What could be simpler than picking an all-time Super Bowl team?
You start with quarterback Terry Bradshaw, of course, who led Most Valuable Player? And how about Joe Montana of San Francisco, who in 1985 joined Starr and Bradshaw as the only two-time Super Bowl MVPs? What about Roger Staubach? And Joe Namath?
Forget the quarterbacks. It`s got to be Bradshaw, the most prolific Super Bowl winner of them all. Move on to the coaches. It`s unanimous. Chuck Noll, Bradshaw`s coach, who scored all those Super Bowl victories, yet never once was named Coach of the Year, is the all-time Super Bowl coach.
And never mind the uproars from Green Bay, where Vince Lombardi coached the first two Super Bowl winners, or from other outposts such as Dallas and Miami, where Tom Landry and Don Shula generated a total of 10 Super Bowl teams. Bud Grant generated four at Minnesota, too, but never won one.
See how much fun it can be? It`s all in the spirit of good clean mayhem, like a forearm shiver.
The Tribune herewith presents its all-time Super Bowl team, chosen by longtime members of the sports staff, some of whom can even remember Green Bay`s inaugural 35-10 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in 1967.
There were no specific ground rules in the selection of this squad, except one. Logically, we think, the team is weighted toward players from such perennial Super Bowl entries as the Steelers, Cowboys and Dolphins, plus the Packer powerhouse of the `60s. Career excellence doesn`t count; only Super Bowl performances.
Hence, only one Bear–linebacker Mike Singletary–made the team, because the Bears made their only Super Bowl visit a year ago in the 46-10 victory over New England.
Singletary, who captained the Bear defense that held three teams in the 1986 playoffs to a total of 10 points, is the quarterback of a defense that undeniably is one of the best in history. The six-year veteran from Baylor recovered two fumbles in Super Bowl XX to tie the record.
All three of the linebackers on The Tribune`s all-time Super Bowl team are middle linebackers. Sentiment among selectors was so strong in favor of Green Bay`s Ray Nitschke and Pittsburgh`s Jack Lambert that outside linebacker Chuck Howley of Dallas, the only member of a losing team ever to be named most valuable (Super Bowl V) was omitted from the team along with such other strong linebacker candidates as Hall-of-Famers Bobby Bell and Willie Lanier of Kansas City and Rod Martin of the Raiders, who intercepted three passes against Philadelphia in 1981.
Nitschke, a feisty combatant who was Lombardi`s pet reclamation product, was the heart and guts of the Packer defense. The same could be said for Lambert, who was feared by his Steeler teammates because of his temper tantrums.
”He used to bellow so loud,” recalls safety Donnie Shell, ”that I got kinda scared. I don`t remember what he said, but I never answered back.”
”I did go into a tirade,” Lambert admitted after the Steelers had beaten the Rams 31-19 in Super Bowl XIV. ”We weren`t flying around the field like we should have been.”
Bradshaw, who was ripped for lack of intelligence during his early years, merely led the Steelers to four Super Bowl victories (in 1975, 1976, 1979 and 1980).
”You could spot Bradshaw the `C` and `A,` ” sneered linebacker
”Hollywood” Henderson of the Cowboys, ”and he couldn`t spell `cat.` ”
Bradshaw was smart enough to win MVP honors in Super Bowls XIII and XIV. In perhaps the greatest game he ever played, Bradshaw threw a record four touchdown passes to beat Dallas 35-31 in 1979 in Miami.
”You couldn`t ask for a finer quarterback than Terry was today,”
said Pittsburgh wide receiver Lynn Swann, who caught the game clincher.
”Bradshaw throws a football 20 yards like I throw a dart 15 feet,” said safety Charlie Waters of Dallas, also named to The Tribune team.
The following year, again winning MVP honors in Pasadena, Bradshaw set two passing records as the Steelers became the first and only club to win four Super Bowls. Trailing the Rams 13-10 at halftime, Bradshaw hit Swann and John Stallworth to bring his Super Bowl TD pass total to nine.
Bradshaw completed 49 of the 84 passes he threw in four winning Super Bowl performances for 932 yards. Staubach, who won two of the four games in which he participated and was MVP in the Cowboys` 24-3 victory over Miami in 1972, completed 61 of 98 passes for 734 yards and 8 touchdowns. But he had to be content with playing second fiddle to Bradshaw everywhere but in the Texas panhandle.
Seven members of the great Steeler team that dominated the decade of the `70s were selected to The Tribune all-time Super Bowl squad.
Franco Harris, who rushed 101 times for 354 yards and scored 4 touchdowns and 24 points in four Super Bowl games, was named to a running-back berth in tandem with Miami`s Larry Csonka, who carried 57 times for 297 yards and 2 touchdowns in three games. Csonka was most valuable against the Vikings in 1974 and Harris won the sports car award the following year, also against Minnesota. The back-to-back honors may not say much for the Viking rushing defense, but they say a lot about Csonka and Harris.
John Riggins didn`t make it, despite the MVP award the Washington battering ram won after he chugged through the Miami defense for 166 yards on 38 carries (both Super Bowl records) in 1983. But neither did such other productive runners as Matt Snell, Tony Dorsett, Marcus Allen and Preston Pearson.
Snell carried 30 times for 121 yards and a touchdown in the famous
”Joe Namath game” in which the Jet quarterback predicted a victory over Baltimore in the third game of the young series and then made good on his promise, bringing the fledgling American Football League instant credibility. Dorsett ran and caught passes for 217 yards in two appearances for Dallas. Allen, the Raider phenom, totaled nearly that amount (209 yards) in his one appearance in Super Bowl XVIII, when he was MVP. Pearson, a onetime University of Illinois basketball player, appeared in five Super Bowls for three different teams (Colts, Steelers, Cowboys).
Other legendary Steelers named to the team–in addition to Bradshaw, Lambert and Harris–were Swann, the acrobatic wide receiver whose very name implied ballet-like grace; defensive tackle Joe Greene, who endeared himself to a generation of fans by exchanging his game jersey for a bottle of Coke with a little boy in a TV commercial; cornerback Mel Blount and center Mike Webster.
Swann, who totaled 16 pass receptions in four Super Bowl games, grabbed 4 of them for 161 yards to win most valuable honors in the Steelers`
21-17 victory over Dallas in Super Bowl X. Swann is paired with another gifted MVP, Fred Biletnikoff, at wide receiver. Biletnikoff caught 4 key passes for 79 yards to lead Oakland`s 32-14 victory over Minnesota in Super Bowl XI.
Two of Biletnikoff`s catches of Ken Stabler`s passes on that January, 1977, day in Pasadena set up touchdowns and prompted Viking safety Paul Krause to mutter, ”I don`t think I could play Biletnikoff any better on the two balls he caught near the goal line.”
Biletnikoff, who had played in Super Bowl II nine years earlier, heard the announcement he had been named MVP as he was trotting off the Rose Bowl field and burst into tears.
”A stick of gum would have been reward enough,” he said.
”Freddie is a very emotional fellow,” Stabler said. ”Photographers were snapping his picture and the game was still going on. It really was a great experience to see something like that, because he deserved it so much.” Nostalgia buffs might prefer Max McGee rather than Swann or Biletnikoff as a starter at wide receiver on the Super Bowl All-Stars. McGee caught Starr`s pass with one hand behind his back to lead the Packers to victory over Kansas City in Super Bowl I.
McGee, who in his own words ”waddled in about 7:30 in the morning”
after being out all night because he hadn`t expected to be asked to play, was inserted in the game after Boyd Dowler was injured. He caught 7 passes for 138 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Marv Fleming, who played on two Super Bowl teams for Green Bay and three for Miami, beat out such illustrious competitors as Todd Christensen
–one of the Super Bowl`s most intellectual chatterboxes–John Mackey and Dave Casper to win the tight end position.
Fleming caught six Super Bowl passes for the Packers. Yet he said about the undefeated 1972 Dolphins: ”This team is greater than the Packer championship teams I played on.”
Christiansen, still an active Raider, is more at home with Churchill, Browning and Shakespeare than with Howie Long. Christiansen, who played in two Super Bowls, is the poet laureate of the Raiders.
”As Robert Browning said, `Man`s reach is to exceed his grasp,”`
said Christiansen, who reached out and grasped four passes in Super Bowl XVIII.
Forrest Gregg, called by Lombardi ”the greatest offensive lineman I ever saw,” anchors the forward wall of the Super Bowl all-stars from the right tackle spot. Gregg played both right and left tackle and right guard during his Green Bay career.
Rayfield Wright, who played in five Super Bowls for the Dallas Cowboys, is the left tackle. The guards are Russ Grimm, still a stalwart with the Washington Redskins, and Bob Kuechenberg, whose four Miami Dolphin Super Bowl appearances spanned 11 years.
Minnesota quarterback Fran Tarkenton once said, ”Kuechenberg not only is the best offensive guard in football; he is the best ever to play the game.”
Kuechenberg had impressive help in Super Bowls VI, VII and VIII from the two men on his right, center Jim Langer and guard Larry Little. In Super Bowl XVII, Dwight Stephenson moved in at center alongside ”Kooch” and was Miami`s best offensive lineman in Super Bowl IX.
There have been so many outstanding offensive linemen in the Super Bowl, it`s a pity there isn`t room for a dozen starters on an all-star team. Jon Kolb and Larry Brown of the Steelers each played in four Super Bowls but received very little recognition. Art Shell and Gene Upshaw bulwarked the left side of the Raiders` left-handed running team for southpaw Stabler in Super Bowl XI.
Defensive linemen have been eulogized by colorful nicknames in pro football lore. Remember the Rams` Fearsome Foursome, the Vikings` Purple People Eaters and the Steelers` Iron Curtain? It`s difficult to visualize a more formidable quartet than an all-time Super Bowl defensive line of Green Bay`s Willie Davis, Greene and Dallas` Randy White and Harvey Martin. White and Martin were co-MVPs in Super Bowl XII.
”With those four guys up front,” cracked personnel chief Gil Brandt of the Cowboys, ”the linebackers could just about take the day off.”
For a back-up defensive line, how about L.C. Greenwood, Alan Page, Bob Lilly and Jack Youngblood (who played Super Bowl XIV with a broken arm)?
The defensive secondary of Herb Adderley, Blount, Jake Scott and Waters would be a coach`s dream, even Buddy Ryan`s. Adderley played spectacularly four times on two Super Bowl teams (Green Bay and Dallas). Scott intercepted two passes in one game for Miami (Super Bowl VII) and was Most Valuable Player.
”Scott was exceptional,” Brandt said. ”But weren`t they all?”
