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February 1, 2004
IT'S SHOWTIME: The answers to three critical questions could determine which team is remembered forever
By Lenox Rawlings | JOURNAL REPORTER
In the football business, Super Sunday means business.Fading rock stars can wail away at dusk. Fading actors can preen for the television cameras, soliciting one last docudrama. Faded ladies can slap on another coat of paint for one last run in a Texas demolition derby (and, honey, there have been a few).
As the tinsel circus rolls on, the Carolina Panthers and New England Patriots will get down to business, making reputations or breaking them, making history on the hushed highlights tapes or shrinking into small-print footnotes, flawed characters of the 38th chapter.
John Fox, Carolina's no-frills coach, assessed the circus from point-blank range as the New York Giants' defensive boss three years ago.
"We aren't going to the show," Fox told his players before departing North Carolina. "We are the show."
The curtain rises gradually, with coaches putting in game plans and veterans putting in words to the wise. Brentson Buckner (ex-Steelers), Ricky Proehl (ex-Rams) and other rare Panthers with Super Bowl experience conveyed a consistent message: Live in the moment, love the moment and don't blow the moment because you might never get another.
"When I played back in '99," Proehl said, "I enjoyed the heck out of it because I didn't know if I'd ever get back. I got back in 2001, and each time you're like a little kid. The one thing you learn is that it goes by like Christmas. It builds up and it builds up and - boom - it's over with. You try to enjoy it, but you've got to separate the business side from the fun side."
The fun part of Christmas morning - opening presents - resembles the fun part of Super Sunday, that revealing instant when flying bodies supply physical confirmation of calculated strategies.
Above the din of babbling experts, three main questions dominate the conversation. Can Carolina sustain the running game that burns time and wears down opponents? Can New England's Tom Brady dodge the Panthers' marauding front four and pick apart the defense with typically short passes? Can Bill Belichick's brilliantly coached Patriots get off to the fast start, dictate the game's terms and leave town amid cheeky talk of a contemporary dynasty?
Rivals from around the league put the onus on Carolina, theorizing that if the Panthers can't run as well as they want to run, they're toast.
Offensive coordinator Dan Henning shakes his head. "No, I don't agree with that," he said. "I expect they would take it away as well as I want to, so we'll go to whatever they seem to appear to give us, or attempt to. But it's not against the realm of possibility that we don't do very well offensively and we win the Super Bowl. Keep that in mind. The most important thing is that we win the Super Bowl.... This game could swing on two or three miscues."
The Panthers star in just one of the three big questions, reflecting the general first impressions about the match-up, but a gathering sentiment swims against that tide. The new undercurrent: The hot and smooth Panthers can win if they survive the jittery opening act, establish the ground rhythm that becomes the game's background music and maintain their dynamite kicking game.
Just ask Buckner, the king of confidence. "I was raised that way," he explained. "When you grow up with seven sisters and you're the only boy, you'd better be confident."
Despite New England's 16-game winning streak against the stronger AFC schedule, despite New England's 2001 championship and favorite's role (by a solid touchdown), the Panthers vow to impose their will. They insist that Kevin Donnalley and those bulky blockers will create gaps in the New England defense for inside power Stephen Davis and cutback burner DeShaun Foster, that quarterback Jake Delhomme will hit at least one deep pass, that the claws of steel defense and iron offense will mangle the Patriots' plans, that America will respect the latest underdog champions even if America loathes the dull, grinding style of neo-NFL favor.
"Yes," Buckner said, "we're very boring. We're the most boring team in the NFL because all we do is play good defense and run the ball down people's throats. If that's boring and wins game, I love being boring. If boring gives me a championship, I love it. I think Vince Lombardi won a lot of them being boring, didn't he? It doesn't matter what people think."
It might matter what the officials think. New England assaulted Indianapolis receivers at the scrimmage line, capitalizing on the no-blood, no-flag leniency of playoff cops. Steve Smith and Muhsin Muhammad swear that they're tough guys capable of handling manhandling, but if New England can somehow blunt Davis on first down and jam the receivers after that, Carolina would miss a beat.
Henning acknowledges the parallel universe of no-harm, no-foul basketball refs.
"I've talked to a few officials specifically about that here in the last week," Henning said. "That's true. I think the coaches on the Patriots understand that principle, and I think they geared up that way figuring they could do certain things on defense and it's not going to be called every down. Maybe it's not going to be called any down, as the Colts claimed it was not called any down. I think there's a lot of truth to that, but the only thing we care about is that you don't change the rules of engagement. Call it the same way on both sides."
The Panthers portray themselves as the chief practitioners of smash-mouth football. So do the Patriots. Henning grins.
"They use techniques that are instilled in them, as most coaches do," he said. "I've heard Bill Belichick use this term before, because we coached in the Pro Bowl together in 1999. When talking about the rules of that game, he said: 'We're going to take the rules to the extent that we can take them, because we are going to do business as business is being done.' So if business is being done and being allowed to be done, then you're not playing right if you don't take it to the limit."
After the Patriots and Panthers take it to the limit tonight, the football business quite likely will seem shocked to find a Carolina moon hanging over the bottom line.
• Joe Menzer can be reached at jmenzer@wsjournal.com