It’ll be all-Harbaugh-all-the-time Sunday. Except when it’s all-Ray Lewis.
The Harbaugh brothers are an incredible storyline. In Jim Nantz’s view, the best pictures from the Super Bowl will come at the end of the game.
“When those two coaches meet at midfield when the game ends, I can’t wait to see what that will be like,” Nantz said. “How much joy? How much despair? How will they balance that? To me, the ultimate shot of this game will be when two brothers meet at midfield — one a winner, one a loser, with the biggest stakes in the sport, and it has all just been settled. Looking into their eyes, what are we going to see?”
As for the game itself, CBS director Mike Arnold said his crew will have dedicated cameras on both coaches. Of course, that’s a no-brainer, considering CBS will have 62 cameras.
The reaction shots from the coaches are standard fare during a Super Bowl. However, there’s going to be much more interest in seeing the Harbaughs because of the brother connection–especially Jim, who can get very animated.
“If he’s got a great reaction, we want to make sure we see that on the air,” Arnold said.
And what about the parents? There will be a high value on the reaction shots from mom and dad.
“If we find them in the stands, we’ll definitely mix them into the broadcast,” said executive producer Harold Bryant.
Meanwhile, the challenge for Nantz and Phil Simms will be to come up with fresh angles to a Harbaugh storyline that will have been beaten to death by kickoff.
Simms: “I think we have a few stories about both brothers than nobody knows through experiences I’ve had with him or people who know them. Maybe we’ll get into a couple of those, but so many of those stories are dependant on the pace of the game and the plays that are being made. If there’s a lot of exciting plays, it’s hard to tell anything personal about either one. We’ll just deal with the game.”
Nantz: “We’ll be armed with appropriate bullet points. Hopefully very fresh. There’s so much out there right now. This game is so Harbaugh-centric. You just hope you can find in your face-to-face meetings a story people have no heard.”