NFL’s Decision Is Clouded in Controversy

I think I’ll stay home and watch the Super Bowl on television this year. Miami sits in the heart of the hurricane belt, and I wouldn’t want to be in the stands at Joe Robbie Stadium when the public-address announcer says:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the commissioner has turned on the fasten-seat-belts sign. We’re expecting a little turbulence. Please look around and make sure that all your personal belongings, including small children, are stowed securely beneath your seat.”

Stop play for a hurricane? Postpone the game on account of inclement weather? No way. This is NFL football. Mother Nature does not call the shots here.

This could turn out to be the first Super Bowl decided by a 92-yard field goal. And it could be the first field-goal ever where the ball sails over the crossbar, followed closely by the kicker.

You have to admire the spunk of the NFL, refusing to cave in the the elements in Saturday’s playoff game between the Bears and Eagles at Chicago. Just because a fog, thick as a brick, rolled in off Lake Michigan during the second quarter, was no reason to delay a football game.

When the sky fell on Soldier Field, league officials reportedly placed a phone call to the NFL’s official weather consultant, Ernie Banks.

“Give us a ruling, Ernie,” they said to Banks, watching the game on television from his home in Los Angeles.

“It’s a beautiful day for football!” said Banks, the noted expert on Chicago weather.

“But Ernie,” the officials said, “it’s so foggy here, the players can’t see their own face masks.”

“Let’s play 2!” Banks advised.

If the NFL didn’t close down on the Sunday after the assassination of President Kennedy, and has played through killer snowstorms, it sure wasn’t going to shut down on account of a bitty fog bank.

This is a hardy league. The NFL wouldn’t hold up play if enemy missiles were spotted on U.S. radar.

“Biff,” the TV announcer would say, “with the 49ers leading the Bears by 2 touchdowns, we’ve got reports of nuclear warheads headed our way.”

“Right you are, Al,” the analyst would say. “That means, even though we’re still in the first quarter of play here, time becomes a factor. The Bears are going to have to go for the bomb, so to speak.”

Saturday’s conditions at Chicago were a matter of individual perception. The fans, the media, the coaches and players all perceived that visibility was greatly impaired.

Chief official Jim Tunney, calling the shots, disagreed. He did everything but turn on his PA mike and sing, “On a Clear Day.”

Tunney explained later that even when the fog was its most dense, he could stand at midfield and see the goal posts at either end of the field. Tunney also reported seeing a UFO and Bigfoot, but that’s irrelevant.

Randall Cunningham, the quarterback of the Eagles, estimated visibility at about 15 yards. Of course, Cunningham wasn’t trying to see 30-foot-high goal posts, he was trying to spot 6-foot-high receivers.

Apparently it never occurred to Cunningham to send a receiver shinnying up the goal post.

Somebody had to make the decision on the weather, and who are you going to trust--a veteran official, or a callow quarterback, 80,000 fans and hundreds of trained media observers?

Tunney obviously missed his calling. A man whose eyes can pierce through dense fog like this should be either riding shotgun for Santa Claus or offering psychiatric advice to Mike Tyson.

Tunney ordered the game to continue. He made the right decision. Rather than detracting from the game, the fog added an element of excitement and adventure.

The game had a charm sadly lacking in most games of this modern era. The NFL has become 26 teams with 8-8 records, identical formations, plastic-grass fields and domed stadiums.

Football has become too clean, too sanitized. Players hardly ever get dirty anymore.

It’s no coincidence that when domes and artificial turf came into vogue in the NFL, the sport of mudwrestling became an overnight sensation. It filled a void, a primal need of the sporting public to see great athletes wallowing in grimy combat.

Saturday’s game had a hardy, old-time charm, although it was a charm seemingly lost on Buddy Ryan and his Eagles.

Yet when Buddy has had time to get over the initial shock of being knocked out of Super Bowl contention by a freak fog bank, he’ll surely be proud of his league for its toughness.

Baseball shuts down at the slightest downpour. Basketball? An National Basketball Assn. game was postponed several years ago when the home team staged a halftime pie-throwing contest and the lemon meringue oozed through the protective tarp and rendered the floor so slippery it was deemed a hazard for the players.

Would the NFL call off a game on account of lemon meringue?

No way. Jim Tunney would tromp around in the goo and declare it firm and playable.

Then Tunney would phone Ernie Banks for a second opinion.

It may seem unfair, but it’s just as well that the Eagles were eliminated from the playoffs Saturday. If they can’t handle a little pea soup, how would they cope with lemon meringue, let alone a full-scale hurricane?