Jack and I each drafted a team for a Tecmo Super Bowl tournament. If you've played the game before, you don't need me to explain that it was a video game classic. It used real-life football players way before Madden hit the big time. Nintendo graphics that reflected the very best of 1991 Japanese technology and knowledge of American football.
We simulated the regular season and then picked the playoff teams with the worst records. Thus Jack ended up with the Eagles of Reggie White and Randall Cunningham. Me, the Seattle Seahawks of Cortez Kennedy and Dave Krieg.
My first round matchup with the Oakland Raiders. Let's open it up with a bomb for starters. From my 20 yard line to their 20 yard line. A realistic, perfect spiral, completely unaffected by wind. Intercepted. No problem, just like a punt. Or should I say a "punt kick" to quote the menu, not to be confused with the punt run or the punt knitting.
Bo Jackson runs that play where he heads for the bottom sideline with a ton of blockers. I chase him with Kennedy and get blocked on my kiester. Jackson dashes all the way to the end zone. Darn.
Punted. The Seahawks always had the kind of playbook that makes defenses salivate. Lots of two-back sets, slow runners, middling quarterback.
Two-back set. Could be the Jackson down run, but I've gotta call a pass play... can't afford to have them with open receivers flying unguarded downfield. Down run it is. Got through the seam in the blocking. Just got to grab him from behind... make up this one step gap... two steps... HEY! Human players aren't supposed to be this slow! My defensive teammates show a combination of terrific choreography, unearthly bad depth perception and confusing grasp of geometry by diving "at" him using crazy angles and mostly landing out of bounds or a yard behind him on the turf. 14-0.
Ah, the Pro T Flare D play. A couple deep runners, a trio of safety valves. Methodical drive downfield, seven points on the board. Even Krieg can't mess this up.
Got the ball back. Pro T Flare D'd my way to the end zone. Tried to line up the kick so as not to bang it off the uprights. Just long enough for the defender to fly in and block it. "You know it's practically impossible to miss extra points, right?" Jack reminds me kindly.
It turns out to be the difference in the game. Two more Jackson runs while I lay in the backfield with a mouthful of turf. Valiant patchwork touchdown drives bring me within a point, but a last-ditch onside kick fails and the game ends with Jack crying out in shock from the gallery.
Randall Cunningham (sorry, "QB Eagles" since he refused to grant his likeness to Nintendo) has the speed of Usain Bolt - the 2010 version, not 1991 version - and invincible accuracy. Jack steamrolled the Saints, cursed with an ultra-predictable offense stained with flea flickers, and then the fast-moving 49ers (who somehow were second to the Saints during the regular season).
I wish NFL action was like Tecmo action. Ball carrier zig zagging in a sine wave pattern. Defenders choosing to chase him in the same fashion rather than running in a straight line, and to dive haphazardly once they get close instead of just grabbing him.
For the Super Bowl, I manned the AFC champion Cincinnati Bengals.
Pre-game news: Philadelphia receiver Kenny Jackson recovered from injury. Shows a monolithic hospital with nurses waving from the top of the roof like castle sentries, while Jackson sprints away. Down the street, presumably. Why would we expect an NFL player who thought to bring his entire football uniform to the hospital to also have access to a car? On second thought, maybe he's escaping from the hospital. And the nurses are mocking him.
To level the playing field we agreed to two rules: (1) both playbooks will be the same, (2) no QB running plays allowed (Bengals QB Boomer Esiason is to Randall Cunningham as paper planes are to the Concorde.
All the breaks went my way. He drove to my 5-yard line, then fumbled. I threw a pass into double coverage that resulted in a sliding catch. Lobbed one fifty yards down the sideline as the half expired that was caught by the receiver just far enough away from Jack's man that he auto-dove into the turf, allowing me to walk in for the score (and show ball, of course). Stunningly the lead was 21-7 with ten hyperspeed minutes left in the tournament.
After the legendary Mighty Bombjack show (don't ask me, consult a Japanese dictionary or something), Jack shifted into one-man-show mode, calling a series of pass plays that were really QB runs. Touchdown to end the third quarter.
Offense stalled at my own 30. Punter was kicking with confidence, booming it two yards into the end zone.
Cunningham moved it steadily but urgently as the clock ticked. With nine seconds left he called a halfback run that flattened my defender and tied the game.
He was unstoppable. He won the overtime coin toss and elected to receive. Game over.
Right?
He drove down to the 30. Third and eight. I had Cunningham in my sights with James Francis on his tail. Pitched to his running back for a lunging first down.
"Ach, thought I could get you to kick a field goal," I muttered.
"You want me to kick a field goal?" he asked.
"Nah, I might get an interception or fumble if you keep going."
He decided to kick a field goal. And to wait just long enough for me to dive for the ball with a chance of blocking it.
Never got that far. He underestimated Francis, who sailed through the line and pummeled the holder before the kicker even got to the ball.
With the ball deep in my territory, I rolled the dice on first down and called the bomb. The shotgun formation was a dead giveaway of the play. Jack groaned at having guessed a different play. At the snap, he took his All Pro linebacker and ran straight back toward his end zone.
In Tecmo, there's no way to tell where your receiver is or how many defenders are blanketing him that far downfield. I could tell that he was covered when he left the screen, but knew nothing else. Including his name.
Turns out, his name was Eddie Brown. His foot speed was mediocre. Which is why when my heave amazingly found the perfect middle of the end zone, the guys with blazing speed covering him were overshot at the back of the end zone. Like I said, NFL realism.
Brown leaped. Grabbed it. Ball game. I let out my loudest shriek of 2010 in an octave I didn't know I had.
My walls are intact.
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