NOTES : Forget Sacks, These Guys Want to Rush the Quarterback

Some of the NFL people who have gathered here this week for Sunday’s Super Bowl are saying that the sack won’t be a factor this time.

One quarterback, Jim Kelly of the hurry-up Buffalo Bills, beats the rush with quick throws.

The other, sprinter Jeff Hostetler of the wait-a-minute New York Giants, beats it with quick feet.

Even so, the defensive rush will be decisive, predicted Jim Finks, president of the New Orleans Saints.

“The sack is the most overrated play in football,” he said. “You can play a lousy game and have three sacks. The best player on the field might have none. Hurries are what count in a pass rush--not sacks.”

A hurry--not a sack--was the Raider turning point last week, when Buffalo defensive end Bruce Smith rushed quarterback Jay Schroeder into the interception that linebacker Darryl Talley returned 27 yards for a first-quarter touchdown.

Said Giant Coach Bill Parcells: “The (statisticians) measure sacks when they should measure pressure.”

The team with the defensive line that makes the fewest tackles will win the game, said Buddy Ryan, who coached the Philadelphia Eagles for five years.

“Stopping the run is the job of linebackers and safeties,” said Ryan, creator of the Chicago Bears’ 1985 defense, probably the best in NFL history. “The job of the defensive line is to rush the passer.

“Anytime you see a pass for over 20 yards, that isn’t a cornerback’s fault, it’s the defensive line’s fault.”

Sports fans protesting the high cost of tickets usually blame it on rising salaries. And, publicly, so does management.

But at Super Bowl games, the ticket price has gone from $40 to $150 since 1982, with none of the increase going to the players.

In 1982, at Super Bowl XVI, when tickets were priced at $40, winner’s shares were $64,000 a player.

This year, the players’ shares are unchanged--but a ticket, if you can get one at face value, costs $150.

The working people of the Tampa Bay area, which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater, lost at least $200,000 in wages when the NFL canceled its Friday night party this year, according to labor estimates.

A league spokesman said it was canceling in deference to the U.S. war effort against Iraq. But what the NFL feared most was adverse media reports criticizing a Florida gala in wartime.

The party has been criticized often enough in peacetime.

The losers were the waiters, waitresses, musicians, bartenders, cooks and other workers in a depressed part of Florida.

Nearly 1,000 reporters had registered at the NFL press office in the Tampa Convention Center by Wednesday noon.

Rick Odioso, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ publicist who is keeping count for the league, said a record 2,700 TV, radio and newspaper representatives would sign in by game day.

“Having four girls under the age of 4 has prepared me to deal with the media,” he said.

The Bills have made it to the championship game with basically the same players who have won three consecutive AFC East titles.

“The first year (1988) we surprised people,” Buffalo linebacker Shane Conlan said. The 12-4 Bills got to the conference final, but lost to Cincinnati, 21-10.

“Then we thought thought we were better than we were the second year,” when the 9-7 Bills got lost in the division playoffs to Cleveland, 34-30.

“This year, we’ve put it together, and we’re mature enough to handle things now. It just shows how focused you have to be.”

With a 13-3 record in the regular season--matching that of the New York Giants--the Bills are conscious that they are flying the AFC banner, which has been grounded by the NFC in the past six Super Bowls.

“We want to show the world we can play with the (NFC),” Buffalo guard John Davis said. “A lot of people think the NFC is the dominant conference. I disagree. The money doesn’t matter. The ring matters.”

The AFC’s four best teams--Buffalo, the Raiders, Kansas City and Miami--were a combined 12-4 against NFC teams this season. Buffalo was 3-1, but it was after the Bills had earned the home-field advantage in the playoffs that they lost to the Washington Redskins, 29-14.

“The Redskin game doesn’t really count,” running back Thurman Thomas said. “They were playing with such great intensity.”

The Bills that day weren’t. But they don’t fear the NFC “jinx.”

“The NFC’s 6-0 (in the past six Super Bowls) is a meaningless statistic,” Buffalo General Manager Bill Polian said. “The Super Bowl is a game of matchups--and it just happens that most (AFC champions) didn’t match up well in the 1980s with NFC champions.

“Secondly, the 49ers were a super Super Bowl team in the ‘80s. They’ve won four of the last nine. They’d have beaten anybody--any team in either (conference).

“It isn’t the NFC that’s been dominating pro football--it’s the 49ers.”

Until lately.

Breathe easy sports fans, Marv Levy is AWOL no longer.

The Bills’ coach, surprised at the fuss caused by his skipping a mandatory media appearance Tuesday, showed up to talk with reporters Wednesday. He apologized for any inconvenience but made it clear that he felt his reasoning was just.

Levy had to prepare his team for Sunday’s Super Bowl against the Giants. And in the thinking of one of the league’s hardest-working and cerebral head coaches, the media could wait.

Tuesday, Levy explained, is his day for crafting the Bills’ game plan, and neither heaven, earth nor the allure of answering hundreds of questions from the eager press corps could move him from that mission.

“I apologize to you and to the league for not having been here,” Levy said to open his news conference Wednesday morning. “I got up yesterday morning with the intention of coming over (and) started to work on the game plan. I became immersed in it, (and) I lost track of time somewhat. By the time I was aware, I was a little bit late.

“I thought we were behind in our preparations, getting things done, and made a decision--maybe it wasn’t one that was very popular--but I made a decision that our first priority was to prepare for the game; that I would do it through Tuesday, as we’ve always done.”

But even though Levy was reprimanded by Commissioner Paul Tagliabue for Tuesday’s absence, and the league made it clear in a terse statement Tuesday that it was possible that Levy would be fined for the infraction, the coach was unmoved.

“Let me tell you something,” Levy said, “I’ve been coaching for 40 years, and this is the game I’ve been preparing for all my life, and I’m not going to cut a corner on it.

“And that had some effect, some impact on the decision I made. I apologize to you. I didn’t realize it was that much of an issue, since all of our players were here. I’m finding out that it was.”

Parcells said he had no fear of being under-prepared.

“From an organizational standpoint, even though this is a one-week thing, we will have plenty of time,” Parcells said. “We had done a tremendous volume of work on both Buffalo and the Raiders prior to the (NFC championship game).

“We had all of our film work done . . . and all our scouting reports completed.”

Don’t look for any aerial shots of the game from a blimp.

Because of the Persian Gulf war and the possibility of terrorist attacks in the United States, air traffic over Tampa Stadium will be banned from noon until midnight on Sunday.

The only aircraft not subject to those restrictions include law enforcement aircraft or FBI-authorized users.

Bob Smith, Tampa’s public safety administrator, said Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Authority’s regional office in Atlanta has notified the FBI of restrictions on air traffic within five miles of Tampa International Airport as well as a half-mile radius of the stadium.

The restrictions include a ban on all air traffic up to 3,000 feet, except for takeoffs and landings, near the airport. Air traffic up to 5,000 feet will be prohibited around the stadium.

Get this straight: You can call him Cornelius, you can call him “Biscuit”--his preferred nickname--but don’t ever call Buffalo linebacker Cornelius Bennett “Corny.”

Apparently, some unwise people do. And Bennett doesn’t like it.

What else is a Super Bowl media appearance for besides declaring to the world that nobody is to ever call you “Corny” again.

“Biscuit is my nickname,” Bennett said, taking this very seriously. “Not Corny. People call me that, and I don’t even answer them. That’s not my name. Call me Biscuit or call me Cornelius, but not Corny. I can’t stand that.”

Parcells, while acknowledging that the Bills have been very successful with their no-huddle offense recently--in 95 points in their two playoff victories--he didn’t exactly say that the no-huddle was the wave of the future.

“They’ve been very successful with it, but the no-huddle, the entity in itself, is not the problem,” Parcells said. “The problem is Jim Kelly and Andre Reed and Thurman Thomas and James Lofton, the guys who are executing the offense.”

Times staff writer Tim Kawakami and the Associated Press contributed to this story.