How To Watch Super Bowl LV Better Than Your Friends
(Feat. Yahoo Senior NFL Writer Terez Paylor, with cameos from Coaches Dan Reeves and Bill Curry, former HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg, and Hall of Fame linebacker Nick Buoniconti)
When I watch the Super Bowl, I like to have an edge as a viewer.
I accomplish this by using my journalistic access to get personal briefings from giants of football and reporters who cover them.
For example, in 2015 I called Hall of Fame linebacker Nick Buoniconti to be my Super Bowl 49 guide. In the process, I learned how a little guy — he was only 5’9” — could become a football giant. The following 25 second exchange reveals what he was up against.
For Super Bowl 50, I spoke with Georgia’s Bill Curry, the great college coach who played Center in three of the first five Super Bowls. Curry is a master motivator. The following 55 second audio clip almost made me want to get knocked down— just to prove I could get up.
I spoke with Dan Reeves, the head coach who led the Broncos to three Super Bowls and my Falcons to one. His Football 101 on the “silent count” – essential for the offense to communicate when the stadium noise is deafening – is a perspective changer. It only takes 60 seconds to listen.
And now, I’m calling on Yahoo’s Senior NFL Writer, Terez Paylor, for Super Bowl LV.
Paylor lives in Kansas City, home of the Chiefs, who are playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday. He hosts a great football podcast here, and has a knack for making football outsiders feel like insiders.
In addition to explaining why this Super Bowl is a potentially historic battle between two amazing quarterbacks, Paylor will introduce us to Eric Bieniemy, the coordinator of the Chiefs’ powerhouse offense.
From behind his red mask, Bieniemy is often the last person whose voice quarterback Patrick Mahomes hears in the earpiece inside his helmet before the ball is snapped.
What makes Bieniemy so good?
As a viewer on Sunday, how will we notice his impact on the field?
Oh, and why should we take a few plays to watch the center with the really long hair?
Here are ten perspective-changing minutes with Terez Paylor — accompanied by photos, and subtitles. Or you can just listen and read along here.
The Race Factor
As you will hear, the fact that Coach Bieniemy is Black and has not yet received the big prize — a head coaching job —is an important part of the story. Paylor also wrote about it in his piece Eric Bieniemy still isn’t an NFL head coach, and every excuse why falls flat.
Which brings me back to Coach Bill Curry who, in this Wavemaker Conversations podcast, movingly recounted the first time he was in a racially integrated huddle.
And, finally, I strongly recommend listening to the following 50 second anecdote that HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg shared with me about the first African American players in the NFL and the assaults that they faced — on the field.
Moving Forward
My approach to covering football, and most other subjects, is based on a desire to understand events that move too quickly for us to fully absorb in the moment.
I hope you’ll subscribe now to my newsletter and see how that approach manifests itself when I cover politics, business, the arts, philanthropy, health and well-being, the environment, and much more — leading to perspective changing insights.
Thank you for reading — and sharing.
Michael
A veil of sadness — more like an iron curtain — descended upon many of us this week when we learned that Terez Paylor had died, unexpectedly, on Tuesday.
I was introduced to Terez a few years ago by his fiancé, Ebony Reed, a leader in the field of journalism with a generous spirit that I had experienced first hand.
I had the opportunity to interview Terez for two in-depth Wavemaker Conversations.
I was struck by his ability to make a football outsider like me feel like an insider.
I was struck by his journalistic commitment to fairness, evident at the outset of our conversation above.
And I was particularly struck by his warmth and the generous spirit with which he shared his time and insights.
During our first conversation, Terez opened up about his journey from playing high school football in Detroit, to studying journalism at Howard University — where his backup plan was to be a football coach — to building his career as a football reporter in Kansas City.
Now that I’ve read the reflections of his friends and colleagues, including Henry Bushnell’s The Life and Passion of Terez Paylor — I’m thinking about one particular anecdote from our conversation last week.
As a beat reporter covering the Chiefs’ practices for the Kansas City Star, Terez says he would always hear coach Eric Bieniemy yelling to his players “Finish! Finish!” I asked him what “finish” meant.
Play through the whistle. Don't stop trying really really hard until the whistle blows. And even when the whistle blows, just a little extra, to prove a point.
I get the sense that Terez Paylor played through the whistle.
May his memory be a blessing.