ATLANTA — For those who don't work in broadcast news, the notion of consuming 'B-roll' practice footage during Super Bowl Week might have the same appeal of watching paint dry.
Yes, the respective Super Bowl combatants are hanging out on the field, but it's typically nothing more than light stretching and jogging exercises – just a taste to appease the media masses ... but hardly enough to garner in-game insight for Super Sunday.
Emphasize on the word 'typically' from above.
This week marks the 25th anniversary of likely the greatest B-roll contribution in Super Bowl history.
Back in the winter of 1994, as Atlanta experienced a torrent of crummy weather as the Super Bowl host, the Cowboys and Bills had taken over the city, as a means of staging the first rematch in Super Sunday history.
(Dallas crushed Buffalo the previous year, 52-17 ... a blowout that would have been worse, had it not been for Leon Lett's infamous fumble on a supposed breakaway touchdown.)
For Super Bowl Week in '94, during a rare moment separate from sleep or game preparations, Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson stumbled upon a remarkable piece of opposition research – thanks to the omnipresent local news in Atlanta.
Here's the story, using Johnson's own words from the America's Game series from NFL Films:
"You know, at all the Super Bowls, (the NFL) would let cameras come in for the first few minutes, to take what they call B-roll film before practice. And I was watching a local sports station, and it had B-roll of Buffalo warming up (inside the Georgia Dome), and I saw (quarterback) Jim Kelly, taking the football with no one else around ... and pitching it like a shovel pass to (running back) Thurman Thomas.
"And it looked to me like they were practicing the shovel-pass pitch (for game usage). So, I went back to my defensive coordinator Butch Davis and said, 'Hey, Butch, has (Buffalo) ever run the pitch pass? I don't recall seeing it in any of the game film.'
"And we went all the way back (with film), and (the Bills) hadn't run the shovel pass all year long. As it turns out ... Buffalo ran the shovel pass like three times (in the Super Bowl), and we actually got a fumble on one of the biggest plays of the ball game.
"So, just by luck, I was watching television, and we were able to pick up the shovel pass," said Johnson, wearing a wide grin.
Johnson wasn't overselling the importance of his team's fortuitous encounter with B-roll footage. Down 13-6 to start the second half, a shovel pass to Thomas quickly turned into a fumble recovery for Dallas.
From there, the heavily favored Cowboys collected their bearings and powered their way to a 30-13 win over the Bills.
"I told Jim Kelly about (the B-roll revelation) years later," continued Johnson, one of only six head coaches in history to capture back-to-back Lombardi trophies. "I had a laugh ... Jim didn't think it was very funny."
Postscript: The afterglow of winning consecutive Super Bowls wouldn't carry the Cowboys for very long.
Two months later, Johnson and owner Jerry Jones got into a heated argument in a public setting (restaurant serving drinks) ... and five days later, the two had 'mutually decided' to part ways – thus dissolving the turbulent/glorious partnership, which included two championships over a five-year span.
