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might have read about Hank Stram's And while we were performing all with anything less than perfect play:
magical defenses versus Bud Grant's stol- these idiocies, the Chiefs weren't just Toward the end of the game I called
idness, or the AFL's innovativeness standing around waiting for the breaks. a play that had worked for us often.
against the NFL's rigidness-why, those They were making them. We thought The backs go fake-run toward the right
stories were all exaggerated. What hap- we knew their defensive formations, but and I bootleg to the left, all alone, and
pened was simpler: we came up flat, they knew them far better than we did, throw a pass, or run if I have to. This
and we made mistakes. We made more both their strengths and their weakness- time some blocks were missed, and Buck
mistakes in the Super Bowl than we made es. Their five-man front seemed to in- Buchanan and Aaron Brown came roar-
all year. Early in the game Tight End vite certain plays; I'd come up to the ing through. I ran like hell, with Bu-
John Beasley and I combined to blow a line and I'd see an apparent weakness chanan on my heels and Brown. trying
key pass play that might have moved in their alignment. I'd call an audible, to cut me off at the pass, and Aaron
us in for the first score-and when ball- and by the time the ball would be snapped got me and whomped me on down to
control teams like Kansas City and Min- they'd have covered up. They were talk- the ground shoulder to shoulder. It was
nesota are playing, that first score can ing to one another all through the game. a beautiful, clean shot. The blow must
mean the whole game. John came back I could hear Bobby Bell and Willie La- have got the nerve, because the first flash
to the huddle and said, "I dropped it," nier chattering back and forth, making of pain went straight to my head and
and I said, "I underthrew it," and the judgments, making guesses and being knocked me out. I came to in a few sec-
truth is that we were both right. But we right. We had plenty of audibles-we onds with this terrible pain in my shoul-

BENCHED BY AN INJURY FOR THE FIRST TIME, A SAD JOE KAPP SITS OUT THE DYING MINUTES OF THE SUPER BOWL

had be<:;n connecting on passe3 like that were prepared. They were counter- - der, and when I got back to the huddle
all year long. prepared. Gary was already there calling the next
That play was the tip-off to what was At halftime we were behind 16-0, but play. Was I glad to see him! For the
coming. We hadn't had a reallY costly we weren't dead yet. A few weeks be- first time in all those years of football I
fumble in something like 15 straight fore, we had trailed Los Angeles 17-7 was going to have to leave a game be-
games, but i:q the Super Bowl we fum- at halftime and come back to win. So cause of injury. The doctors found out
bled three times and lost the ball twice. we weren't demoralized. "Listen," I said, later that several ligaments and muscles
I threw two interceptions. We took six "at least let's go out there and do our had been torn and there was a slight
penalties, including a key penalty for thing." We did. On the first series of shoulder separation. A sportswriter gave
pass interference. We dropped two balls downs, we went 69 yards for a touch- a simpler diagnosis. He wrote that I suf-
that we should have intercepted. Against down. But the way the Chiefs were play- fered a bad case of the aaronbrowns.
a tough team like Kansas City, two ing that day, it was too late. We made A dread disease!
turnovers would normally kill you; we some more mistakes, and nobody was Do you know what happens when you
made seven. going to beat Kansas City that day lose the Super Bowl? The world ends.
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