For the FBI as a whole, however, preparing for major events is nothing new. The Bureau’s Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) maintains teams of agents and experts who specialize in helping to secure major events such as political conventions and the Olympics.

CIRG personnel operate out of the spotlight but stand ready to respond to emergency situations. On hand for the Super Bowl, said Special Agent Mike Hartnett, who heads a crisis management team at CIRG, “will be tactical teams, bomb techs, people that can respond to a hazardous device incident—we’ll bring the whole wealth of response that the FBI can bring.”

“Most agencies deal with events like a Super Bowl maybe once in a career or once in a lifetime,” Special Agent in Charge Thornton said, “where collectively the FBI deals with these things on an ongoing basis. The fact that we have the ability to reach back to the entire FBI with its specialty components, as well as all the other offices, to augment our resources is what makes the FBI unique.”

Alex Khu, a special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), is the federal coordinator for Super Bowl security. Working closely with MPD and the FBI, it’s Khu’s job to identify and procure needed assets from all federal agencies—everything from technology and equipment to bomb-sniffing dogs—and put them in place for the Super Bowl. This year’s effort represents the largest deployment of federal assets to any Super Bowl ever. “Coordination at all levels is key,” Khu said. “There are so many moving pieces. No one agency can do this alone.”

At the convention center, the day is drawing to a close, and the exercise has gone well. The dry run has shown that the close partnerships and meticulous planning is paying off. “This validates our planning,” Rivers said. “The goal is to have a safe event,” he added. “We want all the fans in town to see the game and enjoy the events and festivities without ever having to know about all the time and effort and energy that went into getting us to this stage.”