Super Bowl Could Do Without This Ripple

The Super Bowl Week media circus began here Monday. That means, ladies and gentlemen, start the questioning.

ESPN talent producer Todd Fritz did some research to find dumb questions asked during Super Bowl Week. Here’s one that was asked on Day 1 last year in San Diego of then-Tampa Bay backup quarterback Rob Johnson, who is from Orange County:

“Had a chance to do any surfing?”

Trivia time: Bart Starr was the most valuable player of the first two Super Bowls. Who was the MVP last year?

Sapped: Tampa Bay’s Warren Sapp was asked last year about the Oakland Raiders’ Jerry Rice, since the lineman had been responsible for injuring the receiver a few years earlier.

Sapp said the two had patched things up at the Pro Bowl, adding, “I even have his helmet at my house.”

A reporter asked, “Did he give it to you?”

Sapp: “No, I stole it.”

Setting record straight: Jeff Merron of espn.com writes about Super Bowl Week in 1988 in San Diego, when the Washington Redskins’ Doug Williams was supposedly asked, “How long have you been a black quarterback?”

Merron claims the question was never asked.

“After Williams suffered through countless queries about being the first black quarterback to start a Super Bowl, Butch John, a reporter for the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger, seemed to have had enough,” Merron writes. “So he said, ‘Doug, it’s obvious you’ve always been a black quarterback all your life. When did it start to matter?’

“John’s statement and question were jokes. Most reporters there got it, and they laughed. And then it was printed. But it has been twisted around.”

Incentive: A recent Morning Briefing trivia question was about former NFL coach Sam Wyche playing in the 1973 Super Bowl as a backup quarterback with the Washington Redskins. Several readers asked who started for the Redskins.

It was Billy Kilmer. Wyche didn’t get into any games that season, but he almost got into a playoff game against Green Bay, even if that wasn’t what Richie Petitbon, then a Redskin safety, had in mind.

“I got knocked out cold,” Kilmer told Morning Briefing. “I was over on the sidelines, and they were giving me smelling salts when Richie Petitbon came over and asked me if I’d be ready for the next series. He told me, ‘You’d better be because Wyche is behind you warming up and he’s already thrown two interceptions.’ ”

Kilmer said he was soon up and ready to go.

Trivia answer: Tampa Bay safety Dexter Jackson.

And finally: Justin Snow is the Indianapolis Colt long snapper who sailed the ball over punter Hunter Smith’s head in the loss to New England in the AFC championship game. Writes Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe: “Turns out the snapper’s name is also the answer to a question he was posed. As in, ‘Have any trouble snapping the ball?’ ”

Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.