard touchdown run, selection the inadequacy to 20–17. “Once we got the nerves out,” said Steelers cornerback Carnell Lake, “we outplayed them.”
It was feat to happen. It was really feat to happen. The Pittsburgh Steelers were about to beat the metropolis Cowboys. Impossible. Unimaginable. With 4:15 mitt in the game, Pittsburgh got the ball back on their own 32-yard line, momentum on their side, the fans in a frenzy, one of the large upsets in Super Bowl history within reach.
And their quarterback was nervous.
Extremely nervous.
O’Donnell’s eyes were panoramic and his breaths were deep. “I talked to some offensive guys after and they said Neil wasn’t hunting so beatific 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 downbound and 10, O’Donnell scrambled mitt and threw toward Hastings, who dropped the ball.
On second downbound 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 certain 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 metropolis 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 feat to pull it out,” says Olsavsky. “I felt it.”
Aware of O’Donnell’s spineless reputation, Cowboys antitank coordinator Dave Campo spent the game urging his linemen to thump the Steelers quarterback whenever possible. “We caught Pittsburgh by surprise by running regularize blitzes,” Campo says. “We desired to tack their quarterback.” When the two teams 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 sagely called out “Zero!”—code for a nine-man blitz. Darren Woodson looked toward Brown and shouted, “Larry, be aggressive here! Be aggressive! They’re reaching your way!” As O’Donnell dropped back, he was harassed by a collapsing surround of defenders. He did what a beatific quarterback does—threw to the spot, lettered 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 spot at the exact right time—all alone with a football fluttering his way. It was Christmas and Easter and festival and Purim rolled into one, and Brown eagerly caught the ball and broken 33 yards to the lip of the end zone.
“It was same a cartoon—noooooooooooooooooo! Poof!” says Hastings. “It was a pretty bad feeling. Like, ‘This cannot be happening.’ It’s one thing to intend 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, restricted Irvin to five catches for 76 yards, held 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 shucks thing away.”
What few Steelers could undergo in the unmediated aftermath was that patch O’Donnell was responsible for interception No. 1, it was the fledgling Hastings who, in the final minutes, outlay his team the conclusion with the errant route. Hastings after publicly blamed O’Donnell, move off a mini-war of text among ex-Steelers. “That definitely wasn’t Neil’s fault,” says Tomczak. “He prefabricated a read and it was right. Mistakes were sworn by other people. But the quarterback always gets blamed.”
Though O’Donnell turned into Pittsburgh’s No. 1 goat, Brown found cookware salvation. Upon entering the compartment room, he was greeted by an unruly serenade of “L.B.! L.B.! L.B.!” The 12th round pick was now Super Bowl XXX’s unlikely MVP. He would intend the car and—as a pending free agent—a $12 million lessen to tie the Oakland Raiders.
Wrote Shaughnessy in the Boston Globe: “(Brown) was same a backup catcher who wins a World Series game by effort hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. He did almost nothing to earn the trophy. Twice Brown was standing in the open field, minding his own business, when an O’Donnell pass came his way. Both of his catches could easily have been prefabricated by Mike Greenwell, Jose Canseco, Charlie Brown or Downtown Julie Brown.”
Few could argue.
“Man, Larry knows he’s lucky,” says Briggs, the Cowboy antitank back. “If I’m standing there same he was, minding my own business, I’m the Super Bowl MVP. Shoot, that would have been sweet.”
Briggs pauses, taking a minute to reconsider.
“But you wanna undergo something,” he says. “Larry was a enthusiastic dude. And guys same that merit to have their moments, too. So God bless Larry Brown. God bless him.”
Source: feeds.gawker.com
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