Supreme pressure cooker

PHILADELPHIA – Steve Young was at San Francisco’s team hotel, waiting out the final hours before Super Bowl XXIX. Alone in his room, he thought about the game he was about to play.

Young recalls thinking, “When this day is over, my life will never be the same.” Whether it would be better or worse, he did not know. He knew the effect of the game would be profound. His performance, good or bad, would shape his legacy. One game to last a lifetime: That’s the beauty – and the burden – of the Super Bowl.

Of course, Young played superbly in that Super Bowl, passing for a record six touchdowns as the 49ers demolished San Diego 49-26. Today, he will be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and while his two Most Valuable Player awards and six passing championships are part of his resume, it is his brilliance in the Super Bowl that assures his first-ballot passage into Canton, Ohio.

The Super Bowl is that big. That’s why I roll my eyes whenever I hear a coach or player say, “We’re treating it as just another game.” It’s not just another game. To deny the enormity of the event, to pretend it is the same as a Week 3 game in Arizona, is silly. It is a totally different atmosphere – more pageantry, more pressure, more waiting around – and a team must overcome that before it can overcome the opposition.

Troy Aikman was fine all week leading up to Super Bowl XXVII. He was fine the night before the game. He was fine on the bus ride to the stadium and during the pregame warmups. But when the Dallas Cowboys quarterback came out for the introductions just before kickoff, he saw the crowd and heard the fireworks and, suddenly, he began to hyperventilate.

“I couldn’t breathe,” Aikman said. “The magnitude of the game overwhelmed me. I threw my first pass 20 yards over Michael Irvin’s head. I thought, ‘I’d better get a grip on myself.’ I finally calmed down, but I’ll never forget that (initial) feeling. I was a wreck.”

Aikman overcame his stage fright to complete 22 of 30 pass attempts for 273 yards and four touchdowns as the Cowboys rolled over Buffalo 52-17. Aikman was voted the game’s MVP and he led Dallas to two more Super Bowl victories in the next three years. But ask him what he remembers best, he will tell you it was the fear.

That’s the challenge facing the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday: How will they handle their first trip to the Super Bowl? As Young and Aikman will attest, there is no way to prepare for it. Veteran teammates who have been to other Super Bowls – such as Jevon Kearse and Jon Runyan, who played in Super Bowl XXXIV with Tennessee, and Dorsey Levens who played in Super Bowls XXXI and XXXII with Green Bay – can talk about it, but it is not the same as experiencing it.

Marshall Faulk of the St. Louis Rams recalls standing on the sideline at Super Bowl XXXIV, listening to Ray Charles sing “America the Beautiful” and having the enormity of the game come into focus. “I thought, ‘There is one game being played today, one game left in the season and I’m playing in it,’ ” Faulk said. “That moment right there touched me more than any moment in my career.”

Some players, such as Faulk, are moved; others are frozen. In Super Bowl XXIX, Young threw a 44-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Rice on the third play from scrimmage. It was a simple post pattern, yet Rice was wide open in the middle of the field. The San Diego safeties never moved.

How could such a thing happen? Easy. The Chargers were in a daze, playing in their first Super Bowl. They fell behind 28-10 by halftime and the game was over.

That’s why there are so many lopsided Super Bowls. The pressure builds all week and on game day, if one team makes an early mistake and falls behind, panic sets in. Coaches depart from the game plan, quarterbacks force balls into coverage and it leads to more mistakes. Suddenly, 7-0 becomes 14-0, then 17-0 and pretty soon, you have a game like Super Bowl XXXV, which Baltimore won over the New York Giants, 34-7. Or Super Bowl XXXVII, which Tampa Bay won over Oakland, 48-21.

It is easy to understand the players’ anxiety. They know only nine nations in the world have a total population larger than the Super Bowl TV audience. Whatever a player does in this game is magnified. The image – heroic or otherwise – goes into the time capsule of popular culture. As Aikman said: “Forty years from now, I’ll be watching TV with my grandchildren and those (Super Bowls) will come on. Those are the games that define you, for better or worse.”

That is the biggest advantage the New England Patriots have going into Sunday’s game. Not only have they been to this game before, but they have demonstrated they know how to handle it. They have won twice, each time mounting a scoring drive in the final minute. They won as underdogs (to St. Louis) and they won as heavy favorites (against Carolina). They won a low-scoring game (20-17 against the Rams) and they won a shootout (32-29 against the Panthers).

They have a quarterback, Tom Brady, who has won two of these games and history tells us that quarterbacks who win their first two Super Bowls win again if they come back a third time. Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana and Aikman did it. Brady will try to join their company on Sunday. The head coach, Bill Belichick, has the same career postseason record as Vince Lombardi (9-1).

What about the Eagles? A lot will depend on their attitude. If they are overwhelmed by the spectacle of Super Sunday, if they are blinded by the lasers or numbed by the fireworks, they will have no chance. The Patriots will attack them early, as they did Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship Game, and take full advantage.

But if the Eagles can quell the inevitable butterflies and, as Aikman did in Super Bowl XXVII, settle into their normal rhythm, they have a real chance to win this game.