NFL legend Jerry Rice just found out just how good he was in Tecmo Bowl
The look on Jerry Rice’s face was priceless. It’s not every day you tell a Pro Football Hall of Famer — much less a superstar as thoroughly dominating as Rice — something he didn’t know about how great he actually was.
“No, no, no. Are you serious?” Rice said, covering his mouth and laughing.
Totally! Ask anyone who knows Tecmo Super Bowl, they’ll tell you that if you substitute Jerry Rice, the top wide receiver on an overpowering San Francisco 49ers team, to running back, he is even more powerful and more dominating than the fabled Tecmo Bo Jackson.
It’s true. So true that, for the past 30 years, there have been informal rules in basements and frat houses against making this kind of substitution. (There were also house rules against taking Jackson’s Raiders, or the 49ers, the best team in the game by far.) Any serious Tecmo Super Bowl tournament also has a strict competition ban on giving running plays to Rice.
“Wide receiver at running back is a ban for many reasons; Jerry being better than Bo at running back is also because he is a better receiver,” said Jon Bailey, the former tournament director of Tecmo Madison, the Super Bowl of Tecmo Super Bowl. “We had a player put Jerry at running back before the ban, and he had, like, 150 [yards] on the ground, and 150 through the air with him, and the ban was born.”
So, how about that, Mr. Rice?
“See, that was something I never did, back in the day,” Rice said, meaning take screen passes or short routes. “I actually had to be able to run routes downfield, deep downfield, and get open, and make the catch. Today, these players have been more utilized as running backs, just to get the ball in their hands.”
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Rice’s real-life playing style is probably a little more suited
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