EXPERIENCE CAN BE OVERRATED
49ers veteran Sherman says Super Bowl goes to team that plays the best football
So much for experience.
San Francisco 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman said previous Super Bowl experience doesn’t really matter. And, as usual, he makes a valid point.
“I’m one of those people who doesn’t really subscribe to the notion that playing in one Super Bowl really helps you in the next one,” he told a news conference. “I guess it gives you more experience to advise guys what to expect during the week. But once you kick off, and all the cameras flash one time, it ends up just being football.
“When we won our first Super Bowl (in Seattle) we didn’t have any experience. Nobody had been there, nobody had played there — and we won by almost 40 points.”
Right. The Seahawks crushed the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII, 43-8, then the next year narrowly lost to New England in Super Bowl XLIX, 28-24.
ASK THE DUDES WHO HIRE!
Sherman was asked if players, particularly players of colour, should do more to pressure owners into hiring minority head coaches and GMS. His sound rebuttal:
“I’m a black player and I’ve raised my voice about as loud as I can, and say as much as I can … But I put more of the responsibility on you, on the media. Because you’re asking people who have no say. You’re asking players and we literally have no say who gets hired, who gets fired. We have no say on whether WE get hired or fired.
“But the people who have a say, we don’t pressure. The owners, we don’t call (them out). Nobody asks them the hard questions because you don’t want to rub them the wrong way. You don’t want to get on their bad side. So I almost say it’s your fault that we don’t have those answers, because none of you guys are asking the hard questions.
“Everybody feels comfortable asking a player a hard question: ‘Why don’t these black folks get jobs?’ Ask the dudes who hire! Ask the dudes who have all the power in the world to hire and fire these men, then you’ll get the answers.”
JOB ADVICE
Robert Saleh, defensive coordinator of the 49ers, was one of two finalists earlier this month for the Cleveland Browns’ head coaching job that went to former Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski. While he said he didn’t know how to answer a question about how to change or expand the Rooney Rule — which mandates that a minority candidate be interviewed for every head coach or GM vacancy — he did offer this general career advice:
“Don’t chase money. Chase wanting to wake up in the morning and being happy. If you do that, everything will take care of itself.”
ON THE HUNT
What did it mean for the Hunt family, owners of the Kansas
City Chiefs, to raise the Lamar Hunt Trophy after winning the AFC championship on Jan. 19? Everything you would think. And more.
Lamar Hunt, who died in 2006, was founding owner of the Chiefs franchise. He also was a leading founder of the American Football League and Major League Soccer. Although the Chiefs went to two of the first Super Bowls, it was as AFL champion, not as post-merger AFC champion.
K.C. will play in its first Super Bowl this Sunday since winning one 50 years ago.
Chiefs president Mark Donovan (who was the NHL’S director of sales and marketing from 1997-99) is close not only to
Clark Hunt — one of Lamar’s three surviving sons — but also Hunt’s widow, Norma, and the rest of the Hunt family.
“Lamar was arguably one of the greatest sportsman in the history of sports,” Donovan said. “And they are living in his legacy, and they want nothing more than to celebrate his legacy, and be able to lift that trophy would be a huge step toward that end.
“For us in the building, especially (head coach) Andy Reid, (GM) Brett Veach and I — but especially our whole team — that was a special moment when Norma kissed the trophy, for us, because we knew what it meant. And now for all of us, as an entire organization, to be able to lift the Lombardi Trophy next. That’s why we do what we do, for as long as we’ve been doing it. It’s a fantastic opportunity for us.”
Donovan said Clark Hunt set out three overriding goals for the Chiefs this season:
“He laid it out in training camp. Our goals this year were to win the AFC West, win his father’s trophy and then win the Lombardi Trophy. It would mean the world to them. The fact that we were able to — for us, the people who work in the building — we understand what it means to them more so than most.”
SWAGGER SPREADS
Niners QB Jimmy Garoppolo gave his take on what it’s been like working with two crazy character types as his teams’ tight ends, both in New England from 2014-17 (Rob Gronkowski) and in San Francisco over the past two seasons with George Kittle.
“It’s awesome,” Garoppolo said of Kittle, in particular. “It makes you play with more swagger, too. And the receivers, the O-line, everybody. It’s just that trickle down effect of his mentality, and our whole offence’s mentality.
It’s just don’t go out of bounds, get that extra yard, make another guy tackle you. He’s just the epitome of that. It starts with him.
“Both of them are funny dudes to be around. They keep it light, always high energy. I don’t know how they do it every day, but somehow they always bring the juice. It makes for a fun locker-room.”
GRONK ON TIGHT ENDS
At the Fox Sports media availability, Gronk weighed in on this game’s two starting tight ends: Kittle of the 49ers and another free spirit in his own right, Travis Kelce of the Chiefs.
“I’ve met them both. They’re fantastic guys,” Gronkowski said. “I bet they’re fantastic to work with. I bet they would be fantastic teammates to play with, too … in all aspects.
“If I influenced them to just be themselves, then that’s great. Hopefully they stay true to themselves, too, because they’re great players and great dudes. It’s going to be fun to watch.”
Gronk said the Super Bowl the past two years has featured the game’s best tight ends, and he implied it’s no coincidence.
“You’ve got the top two tight ends in the NFL. I was in the Super Bowl last year, and now the top two tight ends are in the Super Bowl this year. The tight end position just keeps on transcending up, and it keeps on getting its recognition that it deserves. I feel like, back in the day, it didn’t get the recognition it should have. But now it really is, and it’s fantastic.”
JUST ANOTHER GAME … EVENTUALLY
Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, who led the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowl championships in the early 1990s, shared an interesting perspective regarding how the hoopla and gravity of the Super Bowl weighs on players in the early going.
“It is different. Everyone says it’s just another game. Eventually it does become just another game, but that’s not the case early on,” said Aikman, who will provide colour commentary for play-by-play man Joe Buck on Sunday’s game telecast. “This week you’ll know that it’s different, and when you take the field for the game, and you see all the pageantry, all of the excitement that takes place pre-game. It’s different than an NFC championship game, or AFC Championship Game. And if it hasn’t hit you before then, it certainly will then.”
How long does it take to settle down?
“Probably a quarter. The first one took me the longest,” Aikman said of the Cowboys’ first of two wins over the Buffalo Bills. “We were the youngest team in football, we came out and some bad things happened to us … and we got behind on a blocked punt. I thought it was going to be a blowout and I thought we were going to be on the receiving end of it.
“And then the tide turned, but by that second half, it did feel like another game. And you had to kind of remind yourself that, yeah, this is the Super Bowl. I think that was true of every game. Sometimes it happened right away, other times it took some time. As a quarterback, you hope that it happens sooner than later.”
STARTED WITH BASICS
I asked Chiefs QBS coach Mike Kafka what thing, or things, Patrick Mahomes improved on most while riding the bench behind starter Alex Smith in 2017.
“That year he learned how to prepare,” Kafka said. “He figured out what his Monday was going to be like. What his Tuesday was going to be. What his Wednesday was going to be. Then the second week, it was how can this Monday be a little better? And Tuesday?
“So you start stacking those days — in Week 5, Week 8, Week 10, Week 12 — and then all of a sudden in Week 17 you get an opportunity to go play, and you go out and play well. Because he felt confident about the work that he had done throughout that week. So it wasn’t like a shock to his system that week, that all of a sudden he was going to be playing. He had been putting in that work consistently, week over week.”
From there, Kafka added, Mahomes’ chief task in gearing up to become a starter was working his magic within the framework of Reid’s and offensive co-ordinator Eric Bieniemy’s offence.
“To figure out how you can put your twist on it,” Kafka said. “But let’s learn the base rules of how our offence operates first. And then coach Reid and EB (Eric Bieniemy), those guys do such a great job of allowing him to be himself within our offence, and putting his own flavour on things.
“And, of course, he does some ball-handling things really well. We didn’t quite have the same vision on that, but that works, so let’s do that. Because that works better than how we thought it was going to be. So it was a constant communication between Pat and the coaches as to what’s real in a real game.”