One of the greatest football coaches ever, the Brooklyn-born Vince Lombardi had strong ties to the New York/New Jersey metro area, including coaching stops at St. Cecilia High School in Englewood, N.J., as well as a stint as offensive coordinator of the New York Giants. The Vince Lombardi Service Area is located just 3.5 miles from MetLife Stadium on the Jersey Turnpike. Below, Brian Billick -- one of many to follow in Lombardi's footsteps -- provides some first-person insight on what it's like to coach in the sport's ultimate showcase.
After we beat the Raiders, 16-3, in Oakland to win the AFC title in January 2001, I returned with the Ravens players to an exultant Baltimore and tried to get myself and my team prepared for two distinct things: 1) the Super Bowl game, to be played in two weeks; and 2) the Super Bowl experience, which goes on constantly up until kickoff.
One of the first calls I received early in that first week was from then-Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Reeves. I'd played under Dan for a training camp when he was an offensive coach in Dallas, and we'd stayed in touch over the years. He'd been very good to me, all the way back to my early coaching days, when I went through Denver (he coached there all through the 1980s) on a recruiting trip.
Dan called me up, congratulated me, and then gave me an intense, detailed, blow-by-blow overview of Super Bowl preparation, covering everything: practices, scouting reports, how much film to watch, when to install the game plan, how to deal with distractions, etc. Then, after about an 80-minute rundown, he concluded by saying, "Of course, Brian, I've never won one of these things. So you might be better off just doing the opposite of everything I just said."
In talking to Dan, Pro Football Hall of Famer Bill Walsh, and others with Super Bowl experience, the message was the same: "Get your game plan done early, and don't screw with it once you get down to Tampa." We accomplished that and little else during that first week. After three playoff games in three weeks, the team was tired. We did almost nothing physical in Baltimore that first week; we had some walkthroughs, but mostly focused on scouting reports and game plan prep.
By the time we flew down to Florida, on the Monday before the Super Bowl, we had everything installed. For us, the plan was simple. No one ran on us. We knew that the New York Giants likely would make the same mistake Oakland had; they would think they were going to establish the run, and when they didn't, they'd have to resort to having their good-but-not-great quarterback (in New York's case, Kerry Collins) try to beat us through the air.
With the defense our team had, plotting offensive strategy was fairly simple: Don't make mistakes. Our best matchup on offense was Shannon Sharpe; that had been the case for much of the season. We knew the Giants had a brilliant defensive coordinator in John Fox, but we also thought we could move the ball against them.
Tuesday was media day, and I knew we would be inundated with questions about Ray Lewis' alleged involvement in a double-murder case from one year earlier. I spoke with Kevin Byrne, the Ravens' vice president of media relations, before the event, and we decided to pre-empt it. So that Tuesday, I went in front of the media and (somewhat dismissively, I'll admit, though that was by design) told the press, in essence, "We've been dealing with this all year. We're not going to re-try the case now, and you're not qualified to do so anyway." The sum total was that the media came after me, and our team was free to continue preparing for the game.
Tampa, if you've ever been there, is a city famous for its distractions. But I had never instituted a bed check, and I wasn't going to start then. There would be a curfew, but I wasn't going to go around knocking on doors. The players understood. We were very relaxed. We stayed at the Hyatt out by the airport. Other than practices, and a quick visit to the Commissioner's Ball on Friday night, I never left the hotel. The families came in Wednesday, and we bunkered in for the game.
Saturday, I remember, was the longest day in the history of mankind. We did a walkthrough late that morning, then came back to the hotel. I knew that Sunday was going to be a long day - kickoff wasn't until around 6:30 p.m. ET - so I held off on conducting our last unit meetings until Sunday, before the team meal.
On Sunday morning, I was drinking coffee and looking over the game plan again before heading out, and my daughter, Keegan, who was about nine at the time, came up to me to jump on my lap, as she'd done hundreds of times before. From out of nowhere, my wife, Kim, intercepted her, like a Secret Service agent taking a bullet for the president. But it was OK. I wouldn't say I was relaxed, exactly, but by then, I was confident.
When I left for the stadium Sunday, there wasn't much left to say. Kim smiled, and kissed me goodbye, and told me, "Good luck, and we love you." I took the late bus out to the stadium, and got there a couple of hours before kickoff.
We'd prepared the players for the odd schedule, and the lengthy wait in the locker room before going back out to start the game.
"Guys," I said, a few minutes before we headed out for the kickoff. "I want you to take a second. Look around at the guys next to you, the people who've helped you get here. Take a moment to let this sink in. Hold on to this moment. Because whether we win or lose, two minutes after this is over, everything's going to change."
Then we went out on the field and the game began. And then - and only then - it became just another football game.
