Sunday, February 03, 2002
Super Bowl XVI: 49ers 26, Bengals 21
Failures in red zone spelled defeat
By Mark Curnutte
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Super Bowl XVI was the first played in a cold-weather city, and the Bengals — given their success in the Freezer Bowl — would have preferred to play it outdoors.
Outside the Pontiac Silverdome, located in suburban Detroit, the temperature was 12 degrees, the wind-chill factor minus-25.
The Bengals had dismantled San Diego two weeks earlier in the AFC Championship Game, which had been played in a minus-59 wind chill at Riverfront Stadium.
Inside the Silverdome, where the Bengals would lose 26-21 to the San Francisco 49ers, a haze hung in the air. It was a different time 20 years ago. Smoking cigarettes was allowed in the stands.
But it was the Bengals who came out in a fog. They admitted to being “tight,” “tense” and “nervous.”
They could have jumped ahead quickly, but wasted their first chance, one of three possessions inside the 10-yard line that would yield no points.
San Francisco fumbled the opening kickoff, and the Bengals drove to first down on the 49ers 5-yard line. But quarterback Ken Anderson's pass for Isaac Curtis was intercepted and returned to the 32. The 49ers drove for a touchdown.
In the second quarter, trailing 7-0, Bengals wide receiver Cris Collinsworth fumbled at the 5 when the ball was stripped by 49ers defensive back Eric Wright.
At the end of the third quarter, trailing 20-7, the Bengals had a first down at the 3, but three Pete Johnson rushes and a short pass to Charles Alexander didn't dent the goal line.
That was certainly out of character for a Bengals team that scored 421 points in the regular season and ranked second in total offensive yards.
“It was a supercharged kind of day,” said Bengals president Mike Brown, then-assistant general manager to his father, Paul Brown. “It was a real keen disappointment. We wanted to prove we could do it.
“When you're in the Super Bowl, it's not the holiday it appears. You take it very seriously. It's your chance to make your mark, and when you don't get it done, it's a cutting blow. You feel it. It's painful. It takes a while to get it out of your system.”
The Bengals couldn't overcome their slow start.
“I personally felt tense and nervous,” tight end Dan Ross said after the game. “It was just like stage fright. It took a while for us to get used to it and to get it out of our system. I was in awe of everything. When we first came out, I was hyperventilating. I couldn't breathe. When we walked on the field, it finally hit me where we were — in the Super Bowl.”
His nerves didn't show. Ross set a then-Super Bowl record with 11 pass receptions and had 104 yards and two touchdowns, from 4 and 3 yards.
Anderson, the league's most valuable player, was 25-for-34 passing for 300 yards. But he had two interceptions to go with the two touchdown passes.
“We had great players,” Brown said. “They tried hard. They did well. We just came up a little short.”
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Super Bowl XVI: 49ers 26, Bengals 21