Telecast Didn’t Measure Up to the Bears

The Bears were awesome in Sunday’s Super Bowl, the Patriots awful. NBC was somewhere in between.

As Super Bowl pregame shows go, Sunday’s wasn’t bad. Unfortunately, the game was--unless you enjoy massacres.

You can’t blame NBC for the game. But like the Patriots, NBC has had better days. Particularly Merlin Olsen.

Olsen is smooth and, generally, a better-than-average football broadcaster. But his work Sunday showed that he is not as keen a student of the game as, say, John Madden, Hank Stram or Dick Vermeil. Or even Bob Trumpy.

Presumably, Madden wouldn’t have missed the officials’ mistake involving a stopping of the clock at the end of the first half. Trumpy, announcing the game with Don Criqui for NBC Radio, didn’t.

With the final seconds ticking off and players scuffling, Chicago’s Jim McMahon threw the ball out of bounds to kill the clock, despite the fact his teammates were not set.

The clock was stopped, the Bears were penalized five yards and Kevin Butler kicked a field goal. But, in situations such as this in the final 10 seconds of either half, the official in charge has the power to declare the half over and not allow another play. The Bears should not have been given another play.

Trumpy, on radio, picked up on this. He pointed it out to Commissioner Pete Rozelle, his halftime guest, and campaigned for disallowing the field goal.

Rozelle later huddled with Art McNally, the NFL’s supervisor of officials. It was decided to announce the error and let the field goal stand.

Val Pinchbeck, the NFL’s director of broadcasting, eventually told Olsen of the decision. It was not discussed on the telecast until the second half was ready to start.

It turned out to be insignificant. But it could have been a major factor, and television viewers wouldn’t have known about it until about 20 minutes after it occurred.

Add Olsen: When the game was finally over, Olsen was asked for a pearl of wisdom. “The Bears attacked them, and never looked back,” was what Olsen came up with.

Not exactly great insight.

Later, he said: “This season had been a Cinderella story for the Patriots. But it ended at 12 o’clock. There was no prince for the Patriots.”

Who does his writing?

At the start of the second half, replays of two Patriot fumbles were shown. Although the Bears’ Richard Dent, the game’s MVP, was involved in both fumbles, Olsen gave Dent more credit for the fumbles than he appeared to deserve.

On the first fumble, Olsen at first had to correct himself, saying it was Tony Eason who fumbled instead of Craig James. Olsen then said Dent reached in and knocked the ball away from Eason. Dent may have, but in the replay it was hard to tell exactly what caused the fumble.

On the next fumble, Olsen said Dent stripped the ball away from James. But the replay showed that Dent merely put his arms around James, who in turn lost the handle. Olsen seemed to be looking for more than what was there. Not grievous errors, but you expect more accurate analysis.

Plusses: Bob Griese was a welcome addition to NBC’s broadcast team. His analysis, for the most part, was right on. And his personal feelings regarding the fear he felt prior to the three Super Bowls he played in was interesting.

Dick Enberg was his usual solid self. But he wasn’t perfect. McMahon’s first touchdown fooled Enberg, who thought William (the Refrigerator) Perry had the ball. And in the second half he wondered if Mike Ditka might have the defense ease up a bit, even though it is Buddy Ryan who calls all the defensive signals. Enberg should have known that.

Enberg, however, came up with a good line when the cameras caught McMahon with his Pluto headband. “He’s finally into outer space,” Enberg said.

Camera work: With $11 million worth of equipment and 21 cameras, NBC didn’t miss much. The camera work was generally good.

There were a few minor errors, though. During the pregame introductions, the network had a camera on Matt Suhey while Walter Payton was being introduced. Oh well, who’s Walter Payton, anyway?

Early in the game, when the Patriots’ Don Blackmon came close to an interception, the first replay was of the wrong receiver and defender.

But director Ted Nathanson deserves credit for staying on his toes even after the game was out of reach. He had a nice replay of Payton, far away from a play, laying a nice block on Patriot linebacker Steve Nelson. It helped illustrate the kind of complete player Payton is.

The pregame show: Two hours is just too long for a pregame show, but producer John Filippelli deserves credit for putting together a fairly good one. The music videos and the pieces on the 1966 Kansas City Chiefs, the losers in Super Bowl I, and Vince Lombardi were especially good. So was Bill Macatee’s report on the Sullivans.

The silent minute--yawn--came off OK. The animated popcorn, dancing hot dogs and soft drinks and the “Syncopated Clock” music added to it, as did the countdown in Roman numerals.

The silent minute, as things turned out, was more exciting than the game.