A lot has changed since the last time Houston hosted a Super Bowl.
Media Day has given way to Opening Night. Players use cell phone cameras to record the week’s activities instead of Camcorders. And the surface at what’s now called NRG Stadium has switched from artificial turf to grass.
What hasn’t changed since New England beat Carolina 32-29 in Super Bowl XXXVIII 13 years ago: Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are still going strong.
While the Patriots and Falcons prepare for Super Bowl LI, several former Panthers players reflected on their Super Bowl experience in Houston – a week that included a long ride to a supposedly secluded resort the night before the game, a wardrobe malfunction by Janet Jacket at halftime and a kicking malfunction by the Panthers’ John Kasay that helped the Patriots win their second Super Bowl of the Brady/Belichick era.
The players remember little things from that week.
Panthers defensive end Mike Rucker bought a Camcorder before the trip to Houston – the kind with “little cassette tapes,” he said.
He didn’t shoot much footage from the team hotel, in part Betexper because he spent much of his time helping his wife, Kristina, with their 3-week-old son, Mason, who was born the day after the Panthers’ wildcard victory over Dallas.
“That whole week was kind of baby mode,” Rucker said. “So it wasn’t like I was out taking part in a lot of those activities.”
Quarterback Jake Delhomme remembers a pretty quiet week, with the Panthers staying in a suburban area about 30 minutes north of Houston. But he also remembers a bunch of players getting together on Monday night for dinner and beers.
“We found a little tavern where the guys went and we just all hung out. It wasn’t the whole team, but it was the majority of the team,” Delhomme said. “It was really just us. And we just cut up, told stories and just had a ball.”
But ultimately, they all remember the pain.
Carolina practiced at the University of Houston during the week, using the Cougars’ indoor facility a couple of times when a cold front came through the area.
Super Bowl practice sites are generally closely monitored by NFL security personnel, with no outsiders around. But that was not the case on Houston’s campus.
“There were a lot of people around,” offensive tackle Jordan Gross said. “There were (University of Houston) athletes and people in and out, so it was definitely not a tight, high-security situation.”
That lax security – combined with later Patriots controversies involving videotaping the Jets’ defensive signals from an authorized location during a 2007 game and using deflated balls in the AFC Championship Game two years ago – has led to speculation that the Patriots might have cheated to gain an advantage against the Panthers before the Super Bowl.
It was definitely not a tight, high-security situation.
Jordan Gross, on the Panthers’ practices at the University of Houston before Super Bowl XXXVIII
Former general manager Marty Hurney discussed the possibility during his radio show on ESPN 730 two years ago, when Deflategate was in its infancy.
“There are people who swear to me that the Patriots taped our practice down in Houston during Super Bowl week,” Hurney said then. “I can’t prove it. I don’t know. And I hate talking like this because I feel like a bad loser, but it just gnaws at you and this latest incident brings it back up.”
Delhomme, who retired after the 2011 season and lives in Louisiana, says Hurney’s comments make him wonder if the rumors are valid.
“For Marty to say that, maybe Marty knows some things that we were never privy to,” Delhomme said in a phone interview this week. “But hopefully that wasn’t the case and it really was fair and square.”
Gross isn’t sure, either – but his wife is convinced the Patriots cheated.
“She swears up and down that’s why we lost – because they were spying on us,” Gross said. “Being out there on the field and knowing what a good team they were, they were capable of winning without help.
“If they did do something that they weren’t supposed to do, well, that’s on them. I’m glad I didn’t ever do anything like that.”
The Panthers visited the stadium late in the week for a walkthrough and team picture.
Owner and founder Jerry Richardson addressed the team, described what it took to win a title and showed players the championship ring he won as a member of the 1959 Baltimore Colts.
Gross, a rookie in 2003, remembers walking into the stadium for the walkthrough while Janet Jackson was doing a mic check for her halftime show with Justin Timberlake.
“I just thought that was the coolest thing,” Gross said. “And that’s before the wardrobe malfunction.”
It’s the only time Panthers players would see Jackson. They were in the locker room when Timberlake briefly exposed Jackson’s breast – partially covered by a nipple shield – during the CBS broadcast in what was later infamously described as a wardrobe malfunction.
This whole little community was so excited we were there. It was like a bigger distraction than staying at home would’ve been.
Jordan Gross, on the Panthers moving farther from Houston the night before Super Bowl XXXVIII
After the relatively quiet week in suburbia, Panthers coach John Fox wanted to take his team even farther away from the lure of Super Bowl parties the night before the game.
Delhomme said the Panthers stayed about an hour south of Houston, in an older resort. But their arrival at the hotel did not go unnoticed.
“We drive an hour out to the rural lands of Houston and when we get there, there’s like signs saying, ‘Welcome Panthers,’” Gross said. “This whole little community was so excited we were there. It was like a bigger distraction than staying at home would’ve been.”
What was troubling to receiver Steve Smith and other players about staying so far out is how it made their game-day trip that much longer.
“It was a good little jaunt away from the city life. That was a topic of conversation,” said Rucker, who put on his headphones and didn’t let the long commute bother him. “It wasn’t a real big juice stain for me.”
The Panthers, who’d beaten Philadelphia to advance to their first Super Bowl, were prohibitive underdogs to the 16-2 Patriots, who boasted a “stacked” defense – in Gross’ words.
After a scoreless first quarter, the teams combined for 24 points in the second quarter, and New England took a 14-10 lead into halftime. The Patriots increased their lead to 21-10 early in the fourth quarter before Carolina answered with a 33-yard touchdown run by DeShaun Foster.
Trailing 21-16, Fox made the curious decision to go for 2. After the 2-point attempt failed, the Panthers tried unsuccessfully to go for 2 six minutes later after Jake Delhomme found Muhsin Muhammad on an 85-yard touchdown pass.
“We might have chased points a little bit sooner than normal, going for 2 a couple times. But you never know,” Delhomme said. “Look, we had our opportunities and we couldn’t make things happen.”
The Panthers racked up 387 yards and won the turnover battle 2-1. And after Ricky Proehl pulled down a 12-yard touchdown pass with 1:08 remaining, Kasay’s extra point tied the game at 29.
If Carolina’s defense could hold Brady and Co., the game would go to overtime.
What happened next is seared in the minds of Panthers’ fans. Kasay, who’d kept 77 of 78 kickoffs inbounds during the regular season, hooked the kickoff out of bounds, giving the Patriots the ball at their 40.
It took Brady six plays to move the Patriots into field goal range for Adam Vinatieri, who drilled the game-winning 41-yarder with four seconds left.
The last thing I’ll do is blame it on that kick.To me that’s too easy of an excuse.
Jake Delhomme, on John Kasay’s errant kickoff
Kasay told the Observer at his 2013 retirement ceremony he “agonized” over the kick, which was designed to go toward the corner to limit the options for returner Bethel Johnson.
“I had practiced that kick for years and years and years,” Kasay said. “You can try to kick it on a straight line over there. The other way is you can almost bend the ball like in golf. I did both at the same time … because I wanted it to be so perfect.
“If I had just given myself more of a margin of error. … When my toe hit the ball I remember thinking, ‘Oh no.’”
Fans might have blamed Kasay for the Super Bowl loss over the years, but his teammates didn’t.
“That was definitely not a convenient time to kick a ball out of bounds, for sure,” Gross said. “But the sum of the parts from John Kasay’s career while we were teammates together was definitely something you could count on.”
“The last thing I’ll do is blame it on that kick,” Delhomme said. “To me that’s too easy of an excuse.”
A lot of Panthers players sought an escape from football after the crushing loss.
It would be a couple of years before some could bring themselves to watch the replay of the game.
“Once the game was over I was so deflated that I had to mentally get away from that game,” said Rucker.
Rucker went to Hawaii, where he and teammates Stephen Davis, Kris Jenkins and Todd Sauerbrun played in the Pro Bowl the following week.
Thirteen years later, Rucker still has never watched a replay of Super Bowl XXXVIII.
“I didn’t want to look at any programs. I didn’t want to look at the game,” he said. “I didn’t want to have really anything to do with the game because it hurt so bad.”
Delhomme was terrific in his duel with Brady. He threw for 323 yards and three touchdowns (without an interception) and finished with a higher passer rating than Brady, whose 354 passing yards and three touchdowns earned him MVP honors.
I like to think we ran out of time rather than we lost.
Jake Delhomme
Had the Panthers won, Delhomme – who passed for 211 yards and led three TD drives in the fourth quarter – would have been the easy choice for MVP.
“I like to think we ran out of time rather than we lost,” he said.
Gross has several vivid memories from Houston, but they weren’t his biggest takeaway.
Gross, who retired after the 2013 season, sometimes thinks about “how much cooler” it would have been had the Panthers won. He doesn’t wear his NFC Championship ring. He has it sitting on a shelf in his office – next to the trophy his wife won by claiming the Banana Open at Olde Providence Racquet Club.
It’s just another reminder of how close the Panthers came on that trip to Houston.
“What do I remember about it?” Gross asked, repeating the question. “The difference in three points,” he said.
“My life would be no different as far as meaningful things. But for your career or just a story to tell, ‘Super Bowl champion’ is so different than ‘I played in a Super Bowl.’”
Joseph Person: 704-358-5123, @josephperson
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