Fuente: © SuperBowl.com
http://www.superbowl.com/

SUPERBOWL: No. 9: Twists, turns doomed Cowboys

/noticias.info/ By Gil Brandt
NFL.com Senior Analyst

(Jan. 23, 2006) -- Super Bowl X brings back both good and bad memories for me. Bad for obvious reasons, since we lost the game. But good memories from the week leading up to the game.

Back then, the Super Bowl was a big event, but nowhere near the size and scope that it is today. The Cowboys stayed out in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., prior to the game, which was going to be played in the Orange Bowl in Miami. As there is every year, the Commissioner's party took place on Friday night. It was to be held at the Hialeah Race Track in Miami. In order to get there, we had to drive through a pretty rough neighborhood. John Wooten, who played for Cleveland and was working for Dallas at the time, and I drove out there together in my brand-new Pontiac that a dealership had given us to use.

Wouldn't you know it, but halfway there, our car breaks down. We're stuck on the side of the road and a car pulls up. I look at John and he looks at me. Before either one of us can say anything, (Dick) Night Train Lane sticks his head out the window and asks, "You guys need a lift?" Only at the Super Bowl do these types of things happen.

Our hotel was at Pier 66 in Ft. Lauderdale. It was basically a hotel/motel combination. The team came down on Sunday and the families all followed later in the week on Thursday. This was our third trip to the Super Bowl, and the second time we had played in Miami, so we knew what to expect for the most part. Now, teams have a huge production on Tuesdays for media day. But back then, media day consisted of all the players lounging at the pool. If a reporter wanted to talk to someone, he just walked over, pulled up a chair and sat there. We actually got a ballroom for Super Bowl X. It was probably the first time it wasn't poolside.

We practiced at the Yankees' spring-training facility. We didn't even have a regulation football field. It was just a grass field with random markings. We didn't know if something was 10 yards or 20 yards. The locker room was very small, to say the least. This was not a facility built for NFL players to change in.

Game day was even more interesting. Nowadays, the entire route to the stadium is mapped out well in advance and it goes off without a hitch. Well, not at Super Bowl X. Our bus made a wrong turn. I was in one of the buses with Percy Howard, a little-known wide receiver who was from the Miami area. At one point he said, "I think we made a wrong turn." Sure enough, we had. We ended up turning around the whole caravan and finding our way back to the right route.

The game itself was one of the best Super Bowls ever though, and the reason why it made the Top 10 list. The Cowboys and Steelers were two totally different teams. We had gadgets and trick plays, while they just drove the ball down your throat.

It was 10-7 Dallas going into the fourth quarter when the game slipped away from us. They blocked a punt and got a safety, which made it 10-9, and then added on two field goals to take a 15-10 lead. They scored late in the game as well, but missed the extra point to make it 21-10.

One strange moment from the game came during the third quarter. Roy Gerela was their kicker. He tried a field goal in the third quarter that missed. After the kick, one of our players, Cliff Harris, patted him on his helmet. Seeing that, Jack Lambert came over, picked Harris up and body slammed him to the ground. The Steelers were not ones to take things like that lightly.

Roger Staubach almost had enough last-minute magic to take down the Steelers.
I remember Roger Staubach threw three interceptions and got sacked seven times, which was very uncharacteristic for us. People probably don't even remember that. The Steelers were up 21-10 with about two minutes left when Staubach hit Howard, our tour guide, for a touchdown making it 21-17. Howard was a big, strong guy, about 6-foot-4, and that pass was the only touchdown he ever caught in his one-year NFL career.

Following the touchdown, we kicked off. The Steelers had a fourth-and-9 on our 41 with a little over a minute to go. Chuck Noll didn't want to try a punt so they ran the ball with Rocky Bleier and failed to get the first down. We took over with a minute left on our own 39-yard line. We had 61 yards to go. We completed some passes, got to the Pittsburgh 38 and had one last play left. Staubach threw a Hail Mary, the name he had dubbed for a last-minute heave that everyone still uses today. The ball was almost in the hands of Howard when Steelers safety Mike Wagner came over and tipped it, which led to an interception. That was it, game over.

One of the strangest things about the game that I remember is that Pittsburgh did not have one penalty the entire game. That's the only time that has ever happened in the Super Bowl. And we only had two penalties for 15 yards. All in all a pretty clean game. We were a tipped pass away from winning. notas_de_prensa_archivo