Gunning for a Title

Miami. Sunday, Jan. 18, 1976. Time is running out at the Super Bowl as the Pittsburgh Steelers are plodding down the field. They have controlled the ball for eleven straight minutes and have slogged to the Dallas Cowboy 18-yd. line. Franco Harris rams off tackle yet again for two more yards, and Coach Chuck Noll sends in Kicker Roy Gerela. His field goal gives the Steelers victory--3-2. There is total silence in the Orange Bowl. Everyone is sound asleep.

The championship game of professional football annually produces more ennui than excitement. "Ball control" is the Super Bowl battle cry. Stay on the ground, eat up the clock, kick a couple of field goals, and take home the trophy. Super Bowl X may be more of the same monotonous brand of play. Dallas has a stifling defense--as both the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams found out in the playoffs. Pittsburgh (TIME cover, Dec. 8) merely has the best defense in the N.F.L.

But Dallas comes to the Orange Bowl this weekend with a zany offense that could turn the game into a wild, crowd-pleasing Shootout. Says Cowboys Assistant Coach Mike Ditka: "We have a chance to make the Super Bowl do for football what last fall's World Series did for baseball."

Old Standby. Quarterback Roger Staubach, who is having his best season, must be counted on for much of the drama. Staubach, 33, completed 57% of his passes and scrambled for 316 yds. He has been better in the playoffs. His bomb to Wide Receiver Drew Pearson beat the Vikings in the final minute, and he buried the Rams with four touchdown passes. Staubach's infantry consists of Running Backs Robert Newhouse and Preston Pearson. Neither is O.J. Simpson, but both ran effectively enough to make Dallas the top rushing team in their conference.

Staubach's talent is throwing from the shotgun--the old football stand-by that Coach Tom Landry has adapted for third-down passing plays. Staubach sets up 5 yds. behind scrimmage, backpedals seven more after the snap and looks to hit any one of five receivers downfield. He says that the tactic allows him "to save a crucial couple tenths of a second"--time enough to read the defense, then choose one from a confusing mixture of possible passes in front of or behind opposing linebackers.

The shotgun is only one aspect of probably the most involved pro offense today. Dallas always changes its formation before the snap of the ball. Says Landry: "Most defenses are geared to recognition. If we can make the other team unsure of the play for a few seconds, we can hit our point of attack." Getting there is never simple. Notes Preston Pearson: "When I was playing for Baltimore and Pittsburgh, the quarterback's call in the huddle was a sentence long. Here it's a paragraph."

Diversity has made the season for Landry's team. The play-offs seemed out of reach with the loss of starters like Calvin Hill and Bob Lilly. Landry, 51, a coach who says, "Defense is part of me," took to tinkering with his offense. He seemed to enjoy it, and was even seen smiling on the sidelines.

The bookmakers are not won over by the new Landry. The Steelers are a seven-point choice for some solid reasons. Behind Pittsburgh's ferocious front four are a trio of crafty linebackers, led by Andy Russell. Against the Dallas shotgun they will be forced to cover more ground, and with five receivers, the double coverage Pittsburgh favors is impossible. But Linebacker Coach Woody Widenhofer sees some compensation in the shotgun. Says he: "You can't run the football, so the front four can tee off on Staubach."

The complexity of the Dallas offense does not worry Widenhofer either. "We have an advantage in playing Cincinnati twice this year," he says. "The Bengals use lots of motion. The only difference between Dallas and Cincinnati is where the quarterback is." The Steelers' offense is more predictable. Fullback Franco Harris was good for almost 5 yds. a smash this season, and Quarterback Terry Bradshaw, who is also having his best season, will throw to him as well. For deeper patterns, he looks to the speedy Lynn Swann.

Black Sunday. If the Steelers and Cowboys do not explode on the field, there will still be a drama of sorts going on. Film Director John Frankenheimer will be shooting crowd scenes for Black Sunday, a $7 million thriller in which Arab terrorists attempt to bomb the stadium from the Goodyear blimp. Action sequences will not be shot on Super Sunday.

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