Super Bowl XXVII : WAITING FOR The Big One : There Have Been Super Moments and Super Finishes, but No Truly Super Game. Here are the Best and the Worst of the XXVI.

After 26 Super Bowls, only two things remain as they were in the 1960s when the series began:

1. Each January, the nation’s sports fans look forward expectantly to a rip-roaring game.

2. They never get it.

A close, well-played, super event won late in the last quarter--a true blue-chip masterpiece--has never happened. And might never happen.

Have any red chips been played?

Well, a few.

In the week that brings the Buffalo Bills against the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XXVII, it is still possible to say--many years after the fact--that the 13th game and the 10th game were something special.

Those were the Terry Bradshaw-Roger Staubach Super Bowls. The mighty Pittsburgh Steelers vs. a gifted Dallas team. And the 13th game, a 35-31 Steeler victory, was probably first in spectator appeal.

But as a piece of entertainment, Super Bowl XIII had a flaw--an unhappy ending--and, strangely, so did Super Bowl X, except, of course, in Pittsburgh.

Both times, the Steelers shot ahead in the fourth quarter. And both times, the late-game drama was all in whether the Cowboys could catch up.

As it turned out, they couldn’t.

Baseball fans compared each game to the late innings of a no-hitter, when the drama is all in whether anything will happen. Whether anybody can hit the ball.

Staubach swung hard, but didn’t quite connect.

Super Bowl XXIII--a Joe Montana Super Bowl--was a diametrically different kind of game. Beginning with 57 quiet minutes, it ended as a three-minute masterpiece and a 20-16 San Francisco victory.

Super Bowl XIV--the Rams’ only Super Bowl--was an unexpected David vs. Goliath struggle for three quarters. The Rams (9-7) led the Steelers (12-4) at all three milestones--but then, once more, Bradshaw pulled away, and soon he was out of sight, 31-19.

The most dramatic Super Bowl? It’s still Game III, the one Joe Namath guaranteed to win, and did, uniting a torn league.

Those were the five best Super Bowls. The five liveliest.

There is, however, a further truth: Many other Super Bowls have been cut from the same cloth.

It is only a myth that the games of the last 26 winters have been continually dull and lopsided.

Eight of them, to be sure, were pretty bad--the four games Minnesota lost, and then the four Denver lost, all blowouts.

The Vikings and Broncos are primarily responsible for the reputation of the Super Bowl as a repository for dullness.

Otherwise, Super Sunday crowds have watched good, competitive football nearly every winter--for a while, that is. For a quarter. For a half. For even three quarters occasionally.

The 26-year pattern of the Super Bowl is in a sense extraordinary:

--Almost every year, there are some big plays, some dramatic moments, some competitive action, some entertainment.

--In almost every game, one team or the other drops behind at some point in the second half, and then falters, losing momentum, and swiftly losing confidence, when it discovers that a really big dream, the dream of Super Bowl victory, is irretrievably evaporating.

--Simultaneously, almost every time, the Super Bowl team that advances into what seems to be a safe lead in the last 30 minutes of a long season is overwhelmed by exhilaration.

Sensing that a big dream is about to come true, it pounces confidently. It kills.

And high above in the press box, more than one reporter turns to his neighbor and says: “Another dull Super Bowl.”

Well, maybe.

THE TOP FIVE GAMES

The five most memorable of the 26 Super Bowls, in the order of their dramatic impact:

III

1969--ORANGE BOWL, MIAMI

New York Jets 16, Baltimore Colts 7.

The Namath guarantee game. The Colts perished as 17 1/2-point favorites. And with them perished the fiction of American Football League inferiority. It wasn’t a brilliant game. The Colts couldn’t make it competitive. But as an example of up-close-and-personal leadership, involvement and influence by one individual in a team sport, the Namath role was historic.

XIII

1979--ORANGE BOWL, MIAMI

Pittsburgh Steelers 35, Dallas Cowboys 31

Ten years after Namath, in a matchup of two other Hall of Fame quarterbacks, Terry Bradshaw outlasted Roger Staubach. This was the year that Thomas (Hollywood) Henderson of Dallas said: “Bradshaw couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the C and the A. “ In a rousing first half, it was 7-7, then 14- 14, and finally 21-14 when Bradshaw delivered a third touchdown pass. In the second half, Pittsburgh pulled away on three Dallas mishaps: Reliable Dallas tight end Jackie Smith dropped a sure touchdown pass in the end zone; an official saw pass interference against Dallas where there was only incidental contact; and Dallas fumbled away a kickoff. So it was 35-17 when Staubach rallied. The clock stopped him four points short.

XXIII

1989--JOE ROBBIE STADIUM

San Francisco 49ers 20, Cincinnati Bengals 16

Twenty years after Namath, and 10 years after Bradshaw-Staubach, another eminent quarterback, Joe Montana, won it at the end. It was Bill Walsh’s last NFL game--the one that made him and Montana three-time Super Bowl champions. This was the year of the Miami riots, when the game went on anyway, and it proved to be a strange extension of the 49er season: slow start, fast finish. After a 30-minute pitchers’ duel, 3-3, the Bengals led with 15 minutes to play, 13-6, and again with 3:20 to play, 16-13. Then Montana took the 49ers on the only winning touchdown drive against the clock in Super Bowl history--a spectacular 92-yard drive that ended with 34 seconds to play on a touchdown catch by John Taylor, who was Montana’s third option.

XIV

1980--ROSE BOWL

Pittsburgh Steelers 31, Rams 19

As Jack Youngblood of Los Angeles became the first to play in the Super Bowl with a broken leg, the Rams led at the quarter, 7-3; at the half, 13-10; and after three quarters, 19-17. In an unexpectedly close game between a deprecated Ram team and the defending world champions, the lead changed hands six times. Bradshaw’s fourth-quarter passes to John Stallworth won the Steelers their fourth Super Bowl.

X

1976--ORANGE BOWL, MIAMI

Pittsburgh Steelers 21, Dallas Cowboys 17

This was Lynn Swann’s Super Bowl, Swann’s year in the NFL. After a concussion suffered during a game against the Raiders, he chose to complain publicly about what Coach Chuck Noll called the league’s criminal element--and Swann’s charges brought much-needed NFL rule changes. He was still light-headed on game day, but chose to play anyway. And with Bradshaw passing, Swann made the big catches that made it the most entertaining of the first 12 Super Bowls.

THE NEXT FIVE

XVII

1983--Rose Bowl

Washington Redskins 27, Miami Dolphins 17

After a two-month NFL strike, this was the game that validated Miami Coach Don Shula’s greatness. With a journeyman named Don Woodley at quarterback, Shula managed somehow to get to the Super Bowl--where he led for more than three quarters. The Dolphins were still ahead in the last 10 minutes, 17-13, when Washington faced fourth and one at the Miami 43. There, instead of sending in his punter, Redskin Coach Joe Gibbs sent running back John Riggins into the line, and Riggins’ 43-yard touchdown ended all resistance.

XXV

1991 TAMPA STADIUM

New York Giants 20, Buffalo Bills 19

This was the winter of the Persian Gulf War, but the show went on anyway. One of the most competitive of the Super Bowls, it was a game that Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly seemingly won with a fourth-quarter drive--only to lose it when, in the pressure of the final seconds, Scott Norwood, was wide right on a 47-yard field goal attempt.

I

1967--COLISEUM

Green Bay Packers 35, Kansas City Chiefs 10.

For the only Super Bowl game that hasn’t sold out, attendance was 61,946 in a stadium where, eight years earlier, three crowds of 90,000 had gathered for World Series games. The problem was that Super Bowl I was only the second biggest game of the season--second to the Green Bay-Dallas game for what was then the NFL title--and Los Angeles knew it. Los Angeles won’t turn out for second best. The game set the pattern for the Super Bowl’s first quarter-century. Interesting and competitive through a 14-10 first half, the game was turned in the third quarter by Green Bay safety Willie Wood, who ran 50 yards with an intercepted pass. The Packers, worried until then, took heart and pounced. The Chiefs, dispirited, died.

IV

1970--TULANE STADIUM, NEW ORLEANS

Kansas City Chiefs 23, Minnesota Vikings 7

This was the year that Kansas City quarterback Len Dawson, unfairly branded in a gambling scandal, had to exonerate himself in a Super Bowl game, and did, as Coach Hank Stram had predicted. The result also verified AFL-AFC superiority, as suggested a year earlier by Namath. During the Super Bowl’s first 14 years, 1967-1981, AFL-AFC teams were 10-4. They were the stronger conference from the start, losing the first two games only because of Lombardi’s personal genius. In the years up to the 49er-orchestrated NFC takeover in the 1980s, the AFC lost only two other Super Bowls, both to Dallas.

VII

1973--COLISEUM

Miami Dolphins 14, Washington Redskins 7

With Don Shula coaching against George Allen, an NFL team finally finished a perfect (17-0) season, the only one on record. A capacity 90,182 watched Miami’s kicker, Garo Yepremian, throw a pass for Washington’s only touchdown. It was intercepted and returned 49 yards by a cornerback, Mike Bass.

THE TEN WORST GAMES

Of the 10 most disappointing Super Bowl games, a majority involved the Minnesota Vikings and Denver Broncos, who each stand 0-4 in the series.

The two worst games, however, involved other teams:

XX

1986--SUPERDOME, NEW ORLEANS

Chicago Bears 46, New England Patriots 10

That was the year of Jim McMahon and the Super Bowl Shuffle, a Bear video. McMahon came to town with an acupuncturist and a lower backside injury that kept him from sitting down. Later he mooned a passing helicopter. He also built leads of 13-3 after one quarter, 23-3 after two, and 44-3 after three in the least competitive Super Bowl. As a passer, his opponent, Tony Eason, was 0 for six when benched for the day.

V

1971--ORANGE BOWL, MIAMI

Baltimore Colts 16, Dallas Cowboys 13

It was competitive only because a series of blunders kept both sides from scoring. There were five fumbles and six interceptions, among other misplays, by probably the two worst teams the NFL has sent into a Super Bowl game. The Cowboys admitted it. The Colts only played like it. They began by blowing an extra point but finally won on a 32-yard field goal by Jim O’Brien.

*

Minnesota lost to four different AFC teams in 1970s Super Bowls, by an average score of 24-9, without ever threatening to come close. The Vikings were scoreless at the half in all four games, and after three quarters twice.

The results:

IV (1970) Tulane Stadium, New Orleans: Kansas City, 23-7.

VIII (1974) Rice Stadium, Houston: Miami, 24-7.

IX (1975) Tulane Stadium, New Orleans: Pittsburgh, 16-6.

XI (1977) Rose Bowl: Raiders 32-14.

There has never been a Super Bowl shutout, but the Vikings avoided one in 1975 only by blocking a punt for a touchdown. Then they blew the extra point.

That was the winter of Pittsburgh owner Art Rooney’s first championship of any kind during 42 years in pro football. It might be remembered as the worst of the Super Bowls if it weren’t more warmly remembered as the first of four Rooney victories.

*

The other four games on the list of the 10 worst Super Bowls were all Denver defeats. Starting their run in 1978, the year after Minnesota lost for the last time, the Broncos progressed from bad to terrible, giving up 27 points the first time, then 39, then 42, and finally 55. The 55 is the Super Bowl record.

The results:

XII (1978) New Orleans: Dallas, 27-10, in the first Superdome game.

XXI (1987) Rose Bowl: New York Giants, 39-20.

XXII (1988) Jack Murphy-San Diego Stadium: Washington, 42-10.

XXIV (1990) Superdome: San Francisco, 55-10.

In John Elway’s best Super Bowl, the Broncos, with more luck, could have beaten the Giants at the Rose Bowl. They led at the half, 10-9, and it could have been 20-9, or more, with straighter kicks by Rich Karlis, who missed a couple of short ones, and with more imaginative play-calling when they lined up for three downs on the Giant one-yard line.

There, although Elway had been passing effectively, he was grounded. The bench sent in three consecutive running plays, and all three failed.

Then in the third quarter, the Giants ran on fourth and one at midfield, and made it, as Coach Bill Parcells borrowed a page from the book of Washington Coach Joe Gibbs, who had won the Super Bowl four years earlier with a 43-yard touchdown by John Riggins on fourth and one.

The psychology of Game XXI changed on the short-yardage plays. The Broncos sagged, the Giants came on.

A year later in San Diego, Denver was the victim of the greatest 15 minutes any Super Bowl quarterback ever had, Doug Williams’ 35-point second quarter.

The Rating Game

THE BEST

III * Jets 16, Colts 7

XIII * Steelers 35, Cowboys 31

XXIII * 49ers 20, Bengals 16

XIV * Steelers 31, Rams 19

X * Steelers 21, Cowboys 17

THE NEXT FIVE * XVII (Redskins 27, Dolphins 17); XXV (Giants 20, Bills 19); I (Packers 35, Chiefs 10); IV (Chiefs 23, Vikings 7*); VII (Dolphins 14, Redskins 7)

THE WORST

XX * Bears 46, Patriots 10

V * Colts 16, Cowboys 13

FOUR MINNESOTA DEFEATS * IV (Chiefs 23, Vikings 7*); VIII (Dolphins 24, Vikings 7); IX (Steelers 16, Vikings 6); XI Raiders 32, Vikings 14)

FOUR DENVER DEFEATS * XII (Cowboys 27, Broncos 10); XXI (Giants 39, Broncos 20); XXII (Redskins 42, Broncos 10); XXIV (49ers 55, Broncos 10)

* The Len Dawson drama put it among the 10 best. The Vikings made it one of the 10 worst.

The Staff for Super Bowl Special Section

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Assistant Section Editor: Steve Horn

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