National Post (National Edition)
Super Bowl `loaded' with great pass catchers
Irvin's top-five list starts with Chiefs' Hill
Who better than Michael Irvin, a Pro Football Hall of Famer and one of the foremost wide receivers of the NFL's modern era, to rank the five best pass-catchers in Sunday's Super Bowl LV?
He did so for Postmedia on Wednesday.
“This game is loaded with pass-catchers,” Irvin, a superstar on three Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys teams in the 1990s, said on a conference call with reporters, held to promote NFL Network's lead-up coverage of Tampa Bay vs. Kansas City.
Irvin is an on-air analyst and game-day staple.
“If we're talking just pure wide receivers in this game, you have to just say, `Wow,' in looking at the talent that just Tampa has,” Irvin said. “But when you add in the tight ends and call them all pass catchers, everything changes. Everything.”
Start with Travis Kelce of the Chiefs.
He's the NFL's most dangerous and prolific tight end over the past few seasons. In the 2020 regular season he finished fourth in the league in receiving yards with 1,229, and eighth in receptions with 97 — both best at his position.
“I always said it's much more difficult to stop a great tight-end/wide-receiver combination than it is to stop two great receivers,” Irvin said.
And with Tyreek Hill — the small, bursty, elusive wide receiver who has become a circus-catch playmaker extraordinaire — Kansas City has just such a lethal combo for quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
How lethal? Consider that in two playoff wins in January, Hill and Kelce combined for 38 catches for 509 yards — whereas all of the Chiefs' other wideouts, tight ends and running backs combined for 18 catches for 143 yards.
Hill and Kelce have become practically the entire Chiefs passing attack; Mahomes looks for them constantly.
“Travis Kelce is such a mismatch. I don't care how you try to play him. He's so great at what he does,” Irvin said. “We have to put Kansas City tops (in this game).”
Kelce, 31, is on a likely hall-of-fame career path.
The Buccaneers, meanwhile, counter at tight end themselves with two formidable targets for quarterback Tom Brady: future hall-of-famer Rob Gronkowski (who's 31 but becoming dangerous again after one year in retirement) and Cameron Brate (one of Brady's go-to targets on possession throws).
Gronk isn't in Kelce's class, but in big games Brady looks for him constantly, as he did for nearly a decade in New England during three NFL championship seasons.
It's at wide receiver where the Bucs boast a deeper roster of stars than Kansas City. Just one season ago, both Mike Evans and Chris Godwin were named to the Pro Bowl. They were a big reason Brady chose Tampa Bay as his free-agent destination last March.
The tall, big-bodied but speedy Evans is prolific; he's the first pass-catcher in NFL history to begin his career with seven straight 1,000-yard seasons.
The shorter Godwin has battled injuries all season. He even had pins inserted into a broken finger in November. In the playoffs his confidence, at times, seems to have been rattled by drops.
Then there's Antonio Brown. Since November, when healthy, the former Pittsburgh Steelers superstar has seen his impact in the Bucs offence skyrocket; “AB” at age 32 has caught five touchdown passes since Dec. 20.
Plus, Brady has Scotty Miller, a smurfy slot receiver who's so speedy he might be the fastest player on the field Sunday not named Tyreek Hill.
“Tampa has such great diversity at the wide receiver position,” Irvin said.
“Antonio Brown can do it all. Scotty Miller can get you deep. Even (rookie) Tyler Johnson is making plays. I love their diversity.”
So what about this game's top five pass catchers, ranked from 1 through 5?
“I would certainly have to start with Tyreek Hill,” Irvin said. “And probably, in this game, I would go (next) with Travis Kelce.
“And then Mike Evans, Antonio Brown and Chris Godwin. That's the top five.”
Every Super Bowl head coach worries all week before the big game. About everything.
Eliminating nightlife temptations that could tempt his players into trouble is one of the biggest.
With that in mind, imagine what went through Bill Cowher's mind 15 years ago this week, when the AFC champion Pittsburgh Steelers arrived in Detroit for Super Bowl XL.
Cowher plunked down his luggage in his Detroit hotel, looked out the huge, south-facing, riverfront window — and immediately saw something he knew would cost him more sleep all week, blaring at him from across the Detroit River in downtown Windsor.
“I saw a casino,” Cowher said Wednesday, “and I'm thinking, `Oh my gosh.' And there's a bridge going over to the casino. So every day I say (to the players), `Do not cross the bridge.' You go over there and you can't get back? That's it.
“I want everybody's passports. And you're leaving them here.' ”
Cowher on Wednesday morning was among a small herd of CBS Sports' executive and on-air talent partaking in a conference call with reporters, promoting network's coverage of Sunday's Super Bowl LV.
Cowher volunteered the Windsor/Detroit anecdote when asked in general about Super Bowl-week distractions and nerves.
“Every night you sit there as a coach, you go to bed, and you hope you just … don't … get … that … call from your security guy.
“The next morning comes and it's like, `YES! We got through another night.'
“The potential distractions are there, but you want to also allow them to enjoy the process. (The Super Bowl) should not be a negative experience.”
A few minutes after sharing all that, Cowher was asked if he knew Windsor's downtown — at the time — was still a big cross-border draw for its, um, gentlemen's clubs.
“Listen, I knew it was a lot more than just gambling things in Windsor,” said Cowher coyly.