Are We Sure the Super Bowl Is a Good Way to Determine a Champion?

Welcome to a world where, among other differences: One kick drifted a few feet to the left, a coin toss came up tails rather than heads, and your Super Bowl heroes are not who they were.

The black chauffeured cars begin to arrive outside of NFL headquarters midtown Manhattan just before lunch on an overcast morning in early March. A banner hanging outside the main entrance welcoming Super Bowl champions of the past century does little to brighten the drab, corporate exterior of professional football’s nerve center, but it is bigger than in years past and it helps keep the older players shuffling around at the drop-off point from missing the front doors, as they had during previous reunions.

Scott Norwood steps out of a warm Uber and is delighted to see Curt Knight up ahead. The former Washington kicker still looks good, every bit the man who could have played professional football or doubled as a Beatles impersonator. They often cling together at these things, as kickers tend to do.

“There he is,” Norwood says, extending a left hand weighted down by four gold rings. They depict, in increasing opulence, the Bills’ unprecedented four-peat during an electric early-90s run, which was set off when the legendary kicker banked one off the right upright and through to win Super Bowl XXV.

“That is the most expensive set of brass knuckles I’ve ever seen,” Knight says, tapping his modest, cushion-shaped ring with sixteen small diamonds—earned with his game-winner to beat the 16–0 Dolphins—against Norwood’s wall of sparkling stones.

“Come on,” Norwood says, “let’s get a spot near the buffet.”

The two walk through security and take the elevator to the seventh floor, where the desks and cubicles have been cleared out into an open space that has the look and smell of a First Holy Communion after party at the local country club. Knight spots a twin set of chafing dishes warming a few dozen servings of goat cheese bread with caramelized onions and loads up his appetizer plate. He stuffs a few napkins into his suit jacket pocket.

Their conversation bounces from banal pleasantries about family and mutual acquaintances to real estate and weather before Norwood breaks the lull and unloads something that has clearly been bothering him.

USA TODAY Sports

“Did you ever wonder, Why us, Curt?” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“Why the universe picked us that day.”

“I’m not following.”

“I was talking to Adam Vinatieri earlier this week and the poor guy still gets harassed on his way to the gym for missing that stupid kick against the Rams,” Norwood says, flailing his hands like a preacher. “I mean, here’s the most methodical, hard-working dude. A guy who could have kicked us out of the league in any camp; instead he is doing personal training for high schoolers.”

“I forgot about that,” Knight says, giving a feint, I-think-we-might-have-played-golf-together-once wave to Jake Delhomme, who is walking over to the coat check. “Poor guy. Was that one before or after they had sent Brady to Cleveland?”

“The more that I think about how much I love my life; the trade show appearances and card signings and interviews and free beers and commercials, the more I think about how ridiculous this whole setup is. I mean, the Super Bowl is a horrible way to determine a champion.

Knight nods sympathetically, eyeing a way out of the conversation. Is that Jim Harbaugh? Did he like Jim Harbaugh?

“The hysteria, the flashing bulbs, the interminable timeouts and eternal halftime,” Norwood continues, “the whole thing is built into this blender of anxiety and nothing is normal. Good players do stupid things in one sliver of a moment that is hardly representative of what an actual game is like that doesn’t come close to defining who they are or what their teams are capable of. And because of that, they’re working at a Planet Fitness while we’re here getting our shoes shined, eating stuffed mushrooms.”

“Did you see stuffed mushrooms?” Knight asks.

“Our lives are based on the premise that we are world champions when other sports actually play more than one game in this ridiculous pressure cooker. They are actually world champions. There is a data set. A sample size. More than just one of us catching the universe’s tailwind in a moment of blind chaos. Like, what would your life be like if Garo Yepremian hadn’t thrown that ridiculous bobbling interception against you guys which set up the comeback? I’ve been looking at all these stats. All these really, really good teams that didn’t win Super Bowls. All these lucky teams that did. The access to information we have now . . . it’s ridiculous. Completion percentage over expectation. Expected points added. Have you ever heard of DVOA?”

Knight stabbed a carrot stick into a pool of boiled peanut hummus.

“Like, the Dolphins. They could be the only undefeated team in modern NFL history. They were talented! They were well-coached. They could be here with gold jackets on, popping bottles of champagne every year when the last undefeated team falls.”

“How stupid would that be?” Knight says, laughing.

“We should make the Super Bowl a best-of-three with no fans, no media. A game in a vacuum, cut off from the television hysteria,” Norwood says. “We should control the circumstances. Make it impossibly even. Hire that guy who was banned from the NFL from spying—Billacheck, or whatever—to monitor the thing, kind of like how the FBI hires old bank robbers.”

Just a few yards away, announcements begin for players from certain decades to begin filing into a vacant conference room for interviews. Norwood holds up his fist full of Super Bowl rings between his face and the fluorescent lighting overhead. His eyes get wide. His knee bumps the table and rocks a plate full of pancetta crisps.

“It’s almost like these things are a prism and when I hold it up in front of my face, the world sees me differently. Am I a better kicker than Matt Bahr just because I could make a blind luck kick with 100,000 flash bulbs going off in my face? Look at Matt Ryan over there; if that overtime coin toss doesn’t come up tails and give him a chance to march right down the field, that Falcons team would hear about blowing a 27-3 lead for the rest of their lives.”

“I think it was actually—”

“What I’m trying to say, Curt, is that these things obscure the truth. They are a mask. A façade. A farce. The Super Bowl is a lie!”

Norwood’s voice had risen to a volume that disrupted several nearby conversations. Ickey Woods and Boomer Esiason roll their eyes before returning their gaze to their cellphones.

“I just don’t think it’s fair for good teams—good people—to be forgotten about.”

Knight walks over to meet Norwood at the other end of their small circular table and puts a hand on his back.

“Easy partner,” he says. “It’s just a game.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Norwood says. “Besides, the stuffed mushrooms are really good.”

John W. McDonough/Sports Illustrated

Outside a light rain gives way to the kind of blinding sun that illuminates all the melting snow sitting on the windowsills around the city. The sound system begins to play old NFL Films soundtrack music and a familiar comfort and routine sweeps over the room. This was a place for winners. For champions.

Knight laughs and tells Norwood about a toy he had to find for his grandson this year for Christmas on eBay. A Kevin Dyson action figure whose limbs stretch out like Play-Doh, imitating the famous reach that won Super Bowl XXXIV.

“Unbelievable,” Norwood says, as he pulls a sunglass cleaner kit from his pocket to polish his rings.

• Question or comment? Email us.