In preparation for narrating his fifth Super Bowl, CBS’ Jim Nantz earlier this week found himself for some reason contemplating the outer limits of greatness.
The New England Patriots bring that out in a person.
Dynasty talk shouldn’t come cheaply, Nantz knows. “Because those of us who have been around for a while, we’re always a little hesitant to use the D word – dynasty. Sometimes it can get tossed around (too easily),” he said.
For all the New England games he has called over a long career – he figures it’s nearing triple digits – Nantz somehow has avoided working any of their eight previous Super Bowls in the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady epoch. He’s got this one, though, and that requires a whole different kind of perspective, one you don’t bring to the ballpark just every day. And there’s only 100 million or so people listening to what’ll he’ll come up with. So, no pressure.
“(The Pats’ place in history) is something I got to start thinking about if we get into that in the game scenario – and how to frame it,” the broadcaster said at mid-week.
A Patriots victory – hardly assured, as they are skinny 2 1/2-point favorites over the Los Angeles Rams – would make it an even half-dozen championships, as these guys appear to order up Lombardi Trophies like you would bagels. That would make it six Super Bowl titles in 18 seasons and 14 appearances in the AFC Championship game over that same stretch (including the last eight). What else would you call it, if not the D word? Whatever New England does Sunday night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, it deserves to be framed as either the natural continuation of a dynasty or the interruption of one.
(Here we remind the audience that while Pats quarterback Brady is 41, there are no guarantees that Sunday represents a last hurrah. He has said he fully intends to play to 45. And one of Nantz’s fellow CBS employees, a former Super Bowl quarterback himself, doesn’t discount that. “His arm’s going to make it to 45. Now the question is does he want to make it to 45? When he’s 45 he’s still going to throw the ball well enough to be a top-tier starting NFL quarterback,” Phil Simms said this week.)
Attempting to compare the Patriots run with other great dynasties is a merry but imprecise pursuit. Different eras. Different sports. Different rules for team building.
Theirs hasn’t been as unrelenting as the Boston Celtics’ 11 championships in 13 seasons (1957-69).
Theirs hasn’t been as decorated as the UConn women, winners of nine NCAA basketball titles between 2002-16.
Nor as fabled as the New York Yankees’ overall collection of 27 world championships. Although you could argue that the Patriots are wearing on other fan bases like those Yankees have.
The NFL has witnessed other dynastic impulses, of course. The old Green Bay Packers, with their five championships in the 1960s, including the first two Super Bowls. The Steelers took possession of the 1970s with four titles from 1975-80. San Francisco took it from there with five championships from 1982-95. Winning Sunday would pull the Patriots into a tie with Pittsburgh for most Super Bowl titles – six.
While there is no objectively verifiable way to know where to place New England on the mural of sports’ great dynasties, Nantz knows this much about what the Patriots have done this decade:
“I can’t imagine we’re ever going to see anything like this ever again. I won’t be around long enough to see anybody put together a streak like what Bill and Tom and the Patriots have done.
“In an age where everything in the league is built upon trying to level the playing field, in a time of free agency, how they’ve been able to maintain year after year a winning formula, it’s truly incomprehensible.”
“This,” he said, pointing to the Patriots, “is a dynasty. There is no getting around it. I haven’t said it about that many things in my life.”
As Nantz has rolled from big event to big event throughout his CBS career, he figures he has had two other opportunities to describe the kind of weight the Patriots are bringing to Sunday.
In the Final Four, there has been Duke and Mike Krzyzewski. Nantz has called all five of their NCAA championships.
In golf, there has been Tiger Woods, whose four Masters titles all have been overseen by CBS and Nantz. “A win for the ages,” was his succinct and memorable call of Woods’ first of 14 majors, the 12-stroke runaway at Augusta in 1997.
And to this company the Patriots most certainly belong.
“These have been some of the biggest sports stories and sports stars of the past 30-plus years. And I’m still trying to put the right caption on the picture,” Nantz said.
So, break out the exclamation points and the superlatives. The Patriots are in town and, if all goes as they plan, they intend to test the world’s supply of both.
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