Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [115]
Even the Colts’ lone score had come on a fluke. A pass from Unitas was tipped by Colts receiver Eddie Hinton and Dallas safety Mel Renfro, then hauled in by John Mackey. The Hall of Fame tight end galloped the rest of the way for a bizarre seventy-five-yard touchdown, the longest play in the Super Bowl’s five-year history.
Still, for all the absurdities, the contest emitted a palpable intensity.
“A lot of the turnovers had a lot to do with that damn turf. People were slipping all over the place. It was a crazy game,” Accorsi said. “But we played that game in a panic; it was desperation. I was on the sideline for most of the game; to this day, it was the most vicious football game. So they can talk about it being the ‘Blunder Bowl’ all they want. It was a vicious, physical battle.”
“I think [Cowboys linebacker] Chuck Howley still wears my number on his forehead,” rookie running back Norm Bulaich said years later.
The less-than-refined football didn’t cease with O’Brien’s botched extra point. After a grand total of nine turnovers and fourteen penalties, the score stood even at 13-13 with one minute to play in the fourth quarter. One final blunder remained. At his own twenty-seven-yard line, Dallas quarterback Craig Morton rolled out of the pocket and lobbed a pass over two rushing defenders, intended for running back Dan Reeves. The wobbly football fluttered above Reeves, who jumped for it but could not make the catch. It bounced off Reeves’ fingertips directly into linebacker Mike Curtis’ grasp.
Curtis’ interception gave the Colts fantastic field position. Two Norman Bulaich runs—“just don’t fumble,” the offensive linemen told him—picked up a few yards, and with nine seconds to play, the field goal unit took the stage.
Although Jim O’Brien was admittedly a bit nervous, he wasn’t nearly as flustered as some of his teammates would like to believe.
“Earl Morrall [says] I was trying to pick AstroTurf off the field to see which way the wind was blowing,” said O’Brien.
But I did pick up wind because the AstroTurf fields aren’t like the pure turf fields of today. They’re pretty bristly and they catch a lot of lint off people’s uniforms. So I would always pick up lint on an AstroTurf field to see which way the wind was blowing. That’s all I really did. But Earl kinda embellishes, likes to make it more than it is. He uses that when he goes to all the speeches he gives. . . . It’s half true, except it makes me look like an imbecile for trying to pick AstroTurf out, because you can’t. You’d need a pair of pliers or a knife. Anyway, it’s a funny story; we always laugh about it when we see each other.
Dallas called a time-out prior to the kick. And while the Cowboys players taunted him from across the line of scrimmage and the sidelines, the rookie barely noticed. For weeks, one of Baltimore’s grizzled veterans had been hardening the mettle of the long-haired “child of the 1960s.”
“Billy Ray Smith was inclined to want to cut my hair,” said O’Brien. “All during that week in practice, he said, ‘If we don’t win this game, you’re gonna get your hair cut.’ . . . He did help me relax. From the time I got in camp to that last field goal, in practice, he was always talking and making it like the other team would do it: he would call time-out at the last second; he would yell stuff at me. So he trained me basically . . . to ignore the other team in that situation. And it paid dividends.”
O’Brien’s heightened concentration notwithstanding—this time, he fully went through his pre-kick mental routine—the short, championship-deciding kick remained in doubt even though it was only a thirty-two-yard attempt. After fifty-nine minutes and fifty-one seconds of a