woodbuck27
01-25-2007, 11:24 PM
http://www.superbowl.com/news/story/9954045
Special teams can have a sudden impact
By Ray Didinger
Special to SuperBowl.com
Note: This story appears in the Official Super Bowl XLI Game Program, which is available now at NFLShop.com.
http://images.nfl.com/photos/img9954587.jpg
Desmond Howard was not overwhelmed by the big stage.
He wasn't blinded by the bright lights, either. He had been there before. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1991, which is as good as it gets in college football. He did all the talk shows and smiled for the cameras. He once even struck the Heisman pose in the end zone, delighting the masses at the University of Michigan.
Howard was a showman, so it was probably inevitable he would wind up in the biggest show of all, the Super Bowl. And once he was there, he would find the spotlight. It took a while -- five years to be exact -- and his ego was slightly bruised along the way. But when he finally made it to Super Bowl XXXI with the Green Bay Packers, he was ready for his closeup.
The Packers possessed an array of superstars, but it was Howard, a kick returner, who walked away with the Rozelle Trophy as the game's Most Valuable Player following the 35-21 win over New England. He stands as the only special teamer to earn MVP honors in the 40-year history of the game. Even though quarterback Brett Favre accounted for three Green Bay touchdowns (two passing, one rushing) and defensive end Reggie White set a Super Bowl record with three sacks, everyone agreed that Howard was the key to the victory.
He set up 10 first-half points with punt returns of 32 and 34 yards. Then, after the Patriots rallied within 27-21 in the third quarter, Howard broke their hearts with a 99-yard kickoff return, the longest in Super Bowl history, to put the game away. He finished with 244 combined return yards, setting another Super Bowl standard.
"We had a lot of momentum and our defense was playing better," said New England head coach Bill Parcells in the postgame press conference. "But [Howard] made the big play. That return was the game right there. He's been great all year and he was great again today."
"It is a wonderful feeling," Howard said afterward, "because I didn't just ride on someone else's coattails to get my Super Bowl ring. I wasn't some guy on the bench who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I was a contributor, a major contributor. That's what people will remember and that's what my teammates will remember. That means everything to me."
Desmond Howard made the game-changing play of Super Bowl XXXI.
So it was Howard who did the post-Super Bowl victory tour to Disney World and The David Letterman Show. One of these days perhaps another special teams player will have the same opportunity. But award or no award, special teams will continue to have a major impact on pro football's biggest game.
Sometimes their contributions are obvious, as it was with New England's Adam Vinatieri, who kicked game-winning field goals in two Super Bowls. Or Baltimore's Jim O'Brien, who won Super Bowl V with a 32-yard field goal in the closing seconds. Other times they are subtle, as was the case last year when Pittsburgh's Chris Gardocki won his punting duel with Seattle's Tom Rouen. Rouen had four opportunities to pin the Steelers deep in their own territory, yet each time kicked the ball into the end zone for a touchback. Gardocki had a 54-yard punt that rolled dead at the 2-yard line, a shift in field position that helped the Steelers extend a 14-10 lead into a 21-10 victory.
"There are no 'little' plays in a Super Bowl," says Len Dawson, the Hall of Fame quarterback who led Kansas City to a 23-7 victory over Minnesota in Super Bowl IV. "Every change of possession, every yard gained or lost is significant. Our kicking game is what decided that Super Bowl. I was named the MVP, but I've always said it should have gone to [placekicker] Jan Stenerud."
Stenerud accounted for the game's first nine points by kicking field goals of 48, 32 and 25 yards. The first kick set the tone, insists Dawson. "They [the Vikings] expected us to punt. They couldn't believe it when Jan came on the field. When he made the kick, they were in shock. They never had to contend with that kind of [weapon] before."
Once you factor in the punting game -- Kansas City's Jerrel Wilson averaged a booming 48.5 yards per punt while Minnesota's Bob Lee managed just a 37-yard average on his kicks -- it becomes clear why the Vikings spent the entire afternoon playing uphill.
Super Bowl history also has its share of special teams misfires. There was Garo Yepremian's slapstick fumble following a blocked field-goal attempt late in Super Bowl VII. Washington's Mike Bass returned it for a touchdown, cutting Miami's lead to 14-7 and putting the Dolphins' bid for a perfect season in jeopardy. Safety Jake Scott told Garo, "If we lose this game, I'll kill you." Thankfully, it never came to that. Miami held on to win its first Super Bowl title.
More haunting was Scott Norwood's missed field-goal attempt in the final seconds of Super Bowl XXV. The 47-yard kick, which sailed wide right, allowed the New York Giants to escape with a 20-19 win over Buffalo, the first of four consecutive Super Bowl losses for the Bills. Some 16 years later, people still remember. Mention the name Scott Norwood and watch them shake their heads. "Poor guy," they say. "Imagine how he must've felt."
Sometimes the crippling mistake and the heroic moment come back-to-back as they did in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Carolina rallied to tie New England, 29-29, with 1:08 remaining in regulation, but the Panthers' John Kasay hooked the ensuing kickoff out of bounds. That costly error allowed the Patriots to take possession at the 40-yard line, and in just six plays QB Tom Brady had moved his team into field-goal range. Vinatieri kicked the 41-yarder to win the game.
Now with the Colts, Adam Vinatieri has another chance to be a Super Bowl hero.
"As a kicker, you dream about being in that situation," says Vinatieri, who also drilled a game-winning 48-yard field goal to stun St. Louis, 20-17, in Super Bowl XXXVI. "I must have kicked that kick a thousand times in my sleep. You tell yourself, 'Just take your time. Hit it straight. Let it go.'
"It is definitely stressful. You just have to control it. People say, 'It's just a game.' It is, but it isn't. I mean, it's the Super Bowl."
The stakes in a Super Bowl are obviously higher, even more so for special teamers. A quarterback handles the ball on every play. Running backs have upwards of 20 touches. A linebacker can miss a tackle but has the next play to make amends. A special teamer is on the field for just a handful of snaps, so he can't afford to make a mistake because it will stand out -- even if his team wins the game.
Todd Christensen of the Raiders learned that in Super Bowl XVIII. He was a Pro Bowl tight end who doubled as the team's long snapper. Early on, he unleashed a high snap that a leaping Ray Guy snared with one hand. Guy turned what could have been a huge loss of yardage -- and field position -- into a booming 42-yard punt with no return.
The Raiders routed Washington, 38-9, but columnist Dick Young still grilled Christensen after the game about the high snap. He felt if the ball had sailed over Guy's head and the Redskins recovered, the game would have turned in their favor.
"I was annoyed," says Christensen, who contributed four receptions in the victory. "There were a million things to talk about, but that [snap]? The final score was 38-9, but he kept insisting. I said, 'Would the game have been different? Yeah, if the Redskins had scored a touchdown there, the final score would have been 38-16.' I thought it was silly to make such a big deal out of it, but it made me realize how special teams plays can be magnified.
"What happened was on the previous play, I caught a pass and hit the ground. At the Super Bowl, they decorate the field and I got some of that chalk on my hands. I didn't have a towel to wipe it off, so I had to stay on and snap for the punt. The ball slipped out of my hands. Luckily for me, Ray was 6-3 and a great athlete. He went up and got it." Ironically, the Raiders' first score was produced by special teams when reserve tight end Derrick Jensen blocked a Jeff Hayes punt and fell on it in the end zone for a touchdown. "Absolutely enormous play," Christensen recalls. "Five minutes into the game, we're up 7-0. Special teams plays are the X-factor. When we scored there, it was a huge swing in momentum and emotion."
Another example was Super Bowl XXXV. Baltimore jumped to a 17-0 lead before Ron Dixon ran 97 yards with a kickoff return that gave the Giants life … though briefly. On the ensuing kickoff, the Ravens' Jermaine Lewis broke away for an 84-yard touchdown. From there, Baltimore coasted to a 34-7 victory.
"Jay Lew broke their backs," insists linebacker Ray Lewis, whose five tackles and four passes defensed earned him the game's MVP honor. "[The Giants] were still high-fiving [after the Dixon touchdown] when Jay Lew got the ball. Once he hit the open field, I was shouting, 'The rings are on the way.' It was over, it was our game at that point."
Howard's kickoff return in Super Bowl XXXI had a similar effect. The Patriots, 14-point underdogs, had cut the Green Bay lead to six on a Curtis Martin touchdown run. Then Howard took Vinatieri's kickoff and raced to the end zone. That was the ballgame. Prior to that play, the Patriots had contained Howard, at least on kickoffs. In their film study, they saw the Packers liked the middle return, so they set up their kick coverage to take away the inside lanes. On his first two returns, Howard had managed just 32 yards. His first return in the second half netted 23 yards. He was visibly frustrated, jawing with the Patriots after every tackle.
"They were saying, 'Nothing for you, baby. We're shutting you down,'" Howard recalls. "I told them, 'That's all right. Just keep kicking it to me. Keep rolling the dice. See what happens.' We made big plays all season [on special teams]. I knew we'd do it again. It was just a matter of time."
During the regular season, Howard set an NFL record with 875 punt return yards and led the league with a 15.1-yard average while scoring three times. He also had a 71-yard punt return for a touchdown in Green Bay's NFC divisional playoff win over San Francisco. "With the exception of Brett Favre, Desmond has impacted our team more than any other player," praised Packers head coach Mike Holmgren prior to the Super Bowl.
For Howard, the 1996 season served as vindication following four years of struggles in Washington and Jacksonville that left him written off as a Heisman Trophy bust. The Redskins, who selected him fourth overall in 1992, let him go in the expansion draft and the Jaguars cut him loose after one season. He signed with Green Bay for an almost minimum wage contract of $300,000. When he broke a punt return for a touchdown in a preseason game against Pittsburgh, it rekindled the spark. After that, Howard was nearly unstoppable.
He had two big punt returns in the Super Bowl, but the Patriots were being successful in keeping him bottled up on kickoffs. Packers special teams coach Nolan Cromwell tried to beat the New England coverage by sending Howard wide, but after the Martin touchdown, he went back to his strength. He called for a middle return and this time Howard found a lane behind the blocks of Travis Jervey, Calvin Jones, Keith McKenzie and Lamont Hollinquest. Don Beebe made the final block, kicking out Mike McGruder.
The last Patriot standing was Vinatieri, and he was no match for the shifty Howard, who raced away for the clinching score and then celebrated with a Michael Jackson robot walk into the end zone. Howard did not realize it at the time, but he became the first player in NFL history to return a kickoff and a punt for touchdowns in the same postseason.
"I was surprised they kept kicking to me," Howard says.
"I felt sooner or later we'd break one. They did a good job messing up our timing. They were kicking the ball at different depths. But on the last one, [Vinatieri] hit it nice and deep. As I was backing up, I was thinking, 'Okay, this is gonna give us a chance. We can set up our blocks. All I have to do is find a crease.'
"When I hit the wedge, it was a lot more than a crease, it was a nice, open lane."
After the game, Howard talked about his up-and-down career and the frustrations he overcame on his journey to Green Bay. As it turned out, it would be his final game as a Packer. Two months later, he signed a four-year, $6 million free-agent contract with the Raiders.
"This season hasn't been a resurrection of my career or anything like that," said Howard, who joined Jim Plunkett, Marcus Allen and Roger Staubach as the only players to win both the Heisman Trophy and the Super Bowl MVP.
"Resurrection means something died. Nothing ever died in me. I just needed a chance to prove what I could do."
And it was special teams -- occasionally overlooked by fans, but never overvalued by the coaches or the players on the field -- that provided the opportunity for him.
Special teams can have a sudden impact
By Ray Didinger
Special to SuperBowl.com
Note: This story appears in the Official Super Bowl XLI Game Program, which is available now at NFLShop.com.
http://images.nfl.com/photos/img9954587.jpg
Desmond Howard was not overwhelmed by the big stage.
He wasn't blinded by the bright lights, either. He had been there before. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1991, which is as good as it gets in college football. He did all the talk shows and smiled for the cameras. He once even struck the Heisman pose in the end zone, delighting the masses at the University of Michigan.
Howard was a showman, so it was probably inevitable he would wind up in the biggest show of all, the Super Bowl. And once he was there, he would find the spotlight. It took a while -- five years to be exact -- and his ego was slightly bruised along the way. But when he finally made it to Super Bowl XXXI with the Green Bay Packers, he was ready for his closeup.
The Packers possessed an array of superstars, but it was Howard, a kick returner, who walked away with the Rozelle Trophy as the game's Most Valuable Player following the 35-21 win over New England. He stands as the only special teamer to earn MVP honors in the 40-year history of the game. Even though quarterback Brett Favre accounted for three Green Bay touchdowns (two passing, one rushing) and defensive end Reggie White set a Super Bowl record with three sacks, everyone agreed that Howard was the key to the victory.
He set up 10 first-half points with punt returns of 32 and 34 yards. Then, after the Patriots rallied within 27-21 in the third quarter, Howard broke their hearts with a 99-yard kickoff return, the longest in Super Bowl history, to put the game away. He finished with 244 combined return yards, setting another Super Bowl standard.
"We had a lot of momentum and our defense was playing better," said New England head coach Bill Parcells in the postgame press conference. "But [Howard] made the big play. That return was the game right there. He's been great all year and he was great again today."
"It is a wonderful feeling," Howard said afterward, "because I didn't just ride on someone else's coattails to get my Super Bowl ring. I wasn't some guy on the bench who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I was a contributor, a major contributor. That's what people will remember and that's what my teammates will remember. That means everything to me."
Desmond Howard made the game-changing play of Super Bowl XXXI.
So it was Howard who did the post-Super Bowl victory tour to Disney World and The David Letterman Show. One of these days perhaps another special teams player will have the same opportunity. But award or no award, special teams will continue to have a major impact on pro football's biggest game.
Sometimes their contributions are obvious, as it was with New England's Adam Vinatieri, who kicked game-winning field goals in two Super Bowls. Or Baltimore's Jim O'Brien, who won Super Bowl V with a 32-yard field goal in the closing seconds. Other times they are subtle, as was the case last year when Pittsburgh's Chris Gardocki won his punting duel with Seattle's Tom Rouen. Rouen had four opportunities to pin the Steelers deep in their own territory, yet each time kicked the ball into the end zone for a touchback. Gardocki had a 54-yard punt that rolled dead at the 2-yard line, a shift in field position that helped the Steelers extend a 14-10 lead into a 21-10 victory.
"There are no 'little' plays in a Super Bowl," says Len Dawson, the Hall of Fame quarterback who led Kansas City to a 23-7 victory over Minnesota in Super Bowl IV. "Every change of possession, every yard gained or lost is significant. Our kicking game is what decided that Super Bowl. I was named the MVP, but I've always said it should have gone to [placekicker] Jan Stenerud."
Stenerud accounted for the game's first nine points by kicking field goals of 48, 32 and 25 yards. The first kick set the tone, insists Dawson. "They [the Vikings] expected us to punt. They couldn't believe it when Jan came on the field. When he made the kick, they were in shock. They never had to contend with that kind of [weapon] before."
Once you factor in the punting game -- Kansas City's Jerrel Wilson averaged a booming 48.5 yards per punt while Minnesota's Bob Lee managed just a 37-yard average on his kicks -- it becomes clear why the Vikings spent the entire afternoon playing uphill.
Super Bowl history also has its share of special teams misfires. There was Garo Yepremian's slapstick fumble following a blocked field-goal attempt late in Super Bowl VII. Washington's Mike Bass returned it for a touchdown, cutting Miami's lead to 14-7 and putting the Dolphins' bid for a perfect season in jeopardy. Safety Jake Scott told Garo, "If we lose this game, I'll kill you." Thankfully, it never came to that. Miami held on to win its first Super Bowl title.
More haunting was Scott Norwood's missed field-goal attempt in the final seconds of Super Bowl XXV. The 47-yard kick, which sailed wide right, allowed the New York Giants to escape with a 20-19 win over Buffalo, the first of four consecutive Super Bowl losses for the Bills. Some 16 years later, people still remember. Mention the name Scott Norwood and watch them shake their heads. "Poor guy," they say. "Imagine how he must've felt."
Sometimes the crippling mistake and the heroic moment come back-to-back as they did in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Carolina rallied to tie New England, 29-29, with 1:08 remaining in regulation, but the Panthers' John Kasay hooked the ensuing kickoff out of bounds. That costly error allowed the Patriots to take possession at the 40-yard line, and in just six plays QB Tom Brady had moved his team into field-goal range. Vinatieri kicked the 41-yarder to win the game.
Now with the Colts, Adam Vinatieri has another chance to be a Super Bowl hero.
"As a kicker, you dream about being in that situation," says Vinatieri, who also drilled a game-winning 48-yard field goal to stun St. Louis, 20-17, in Super Bowl XXXVI. "I must have kicked that kick a thousand times in my sleep. You tell yourself, 'Just take your time. Hit it straight. Let it go.'
"It is definitely stressful. You just have to control it. People say, 'It's just a game.' It is, but it isn't. I mean, it's the Super Bowl."
The stakes in a Super Bowl are obviously higher, even more so for special teamers. A quarterback handles the ball on every play. Running backs have upwards of 20 touches. A linebacker can miss a tackle but has the next play to make amends. A special teamer is on the field for just a handful of snaps, so he can't afford to make a mistake because it will stand out -- even if his team wins the game.
Todd Christensen of the Raiders learned that in Super Bowl XVIII. He was a Pro Bowl tight end who doubled as the team's long snapper. Early on, he unleashed a high snap that a leaping Ray Guy snared with one hand. Guy turned what could have been a huge loss of yardage -- and field position -- into a booming 42-yard punt with no return.
The Raiders routed Washington, 38-9, but columnist Dick Young still grilled Christensen after the game about the high snap. He felt if the ball had sailed over Guy's head and the Redskins recovered, the game would have turned in their favor.
"I was annoyed," says Christensen, who contributed four receptions in the victory. "There were a million things to talk about, but that [snap]? The final score was 38-9, but he kept insisting. I said, 'Would the game have been different? Yeah, if the Redskins had scored a touchdown there, the final score would have been 38-16.' I thought it was silly to make such a big deal out of it, but it made me realize how special teams plays can be magnified.
"What happened was on the previous play, I caught a pass and hit the ground. At the Super Bowl, they decorate the field and I got some of that chalk on my hands. I didn't have a towel to wipe it off, so I had to stay on and snap for the punt. The ball slipped out of my hands. Luckily for me, Ray was 6-3 and a great athlete. He went up and got it." Ironically, the Raiders' first score was produced by special teams when reserve tight end Derrick Jensen blocked a Jeff Hayes punt and fell on it in the end zone for a touchdown. "Absolutely enormous play," Christensen recalls. "Five minutes into the game, we're up 7-0. Special teams plays are the X-factor. When we scored there, it was a huge swing in momentum and emotion."
Another example was Super Bowl XXXV. Baltimore jumped to a 17-0 lead before Ron Dixon ran 97 yards with a kickoff return that gave the Giants life … though briefly. On the ensuing kickoff, the Ravens' Jermaine Lewis broke away for an 84-yard touchdown. From there, Baltimore coasted to a 34-7 victory.
"Jay Lew broke their backs," insists linebacker Ray Lewis, whose five tackles and four passes defensed earned him the game's MVP honor. "[The Giants] were still high-fiving [after the Dixon touchdown] when Jay Lew got the ball. Once he hit the open field, I was shouting, 'The rings are on the way.' It was over, it was our game at that point."
Howard's kickoff return in Super Bowl XXXI had a similar effect. The Patriots, 14-point underdogs, had cut the Green Bay lead to six on a Curtis Martin touchdown run. Then Howard took Vinatieri's kickoff and raced to the end zone. That was the ballgame. Prior to that play, the Patriots had contained Howard, at least on kickoffs. In their film study, they saw the Packers liked the middle return, so they set up their kick coverage to take away the inside lanes. On his first two returns, Howard had managed just 32 yards. His first return in the second half netted 23 yards. He was visibly frustrated, jawing with the Patriots after every tackle.
"They were saying, 'Nothing for you, baby. We're shutting you down,'" Howard recalls. "I told them, 'That's all right. Just keep kicking it to me. Keep rolling the dice. See what happens.' We made big plays all season [on special teams]. I knew we'd do it again. It was just a matter of time."
During the regular season, Howard set an NFL record with 875 punt return yards and led the league with a 15.1-yard average while scoring three times. He also had a 71-yard punt return for a touchdown in Green Bay's NFC divisional playoff win over San Francisco. "With the exception of Brett Favre, Desmond has impacted our team more than any other player," praised Packers head coach Mike Holmgren prior to the Super Bowl.
For Howard, the 1996 season served as vindication following four years of struggles in Washington and Jacksonville that left him written off as a Heisman Trophy bust. The Redskins, who selected him fourth overall in 1992, let him go in the expansion draft and the Jaguars cut him loose after one season. He signed with Green Bay for an almost minimum wage contract of $300,000. When he broke a punt return for a touchdown in a preseason game against Pittsburgh, it rekindled the spark. After that, Howard was nearly unstoppable.
He had two big punt returns in the Super Bowl, but the Patriots were being successful in keeping him bottled up on kickoffs. Packers special teams coach Nolan Cromwell tried to beat the New England coverage by sending Howard wide, but after the Martin touchdown, he went back to his strength. He called for a middle return and this time Howard found a lane behind the blocks of Travis Jervey, Calvin Jones, Keith McKenzie and Lamont Hollinquest. Don Beebe made the final block, kicking out Mike McGruder.
The last Patriot standing was Vinatieri, and he was no match for the shifty Howard, who raced away for the clinching score and then celebrated with a Michael Jackson robot walk into the end zone. Howard did not realize it at the time, but he became the first player in NFL history to return a kickoff and a punt for touchdowns in the same postseason.
"I was surprised they kept kicking to me," Howard says.
"I felt sooner or later we'd break one. They did a good job messing up our timing. They were kicking the ball at different depths. But on the last one, [Vinatieri] hit it nice and deep. As I was backing up, I was thinking, 'Okay, this is gonna give us a chance. We can set up our blocks. All I have to do is find a crease.'
"When I hit the wedge, it was a lot more than a crease, it was a nice, open lane."
After the game, Howard talked about his up-and-down career and the frustrations he overcame on his journey to Green Bay. As it turned out, it would be his final game as a Packer. Two months later, he signed a four-year, $6 million free-agent contract with the Raiders.
"This season hasn't been a resurrection of my career or anything like that," said Howard, who joined Jim Plunkett, Marcus Allen and Roger Staubach as the only players to win both the Heisman Trophy and the Super Bowl MVP.
"Resurrection means something died. Nothing ever died in me. I just needed a chance to prove what I could do."
And it was special teams -- occasionally overlooked by fans, but never overvalued by the coaches or the players on the field -- that provided the opportunity for him.