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The Bills intended to savor their first brush with the Super Bowl stage.

“I want all the media I can get while I’m here,” Bennett told the press that week. “I won’t turn a reporter down while I’m here.”

Bennett was not alone in basking beneath the spotlight. Jim Kelly drew the most media attention, and the Bills quarterback gave them plenty to report on. Hours after the Bills plane landed, Kelly and Lawrence Taylor—one of the Giants who would be chasing him on Sunday—served as judges for a “beauty contest” at Thee Dollhouse Lounge, a local Tampa strip club. Another compelling angle for reporters was the identity of one of Kelly’s special guests to the Super Bowl: Sandi Korn, who reportedly once dated Kelly’s former USFL boss, Donald Trump. (Under the pseudonym Sandra Taylor, Korn would be Penthouse’s Pet of the Month that March.)

“I’m going to enjoy myself like everyone else,” said Kelly. “Hey, I’m single, I think you can enjoy yourself and stay focused. It remains a business trip.”

Kelly openly mingling with beautiful, half-clad women would have been enough for the already-established Joe Namath comparisons to swell. But reporters weren’t satisfied.

Surrounded that week by dozens of interviewers—including one who asked “Joe, Joe, what do you think of all these questions?”—Kelly spoke with trademark confidence.

“Our goal is not to be in Tampa. Our goal is to win in Tampa. If we execute as we should, we should have no problems.”

Some reporters translated his comment into a guarantee. The Newport News Daily Press ran that quote beneath a headline “Report: Bills QB Almost Pulls a Namath.” Too great was the temptation of sensationalizing another western Pennsylvania-born quarterback who guaranteed victory during Super Bowl week in Florida.

Kelly’s cryptic “promise” of victory came on Tuesday, during the NFL’s prearranged extensive press session. For every player and coach, Media Day, as it became known, was mandatory. At age sixty-two, head coach Marv Levy didn’t bother attending. He had waited a long time to get to the Super Bowl and didn’t want to waste precious time talking with reporters.

Two seasons of high-school coaching and two more as an assistant at his alma mater, Coe College, prepared Levy to take over as head coach at the University of New Mexico in 1958. Consecutive winning seasons for the Lobos gave way to a more prominent gig, rebuilding the University of California. But in four seasons at Berkeley, the Bears posted eight wins in forty games and he resigned “in the best interests of the university.” Arguably, his finest accomplishment at Cal came away from the gridiron. In February 1960, he gave Fremont High School’s head coach, Bill Walsh, his first collegiate job.

Following a five-year, mixed-results tenure at the College of William & Mary, in 1969 Levy joined the professional game. Brief stints in the NFL prepared him for a head-coaching job with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. There he won a pair of league titles until Lamar Hunt lured him away to coach the Kansas City Chiefs, where he failed to make the playoffs in each of his five seasons. He was fired in 1982. And a season directing the Chicago franchise of the USFL didn’t prove any better. Under Levy—who learned a day after taking the job that his entire roster was swapped with the Arizona Wranglers’ roster—the Blitz finished 5-13.

Despite poor records at his most recent stops, Bill Polian knew that Levy could coach.

“I felt beyond a shadow of a doubt that Marv Levy was the right guy,” said Polian, who worked under Levy in both Montreal and Kansas City. “I was absolutely convinced he could do the job.”

Within two seasons, the Bills were championship contenders. And when the Bills earned their first Super Bowl berth, Levy spent Tuesday watching film and crafting his game plan, instead of providing copy for reporters.

“I’ve been coaching for 40 years,” Levy said. “This is the game I’ve been preparing for all my life, and I’m not going to cut any corners for it.