34 AMERICANWAY
JANUARY 15 2009
N F L
sounds like somebody who’s all distin-
guished — a suit on, a pipe in his hand.
That’smyalter ego
[
laughs
]
.
Simms:
I went to dinner with Billy Crystal
— that was my one big celebrity moment.
I remember telling Billy what we were go-
ing todo in thegame.He askedmepointed
questions, and I gave him answers: “The
first play is going tobe aplay-actionpass, a
20-yard completion to LionelManuel.” On
Sunday,he told that to thepeoplehewassit-
tingwith in the stands, and thenwedid the
play. The rest of the game, everybody kept
askinghim, “What’s going tohappennext?”
Saturday
Saturday is the day to tie upall the loose ends.
There’s amandatory teamdinner. There’s a chapel/
mass. There’s a scheduledmid-evening snack. The
bigwinner in all this?Probablywhoever gets the
biggest cut of the hotel-roompay-per-view revenue.
Wolf:
I sometimes think that everybody
forgets about the game. There are somany
other things involved. By Saturday, it’s like,
let’s get onwith it.
Sapp:
We’d always practice our two-minute
offense at the endof theweek. So last thing
before the game, we come out, and guess
who’splayingquarterback?The little fellow
from Dayton, Ohio, Johnny Gruden. My
friend, you’ve never seen such chaos. He’s
calling out audibles, acting like Rich Gan-
non
[
the quarterback the Bucs were set to
face the next day
]
. First play, we pick his
pass off and run it theotherway.He looked
atmeandgrowled.
Woodson:
Everyweekduringtheregularsea-
son,onSaturdayI’dhaveapplepieà lamode
with chocolate ice cream. So that’s what
I had on Saturday night before the Super
Bowl.Routinehelps control theexcitement.
Game day
Players eat. Theymake theirway to the stadium.
They stretch. They play.
Long:
I always took a cab to the game with
Lyle Alzado, but this time, we got stuck in
traffic. Lyle got so angry, we stopped the
cab andwalked the last quartermile to the
stadium.Wewere pretty exposed.We got a
!
"
#
!"
"#
!#
!"#
$
!%&%'%&()*+,-%.()/&+,(.0(&%*+12344325+,6789+++11:1;:4225+++11<;4<44+,"
