Nerves Tested in Countdown to Kickoff

The Bell Tolls: Nerves tested in countdown to Super kickoff

By Jarret Bell

TAMPA — What in the world was Eugene Robinson thinking? The night before Super Bowl 33 in Miami 10 years ago, the then-Atlanta Falcons safety — who earlier that day had been awarded the Bart Starr Award for "high moral character" — was busted for trying to solicit oral sex from an undercover female police officer near the team's hotel.

In the first half of the game, the Denver Broncos went deep. Touchdown.

Robinson was burned over the top on John Elway's 80-yard pass to Rod Smith and the 34-19 rout was on. His poor choice cost his team, a significant slice of his reputation and detracted from the game itself as the news dominated pre-game coverage.

And we all know how long those thorough Super Bowl pre-game shows can be.

Sadly, Robinson's gaffe wasn't the worst pre-game blunder in Super Bowl history. At least he played in the game after staying up for hours, praying and explaining. Oakland Raiders center Barrett Robbins went to Tijuana, and came up missing the day before Super Bowl 37 in San Diego. Bad move. Robbins, found drunk and incoherent in Mexico, spent the Super Bowl in the hospital while his team was clobbered by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 48-21. That was one wasted opportunity.

Then there was Stanley Wilson. The Cincinnati Bengals running back/kick returner never answered his wakeup call for Super Bowl 23 in 1989. The night before the game, Wilson missed a meeting. He was found by a coach in his hotel room — collapsed in the bathroom and strung out on cocaine.

No wonder Warren Sapp— the gregarious and light-footed former D-tackle who would have clashed with Robbins in the trenches in Super Bowl 37 — refused to pick a winning team for Sunday's game as we chilled during lunch at a waterside hotel this week.

If you know Sapp, you know this wasn't a case of a guy getting tongue-tied.

Sapp has opinions on just about everything, from politics to anthropology, from socio-economics to X's and O's — and is hardly shy about sharing his views.

Who wins the Super Bowl?

"I'm not ready to make a prediction," Sapp said. "Before I do that, I've got to find out who ordered 10 chicks in the middle of the night. Who was up until 4:30 in the morning?

"See," Sapp added, "I'll find out things that you won't have a clue about."

Yes, the players (and ex-ballers) have their grapevine.

Yet it doesn't take an all-pro jock to imagine the prospects. This is a place teeming with temptation, even amid the sagging economy that has people calling this year's event the Recession Bowl.

Tampa is known as the Strip Club Capital of the World.

OK, the aforementioned incidents occurred in Miami, San Diego/Tijuana and Miami.

Bad choices can happen anywhere. But why? You can believe that Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is wary.

"When things come up, when situations arise, you often get asked how you're going to deal with it," Tomlin said Friday morning at his last press conference of the week. "The reality is: If you wait until these moments to address those issues, that's extremely late for someone in my position. It's part of our culture, part of what we do.

"Those things are installed from Day 1. We talk about it continually. That way, we don't have to push the panic button as we stand here today preparing to play the Super Bowl."

Tomlin and his Arizona Cardinals counterpart, Ken Whisenhunt, are operating with standard Super Bowl procedures as the countdown to kickoff ticks. There are curfews, a move to a secluded hotel, Saturday night meetings.

Normalcy, that's what they say they seek.

"I talked to Mike about it last week," said Tony Dungy, the just-retired Indianapolis Colts coach, who has a Super Bowl victory on his resume and in 2001 hired Tomlin for his first NFL job. "You feel like the game is never going to get here. You feel like the game should be played on Wednesday. When you prepare the whole week, it just seems like a long time. You have to stay relaxed. The last couple days seem like the longest."

Boredom might have, at least partially, contributed to the drastic choices by a small handful of Super Bowl participants in the hours before the big game.

Pressure is probably another trigger. The stakes are so high, the game is intense and for many players this is the stage they have sought for their entire careers.

Even without incidents that could make the police blotter, the Super Bowl can produce an added amount of anxiety that makes it a distinct X-factor.

Just listen to Kurt Warner, the Cardinals' 37-year-old quarterback who won and lost a Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams.

Warner has never had an embarrassing off-the-field adventure, but he's been plenty nervous about the big game. He's bracing himself for another mental test this weekend.

"One of the things is, 'How soon is that nervousness and anxiety going to hit you?' " Warner said. "You hope that you can prolong it as much as possible. But you know Saturday and Sunday are going to be long, that you're going to be thinking about the game. You're going to be restless; it's going to be tough to get a good night's sleep.

"Sunday, what I always like to do is get up and eat breakfast, then my routine is to always try to go back and take a nap, and then wake up – like if the game is at noon or 1:00 or 2:00 – so you can kind of wake up and get in your routine at that point. But again, all of those things are easier to say (and) a lot harder to do because the game's going through your mind. So it will be just trying to hold down my emotions as much as I possibly can so that I don't wear myself out or I don't try to over-think what we're doing, and I can just get into the game and play."

Warner is one of the few Cardinals players with Super Bowl experience, and thus something to draw on in managing Super Bowl anxiety.

The Steelers, who won Super Bowl XL, have a decided edge in the big game experience column; 22 players played in a Super Bowl. Those players can not only flash their rings to the non-Super Bowl participants on the team as a motivational ploy, they can also shed some light on the long wait before Sunday night's game.

"You're nervous and anxious," Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said, alluding to his Super Bowl XL experience, "but it wasn't to the point where I was getting sick or anything."

Even so, Roethlisberger has talked a lot this week about the need to be relaxed as a contrast to his tight disposition the last time he played for a Lombardi Trophy. Although Roethlisberger carried the Steelers with huge passing games in the AFC playoffs that landed the spot in that Jerome Bettis Farewell in Detroit, his Super Bowl performance hit a valley reflected with a 22.6 passer rating that was worst ever for a Super Bowl-winning quarterback.

He says a key for Sunday will be to relax and get rolling early in the game.

"It's a big priority for me because I take pride in that," Roethlisberger said. "Just playing like it's another game, relaxing and having fun. I'm just going to try and do that by taking a deep breath and just play football."

Steelers center Justin Hartwig wasn't around for the XL victory, but has done some homework.

"You have to treat this game like any other game, but emotions are going to be running so high and everybody's going to be real amped before the game," Hartwig said.

"I've been watching these old Super Bowl games they've been airing all week on NFL Network and you see the looks of the faces of the guys on the sidelines and they're just stoic. Everyone just has no expression on their face and they're nerved out about what's going on on the field and wondering what's going to happen. We have to stay even-keel. (Injured Steelers guard) Kendall Simmons is also the guy who told me that he was almost hyperventilating until halftime in the last Super Bowl game. So I know emotions will be running high and I think that will carry us through the game and that's how I expect us to play at the highest level."

That's a plan. And it sure beats high-risk alternatives.