Super Bowl XIII - A Football (and Cultural) Time Capsule

With time on my hands and with no actual sports to watch, I pulled out a DVD set that I have owned for a number of years, a six disc set that has the complete telecast of all six Super Bowls won by the Pittsburgh Steelers.  In all the years that I have owned this, I had only watched one of the games, but on Friday night, I decided to watch the telecast of Super Bowl XIII, the one where the Steelers defeated the Cowboys 35-31.  Early on it became apparent that I was not only revisiting a happy sports memory, but I was also seeing a time capsule of sorts, so I began making some notes, and I will share some of those thoughts with you.  Football, television, and the Super Bowl itself were very different forty-one years ago than those institutions are today.

The game was televised by NBC.  Curt Gowdy, "the man who has described more major sporting events than anyone else", did the play-by-play with color by John Brodie and Merlin Olsen.  The "host" announcer, the guy who did the pregame (what little was included on the DVD) was a very young Dick Enberg.  Player introductions were handled by the Orange Bowl p.a. announcer and consisted only of the offensive starters for each team.  Very little hype and hoopla associated with these introductions, although the famed Cowboys Cheerleaders did form an aisle for the players to run through.  My first thought when I saw Terry Bradshaw was "wow, it looks like he hasn't put his shoulder pads on yet", but, no, he had them, or something that resembled shoulder pads, on and that is what he wore throughout the game.  

Note the puny shoulder pads on the QB

There was none of the hype associated with Super Bowl pre-game stuff today, but there was a preview of things to come when as the captains gathered for the coin toss, a vintage 1920 automobile drove onto the field with NFL  patriarch George Halas in the back seat.  Old Papa Bear was going to flip the coin to start the game.  As this was going on, a crossed wire on the radio frequency for the game officials caused the Pittsburgh radio broadcast to be heard on the telecast.  Yes, for about ten seconds, a national TV audience heard the dulcet tones of Myron Cope!!! Later in the telecast, Gowdy apologized for the technical glitch.

Before I give some of my stream-of-consciousness thoughts on the telecast, let's talk about the game itself.

The Steelers scored on their first possession with a Bradshaw to John Stallworth TD pass.  Stallworth actually had one foot land out of bounds in the end zone, but it was ruled that he was pushed while in the air and that he would have landed in bounds had the Dallas defender not hit him while he was coming down with the ball.  An official's judgement call perfectly permissible back then.  Today, it would have been an incomplete pass.

Dallas scored the next two TD's, the second one coming when a Cowboy defender stripped the ball from Bradshaw's grasp and ran it in for a touchdown. It was now 14-7 Dallas.  On the third play after the kickoff, Bradshaw hit Stallworth on a crossing pattern that resulted in a 75 yard TD pass and run, an play that Steelers fans have seen a zillion times over the years, which included a punishing block by Lynn Swann that helped free up Stallworth.  It was now 14-14, and the announcers noted that this was the first time in Super Bowl history that four touchdowns had been scored in a half.

Stallworth goes 75 yard to even the score at 14-14

Shortly before the end of the half, Bradshaw connected with Rocky Bleier for a TD that put the Steelers up 21-14 at the half.  Gowdy, Olsen, and Brodie were going on and on about the "fireworks" produced by these two teams in the first half and what could possibly happen to top it in the second half.  This game, according to them, was already "the greatest Super Bowl ever."

An acrobatic Bleier puts the Steelers  

up 21-14 just before halftime

The third quarter produced only one score, a field goal by Dallas after the play when a wide open in the end zone Jackie Smith dropped a sure pass that would have produced a touchdown and tied the game.  Both Steelers and Cowboys fans well remember the play.

A dropped pass by Jackie Smith forces the 

Cowboys to settle for a FG

The fourth quarter proceeded at the same pace as the third until late in the period.  On a play in Dallas territory, Franco Harris began jawing with a Dallas defender who, in Harris' opinion, took a cheap shot at Bradshaw after the play.  On the very next play, Bradshaw handed it off to an obviously pissed off Harris, who ran 23 untouched yards over left guard for a touchdown that put the Steelers up 28-17.  The hole that was opened up for Harris by Gerry Mullins, Sam Davis, and Mike Webster was so huge that Olsen and Brodie were marveling over the execution of the play.

Franco Harris rumbles for 23 untouched 

yards and and a 28 -17 Steelers lead 

What followed was a play that I did not remember.  The kickoff following the Harris TD was fumbled by Dallas and recovered by the Steelers' Dennis "Dirt" Winston.  The fumble was forced, by the way, by a young Steelers special teamer who had a bright future ahead of him - Tony Dungy. Anyway, on the very next play, Bradshaw went for the jugular and hit Swann in the end zone that put the Steelers up 35-17 and, effectively, ended the game.  The Steelers had scored two touchdowns in :11 of elapsed game time.

Swann's amazing leap makes it 35-17 Steelers

That's four Hall of Famers in this picture, folks!

With a little over four minutes remaining, Dallas got the ball back, and more specifically, Roger Staubach got the ball back and led the Cowboys to a touchdown to make it 35-24 with 2:24 on the clock.  Dallas then recovered an onside klick (that went through the hands of Dungy), and Staubach again drove them down field, including one conversion an a 4th and 18 play, and scored another touchdown to make it 35-31 with :22 remaining in the game.  A second attempt at an onside kick failed when the sure handed Bleier recovered the kick.  Staubach, far and away the best Dallas player on the team that night, made it interesting, but in retrospect, that four point win made the game appear closer than it actually was.  Still, I'm glad that Bleier recovered that second onside kick!

Thus, the Steelers of Chuck Noll became the "first team in history to win three Super Bowls".  Noll and the team would add one more the following year.

Okay, that was the game, and it was a great game, but what about some of those other factors that made viewing this game like opening a time capsule?  Let me list some of them here, as well as one other notable moments from the telecast.

• The telecast was almost primitive compared to what you see on a televised  game today.  No graphics.  The picture did not show the score of the game, the time remaining, the down and distance, and there sure as hell was no yellow line to show the first down line to gain!  The TV didn't show the clock at all until there was four minutes remaining in the first half.  Amazing how used we have become to such amenities in a telecast.
• Oh, and very limited use of Instant Replay, and, of course, no coaches' challenges or booth replay reviews.
• Right after the coin toss NBC, via a pretaped segment, allowed all game officials to introduce themselves.  They don't do that anymore, and you're lucky if the announcers even tell you the name of the Referee.  That's too bad.  Among the Zebras in SB XIII were Pittsburghers Jerry Bergman, Head Linesman, and Chuck "Ace" Heberling, one of the Alternates.  Jerry Bergman, passed away a few years ago, and two of his sons, Jeff and Jerry, are currently officials in the NFL and both have worked in Super Bowls. The younger Jerry is also a former co-worker and a personal friend of mine.
• The helmets the players wore in 1979 were small and toy-like compared to the helmets worn in 2020.  It wasn't exactly the leather helmets worn by the pioneers of the game, but let's just say that helmet technology has sure come a long way.
• Hitting.  Both Staubach and Bradshaw were subject to cringe worthy hits by defensive players, plays that would draw penalties, if not ejections, today.  After one particularly crushing hit absorbed by Bradshaw, Merlin Olsen made it a point to note that it was not a "cheap shot."
• At one point early in the telecast, Gowdy commented on all of the Steelers fans in the Orange Bowl who were waiving their "dirty towels."  Olsen quickly corrected him.  "They're Terrible Towels, Curt. Terrible Towels."  It was also commented upon that Steelers fans far outnumbered Cowboys fans in the Orange Bowl that day.
• After four catches, two TD's, and 100+ yards, Stallworth was hurt late in the first half and did not play in the second half.  I did not remember that.
• Lynn Swann more than made up for the absence of Stallworth. Man, oh, man, was Lynn Swann good.  Of course, I knew that.  I saw him play, and he is in the Hall of Fame, but I have to admit that I fear that I have forgotten just HOW GOOD he was.  Antonio Brown, you were a great receiver for the Steelers, but you were no Lynn Swann.
• Jack Ham.  Another great player.  GREAT.  Jack Lambert is probably remembered more fondly by Steelers fans, and he was great, to be sure, but I think that after Joe Greene, Ham was the next best defender of that Steelers Era.
• Mel Blount was 6'3", 205 pounds.  He looked as big as the defensive linemen out there.  Another guy that was just amazing to watch.
• On the Dallas side, Roger Staubach was, as I said, the best player on that team, or at least he was that night.  Staubach had and still has the reputation of being the All-American Boy, Frank Merriwell-type, Aw Shucks kind of player, but he was anything but that after Smith dropped that pass in the end zone.  He was one totally PO'd guy coming off the field after that play.
• Other Dallas players who stood out to me watching that game were safety Cliff Harris, defensive linemen Randy White, who played the game with a cast on one hand, and Too Tall Jones, and, of course, Tony Dorsett.
• Also seen on the Dallas side line were HC Tom Landry looking natty in a camel's hair sport coat, necktie, and a felt fedora, and assistants Ernie Stautner and Mike Ditka, who looked ridiculous with his hair in a curly-haired perm.
• At one point it was noted that during the regular season, Steelers place kicker Roy Gerela was 12 for 26 on field goal attempts during the season.  Guys would get cut for that in the NFL today, and, in fact, Gerela was gone from the Steelers after that season.
• In this game, Franco Harris became the all time leading rusher in Super Bowl history.
• The Steelers did not run a single play out of a shotgun formation.  The Cowboys ran the shotgun maybe a half dozen times.
• Bradshaw called all of his own plays.  ALL OF HIS OWN PLAYS.  Quarterbacks actually used to do that.
• Also in this game, Terry Bradshaw recorded the first 300 yard passing game of his nine year career (17/30, 317, 4 TD, 1 INT).  Generations of football fans know Bradshaw only as the buffoonish talking head on the Fox pregame shows, but fewer and fewer fans remember him as the very great HOF quarterback that he was.  That's a shame, but Terry is laughing al the way to the bank, so maybe he's okay with that.
• When Dallas got the ball with four-plus minutes remaining and down 35-17, John Brodie made the statement that this wasn't over yet, that he remembered a game when Staubach beat his 49'ers by scoring fourteen points with his team never getting the ball back.  Gowdy says, "Oh, yeah that was that famous game in San Francisco a few years ago."  Brodie replied, "Famous for some people maybe..."  Good line.
• Late in the game, the announcers began to comment that the dropped pass by Smith in the third quarter was looming large for Dallas and wasn't it too bad that a 16 year vet like Smith had to bear that burden.  Brodie made the point that it was totally unfair.  "No single play in the third quarter of a football game decides a game."  
• In spite of my quoting Brodie here, the best announcer in the booth that day was Merlin Olsen.  He was really, really good.  He died in 2010 at the age of 70, and its probably just as well that he never had to listen to Booger McFarland broadcast a football game.
• The DVD of the game did not include any commercials.  I wonder if the Super Bowl commercials then were as big a deal as they were to become?
• Nor did the DVD include the halftime show.  A search on the Google Machine tells me that the halftime show was "Bob Jani presents Carnival: A Salute to the Caribbean."  Looks like the NFL and the Super Bowl were already moving away from marching bands and dogs chasing frisbees back in 1979. And, no, I have no idea as to who Bob Jani was, nor the inclination to look him up.
• The announcement that Terry Bradshaw was the unanimous selection for MVP of the game came with over four minutes remaining in the game.  That could have been embarrassing had the Steelers failed to recover that second onside kick and given Staubach one more crack at the Steelers prevent defense.
• Throughout the second half, Gowdy kept hyping a new show on NBC, "Brothers and Sisters", which will "debut on most of these NBC stations immediately following the telecast of this game."  Anyone have any memory of that show?  I don't.

Like I said, it was a fun and interesting viewing experience, but there was one sad part as well: the realization of how many people, most of them young and vibrant at the time, are no longer with us.  Chuck Noll, Mike Webster, Dwight White, LC Greenwood, Sam Davis, Steve Furness, George Perles, both Art and Dan Rooney, Tom Landry, Ernie Stautner, and other guys from the Cowboys of whom I am not aware.  Sobering.

Anyway, sorry that this post has rambled on longer than usual, but the subject matter was just too vast to allow for conciseness.

Once again, that final score, the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers 35, the Dallas Cowboys 31.

The Quarterbacks