SUPER BOWL NOTES : Pomp Is Muted, Under the Circumstances

The NFL announced Monday that it expects to play the Super Bowl on Sunday as scheduled, but will “take events in the Middle East into account up to kickoff.” The league is taking steps to tone down the parties that traditionally lead up to the game.

Joe Browne, vice president of communications and development, said Monday that, considering the war in the Gulf, the league has decided to emphasize the game, not the social events that surround it.

The NFL has canceled its ultra-splashy party scheduled for Friday night, and Browne said other league-sponsored events will be reviewed for possible changes.

“We recognize that the American people will not be paralyzed by the events in the Middle East, but the words priorities and perspective are important during Super Bowl XXV activities,” Browne said.

Neither the Buffalo Bills nor the New York Giants head into Super Bowl XXV with any major injury concerns, although a few players are nursing minor injuries suffered in Sunday’s championship games.

Defensive end Bruce Smith of the Bills, the NFL’s defensive player of the year, twisted his ankle against the Raiders on Sunday but was able to return to the game, and the Bills don’t think he will be hindered for the Super Bowl.

Also for Buffalo, backup receiver Al Edwards took a hit to the neck area and didn’t return, and backup tight end Butch Rolle sprained an ankle. Both are expected to play Sunday.

For the Giants, quarterback Jeff Hostetler suffered a hyperextended left knee in the fourth quarter, but returned and led the Giants to their last-play victory over the San Francisco 49ers. After the game, Hostetler said there is no way he is going to miss starting in the Super Bowl.

Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly and New York defensive end Leonard Marshall were named the NFL’s offensive and defensive players of the week for the conference championship games.

Leading a Giant defense that held the potent 49er offense to 240 yards, Marshall sacked 49er Joe Montana twice--including a fourth-quarter blind-side smash that bruised Montana’s sternum, broke his finger and sidelined him for the rest of the game--and forced a fumble. The 49ers gained only 39 yards on the ground in the 15-13 Giant victory.

Kelly completed 17 of 23 passes for 300 yards and two touchdowns in the Bills’ 51-3 mauling of the Raiders Sunday.

Not that they can take much satisfaction in this, but the 49er defense still hasn’t allowed a touchdown in the last three NFC championship games. The Giants were inside the 20 six times Sunday against the 49ers, but had to settle for five field goals.

“One thing we have to do against Buffalo is get into the end zone,” Hostetler said. “We didn’t do too well inside the 20 against the 49ers, and we’ve got to work on that. You can’t go too long without scoring touchdowns.”

The 49ers beat the Chicago Bears, 28-3, in January 1989, and then beat the Rams, 30-3, in last year’s conference title game.

By the way, the NFL’s two Los Angeles teams have been outscored in the last two conference championship games, 81-3.

Now that the Bills have finally made it to their first Super Bowl, there are only nine NFL teams that haven’t--Cleveland, Houston, San Diego, Seattle, New Orleans, Atlanta, Detroit, Tampa Bay and Phoenix.

Tim Rooney, at the Bill-Raider game as an advance scout for the Giants, seemed rather impressed with Buffalo’s no-huddle offense.

“Awesome,” Rooney told Larry Felser of the Buffalo News. “The Raiders couldn’t pass-rush, they couldn’t blitz, they couldn’t stunt, they couldn’t do anything. Having good players has a lot to do with it, but Buffalo’s running game out of the no-huddle is so well conceived that you can’t entirely credit it to the talent.”

The message from the Persian Gulf was brief and to the point: “Thanks, we appreciated it.”

That’s how the U.S. servicemen reacted to Armed Forces Radio and Television Service’s broadcast of the two NFL conference championship games Sunday.

“How many were able to see it, we don’t know. We have no way of telling,” said Air Force Col. Richard L. Fuller of the AFRTS broadcast center in Sun Valley, Calif. “But we did get a message back saying thanks.”

AFRTS broadcasts both radio and television to about 1.5 million servicemen and their dependents worldwide.

Fuller said that 85%-90% of the forces in the Gulf had access to the radio play-by-play of the games, about 30%-35% to TV. There also is a videotape duplicating center on the island state of Bahrain that will distribute tapes to U.S. military on ships and in the desert.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.