Morning briefing

Forgot to

remember

to forget

On ESPN’s Super Bowl pregame show Sunday, Don Shula and Mercury Morris joined Mike Ditka and Chris Berman to discuss the Miami Dolphins’ 17-0 season in 1972.

Shula, pointing out that other teams had come close to undefeated seasons since then, said, “And there was Mike’s team,” referring to the 1985 Chicago Bears.

“The only team to beat Mike’s team was the Miami Dolphins,” Shula added.

Said Ditka: “I remember.”

Trivia time

What was the Indianapolis Colts’ record after they defeated the Chicago Bears in last season’s Super Bowl?

Apt analogy

With Super Tuesday coming up, Morris described the Dolphins’ feat 35 years ago by saying: “This record is old enough to be president.”

Do as I say . . .

ESPN’s Ron Jaworski, who was the Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback when they lost to the Oakland Raiders, 27-10, in Super Bowl XV in January 1981, had this advice for the New York Giants’ Eli Manning:

“He’s got to inhale, then exhale and be very calm. Do not make a mistake early like I did in Super Bowl VX when I had my first pass intercepted. I tried too hard to make a play.”

He appears calm

In a feature on Manning by ESPN’s Chris Mortensen, the quarterback’s low-key personality was a focal point. Manning said when he would come from a high school game and someone would ask him how the game went, he’d say, “It went well, we won.”

Older brother Cooper Manning said, if it was a basketball game, “You couldn’t tell if he fouled out in the second quarter or made the game-winning shot.”

Weak retraction

Before Super Bowl XIII, played in January 1979, the Dallas Cowboys’ Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson said of Terry Bradshaw: “He couldn’t spell ‘cat’ if you spotted him the C and the A.”

After Bradshaw passed for four touchdowns to lead the Steelers to a 35-31 victory over the Cowboys, Henderson said, “I didn’t say he couldn’t play, just that he couldn’t spell.”

Not always

a bad thing

Fox’s Super Bowl pregame show Sunday featured a discussion about how the teams now get police escorts to the stadium.

Howie Long said when the Los Angeles Raiders played the Washington Redskins in Tampa, Fla., in Super Bowl XVIII in January 1984, he and Lyle Alzado had to take a cab to the stadium, then get out and walk the final three-quarters of a mile.

At Super Bowl X, when the Steelers played the Cowboys in Miami, Bradshaw said, “They held up our bus and we thought maybe the president was coming through. But it was the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders marching by, and I really didn’t mind.”

Nice consolation

Carl Grether, who has a farm in Somis, Calif., is the owner of Intangaroo, winner of Saturday’s Grade I Santa Monica Handicap at Santa Anita at odds of nearly 27-1. Because 3-10 favorite Hystericalady finished out of the money, Intangaroo paid $55.80 to win and $32.80 to show.

“I didn’t bet the horse to win, place or show,” Grether said, “but what the heck, I won $150,000 [the winner’s purse].”

Name game

Asked how he came up with the name Intangaroo for his 4-year-old filly, Grether said, “Her mare was Tasso Magic Roo, and my wife Lori and I were throwing some names out there playing off Roo. Intangaroo just sounded good.”

Trivia answer

The Colts finished 16-4. They went into the playoffs having lost their last two regular-season games, to Tennessee and San Diego.

And finally

Retired NFL official Jim Tunney, speaking at a recent Orange County Youth Sports Foundation banquet, said he got the highest score ever on his referees’ entrance exam.

“I got 98 out of 100 right,” he said. “The only two things I failed were eyesight and judgment.”

--

larry.stewart@latimes.com