When You Know Half the Story

March 15, 2022 Post a Comment

Seventh in a series looking dorsum at the Super Bowls held in the Los Angeles area. Inside stories on Super Bowl XXVII that influenced a change in future games:

The most recent Super Bowl in Los Angeles was a launching pad for Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman and the Dallas Cowboys. They crushed the Buffalo Bills, 52-17, in Super Bowl XXVII on January. 31, 1993.

"I would always get a picayune uptight before games," said Aikman, now lead game analyst for Play tricks. "Merely I wasn't at all on this day. I was then relaxed. I was a piffling surprised by it. I couldn't believe how calm I was leading upwards to the game.

"As a quarterback particularly, you can put a lot of pressure on yourself. Only I came back in after pregame warmups and thought, 'Human being, I experience pretty calm. I experience proficient. I'm ready to go.' "

That calm didn't last.

"When they did pregame introductions, that's when information technology hit me," he said. "We get back in the locker room, we come out, they innovate the offense, they introduce me and when I come running out of that tunnel, the electricity and the emotion, everything in that stadium, information technology took my jiff away."

At that place were lots of behind-the-scenes stories in this game. In laurels of Aikman'due south jersey number, here are eight you lot likely didn't know:

i — Like shooting fish in a barrel like Sunday morning time

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman runs with the ball against the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVII.

The Super Bowl was a homecoming for Aikman, who was the No. ane overall pick out of UCLA in 1989. So it helped, in accelerate of the biggest game of his life, that the Cowboys skilful on campus at Spaulding Field, had Bruins equipment managers helping out and stayed in a Santa Monica hotel.

"I was eating dinners during the calendar week at places I was familiar with from college," Aikman said. "I call up that really helped me go in a condolement zone during the calendar week where it just felt like home. Then to be playing at the Rose Bowl, and we used the same locker room I used at UCLA. The whole feel was very comfortable."

SoFi Stadium's top level in August 2020.

Super Bowl LVI coverage

Until the Saturday night earlier the game.

"We got out of meetings and we went back to my room," Aikman said. "Information technology was me and [teammates] John Gesek, Dale Hellestrae and Jay Novacek. Nosotros're sitting there watching some film and all of a sudden nosotros hear this noise and I'1000 like, 'Is that thunder?'

"I look outside and it was pouring down rain. I could not believe it."

For Aikman in item, that was a trouble.

"I couldn't throw a wet ball at all," he said. "The biggest game of my life and information technology's raining? At present I'yard starting to panic a little bit."

Although he initially was concerned he might not be able to fall asleep, that wasn't an result.

"I slept nifty," he said. "I woke up, and the outset matter I did was rush to the window. I opened the shades and drapes to encounter what kind of day it was. Information technology was a perfect Southern California day."

2 — Once more with feeling

The Super Bowl XXVII halftime show featured more than 10,000 people raising colored cards to create a mosaic of children

The NFL was under heavy self-imposed pressure to go big with the halftime testify — not just considering this game was being played in the entertainment capital just because of what happened a year earlier in Minneapolis.

There, the NFL staged a halftime show called "Winter Magic: A Salute to the 1992 Winter Olympics," and featured Brian Boitano and Dorothy Hamill skating to the music of Gloria Estefan. Entertaining? Sure. But it wasn't the Rolling Stones.

A fledgling TV network saw an opportunity and seized information technology. In a historic bit of counterprogramming, Fox aired a live episode of the comedy show "In Living Color" that featured football-themed sketches, a functioning by Color Me Badd and a clock in the corner of the screen that counted down to the start of the third quarter, so fans could switch back to the game.

The special siphoned 20 million-25 million viewers from the Super Bowl, and Nielsen estimated that CBS lost a staggering 10 ratings points during halftime.

That was unacceptable to the NFL. No more "Wintertime Magic" halftime shows.

The league didn't mess around. It secured Michael Jackson for the next halftime show.

iii — Flipping out

Here's how unlike the world was when the Super Bowl was final played in Los Angeles:

The pregame coin toss was performed by O.J. Simpson.

Simpson, a former star running back for the Bills, was an NBC Sports analyst at the time. That was 17 months before the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, and the subsequent "Trial of the Century."

(The Bills called heads and won the toss.)

4 — One who (almost) got away

Garth Brooks sang the national anthem, simply that almost didn't happen. The country superstar was refusing to take the field inside minutes of his scheduled performance.

First of all, Brooks had done a ton for the NFL during Super Basin week, including two concerts, anthem rehearsals, appearances and a reported $1-million donation to the league's youth educational activity charities. He was being pulled in all sorts of directions.

Garth Brooks sings the national anthem as actress Marlee Matlin signs.

Simply he too had a request. He wanted the video for his song "We Shall Be Complimentary" to exist office of the Super Bowl circulate.

"It was coming off the 50.A. riots, and he said to NBC, 'I've got a song and a video, would you lot play it on air?' And the game's producer told him yes," recalled Jim Steeg, who oversaw Super Bowls for the NFL at the fourth dimension. "The bad news is, Garth showed up at the game somewhere correct after noon. NBC was already on the air and took the position the network was not going to show it considering there wasn't enough fourth dimension to preview it."

Brooks was fuming and said he wasn't going to sing. He left the locker room and offered words of encouragement to actress Marlee Matlin, who was going to join him on the field and perform the canticle in sign language.

NBC tried unsuccessfully to dissuade Brooks from leaving, only the singer headed upwardly the tunnel and out of the Rose Bowl, with an NFL executive at his side urging him non to walk through the crowd and instead wait for a league car.

"So he's standing at the height of the tunnel and the fans see him and are all yelling at him, 'Become get 'em' and 'You lot'll do a great job,' all this stuff," Steeg recalled.

Meanwhile, NBC was engaged in frantic discussions nearly what to do, and Steeg was trying to detect an alternate solution.

Garth Brooks and Marlee Matlin hug after performing the national anthem at Super Bowl XXVII.

"I walked out of the tunnel onto the field," Steeg said. "Everybody was kind of screaming at me on the radio maxim, 'What are we gonna do? What are nosotros gonna do?' I call up I said something similar, 'Shut the … up and permit me retrieve.'

"At that point I saw a friend of mine from Radio Urban center and he's sitting at that place with Jon Bon Jovi. We kind of looked at each other and I whistled Jon down to the field and said, 'Would you like to sing the anthem?' and he said yes.

"So I beginning walking back in with him, and now NBC has kind of recanted their whole position on playing this video. Then that, and the fans shouting encouragement to him, I think convinced Garth to come back and sing it."

Both Brooks and Bon Jovi were getting set to sing.

"There was a moment when they were about 30 feet away from each other just staring at each other," Steeg said. "Garth decided to exercise information technology. I thanked Jon and he went back up into the stands."

Brooks sang the anthem, and NBC aired the video.

5 — Get a grip

Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith (22) picks up yardage under Buffalo Bills linebacker Cornelius Bennett.

Equally pristine and spectacular as the Rose Basin field was, a lot of the Cowboys players were having a hard fourth dimension finding their ground in the first half. Turns out, their one-half-inch cleats weren't long enough. So the equipment coiffure sprang into action and started switching to v/8-inch screw-in spikes on the wing.

"I call back nosotros were completed by the commencement of the second quarter, possibly even sooner," Cowboys fullback Daryl Johnston said. "Our equipment guys were like NASCAR pit crews. They had drills in their hands, taking people'southward cleats out and putting the longer ones in.

"If you spotter the replays, you lot'll see that our guys start to get amend footing equally the game goes on."

Cowboys equipment director Mike McCord, who was in his first year equally an assistant on the equipment staff at the fourth dimension, said the difference was considerable.

"Not to say the Bills were slipping and sliding all over the place," he said, "but our guys had then much confidence playing the game, and it just showed on moving-picture show that there was no apprehension on their part in terms of making cuts across the field and changing management."

half dozen — At the one-half

Michael Jackson yells and spreads his arms as he performs during the halftime show at Super Bowl XXVII.

So what did Dallas coaches tell their players at halftime? Don't ask Michael Irvin and Charles Haley, considering at least for a fleck, those ii Cowboys stars quietly slipped out of the locker room to take hold of a glimpse of Jackson's halftime prove.

"Jimmy Johnson was a downwards-to-the-letter of the alphabet passenger vehicle, and so we couldn't leave when he was talking," recalled Irvin, a Hall of Fame receiver and NFL Network analyst. "But Jimmy also said, 'Yous practice what you lot have to do to be ready to play. Don't hurt the squad and be ready to play.' He understood individualism."

Michael Jackson leaps among the pyrotechnics during the halftime show at Super Bowl XXVII.

And in this case, individualism meant checking out what is nevertheless regarded by some equally the greatest Super Bowl halftime evidence (although others argue the Prince testify was better.).

"We came to the locker room and met every bit a team," Irvin said. "It was once we broke downwardly into our individual groups that we sneaked back out. I told my coach I had to become to the bathroom."

Dallas might take been more buttoned down had information technology not been leading at half, 28-iii.

"I scored those ii touchdowns right before one-half," Irvin said. "So there was a little fleck of peace right earlier halftime. We were feeling practiced. Say we were down? It would have been a whole dissimilar state of affairs."

Haley, a Hall of Fame outside linebacker/defensive end, declined to speak to The Times for this story simply is said to be a huge Michael Jackson fan. In fact, in at least two of his rookie cards with the San Francisco 49ers, Haley is wearing 1 glove — and team insiders say that was an homage to the King of Pop.

7 — Future daze

Not all the NFL stars at the Rose Bowl that Sunday played for the Cowboys and Bills. Future All-Pro receiver Steve Smith was there, too. He was an 8th-grader from South Los Angeles visiting the historic stadium as ane of hundreds of kids in Jackson's halftime show.

"I liked Michael Jackson, just it was a little flake surreal," Smith said. "There were folks fainting. He was the biggest star. Girls were over hither fainting and crying, and I'm like,'Maaaan…'"

Informed that his boyfriend NFL Network analyst Irvin left the locker room to watch the show, Smith nodded knowingly: "I believe that. Yeah, I believe it."

8 — Agent of change

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman smiles and lifts a fist while celebrating at Super Bowl XXVII.

Aikman had a spectacular game, throwing for four touchdowns and no interceptions with a lofty passer rating of 140.vii. He was named the near valuable player of the game. It was all a whirlwind for him, and before he knew it he was in a limousine with his agent, Leigh Steinberg, and heading back to the squad hotel in Santa Monica.

"I said to him, 'Troy, do you know what but happened?' " Steinberg said. "And he said, 'Yep, nosotros but won the game.' I said, 'No, your life will never be the same. When you lot went into the stadium, you were Troy Aikman, very expert quarterback. And as you exited, you were Troy Aikman, Super Bowl MVP, superstar."

Aikman was dubious.

"We get back to the hotel and in that location'south this mob waiting for our auto, yelling, screaming," Steinberg said. "He tin can hardly get out of the machine because they're all screaming for Troy."

The agent met eyes with his client and had 1 word for him:

"Meet?"

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Source: https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2022-02-11/8-things-about-super-bowl-xxvii-you-did-not-know-other-than-dallas-52-buffalo-17

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