Dallas Morning News: Callahan calls allegations he sabotaged Super Bowl 'ludicrous', 'defamatory'

[Hitman21ST]

And about Gruden knowing the Raiders, while this is true, we'll never know how much that came into play considering they were running a gameplan they'd not spent a day of practice on. They essentially were flying by the seat of their pants.

True, but the audibles most likely stayed the same. I remember watching the America's Game on the Bucs, and John Lynch's soudbite about the "sluggo seam" audible, that one of their LBs picked off.

If you can make sense of the audibles, you win the game.

[Dan T.]

Much of this is true, but it was a 6-3 game halfway into the 2nd quarter.

The Raiders had the NFL's top ranked offense themselves that year, with the league MVP. Not saying the Tampa defense still wouldn't have won the game, that Raider offense was good enough to have put up a fight.

And about Gruden knowing the Raiders, while this is true, we'll never know how much that came into play considering they were running a gameplan they'd not spent a day of practice on. They essentially were flying by the seat of their pants.

And at that point, the Raiders had 10 yards rushing on 6 carries, for a whopping 1.6 yards per carry.

...and flying by the seat of their pants? You mean Rich Gannon, Hall of Famer Jerry Rice, and potential Hall of Famer Tim Brown all of a sudden forgot their passing game? Come on. Teams make game plan adjustments all the time in the course of a game. We used to worship Joe Gibbs for his halftime adjustments based on how the game was going. To me, it's far more plausible that Callahan felt early that the running game wasn't going to cut it that day and switched gears rather than having had some master plan to throw the Super Bowl.

He may have been a bad head coach, but that's a far cry from purposefully throwing the biggest football game of his career on the biggest stage in the sports world.

[LeesburgSkinFan]

Bill Callahan hated the Raiders so much he guided them to 7-1 record in the second half of the 2002 season and a pair of playoff wins instead of letting the season completely melt down after the team lost four straight games to sit 4-4 at midseason after a 4-0 start. In the midst of that comeback stretch, Callahan also made sure the 9-5 Raiders beat the 8-6 Broncos when the winner would get an inside track to the AFC West crown. He did all that to then tank the Super Bowl. He also hated the Raiders so much he came back to coach them the next season. This entire supposed scenario makes my head hurt.

[justice98]

And at that point, the Raiders had 10 yards rushing on 6 carries, for a whopping 1.6 yards per carry.

...and flying by the seat of their pants? You mean Rich Gannon, Hall of Famer Jerry Rice, and potential Hall of Famer Tim Brown all of a sudden forgot their passing game? Come on. Teams make game plan adjustments all the time in the course of a game. We used to worship Joe Gibbs for his halftime adjustments based on how the game was going. To me, it's far more plausible that Callahan felt early that the running game wasn't going to cut it that day and switched gears rather than having had some master plan to throw the Super Bowl.

He may have been a bad head coach, but that's a far cry from purposefully throwing the biggest football game of his career on the biggest stage in the sports world.

I'm not suggesting he threw the Super Bowl cuz that part of it doesn't seem plausible, but I am suggesting that his preparation pregame and coaching was suspect and his team suffered for it.

[Dan T.]

I'm not suggesting he threw the Super Bowl cuz that part of it doesn't seem plausible, but I am suggesting that his preparation pregame and coaching was suspect and his team suffered for it.

Fair enough. But Tim Brown accused him of treachery, not incompetence.

[2cents]

Jerry Rice agrees with Tim Brown. Not saying they're right, but it does seem weird that you decide to change the gameplan with no time to practice or get the offense on the same page. The is the Superbowl.

Unless Weird Al tells you to.

[GhostofSparta]

They brought up this theory on NFL Live the other day when this came up: did Al Davis have anything to do with this?

Think about it, Al Davis, the one we all know and love, hears that his head coach wants to have a run-heavy game in the Super Bowl when he has 2 future HOF receivers and the current NFL MVP at QB, and possibly decides that he doesn't want his team to ignore all those (popular and talented) assets?

Come on, tell me Al Davis meddling isn't at least as plausible, if not more so, than a head coach intentionally blowing a Super Bowl for no explainable reason?

[2cents]

They brought up this theory on NFL Live the other day when this came up: did Al Davis have anything to do with this?

Think about it, Al Davis, the one we all know and love, hears that his head coach wants to have a run-heavy game in the Super Bowl when he has 2 future HOF receivers and the current NFL MVP at QB, and possibly decides that he doesn't want his team to ignore all those (popular and talented) assets?

Come on, tell me Al Davis meddling isn't at least as plausible, if not more so, than a head coach intentionally blowing a Super Bowl for no explainable reason?

Not to mention Al not quite being "all there" for quite a while.

[Bubble Screen]

The Raiders just weren't going to win that game. Gruden knew that team inside-out, and Tampa's D was playing at a legendary level.

Not only that, but it seems like everytime a player gets into trouble right before the Super Bowl, that team usually loses. And they usually get destroyed. I think Eugene Robinson got busted the night before the Falcons played Denver that one year. And Denver went on to destroy them. Then of course Oakland had their center go AWOL the day before their SB with the Bucs. Granted, both the Falcons and Raiders were probably gonna lose those games, anyway. But anytime there's a big distraction like that, it never ends well.

I personally think Tim Brown is a piece of **** for accusing his coach of this. And I heard that Jerry Rice backed Brown up. As far as I'm concerned, both of those idiots should never be taken seriously again. And why didn't these two clowns come out THEN with this stuff? Not 10 years after the fact. Kudos to Romanowski for calling these clowns out, too.

---------- Post added January-24th-2013 at 01:40 AM ----------

Jerry Rice agrees with Tim Brown. Not saying they're right, but it does seem weird that you decide to change the gameplan with no time to practice or get the offense on the same page. The is the Superbowl.

Then call him out for being a bad coach. But not sabotaging the damn Super Bowl. That makes them both look like idiots. And like I said, why wait until now?

[pjfootballer]

I agree GhostofSparta, that Al Davis probably had a role in it. He was a bombs away, let's play 1967 AFL style football. He loved the long ball as evidence by his acquisitions of guys like Willie Gault, Jay Schroeder and Darrius Hayward-Bey to name a few over the years. Wouldn't surprise me old Al got ahold of the game plan and put the kibosh on it and ordered Callahan and company to throw the ball more. I would have ignored him, gone along with the game plan and suffered the consequences later. I mean, either way, Callahan was getting fired.

[ouvan59]

Isn't there a story about the Redskins changing their gameplan on the bus to the stadium against the Bills and how great it was? I might be mixing up my stories but I seem to remember something about that. Bill Callahan may be a bad coach but I have a real hard time believing he would sabotage the SB. It sounds more like players can't come to grips with getting their arses kicked.

"It couldn't have been that Tampa Bay kicked us all over the field. It was....wait for it...'sabotage'".

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Ridiculous accusation. He might have done a horrible job or made some bad decisions, but no matter how much you hate an organization...as a coach he was 60 minutes away from the ultimate prize. To think he'd intentionally lose is asinine.

[Heisenberg]

If Callahan hated the Raiders so much, why would he coach them? Doesn't make any sense. You don't agree to coach a team you hate.

Also, the Raiders lost that game 48-21. Clearly their offense wasn't the only problem. Should've changed their defensive game plan.

Pretty sure Tampa had something like 3 pick-6's in that game.

I definitely don't think Callahan intentionally sabotaged the game but not changing the audibles/line calls, etc. from the Gruden years when you were facing a Gruden-coached team was so monumentally stupid that it's almost just as bad as outright sabotage.

[2cents]

Isn't there a story about the Redskins changing their gameplan on the bus to the stadium against the Bills and how great it was? I might be mixing up my stories but I seem to remember something about that. Bill Callahan may be a bad coach but I have a real hard time believing he would sabotage the SB. It sounds more like players can't come to grips with getting their arses kicked.

"It couldn't have been that Tampa Bay kicked us all over the field. It was....wait for it...'sabotage'".

Petibone came up with an idea on the bus to do something Jim Kelley had never seen and said hey let's do this on one play to see what happens. It was an int on the first play of the second half in SB 26.

[pjfootballer]

"The Bus Driver Special," 2cents. Kurt Goveia with the almost pick 6.