DETROIT (KRT) – Tell the truth. This isn’t the Super Bowl you wanted, is it?
The Carolina Panthers against the New England Patriots?
Never in a hundred years.
You were thinking more along the lines of Indianapolis against Green Bay, right?
The young gun, Peyton Manning, against the old gunslinger, Brett Favre.
Now that would have been a game.
After the Packers were eliminated a week ago, you would have settled for Manning against Donovan McNabb in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Am I right?
And if all else failed, you could have lived with McNabb against Tom Brady.
Well, forget it. You don’t get Manning. You don’t get Favre. You don’t get McNabb.
You don’t even get Torry Holt or Priest Holmes or Ahman Green.
What you get is New England defensive guru Bill Belichick plotting against the Carolina Panthers, who won the NFC title by running the ball 40 times and passing it 14 against Philadelphia.
What you get is Carolina defensive mastermind John Fox plotting to control Brady, forcing the Patriots to beat him with the NFL’s 27th-ranked running game.
Face it: The Feb. 1 game won’t be the most anticipated Super Bowl played. Not enough glamour, not enough glitz for what we’ve grown to expect.
The Super Bowl is supposed to be a showcase for the brightest and the best in the game, and occasionally it works out that way.
Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, John Elway and Favre have authenticated their Hall of Fame-caliber reputations on the Super Bowl stage. As have Jerry Rice, Terrell Davis and Marcus Allen.
Remember Montana in Super Bowl XXIII?
The 49ers were down by three with 3:20 to play, and then he threw the winning touchdown pass to John Taylor with 34 seconds left.
How about Allen in Super Bowl XVIII? He set what was then a Super Bowl record with 191 yards rushing and scored two touchdowns in an easy victory for the Raiders.
Or Elway in Super Bowl XXXIII? He completed 18 of 29 passes for 336 yards and a touchdown – and also scored on a three-yard run – in his final NFL game, a victory.
That’s what we’re looking for in the Super Bowl.
And we assume we’re more likely to get it from Montana, Allen, Elway – or maybe Manning or McNabb – than from Jake Delhomme or Antowain Smith or Muhsin Muhammad.
So perhaps we need to adjust our expectations.
Don’t forget that a virtual unknown – Washington rookie running back Timmy Smith – broke Allen’s record with 22 carries for 204 yards and two touchdowns in Super Bowl XXII.
There was nothing in Desmond Howard’s modest NFL history to suggest he would deliver the coup de grace – a 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown – for Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXI.
And Dallas cornerback Larry Brown wasn’t exactly a household name before he intercepted two passes – leading to 14 second-half points and a victory – in Super Bowl XXX.
The Patriots and Panthers have a few candidates.
Brady, so highly regarded coming out of Michigan that the Patriots drafted him in the sixth round, will be going for his second Super Bowl ring in three seasons as an NFL starter.
Cornerback Ty Law, another former Michigan player, had three interceptions against Manning in New England’s AFC title victory, a possible warm-up for the Super Bowl.
Delhomme would be a perfect unheralded Super Bowl hero, a journeyman who played in only six games in his first four seasons but finds himself in the Super Bowl.
And then there’s the other Manning – Ricky Manning Jr., the Carolina rookie who intercepted McNabb three times in the Panthers’ NFC title game victory.
Perhaps the best story going into Super Bowl XXXVIII is the most obvious.
The Panthers have gone from being 1-15 in the 2001 season, to the Super Bowl two years later, lining up against a New England team that has won 14 games in a row.
“That’s why this league is so popular,” said Panthers defensive end Mike Rucker.
“You don’t have the same teams playing in the same game all the time. It’s good because you can mix it up, and everybody gets a piece of the pie.”
Not the pie we were anticipating, but that’s not to say it won’t be tasty nevertheless.
—
(c) 2004, Detroit Free Press.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

Author