SUPER BOWL XXVIII / BUFFALO BILLS vs. DALLAS COWBOYS : There’s No Hiding This Pair of Smiths

Remember those old high school annuals where they used to put under the pictures of certain students, “Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith”?

Well, fate failed in a big way in Super Bowl XXVIII. It could well be that the game--and the championship of the universe--is decided by a Smith. We have never had a President named Smith. But we could have a Super Bowl most valuable player.

The game could well degenerate into a contest of Smith vs. Smith.

First, there is Bruce. Don’t call him Smitty.

Bruce is No. 78 in your programs, but he’ll probably be wearing the quarterback most of the game.

Bruce is what they call a pass rusher in this league, a guy who takes off at the snap for the quarterback and tries to beat the ball there. But he’s also a run rusher. Bruce’s target is the ball. Carry it at your peril. It is as if he is a bear and you have one of his cubs in your hands.

His is a proud position--defensive end. Not so long ago, it was a position of anonymity, a fitting place for a guy named Smith to be. Nobody noticed.

Then, the game became aerial. The pass rush became an entity, a maneuver all its own. It became publicized, glamorized. The “Fearsome Foursome” came into existence. The “Gold Rush.” The word sack came into existence. Concussions crept into the language. Pass rushers were celebrities. Deacon Jones became the “Secretary of defense.” Even the cheerleading began to concentrate on “Dee-fense!”

Bruce Smith is the logical successor to all this. He is a Fearsome Onesome. He can almost decide a game all by himself.

Some years ago, I chanced to be in the Indianapolis Colts’ training facility, in a room with the coach, Ron Meyer, and most of the team. They were to play Buffalo that weekend. Meyer singled me out.

“Who,” he wanted to know, “do the Raiders consider the problem playing the Bills?”

I didn’t have to think long.

“Well,” I told him, “the ones I talk to, including Coach Tom Flores, think that new guy they have, Bruce Smith, is one hell of a football player, a one-man gang.”

The Colts found out that week. Bruce Smith rather completely dismantled their game plan.

And that Bruce Smith was nowhere near as good as the mature version. Bruce Smith today is as impassable as a mountain road. He is mastodonic, relentless. You should get one call to your priest when you see him coming.

Besides, he is unhappy. Oh, not with life in general. Bruce Smith is the current darling of TV commercials, where he comes off as a combination of the Abominable Snowman and the Creature That Ate Encino with terrified fans sneaking a sniff at one of his game shoes or being forced to don dresses for interfering with his pool game.

Off the field, he is less intimidating, even tries to be ingratiating. He smiles a lot--although one offensive lineman once said, “When No. 78 smiles that smile, run!” He speaks in cultured, half-whispered tones. He is a man obviously secure with himself, even being the No. 1 bogyman in the roughest contact sport in the world--this side of pugilism.

What Bruce Smith is unhappy about is, he thinks society--or at least that part of it that runs football--discriminates against him. Or defensive ends, in general. At least, they legislate against them.

They keep worrying that--thanks to the Bruce Smiths in the lineups--defense will take over the grid game.

Bruce Smith harks back to a time when the head slap was in vogue and legal. This was a homicidal maneuver by which Deacon Jones could--and did--make his way to the quarterback by delivering ringing blows to the sides of helmets of offensive linemen until they were reeling like a guy in a Joe Louis fight.

In those days, an offensive lineman had to hold his hands against his chest when he blocked. Today, he can stick them straight out in front of him and try to jerk the pass-rusher around.

“It’s not football, it’s basketball!” Bruce complains. “Next, they’ll want us to play in leg chains and handcuffs.”

Dallas might not think it such a bad idea along about 6 o’clock tonight. But they have a Smith of their own that fate couldn’t conceal.

That Smith is conceding about 80 pounds in weight and seven inches in height to Buffalo’s Smith. He probably doesn’t care whether you call him Smitty.

Bruce Smith may go a whole season not getting his hands on the ball. Emmitt Smith hardly goes a play. He has carried the ball 1,410 times in his four seasons in the league and has caught 212 passes.

How good is he? Well, the Dallas Cowboys picked him No. 1 in the ’90 draft, but even then Coach Jimmy Johnson noted they had “underestimated him.” They had ranked him fourth in the draft behind players--such as Cortez Kennedy and Junior Seau--who had already been drafted, but Johnson agreed he should have been No. 1.

How good is this Smith? Well, the Cowboys were 0-2 when he finally signed with them this year (for $13.6 million). They were 12-2 the rest of the way.

Emmitt Smith pooh-poohs the dramatic difference.

“The first game I was back, the team already had it won when I went in in the second half,” he says. “Same way in the third game.”

Emmitt is not always so self-effacing. He is a Pete Rose of football players. He knows his accomplishments and can recite them. He wants to improve on them. He hopes to overtake Walter Payton’s all-time rushing record, even though it would take eight seasons of 1,300 yards apiece to do it.

The extraordinary fact about Emmitt Smith is, he is not a refugee from an all-state--or an Olympic--relay team. In terms of football rushers, he is not fast. Not one of your 4.3-in-the-40 afterburners.

“Speed is overrated,” Emmitt Smith tells you. “In a game, very seldom does an individual run straight ahead. There is football speed and track speed. If you want a medal, run straight. If you want a touchdown, run sideways. Four-point-three is great for going from Point A to Point B. In football, you have to go from Point A to Point Z. You need balance, agility, more than speed.”

At 5 feet 9 and 209 pounds, Emmitt has the balance of a Kewpie doll. Says his blocker, Nate Newton: “Some backs run up your back, Emmitt runs around you. “

You’ve heard of keeping up with the Joneses. Keeping up with the Smiths may be the secret to Super Bowl XXVIII. They’re not kinfolks, but it just might be a Smith Bros. drop.

Under the spreading Georgia Dome, the village Smithies stand. To get to the trophy you either have to go through a Smith--or a Smith has to go through. Either way, there’ll be more Smiths in the paper on Monday than there are on a motel registry.