THE NFL PLAYOFFS : NFL Saw No Reason to Postpone the Game

It was one of the strangest football games ever seen--or not seen.

Fog rolled off Lake Michigan during the second quarter of Saturday’s National Football Conference semifinal game between the Chicago Bears and the Philadelphia Eagles, and Soldier Field suddenly looked like the set of a war movie being filmed in Britain.

The public address announcer couldn’t see what was happening, so an aide relayed the plays to the press box via walkie-talkie.

“I think the game should have been suspended,” Eagle owner Norman Braman said. “I don’t think it’s fair.”

That was discussed, particularly in the third quarter when visibility was at a low. It was a decision that could be reached only by the referee, Jim Tunney, and Don Weiss, the on-site representative of Pete Rozelle, the National Football League commissioner.

“I walked out on the field in the third quarter,” Tunney said, “and I could see both goalposts. At no time could I see less than 50 to 75 yards. I thought we were still able to play.”

The NFL said that the fog didn’t bother the players.

“The word we get from the field is, believe it or not, it’s not that bad,” NFL spokesman Joe Browne said during the third quarter.

Chicago Coach Mike Ditka had a different view.

“They had the ball at one point; I couldn’t see the quarterback from where I was,” Ditka said. “At one point, you couldn’t see more than 10 yards downfield. Fortunately, it seemed to be that way more often when they had the ball.

Most players said the fog limited their vision to between 5 and 15 yards.

“It took the deep pass out of the game, but we don’t throw the long pass anyway,” Chicago receiver Dennis McKinnon said. “We nickel-and-dime them.”

Chicago defensive coordinator Vince Tobin said the coaches had to call plays from the sideline, instead of relying on coaches in the press box.

“They were no use the second half,” Tobin said. “They couldn’t see the field at all.”

CBS used 15 cameras to televise the game. Only four, all at ground level, were usable after a 6 m.p.h. wind blew in the fog. Fans watching on television saw a surreal scene, an almost black-and-white landscape of faint football players moving through clouds.

“As long as they’re passing the football down there, they’re seeing it. So let ‘em play,” CBS analyst Terry Bradshaw said. “But we can’t see it up here.”

Play-by-play announcer Vern Lundquist said: “We couldn’t see anything--absolutely nothing. We had to look at the TV monitors just like everyone else.

“When Maurice Douglass (of the Bears) intercepted that ball in the fourth quarter, we had no idea who it was until he came over to the bench.”

At one point, Bradshaw told viewers that the game should be suspended.

“I felt the audience was getting cheated,” he said. “Here was a real showcase game, and nobody could see it. That’s what was so upsetting.”

Bradshaw did a “make believe” commentary on one play that he couldn’t see.

“It was my way of telling people how crazy things were,” he said.

The fog was so bad that a helicopter taking overhead shots of the stadium was forced to land in the first half.

CBS officials considered sending Brent Musberger to the sideline in the third quarter to do the play-by-play from there but decided against it because “you couldn’t see across the field,” network spokesman Mark Carlson said.

Neal Pilson, president of CBS Sports, said from his home in New York that he was in phone contact with executive producer Ted Shaker, who was in the production truck in Chicago.

“It caught us and everyone else off guard,” Pilson said. “We decided to go with the low-level cameras and abandon the others. That seemed to work the best. We had three low-level cameras, plus a minicam.

“The standard shots from the high-level cameras at the two 20s and the 50 couldn’t be used.”

Pilson said he did not talk with anyone from the league office about the possibility of postponing the game.

The fog developed south of Chicago Friday night, and winds from the south swept the fog into the city Saturday.

Meteorologist Henry Yario of the National Weather Service in Chicago said the fog formed as warmer air from the south combined with cooler air caused by a snowpack over much of northern Illinois. The fog lingered by the lake because the temperature there was cooler than temperatures inland. It moved over the ballpark when the temperature rose from 29 degrees at kickoff to 38 degrees at halftime.

The explanations weren’t much comfort for Matt Solatka, 25, who watched from the stands.

“I can’t see anything,” he said. “We got a TV, but we still can’t see what’s going on.”

The situation reminded some Canadian football fans of the 1962 Grey Cup game that was suspended by heavy fog.

Canadian Football League commissioner Syd Halter halted the Winnipeg-Hamilton game at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto with about 8 minutes left and Winnipeg leading, 28-27.

The game resumed the next day from the point of suspension, and there was no more scoring.

Exhibition Stadium, like Soldier Field, is located next to a large body of water--Lake Ontario.

Half an hour after Saturday’s game, the fog had lifted. But by then, it already was known as the Fog Bowl.

This was one time when nobody was going to wait for the films.