SUPER BOWL XXII : NOTES : Who Ordered Pheasant Under Canvas?

As the crowd came down the ramps from the freeway Sunday morning, the stadium looked like the giant middle ring of a three-ring circus. It was surrounded by 70 big tents, any one of which could have belonged to Ringling Bros. And there, much of corporate America dined on Super Sunday.

For many, the game was secondary to the socializing under canvas--and business anywhere.

The tents, called pavilions by the corporate people, were pitched on a slight hill. Inside, wooden floors leveled the uneven surface. Outside--a long way outside of the circle of tents--the public parked.

Ford Motor Co. invested $250,000 in the largest and most lavish pavilion.

Food was served from 9 a.m. to midnight.

The $27,000 check Redskin replacement quarterback Tony Robinson will get may be too late.

Robinson is back in the Knox County (Tenn.) Penal Farm after violating his work release agreement.

Robinson is doing time for drug-related offenses. The replacement players get a half share of the $54,000 full share that includes the NFC championship and Super Bowl victory.

Nate Fine has meant a lot to elder statesman Dave Butz and the rest of the Redskins, who dedicated the Super Bowl to him. Fine for many years has been the team photographer, and he is stricken with incurable cancer.

“Accept this trophy on behalf of the Redskins,” Butz said, handing it to him. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Owner Jack Kent Cooke turned to Fine and said, in an emotional moment: “You’re a wonderful man. I love you to death.”

Cooke reached out for Coach Joe Gibbs a few minutes after the game ended.

“You darling, come here,” Cooke said. “Thank you so much.”

While watching the game, Cooke, 75, described himself as nervous. No, more than nervous.

“I was petrified to the point of immobility,” he said.

There was a story in Sunday’s paper saying the Green Bay Packers’ coaching job is Gibbs’ if he wants it.

He doesn’t.

Denver defensive star Rulon Jones said of Super Bowl XXII MVP Doug Williams: “Doug just amazed me . . . it’s probably the best game of his life.”

Which made him think of Super Bowl XXI MVP Phil Simms.

“It seems like we’re good at letting quarterbacks have their best games,” Jones said.

James Denby of Carlinville, Ill., who returned to the United States Saturday after being in captivity for two months in Nicaragua, said: “I’m glad I got out in time for the Super Bowl. I was afraid I was going to miss the game.”

Former Raider Coach Tom Flores, who has been on the winning sideline in four Super Bowls as a player, assistant coach and head coach, watched the game from his hotel room in Las Vegas and was asked to do an analysis for Associated Press. It was a good call. After all, here’s a guy whose Raiders beat the Redskins, 38-9, in Super Bowl XVIII, the last time an AFC team won, and who coached against the Broncos twice in each of the last nine seasons.

Some excerpts from Flores:

“I felt the Redskins would be stronger than Denver, and I thought if they could outmuscle the Broncos, they would take command.

“They weren’t fancy. They used one off-tackle run that the Broncos had to stop, and they couldn’t. Washington must have run that same play 100 times.

“And Doug Williams did what he does best. He gave Washington the big play when it was available. The Redskins took full advantage of every situation.”

And of Washington’s defense, Flores said:

“The Redskins also did a very good job of stopping Denver quarterback John Elway.

“You have to give credit to the Washington secondary. All week long, all you heard about was the Three Amigos (Denver receivers Vance Johnson, Mark Jackson and Ricky Nattiel), but you had Darrell Green covering the best of the three, whoever that was on a given play.

“When (Elway) did throw, it looked like he got so frustrated that he threw as hard as he could.

“When you get behind, sometimes you have to take chances, and you can look bad doing it. Unfortunately for John Elway, this is the game people will be talking about.

“I think that in some ways, John Elway is a great quarterback, but you can build a guy up so much that anything short of Superman is a letdown. That’s what happened to Elway.”

Safety Dave Duerson of the Chicago Bears was named the NFL’s Man of the Year.

The award is given to “players whose careers reflect a dedication to community service as well as on-field excellence.”

Duerson has been involved in a search for the cure for muscular dystrophy and will donate the $25,000 check he’ll receive from The Travelers Companies Foundation to Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago.

Duerson and his brother and father have also set up programs in Muncie, Ind., and Chicago that sponsor free football camps for kids with substance-abuse problems.

Each of the NFL’s 28 teams had a player nominated for the award, and the winner is picked by a selection committee.

The Redskins established their dominance over the photographers on the game’s first play. When Washington’s Ricky Sanders was forced out of bounds with the opening kickoff, he took an official with him and then crashed into the interlocked mass of camera people. A woman photographer, Susan Ragan of the Associated Press, was taken from the field on a stretcher with a possible broken leg. Don Bartletti of The Times suffered a bloody head on the play, but remained on the job.

Dave Butz, the Redskins’ 37-year-old, 295-pound defensive tackle, was asked if his team’s weight advantage in the front lines made a difference.

Responded Butz: “No, they did a good job of holding and protecting Elway.”

The NFL spends most of each year planning the next Super Bowl. The whole thing is painstakingly orchestrated. Nobody goes where they’re not supposed to, or fails to go where they are.

That is why, of course, the first buses taking luminaries to the game Sunday got lost during the short drive to the stadium.

Offended by the rejection of Raider owner Al Davis in the latest vote on possible inductees to pro football’s Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, ESPN’s Pete Axthelm advised viewers: “If you’re driving anywhere near Canton, keep right on going.”

Super Bowl XXIII will be played Jan. 22, 1989, at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, the NFL’s newest arena.

New Orleans will host Super Bowl XXIV on Jan. 28, 1990, at the Louisiana Superdome, and the silver anniversary game, Super Bowl XXV, is scheduled Jan. 27, 1991, at Tampa, Fla.

Super Bowl Highlight I: There were virtually no homemade banners visible anywhere in the stadium. Anybody who tried to put one up almost immediately was asked by ushers to take it down.

In other words, there was no “John 3:16.” No “So and So, Colo., Says: Go Broncos!” And no clever sayings that begun with the letters “ABC.”

Super Bowl Highlight II: Nobody did The Wave.

The 1950s Rams were represented at Super Bowl XXII by a Los Angeles native named Steve Wilson, a starting Bronco cornerback.

Wilson was born in August, 1957, on the day of an exhibition game at the Coliseum. His father is Touchdown Tommy Wilson, the Ram halfback who alternated in that era with Jon Arnett.

Bronco Coach Dan Reeves picked up Steve when the Dallas Cowboys cut him in the early ‘80s. Reeves had known the young man as a Dallas assistant and swore to recruit him if the Cowboys ever turned him loose.

Why?

“Steve is a lot like I was,” Reeves said. “Small and slow.”

And productive.

Joe Gibbs was considerably more relaxed than Reeves on Sunday morning.

Almost everyone who saw them both said substantially the same thing: “Reeves is up-tight. Gibbs is ready.”

Maybe he just looked it, maybe he knew something, or possibly he had merely resigned himself to the inevitable, but Gibbs, before the game, appeared to be nothing more than a loose, happy visitor.

Merlin Olsen, scheduled to call next year’s Super Bowl with Dick Enberg at Miami, may not make it, NBC people said.

Olsen is working in a new series, “Aaron’s Way.” And if it catches on, he will miss some NFL telecasts next fall.

Having shaved his mustache, Olsen still wears a beard in the new series, in which he plays an Amish farmer.

In Sunday’s editions, the San Diego Union published predictions of the game’s outcome by various members of the news media. One such analyst had this to say: “Doug Williams can’t get it done. Never has, never will.”

One hopes Associated Press photographer Lenny Ignelzi had a sharper game with his camera than with his prediction.

Times staff writers Mike Downey, Brian Hewitt, Craig Stanke and Rich Roberts contributed to this story.