THE SUPERHERO
HOUSTON — Maybe it will be Tom Brady who makes the biggest play of Super Bowl LI on Sunday. It could happen. Stars — specifically, star quarterbacks — have been known to rise to the occasion in the biggest game. Joe Namath did. Brett Favre did. Joe Montana did time and time again. So did Roger Staubach and Terry Bradshaw.
Maybe it will be Julio Jones, who is the breakout star of this Super Bowl week that is admittedly quiet and muted by most standards of Super Bowl week. The two weeks’ pause between games has allowed a vast appreciation for Jones’ gifts to grow, and it would surprise nobody if the Falcons receiver had the kind of eye-popping impact Lynn Swann used to regularly bring to Super Bowls, the way Jerry Rice did, the way Larry Fitzgerald did in his only shot at The Game.
“I wanted to make sure that the rest of my life, whenever I look back at this game, I know I gave my very best,” Swann said after Super Bowl X, the one in which he made about three of the most ridiculous catches anyone ever has made. “I think I did that.” Here’s the thing, though: What’s just as likely to happen is this: A guy you have paid zero attention to — maybe even a guy you still have never heard of — is going to make a play on Sunday at NRG Stadium. He’s going to make an absurd interception (hello, Malcolm Butler!) or make a catch that defies six different laws of physics (good to see you again, David Tyree), or make a game-saving tackle 1 yard shy of the end zone on the game’s final play, the way the Rams’ Mike Jones did against Tennessee’s Kevin Dyson in Super Bowl XXXIV.
Really, that’s the beauty of the Super Bowl: when the forgotten names rise to the fore and perform as nobody could have expected. And there have been few Super Bowls that hold such promise as this one does, because aside from Brady and Jones and Matt Ryan and a couple of others scattered on both rosters, these are teams composed of grinders who fill their roles and fill them well. And one of them is going to have America talking about him Monday morning.
And it won’t stop there. Heck, the Super Bowl has been delivering these stories from the start. For years Bart Starr has told the story of walking down to the hotel lobby around 7 o’clock on the morning of Super Bowl I and running into Packers receiver Max McGee — only McGee wasn’t looking for a newspaper, he was returning from a night out on the town.
McGee barely played that year, but when Boyd Dowler was hurt, he went in the Super Bowl and caught two touchdown passes. McGee lived another 40 years after that game; rare was the day he wasn’t asked to recall that story. He never much minded.
Jack Squirek was a little-known linebacker with the Raiders until 12 seconds remained in the first half of Super Bowl XVIII. That’s when he sniffed out a Joe Theismann screen pass, returned it for a touchdown, and became one of the un- likeliest of all Super Bowl impact players.
“I never thought back then that people would still remember me,” Squirek told Sports Illustrated 27 years later. “They don’t recognize me by face, but my name rings a bell with some folks, and probably 20-30 times a year someone says something. It’s always nice.”
He’s out there. Somewhere. On Sunday morning of Super Bowl V, Jim O’Brien was a rookie placekicker who many of his Colts teammates derisively called “Lassie” because of his shaggy hair and carefree spirit; by Sunday night those teammates were mobbing him for booting the first game-winning field goal in Super Bowl history, affording many of them a mulligan for Super Bowl III.
On the morning of Super Bowl XXII, Timmy Smith was an unknown Washington rookie running back who had gained a total of 126 yards in his career. By Sunday night, he had chewed up the Broncos for 204 yards and two touchdowns. Sometimes you bring your star to the Super Bowl. And sometimes a star finds you.