“He was coming down the sideline,” Breech says. “And I think he cut back in. Tried to run me over. That’s what they tell guys. Run the kicker over. I hung on for dear life. I ended up breaking my nose. I had to get my nose fixed because of it. We were laughing about that. ‘I got you down, though. Made the tackle.’ I hung on. I hung on.”

The 7-1 Cartwright was there, too, and Breech recalled how he was the third guy in line to cover him the night Sac played Elk Grove.

“He put 62 on us in three quarters,” Breech says. “I couldn’t reach the top of his head standing there.”

Even Dan Bunz, of all people, being in attendance couldn’t bring back the Super Bowl memories. Bunz, a member of the Sacramento Hall, is best known as the 49ers linebacker who made the last two plays of their four-down goal-line stand that beat Breech’s Bengals seven years earlier in Super Bowl XVI.

“I didn’t get to talk to him,” Brech says. “I’ve seen him out here at golf tournaments. He told me the year after, ‘We had no idea what you guys were going to run.’ It was the difference in the game.”

At another Bay Area golf tournament for charity, Breech somehow got a helmet signed by the celebrity players. Bunz added, “The Play,” or “The Tackle.” Breech isn’t sure because, “That helmet never comes out of the closet.”

The one thing Breech wants to remember about that first Super Bowl, a 26-21 San Francisco victory, is that a kicker should have been the MVP.

“Ray Wersching,” Breech says. “Montana won it with (157) yards and a touchdown. But what about the guy who kicks four field goals and has two kickoffs we mishandle and they get field goals off of them?”

“Yes, it’d be great if a kicker won one. I think it would be great just to be on the winning team.”

Breech’s pure clutch often made the Bengals winners in the ’80s and early ’90s. He missed only one field goal in the last two minutes when the game was three points or fewer either way. And his 9-for-9 in overtime is legendary. Recent Pro Football Hall of Famer Adam Vinatieri has the record with 10 OT kicks, but has one miss.

That Pro Football Hall of Fame announcement came the same Thursday night the Sac Hall took a bow a few miles down the road. It proved to be the only blemish of the evening when John Breech, his son who covers the NFL for CBS Sports, relayed the news to him that Bengals Super Bowl XVI quarterback Ken Anderson didn’t make it as a senior player, and Bengals Ring of Honor member Willie Anderson didn’t make it as a modern-era player.

“Disappointing,” says Breech, who noted Vinatieri’s election in his second year of eligibility. “I knew he was going in at some point. No question about that. The greatest clutch kicker of all time. But I didn’t think he’d get in this soon.”

Breech didn’t start getting Super nostalgic until he got back in Cincinnati and was watching the game. Myers was the only scorer for most of a taut, defensive tractor pull like that one in ’89 in Miami. He could see why Seattle running back Kenneth Walker III and his 135 yards carried the day for MVP, but it was a good day for kickers.

“(Myers) had a great season and a great Super Bowl. The first guy to get 200 points in a season. Good for him,” Breech says. “Do your job, and he did it when they needed it most. Something like that is always going to stay with him. Every time he goes back to Seattle, he’ll be recognized for that game. It’s kind of cool to have that on your resume.”

Which is how he’s viewed around these parts. “I can’t smile about it,” he says. Still, Super Clutch. Even though the resume began near the Bay.

He knows a kicker is going to make the Super Bowl MVP list.

“One of these days,” says The Almanac.