“This is Steve Tucker, a sideline reporter for Super Bowl 47. If you're hoping for the voice of your friend Jimnanz, it could be the moment before he gets on.”
Millions of watching CBS broadcasts watched when the audio of Super Bowl XLVII between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens suddenly cut early in the third quarter on February 3, 2013 You may have suspected something was wrong.
It was confirmed when the Tasker assigned to work on the 49ers sidelines was the first voice everyone heard. The broadcast booths, elevators and escalators stopped and had no power. The game was also stopped for 34 minutes.
“Half of the power of New Orleans Stadium, the superdome here, is coming out,” Tasker announced to the world.
For some Ravens players, the suspension was questionable. Jacoby Jones returned 108 yards of kickoff in the second half for a touchdown, with Baltimore leading 28-6, and the Ravens fired 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick on a second down. The Super Bowl was about to be defeated, but then the lights went out? Linebacker Ray Lewis smelled like a rat.
“You can't tell me that someone wasn't sitting there. When they said, Raven is trying to blow them away. In an interview with NFL Films' “American Games” later that year, he said. said. “It's a big change in every game, seriously.”
The actual explanation was more mediocre. Newly installed devices called relays are set too low in the factory and automatically cut power to the stadium when the ampere reaches a certain level.
Local electric company Entergy takes a vow that won't happen on Sunday when the Super Bowl first returns to New Orleans for the first time in 12 years. The company no longer uses blackout managers, electricity flows have better redundancy, and the stadium has hosted more than a decade of New Orleans Saints games and concerts without incident.
It's deeper
From the Super Bowl to the “Last Resort”, Michael Jordan from “Nomass”, Super Dome saw it all
These concerts include Beyoncé, who precedes the Blackout of the 2013 Halftime Show, and Taylor Swift, who brought 200,000 fans to the Caesar Superdome over three nights in October.
“Some people called that weekend the ultimate tabletop exercise,” Entergy said in a statement.
The 49ers laughed at Lewis' conspiracy theory, saying “We were the same late as they did,” offensive tackle Joe Staley — that they benefited from the reset. There is no doubt.
They barreled into the locker room with halftime intentions to fix everything that was wrong in the first half and quickly overcome the tactical change. Then they couldn't go anywhere.
The Super Bowl halftime was twice as long as the regular season version and the players were unable to access the field due to the fact that they had so much staging equipment. Instead, they were locked up in the locker room.
The 49ers began the third quarter, noting that the Ravens escaped with a retention penalty against fullback Bruce Miller with a kick-return touchdown from Jones. However, I also felt that long halftime was effective.
“I remember coach (Jim) Harbaugh coming in and asking, 'Have we warmed up?'” Mark Uyama recalled. “And then I'll go, 'Hmm-obviously (Jones) was.”
The 49ers ran two plays, a 29-yard pass to Michael Crabtree and a 3-yard run by Frank Gore before Kaepernick was fired by Arthur Jones. Following the play, color commentator Phil Sims was midway when the air went silent at 7:37pm local time.
The 49ers had the ball chasing 28-6 when the power suddenly disappeared at the Super Dome. (Dillip Vishwanat / Getty Images)
attack? Shooter? Those thoughts were flashed through everyone's hearts. The Sandy Hook shooting happened a month and a half ago, with the 49ers on hand in a New England game where the victim was remembered.
“The first thing that got my head through was terrorist acts,” said Greg Roman, the 49ers offensive coordinator at the time. “And what's coming next? First, they cut down on their strength. And what's now? My whole family is there.”
“I honestly thought it was a terrorist attack at first,” said Wink Martindale, the Ravens' internal linebacker coach. “You just didn't know. Soon you're looking up at the places where your family knows they're sitting and everything else to make sure everyone is fine.”
After a while, those thoughts dissipated. There was the first moan from the crowd, but no panic or fuss. The Super Dome was quiet.
“Everyone remained calm because of their trust,” Tasker said in a phone interview.
“Why did the clock stop?”
A throwback to the lights leaving between the Ravens vs. 49ers in Super Bowl xlvii 💡😳 pic.twitter.com/bd5qbuhjmq
– NFL Film (@nflfilms) December 25, 2023
He said everyone's first job is to know what happened and how long the game is late. Sideline reporters had stopped using wireless microphones six years ago during the Rain Super Bowl XLI because those microphones disappeared. Tasker had a cable attached to his microphone in New Orleans, stretching out just by the number of fields. The league staff he wanted to interviewed had been huddled in the middle and didn't want to be interviewed on camera. So he took a walk in the middle and got as much information as possible before being approached by Jim Harbaugh on his way back to the sidelines.
“He wanted to know what they told me,” Tasker said.
The 49ers had the advantage of experiencing similar things when the transformer was blown away outside Candlestick Park, causing two delays during the “Monday Night Football” game with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Yuyama said he reminded players how well they handled the waiting for a side job.
“We were more prepared than we were against Pittsburgh,” Yuyama said. “And we put (Ben) Roethlisberger on his back in every game. So we were walking around and communicating with everyone, “Remember Pittsburgh.” Ta. ”
The team was initially told that the game would resume in about 15 minutes and that everyone should stay on the field. They later checked in and heard the same refrain (15 minutes).
“The longer it was, the more I had to go back to coaching mode,” Martindale said. “It was like “holy.” We knew we were in trouble. I know Analytics says there's no such thing as momentum, but that's the Bulls. Once the lights went out, the momentum of the game changed. We were killing them when the lights went out. We had a team older than them and it took us really long to relax again. ”
49ers Safety Donte Whitner said: “Soccer is a momentum-based game, and whenever you have such a lull, it's a good opportunity for a team to not play well for reorganization or recovery.”
He said linebackers Patrick Willis and Nabilo Bowman discussed the strategy. Defence elder politician Justin Smith confirmed that everyone was focused and calm.
“I remember clearly hearing Dashon Goldson vividly saying, 'Not today.' Not today. We're too energetic. We are so good,” recalls Whitner. “And what he was referring to was, “Let's not make any simple mistakes that will beat us.” ”
The blackout officially lasted 34 minutes, appearing to lead to a huge swing for the 49ers. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
On the offense, Roman made a quick visit to the locker room at halftime. The 49ers had only scored two field goals at that time, so they had to rework their entire game plan. Roman spoke to the player for a brief moment before approaching Harbaugh.
“I just said, 'Hey Jim, I have to get upstairs and get things done,'” Roman said.
Before Beyoncé started her show, he returned to the coach's booth and felt good about the changes he made.
“Then they returned the kickoff, and that seemed to have changed even more dramatically in the price of poker,” Roman said. “It was like, 'Oh my god, we're in quite a hole now.”
He made more adjustments after the stadium lost power. The radio headset connecting him and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio to the sidelines did not work. In fact, it was one of the last things that came online before the game resumed.
So Roman bounced plays and ideas off receiver coach John Morton. The 49ers ran the ball from time to time to keep Lewis and the Ravens honest in their defenses. Otherwise, they will attack the air.
“We're going to be super offensive,” Roman said. “We had so many talents in the team. It was just a matter of time.”
He was right. The 49ers punted shortly after play resumed, but scored on a 31-yard Kaepernick-to-Crabtree pass when they regained the ball. They then scored on the next three possessions, cutting Baltimore's lead to 31-29 and playing in just under 10 minutes. It was as if Blackout had created two different games.
“It was like a concrete met from that point on,” Roman said.
But the Ravens scored once more – Justin Tucker's 38-yard field goal – the 49ers offense stuck deep into the red zone in the final minutes.
San Francisco appeared to have the perfect shot for a Goahead touchdown after running at 2:39 on Goa's 33-yard 7-yard line. But that carry is a rolled-up gore, one of the best short yard runners in the NFL, and his replacement, Lamikael James, was stopped for a two-yard profit on the first down. Ta.
The quarterback keeper who likely scored a touchdown was wiped out when Jim Harbaugh called a timeout to avoid a playclock violation. When the three final throws at the corner of the end zone sailed over the receiver's head, the Ravens knew they had finally stopped San Francisco's momentum and won the victory.
“If we had lost that game, we would have said, 'That's because the power is gone and it's a long delay',” Martindale said. “If not, they would have killed them.”
Roman said: “Unfortunately, that wasn't enough. It was a strange day in our lives.”
For a few minutes, despite being the voice and voice of the Super Bowl broadcast, Tasker said he wasn't getting much attention after the game. Instead, his phone began to begin blasting “Saturday Night Live” with Taran Killam playing the Taskist and six days later.
“That was when I knew I finally made it,” the Tasker said with a laugh.
(Photo above: Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)
