Has anything bizarre happened at the Super Bowl? Sure, maybe not as much as one might think, but there have been moments that generated some water cooler conversation on Not-So-Super Monday.
There was the whole Justin Timberlake-Janet Jackson thing (you remember tit, I mean it). There was also the time at the conclusion of Super Bowl VII when Don Shula got his watch stolen by a fan as he was being lifted onto the shoulders of his players and had to chase down the culprit. But that was trumped by something even more bizarre that had happened minutes before it.

These are my choices, and I'll stand by them:

(1) GARO'S GIVEAWAY
-- In Super Bowl VII, the Miami Dolphins were on their way to pitching the first shutout in Super Bowl history. With a little more than two minutes to go, they lined up for a 42-year field goal. Washington's Bill Brundige broke through and blocked the attempt, then Dolphin kicker Garo Yepremian picked the ball up, tried to throw it in vain, and tipped it straight into the air and into the hands of Mike Bass of the Redskins who ran it all the way into the end zone, making the score 14-7. Not only did Yepremian blow the shutout, he also flubbed at an attempt to make it 17-0, which would have gone very nicely with a 17-0 record. Former Dolphin players are angry with him to this day.


(2) IT'S A DO-OVER!
-- It wasn't a spectacle, nor did it have an outcome on the game, but to me the most bizarre episodes often happen when a fan gets involved. In a 1960 AFL game between the Patriots and Dallas Texans, a fan literally ran in from the back of the end zone to bat down a pass in the waning moments of the game.

In the first Super Bowl, we didn't have anything that dramatic, but after Green Bay's Don Chandler kicked off to start the second half of the game, he later found out he had to it over - not because someone was offside, or the referees weren't in place, or because the clock didn't start. In that particular game, both CBS and NBC had television rights, and while CBS was back from a commercial and showed the kick, NBC didn't catch it because they were still doing an interview with Bob Hope.

Pat Summerall, who was functioning as a sideline reporter for CBS, was asked if he would kindly inform Vince Lombardi that he had to kick again. Summerall, who was a receiver with the Giants in the '50's when Lombardi was the offensive coach, knew that was going to be a bad idea, so he refused. Even these days, when TV is even more of a part of the overall activity, you don't see that happening. A network literally erased a play. That IS bizarre!

(3) NO MORRALL VICTORY
-- Much of the time, the bizarre episode can also be a game-changer. In the second quarter of Super Bowl III, when Earl Morrall handed off to Tom Matte and took a lateral back across the field, those who followed the Baltimore Colts that year had visions of what the offense had pulled off earlier in the season against Atlanta on a "flea flicker" play - something very rarely seen in the NFL at the time - that went for a touchdown to a wide-open Jimmie Orr. Against the Jets, when they sent that play into motion, Orr was wide open once again, but unbelievably, Morrall did not see him, throwing a shorter pass instead in the direction of Jerry Hill, missing his mark and falling into the hands of Jets safety Jim Hudson to end the first half. That was one of five Baltimore turnovers that killed yet another drive in a game where the mighty NFL champions didn't manage a TD until the fourth quarter.

(4) DON'T LET LETT GO
-- Few things were as bizarre as the scene where Dallas Cowboy defensive tackle Leon Lett scooped up a fumble late in Super Bowl XXVII and bolted toward the end zone. Lett was trying to rub salt in the wounds of the beleaguered Buffalo Bills, who had already fumbled and stumbled their way to a 52-17 deficit. As Lett, who later confessed to watching himself on the Jumbotron, held the ball out and started to celebrate well before crossing the goal line, what he didn't realize was that there was a prideful Bills receiver who had had enough of the showboating. Don Beebe ran Lett down and knocked the ball out of his hands and through the end zone, snatching some dignity from defeat and becoming something of a hero to fans in Western New York and everywhere in the country.
(5) BLACK SUNDAY - CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE
-- While it did not involve a specific play on the field, what happened as a result of Super Bowl XIII between the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers was indeed bizarre because it impacted on something that is discussed every day on this website, which is betting on football. The game opened up with Pittsburgh as a 2.5-point favorite (and 3.5 points in some places), but the game moved to 4.5 points before the game kicked off. As the score landed on four points (35-31), many bookmakers had lost a significant enough amount on both sides - with some taking the high number with the Cowboys, laying the low number with the Steelers, and still others "middling" the game - that everyone on the sportsbook side of things seemingly wound up hurt. It is a game that will never be forgotten in Las Vegas, to be sure.
HONORABLE MENTION (and a bare mention it was)
-- After Super Bowl VI, when the Dallas Cowboys finally "won the Big One" by tearing the Miami Dolphins apart to the tune of 24-3, Tom Brookshier of CBS must have thought it would be quite a scoop to interview running back Duane Thomas, who rambled for 95 yards in that game but hadn't said a word all season to his teammates or coaches. When Brookshier brought Thomas before the cameras and asked him, in so many words, whether he is as fast as he looked in the game, Thomas replied "Evidently," and reluctantly at that, ending the very awkward encounter. Hoping he'd have more luck with a question that was even more inane, Brookshier asked, "You must like the game of football. Do you?," to which Thomas responded, "Yeah, I do. That's why I'm a football player," and that brought an end to the very awkward encounter.


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