THE whole thing gave David Bremer the creeps. Still does. And thus he tells this cautionary tale:
The 50-year-old freelance TV tape operator was in Glendale, Ariz., to work last year’s Patriots-Giants Super Bowl on Fox when suddenly, without warning or choice, the NFL appointed him chief referee.
“It made me very uncomfortable,” Bremer said Thursday from his New Jersey home. “I live in Giants territory, surrounded by Giants fans. What if people found out that I was the guy who cost the Giants the championship?
“I felt like that guy from that Cubs playoff game.”
Actually, Steve Bartman’s fly-ball interference that likely cost the Cubs Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS was more a natural function of attending a game than was Bremer’s involuntary role at last year’s Super Bowl.
You likely recall the episode in which Bremer, er, starred.
With 11:07 left in the third, the Pats, up 7-3 and with a fourth and 2, punted from the Giants’ 44. The Giants took possession at their own 13 then, of course, TV commercials followed. During that break, Pats coaches became hooked on a feeling:
Giants LB Chase Blackburn, running off the field before the ball was snapped to the punter, was half-a-step late reaching the sideline. Bill Belichick threw a replay challenge flag.
As a tape operator, Bremer “found and replayed the 22 angle of Blackburn running off the field,” from the highest camera inside the stadium. “It’s not generally used during the regular season; it was added for the Super Bowl. It’s ‘the 22’ because it shows all 22 players.”
And on this day, the ’22’ found 22 1/2. Only one of Blackburn’s feet had landed out of bounds before the ball was snapped. The Pats won their challenge – 12 men on the field, 5-yard penalty – and retained possession, first and 10.
Six plays later, the Pats had reached the New York 25. On the seventh play, third down, Michael Strahan sacked Tom Brady for a loss of 6. On fourth and long from the 31, the Pats didn’t try for a field goal; Brady’s long pass was incomplete. Giants’ ball.
And so, while Bremer’s “find” altered the game to some indeterminate extent, it didn’t determine the game’s winner and loser. Whew!
But throughout that Pats’ post-challenge possession, Bremer had that innocent-but-guilty/guilty-but-innocent sick feeling.
“I told the camera guy before the game that the only way he would get a replay was if he stayed wide, because all the other cameras would be tight. And I believe that was his only replay of the game.
“What bothered me most is that I could have changed the outcome of the Super Bowl for revealing tape that had absolutely nothing to do with the play. Blackburn was running off the field. If an official wants to throw a flag for too-many-men, fine. But that shouldn’t be left to me.
“And again, catching Blackburn with one foot still in bounds did not change the play, not one bit. And New England kept the ball and could’ve scored.
“I’m just glad I could return home, not having to hide from all the Giant fans in my neighborhood.”
But that was only one dangerous scenario. What if the videotape of Blackburn’s violation had appeared, but a play or a day too late? The cry of “Fix!” still could be heard from New England.
And the demand for an investigation would be justified. Non-NFL employees, folks such as Bremer, might be interrogated, deposed; explanations would be demanded of them, background checks. Did they bet the game? How much?
Sportswriters, for some foolish reason, are expected to make public their Super Bowl predictions. I’ve got three:
1. Because the NFL is always party to its TV networks’ lies, tonight’s game will not begin at 6 p.m., as both NBC and the NFL have claimed, but at roughly 6:30.
2. Whichever team Mike Francesa picks, I’ll take the other side. That goes for the over/under, too.
3. The game will be determined by one or more applications of the replay rule that was never, ever intended when the replay rule was installed (accent on “stall”), 20 years ago. In fact the replay rule is seldom used as it was originally intended – to reverse egregiously incorrect calls.
If the NFL and its fans knew then what they now know – that the replay rule mostly would be used to examine microscopic, freeze frame, knee and elbow footage, and that the rule would be applied as it was in the third quarter of last year’s Super Bowl – logic would have won the day. There would be no replay rule.
And people who don’t work for the NFL, people such as tape operator David Bremer, could just do their jobs – they never would have to worry about suddenly being leaned on by the NFL to determine the outcomes of NFL games, Super Bowl included.
