TV : CBS Just Might Have the Best Team on Super Bowl Sunday

Chemistry is kind of like an alibi. You either have it or you don’t.

CBS announcers Pat Summerall and John Madden, who will work their fifth Super Bowl together Sunday, have chemistry.

Madden, of course, would never define their working relationship that way. Madden would say they work well together because they have, you know, some good stuff.

Summerall describes it this way:

“After the first game we did together I knew we had something. I knew the game, and obviously John did. And it seemed what he missed, I hit. What I missed, he hit. Chemistry? ... I know we both like hanging out. I know we like each other.”

Eleven seasons have passed since someone at CBS had the good sense to pair Madden and Summerall. Today, the two set the standard.

Summerall is the polished pro: knowledgeable smooth, unflappable.

Madden is Norm from “Cheers” with a telestrator.

“I didn’t know what I was doing when we started,” Madden says. “I just did it. Somebody would be talking in my earpiece and I’d talk right back to them. We’d go to a commercial and I’d still be talking. I remember our first game, they showed a picture of a coach and the guy in the headset said ‘coach’ and I said, ‘What?’ But Pat was so smooth he just took out all the rough edges.”

Summerall chuckles, recalling an early Madden anecdote: “John had been at CBS for two years when one day I said I’m behind on my expense account. And he said, ‘What?’ I said you know you’re supposed to account for all this.”

“I didn’t know anything about expense accounts,” Madden says. “I just went where they sent me.”

Madden and Summerall stand the entire game. They say it gives them a better view.

“When I first started working with Pat, I was glad to see that he stood up for the games,” Madden says. “I’ve never sat down at a football game in my life, not as a player, not as a coach and now not as a broadcaster.”

“I sat in the stands at a game at my old high school two years ago,” Summerall says, “and I got into a fight.”

One reason Madden and Summerall work is because they come across as so natural, so down-to-earth.

“I don’t think of myself as a celebrity,” Madden says, “because if you start thinking about yourself that way, then you start acting that way and then I’d hate myself. I’m just a guy, always have been. When I was a kid, my father said don’t start work until you have to, because you are going to be working the rest of your life. I told that to somebody the other night and he said, ‘Well, you haven’t started yet.”’

“I don’t think about us as being at the top, because we can get better,” Summerall says. “I see a lot more mountains we can climb.”

Immediately after every game, Madden and Summerall critique the telecast. Occasionally they are disappointed, as was the case following the Dallas Cowboys-Chicago Bears playoff game in December. “I don’t think we brought out the different defense the Bears were using on the goal line,” Summerall says. “They were only using one defensive back, and I don’t think we covered that sufficiently.”

“I think we have had a good telecast when everything we talked about is in the game stories in the newspapers the next day,” Madden says.

On and off the air, Summerall has a knack for setting up Madden and then staying out of the way. Even in a telephone interview, Summerall instinctively knows when his partner is on a roll.

Case in point: A question about the Super Bowl being in Minnesota as opposed to a warm-weather venue:

“I don’t think you always have to go to the beautiful place where they have Brie,” Madden says. “You need to have the Super Bowl where they have sausage once in a while.

“No one’s ever had an answer for me on this one: Why not play the Super Bowl where it lies, like they do in golf? Whoever has the best record plays at home. It was OK two weeks ago.

“We had a championship game in Buffalo. Everytime I think of Buffalo, I think of tundra. I don’t even know what tundra is, but I think it’s frozen.”

Although more than 100 million viewers worldwide will be watching Super Bowl XXVI Sunday, both men claim no pretelecast jitters.

“The people around us may be nervous,” Summerall says, “but John and I won’t be.”

“Once I get into the game, I just cover the game, just let it go,” Madden says. “If I ever thought about how many people were watching I’d probably hyperventilate, pass out or throw up or something.”