Better than expected

That was not the game I was expecting.

It was much better.

A couple of reactions -

The James Harrison interception was the difference in the game. I'm not convinced he got into the end zone on his run back. Actually, I'm pretty sure that his head and his lead forearm were down before the ball crossed the line, but I have to admit that there wasn't enough on replay to overturn the play.

I'm not sure it would have mattered, though, because one of the Cardinals, after the change of possession, committed a facemask penalty and the half can't end on a defensive penalty. As such, the Steelers would have had a final play on offense just before the half from the half-yard line to punch ball in.

The Cardinals played a fairly undisciplined game, committing eleven penalties for 106 yards, and still nearly pulled out the win.

I didn't expect the Cards to run the ball well, but I was a little surprised that the Steelers rushed for only 58 yards (2.2 yards per carry). While the Cards didn't run it often - and only for 33 yards, they averaged 2.8 yards per carry.

I thought there were times that the Pittsburgh defense came across as desperate bullies - once on a punch thrown by a defensive back while out of bounds, and the other time when James Harrison blatantly committed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on a punt.

I believe that had the Cardinals won Larry Fitzgerald would have been named the MVP - or at the very least that he should have.

Ben Roethlisberger looked fairly pedestrian for most of the game.

The Cardinals defense was better than advertised this post season - much better - but they came up one series short.

As much as I'd like to see them build off of this season, I can't help but think that the Cardinals are going to suffer the post-Super Bowl hangover. As good a season as Kurt Warner had, I think Lisa over at A Red Sox State of Maine has hit on something with Warner - he has not handled losing well. His 16 starts following the 2001 Super Bowl loss - 5-11. From 2001 until this 9-7 season he is 13 - 29 as a starter.

Over and above that, for you pundits that think he's a Hall of Famer (which I have heard too much recently), this is a man that has started 16 games only three times in his 11 year NFL career. To use one of Don Banks arguments against Drew Bledsoe, which was that no Hall of Fame QB has ever lost his starting job three times - Warner has lost his job five times total to the likes of Marc Bulger, Eli Manning, Josh McCown, and Matt Leinart (twice).

I'll write more about this issue later, and cover other off-season goodies in both baseball and football soon.

Super Sunday

I'm already on record as saying that I don't think this if going to be a good game.

I can't help but feeling that we may be looking at a blow-out with the Steelers stomping all over the Cardinals.

Overall, the Cardinals haven't been good away from home. With the exception of the playoffs, they haven't played well against quality teams and they gave up an average of 27.25 points per game against AFC opponents. This game has the makings of being ugly.

I hope I'm wrong.

I hope this game comes down to the last couple of possessions.

Arizona has a lot going for them, but I can't convince myself that it's enough - they have the better quarterback. They have the underdog card. They have coaches that know the Steelers offensive personnel inside and out. They have three wide receivers that racked up over 1000 yards each this season going against a secondary that has had issues against good passing teams.

But they don't have the defense that Pittsburgh has. Nor the running game. And those things are integral to success in January.

I could be wrong. I hope that I am.

But this just doesn't have the feel of a good match-up.

The latest rumor is that the Pats now won't franchise Matt Cassel. While franchising and trading Cassel makes a certain amount of sense - I'm not sure it makes as much sense as letting him become a free-agent. In theory it is better to get something for Cassel rather than letting him walk, but what is Cassel really worth on the free-agent market?

Would the Pats only tender Cassel if there was an understanding that he wouldn't sign the tender?

I have my doubts that any team would sign a deal with Cassel for $14.6 million, making
a trade difficult, unless the Pats only retained Cassel's rights. My guess, if Cassel hits free-agency, he's looking at between $9 million and $11 million per year.

All of this of course begs the question of where Tom Brady is in his rehab. Rumors are that Brady is running, and doing drop back drills, putting his rehab on pace to be ready to start the season. If the Pats are satisfied that Brady is going to be Brady come September, I think they let Cassel walk.

I have a hunch that if the Pats do franchise Cassel, it means that Brady isn't where the Patriots think he needs to be.

A little more dirt on the grave

Well, I guess this means that Barry Bonds didn't come through his drug tests clean like he claimed.

I can't say I'm terribly surprised. The Feds don't go after someone unless they're sure they can nail the person - they have a 95 percent conviction rate. In other words Bonds and Roger Clemens have about a 1 in 20 chance of getting out of their respective situations.

Yup, the longer this goes the more it looks like Bonds is screwed.

I would like to take a moment to bid adieu to John Updike who passed away this week. I was never a big Updike fan, but he still has the best description of Fenway, calling it in an essay about Ted Williams' retirement a "lyric little bandbox of a ballpark" and "a compromise between Man's Euclidean determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities."

A Sox lifer, it's nice to know that he lived to see the Sox break through all the years of fan heartache to win the Series in 2004 and again in 2007.

Rest in peace in that great big bookstore in the sky big guy.

On a final note - all I'm hoping for this weekend is a good game. I can't help but think we're looking at a potential blowout. I really hope I'm wrong about this.

Catching up

It's about time I got back to this.

It's been a very, very busy week. So...onto the playoffs.

Well, I was right on one out of the two. Arizona made it, Baltimore did not. I only saw the second half of the Arizona game because I was in a two-hour organizational meeting regarding a blues festival that I'm organizing. Philly made a game of it, but I was right - if it became an offense-oriented game, it favored the Cardinals.

Some thoughts on the Pittsburgh game. The Ravens chances died on the Willis McGahee fumble when safety Ryan Clark lowered the boom on McGahee. I'm up in the air on the legality of the hit, given the rules that have been on the books for some time -

NFL Rule Change 1996
" using any part of a players helmet (including the top/crown and forehead/hairline parts) or facemask to butt, spear, or ram an opponent violently or unnecessarily; although such violent or unnecessary use of the helmet is impermissible against any opponent, game officials will give special attention in administering this rule to protect those players who are in virtually defenseless postures."

NFL Memo Clarification to referees 2007
"Officials will be reminded this week to pay strict attention to these rules and disqualify the fouling player if the action is judged to be flagrant," Pereira wrote in the memo sent to the 32 NFL teams. "Actions that involve flagrant helmet to helmet contact are the likely acts that will include disqualification. Our commissioner and this office remain very focused on the safety of our players."

While McGahee certainly wasn't defenseless, my concern comes from the 2007 clarification that utilizes the term "flagrant." Admittedly, that hit in and of itself is not flagrant, I have to look at Clark's body of work throughout the season and wonder.

I have watched four Pittsburgh games in their entirety throughout the course of the season, and parts of a fifth. In each and every one Clark has had a hit like this - whether it was the shot on McGahee, or Wes Welker, or any of the other players I've seen him hit, he has gone helmet-to-helmet. I haven't seen that from any of his teammates. Not Troy Polamalu, not the linebackers. None of the other big hitters has gone helmet-to-helmet in every single game.

Just Clark.

It makes me wonder about his intention when he's tackling.

That said, we're now looking at a Steelers-Cardinals Super Bowl.

There's going to be a ton of hype between now and Super Bowl Sunday, and usually I like to digest some of that, listen to what the pundits say, and then ignore them accordingly. In this case, I'm going to say it up front. In two weeks time, the Steelers will officially become the second most dominant team of the first decade of the new millennium, becoming only the second team in the last ten years to win multiple Super Bowls.

A separate piece of entertainment -

A week ago this past Saturday I covered a ghost hunt at a local brewery. The local ghost hunters spent over an hour and a half prepping myself and roughly two dozen brewery employees and their family members. To say that the ghost hunters were, um, interesting, is an understatement.

I will write more about it after the article hits the stands at the beginning of next month, but I will say that it stretched my ability as a journalist to approach something with an open mind. To be more precise, I had to work very hard during the orientation part of the evening to maintain a straight face.

Not in my lifetime

There are a lot of things that I don't think that I will ever see in my lifetime. And I'm not just talking about that Jennifer Aniston-Angelina Jolie buddy flick.

I know that you're never supposed to say never, but, I have a hard time buying that any of the following will happen during my lifetime...

Al Davis put together another Super Bowl contender.

The Ford family will make the Lions a contender, or that the Lions will bring a Lombardi trophy to Ford Field, even as a loaner from another team.

A Chiefs-Lions Super Bowl.

A Super Bowl in a cold weather non-domed stadium (anyone else notice that football is the only sport in which home field/court advantage goes out the window in the championship game).

Mike Vick as a success in the NFL.

Norv Turner coach a team to the Super Bowl as The Man.

AJ Smith GM a Super Bowl winner.

Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, or Mark McGwire get into the Hall of Fame.

Mike Shanahan win a Super Bowl without John Elway (why is it that the so-called offensive geniuses have struggled to put quality QB's in place...see Brian Billick, Ravens).

Just a few things that popped into my head today.

Picking up the slack

Cassel is still a work in progress, however, signs are encouraging..

I'm not going to post the Brady-Cassel comparison this week - mostly because the Boston Globe has already done it. But it is interesting to note that other media outlets are finally getting that comparing Cassel to Brady '07 isn't the appropriate comp to make. They're finally figuring out that the appropriate comp is for the late-round pick, career back-up getting the start is to compare him to when Brady was the late-round pick, career back-up.

Its about freakin' time.

While I'm not going to repost the numbers here, having provided the link above, I am going to say that it's interesting to note that the numbers through seven games are remarkably similar, and with the exception of in the area of sacks, touchdowns, and interceptions, Cassel leads Brady version .01 in almost every other category - and neither leads the other by any sort of significant number in any category.

It's creepy.

Other thoughts and observations...

The Giants front office is gutless.

Plaxico Burress won't start the game against the Steelers as punishment for actions detrimental to the team - harassing officials last week, not showing up for treatments, and other petulant actions are at issue. Sure, he plays and collects all his salary. Wow. What a punishment.

Would the Giants have just benched Burress for the first couple of plays of the game had the team been playing the Lions? Or would they have suspended him again? I'm guessing the latter.

But against the mighty Steelers? No. It's all hands on deck for that, discipline be damned.

I notice they had no problem suspending him for a game against the lowly Seahawks.

Other boneheads...

Former Jets receiver Don Maynard said some dumb things this past weekend.

"You have 106 coaches in the NFC that's never played pro ball, you got 126 in the AFC that's never played pro ball," Maynard said. "You got 64 coaches that never played college football, so now you know why the knowledge of pro football has gone downhill. They don't even do what we did in offenses and defenses."

Never mind the fact that three of the last five Super Bowl winning coaches never signed a contract to play in the NFL (Bill Belichick, Jon Gruden, Tom Coughlin); never mind the fact that the man for whom the championship trophy is named, Vince Lombardi, never played a down of professional football; or that Maynard's own NFL coach with whom he won a ring - Weeb Ewbank, never played professional football (that's eight rings from five coaches who obviously have no idea what they're doing by Maynard's reckoning - more if you include Green Bay's pre-Super Bowl Championships). Never mind all of that.

Let's just talk about one of the biggest differences in the game - the playbook. When I was in high school in the mid 1980's, we ran a pro-style offense...from the late 1960's and 1970's, with a dash of the 80's thrown in. The closer we got to current day, even then, the more complicated the plays became. This guy probably couldn't decipher today's playbook- so, yeah, he's right, they're not playing the offenses and defensed they did then - they're playing much more complicated schemes.

On second thought, I think I am going to address the boneheaded thought that someone who never played pro football is less qualified. There have been 42 Super Bowls, of those 42 championships 26 rings/trophies went home with 15 (head) coaches that never played pro football. There are only 26 coaches that even have earned the right to wear Super Bowl rings, and 15, essentially 58 percent, haven't played a down in the NFL. They account for 62 percent of the wins in the big game.

More impressively, eight of those coaches that Maynard thinks lack the requisite background account for 19 rings. Thirty-five percent of the coaches on the list account for 45 percent of those wins. Some of the names of the unqualified (Maynard's complaint, not mine):

Vince Lombardi
Weeb Ewbank
Bill Walsh
Joe Gibbs
Bill Parcells
George Seifert
Jimmy Johnson
Mike Shanahan
Bill Belichick

Lombard, Ewbank, Walsh, and Gibbs are all in the Hall of Fame for their coaching acumen. All the others are, at worst, in the discussion.

So what have we learned?

That Don Maynard is a total ass-clown with the football IQ of a brain-dead platypus.

Sigh.

Thoughts and opinions

Proportionately speaking, no two teams in any professional sport have dominated their league the way the Lakers and the Celtics have. This latest meeting is the 62nd NBA Championship and at the end of it, no matter who wins or who loses, the two teams will combine to account for 50 percent of the league's titles.

To put that into perspective - the next two teams with the most titles, the Bulls and Spurs, combine for 10 total titles.

Counting each conferences' entry into the finals as a separate entry, the two teams account for 49 of 124 possible appearances in the finals.

No two (professional) teams in the Unites States account for as large a percentage of finals competitors.

Even if you wanted to be anal and discount the five wins as the Minneapolis Lakers, that's still 27 championships and 43 appearances.

Just going Super Bowl Era alone, there are no two teams that even come close to approaching the 50 percent mark in combined titles. Of the 103 World Series played, the Yankees and Cardinals combine for around 33 or 34 percent of the titles at 36 combined. The closest is in the NHL where the Canadiens and the Maple Leafs make up 37 of the 83 titles that are held by teams still active in the league (in other words, there are teams no longer in existence that hold titles that would push it to 92 titles since the 1914-1915 seasons).

That's domination.

One last basketball observation - I would like to see the Celtics win, however, I don't think they will. How I hope I'm wrong regarding that.

Required reading...

Peter King's Tuesday Morning Quarterback, essentially his mail bag for his Monday Morning Quarterback column at si.com should be required reading this week for everybody. If you haven't read it, you should.

His readers, for the most part, are responding to his Monday column dealing with Aaron Kampman and the tornadoes that tore apart Iowa last week. They are some of the more eloquent and touching letters I have seen from any columnists' fan base, and deserving of both our time and consideration.

Three for four...

Winning a championship is an exceedingly difficult feat on any level of sports. Even getting to the big game is a chore.

Last year, after an undefeated season, the Patriots lost in the Super Bowl. To stress the "any level" point - the Aussie rules team I play on was bounced in the national tournament one game shy of the championship match after an undefeated season.

Boston teams are three for four in just getting to that championship game, with only the Bruins not making it quite as far as the other three. And they still made it to the post season.

Right now the teams are one and one, waiting on the Celtics to see if that winning percentage jumps to .667, or drops to .333.

East Coast Bias

There is, quite often, an accusation leveled at the national sports press of an East Coast bias in the corps' reporting.

There is probably some truth to favoritism of the East Coast teams, not because of proximity to the New York offices of Sports Illustrated, or the Connecticut offices of ESPN, but because the teams on top of the pile draw the most attention. East Coast teams in the major team sports, except for basketball, have won or represented more than half of all championship contenders for an extended period of time.

Starting from the low end of the totem pole, over the last 14 seasons in the NHL the East Coast has been represented in 12 of the 28 potential contestants for the Stanley Cup. Teams from states that abut the Atlantic (in the US) have represented six of the sport's winners. Those totals go up when eastern Canada is in the mix.

Since the Bills started their run of four straight appearances in the Super Bowl there have been 34 teams that have vied for the Lombardi trophy. Twenty teams from the states on the Eastern Seaboard have been among the 34 fighting to raise the silver trophy each January or February and nine of the winners have been from the East.

Since 1994 in Major League Baseball 14 of the 26 teams that have made it to the 13 World Series held over that span. Nine of the winners have been from the East.

Out of the 44 pro championships noted above, 24 have had a champion from the East - 54.5 percent of all the winners. Forty-six of the 88 contestants have come from the East accounting for 52.3 percent of the teams represented in the games. The teams have won at a rate of 52.2 percent.

In recent years divisions like the NFC West and the NL West have cycled into down periods, sometimes producing division champions that barely breaking a .500 winning percentage.

A simple rule in sports has always been that winning garners attention. The more you win, the more attention you get. It is why great players on bad teams have difficulties with Hall of Fame recognition.

There are players and teams off the East Coast deserving of attention, but until the winning percentage swings the other way, the focus is going to stay on the old powers like New York and Boston.

Perspective

There are much worse things that could have happened in the desert on Sunday than the Patriots loss, according to this story that's not getting a lot of attention.

Thankfully, the man came to his senses and turned himself in.

No Excuses

I'm a little disappointed.

More in my fellow Pats fans than in the game.

I'm beginning to see the excuses surface from Patriots fans. The clock was mismanaged by the refs, the Patriots gave the game away, Arlen Specter brought up Spygate at an inopportune time. It's all a crock.

The Patriots were outplayed, pure and simple.

We saw from week two that the this team could put aside the distractions of Spygate, and there was nothing unusual about how the clock was run (I saw the film, and all I can say is the guy who did that didn't have a full understanding of how the clock gets run, and maybe he should look up the rules before he starts any conspiracy theory. I won't justify his theory any further by posting a link to it).

The team was lucky that the defense played as well as they did, or this could have been a rout because our offense was smoked. The defense, in spite of two crucial misses in the last minute (the missed sack and the missed interception), kept the team in the game.

As for the excuses - do you, as a Patriots fan, really want to be lumped in with the Ravens fan conspiracy theorists, or the Raiders fans that still whine that they had the game stolen from them based on a rule that's in the books?

Stop the excuses, stop the whining and deal with the pain. After decades of last minute losses by the Red Sox and Patriots, have we really become so soft that we can't recognize the Giants' accomplishment?

Get it together people, I don't want to be embarrassed to be a New England fan. Make me proud and take it like a fan that actually knows the game well enough to know that our team was handed their hats.

Putting my finger on it

I think I have figured it out. Why yesterday's loss didn't bother me as much as I thought it should.

Over the last couple of months I have written a lot about the hypocrisy of the fans out there who bitch and moan about cheating when any individual would have a hard time finding a clean team out there. I have pointed out that, for the inquiring mind, and the fanatical historians of the game, that the Steelers of the 1970's were rumored to have pioneered steroids in the game (at least one offensive lineman from the last two Super Bowl squads of that era confirmed that he took steroids), that the Miami teams of the early 1970's were penalized for coach tampering, John Madden pretty much admitted that the Raiders he coached cheated and challenged, "what are you going to do about it?" From 1972 to 1982 those teams accounted for nine out of eleven possible Super Bowl appearances by the AFC, winning eight.

There are a number of other teams whose violations have faded over time - the Broncos who both filmed and were in violation of the salary cap - but all is talked about is the team's championship.

But those aren't the only things that have faded with time.

Time has put the Bills' four Super Bowl losses in different perspective. Once thought of by pundits and fans alike as being the biggest losers in football history for having lost those four consecutive championships, time has mellowed the perception, allowed for the appreciation of the difficulty inherent in what the Bills accomplished.

People talked about how, if the Pats lost, this Super Bowl would be the biggest upset in the history of the game. It may be, and that perception may remain for some time, as will the ghost of Spygate, but both will fade. Somewhere in my gut and in the back of my mind is the understanding that I might have just witnessed a season that might not repeat itself during my lifetime and that at some point it will be recognized for the incredible ride that it was.

The fact they weren't able to put the exclamation point on the season will likely linger longer than the cheating scandal - which will have a longer life than previous scandals, not because it is tied to a multiple Super Bowl champion, but because we live in an information age where the fourth estate is about ratings and advertising rather than objective news. It's why stories like the "Run Away Bride" in Georgia lasted for over a month in the national news when as recently as 15 years ago that story would have been, at best, two paragraphs in news of the odd every place outside of the greater Atlanta area.

But all of that is only part of it.

I am bothered when the teams I root for either don't show up to play, or lose because of things outside their control (poor officiating, etc.). I honestly think the Patriots played as well as they could have. I think they gave the Giants everything they had left in their tank, which wasn't much.

The Giants, in spite of playing one game more just had more left.

I didn't feel that way in 1985 or in 1996. I think the Patriots could have played better in both of those games. I don't know that they could have won either, but I didn't feel like they played their best football when they most needed to.

I know when the smoke finally clears, and the filming is put to rest, I'm going to look on this season as both incredible and a little disappointing. I won't dwell on the loss - it will still be there - but I will look at a team that still broke the Dolphins record for consecutive wins in a single season (sure, it's Pyrrhic, but it's still an impressive feat), set a variety of offensive records that are just off the charts, and did these things amidst a firestorm of controversy.

Thanks for the ride. It was pretty damned incredible.

Congratulations

I want to send out a congratulations to the New York Giants and the team's fans.

A few quick observations -

Anyone else get the irony of a team named the Giants playing David and knocking off the Goliath that has been the Patriots for this decade?

Over the course of the week leading up to the game I had an ever worsening feeling about the game. I reasoned why the Patriots should win, why people should predict a New England victory, but there was a nagging feeling in the back of my head that kept telling be that the Patriots just didn't have enough gas left in the tank to seal the deal. I think I'm less disappointed by this loss than I would have been if I had felt strongly about the Pats winning.

Don't get me wrong - I don't mean to sound like I'm taking anything away from the Giants. They played the better game and they deserved the win...and, to some extent, I am happy for Michael Strahan. I'm glad he got himself a Super Bowl ring before the end of his career. It's just that I would have preferred it not be at the hands of the Patriots. C'est la vie.

In spite of the loss, I enjoyed the game. I'm sure there are many out there that were bored by the game, but I like the defense-heavy games.

As I said elsewhere - if somebody had told me that the Pats D would hold the Giants to 17 points, I would have been positive the Pats would win. But the Giants front four on defense won the battles in the trenches with the Pats O-line. Something that happened with less frequency in the December meeting.

Even when the line didn't get there, Tom Brady failed to make plays, often over- or under-throwing his receivers. Eli Manning, on the other hand, made plays, often times while under pressure.

It was a great defensive game. Congratulations New York, enjoy the championship.

As for the Patriots...

It was the third time this season that the team was facing the Giants in a final game of a part of the NFL season - pre, regular, and post. It's exceedingly difficult to defeat a team three times in the same season - even if one of those times is in the pre-season.

Looking forward...

The Patriots are going to feel like they have unfinished business, and they will reload again. But the question is how.

Unless Donte Stallworth renegotiates his contract, he won't be back. I expect Randy Moss will re-sign with the team. Troy Brown I would say is a toss-up, at best, to return.

I would not be surprised to see both Tedy Bruschi and Junior Seau return, but I suspect they will bring in another linebacker for the rotation. As well as the linebackers played yesterday, there were times they appeared old and worn down at the end of the season.

Time to play the game

We have less than 48 hours of hype left. The remaining (roughly) two days will see the analysis slowly turn to party and celebration. The concerts begin tomorrow, and will continue almost until kick-off. The analysis will, as well - but it will be interrupted by the music and celebration. The holiday is beginning earlier and earlier.

While it will continue, by now we have heard every expert, coach, talking head, former player, and shaman from Maine to Mexico dissect Sunday's game more than a frog in a tenth grade biology class, it's time to play the game. We have heard the special interest stories - Eli and his brother, the war hero in the Giants locker room, Mercury Morris and the 1972 Dolphins, the rehash of Tedy Bruschi's stroke, Bruschi Brothers constructions, Junior's return to the big game after 181 games, Mercury Morris and the 1972 Dolphins, tight end Kevin Boss' trip from Division II to Super Bowl, Tom Brady's childhood mentor's taking ill, and, of course, Mercury Morris and the 1972 Dolphins.

We have heard every little injury from Tom Brady's ankle, Plaxico Burress' and Rich Seubert's knees, and Jabar Gaffney's shoulder, to Scott Pioli's administrative assistant's paper cut.

We have been inundated with all kinds of speculation and useless information.

I'm a little surprised that I don't know what's Bruschi's favorite restaurant, or Bill Belichick's hat size, or who Tom Coughlin's favorite singer is.

We have experienced the return of Spygate courtesy of Arlen Specter - who appears, when Goodell's written correspondence to his inquiry is read, to be a bitter Eagle's fan rattling his saber because he has a little power.

We have heard Buress' predictions, the Giants' trash talk, the Patriots' muted responses.

The bottom line - none of the above matters in two days. The trash talk, the injuries, Specter, the stroke, the 181 game gap, definitely not Mercury Morris and the '72 Dolphins, and not Spygate.

All that matters is what happens on a field in Arizona between two teams when approximately 100 men strap on the helmets and pads and smack the sweet bejeezus out of each other for 60-minutes on Sunday night.

At the end of that one team will be left standing.

All I have to say about it...in the immortal words of Al Bundy, "let's rock."

The Golden Age of Boston Sports

For any fan of Boston area sports under the age of 45, the 'Oughts is the Golden Age.

I have touched on the numbers that we're now seeing from Boston teams before. The Patriots are the impetus for this sports Renaissance in the Hub of the Universe, and reversal of fortune for Eastern New England's professional sports franchises.

It is, for me - an admitted football fan first, and baseball fan second - vindication for a team that, while I was growing up, was sometimes called a distant fourth in popularity in a three sport market.

Before I get into where I'm going with this, I want to note that all this tends to be cyclical. The Red Sox were the most dominant team in baseball 100 years ago, winning five championships from the beginning of 1900 through to 1918. In the 1960's, the Celtics were the most dominant professional sports franchise ever, winning ten of eleven championships starting in the late 1950's and running through 1970.

For New Englanders/Bostonians of a certain generation that 1960's to late 1970's stretch was, at one time the Golden Age. The Celtics dominated until the two Stanley Cups by the Bruins, then there were the 1967 Red Sox. By the time the Sox returned to the World Series in 1975, the other franchises around Boston were falling on hard times. Larry Bird wasn't yet drafted, and the Bruins struggled to advance in the playoffs.

The last time there was an up-tick in the cycle for Boston was in the mid to late 1980's when the Celtics won championships, and the Red Sox, Bruins, and Patriots all made it to the finals in their respective sports. The Sox lost the World Series to the Mets, the Patriots the Super Bowl to the Bears, and the Bruins the Stanley Cup to Edmonton. That was, for my generation, the Golden Age.

Until now.

In 2001, Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli assembled a team of virtual no-names and won the Super Bowl on the arm of a sixth round, second string quarterback, the legs of a retread running back released from a division rival, the leg of an unknown kicker out of NFL Europe, as well as a punishing defense with the only big names on the team - Ty Law and Lawyer Milloy. The others were mostly mid- to low-end free agents, often career back-ups or part-timers or end of the road guys, who weren't tendered offers by their previous teams like Mike Vrabel, Brian Cox, and Otis Smith.

Theo Epstein, just three years later, built a Red Sox team based on the same principles that Pioli and Belichick used - don't worry about the superstars. Get the gritty guys that love the game. Epstein even went as far as trading away fan favorite, and team superstar Nomar Garciaparra at the trading deadline for Orlando Cabrera - a solid, get your uniform dirty sort of guy who, at the time, was not thought of as highly as Garciaparra. The Sox have won two World Series since.

The Patriots have parlayed their success in the big game into the ability to recruit the big names, the superstars like Corey Dillon and Randy Moss, and get them to check their egos at the door.

Now we're watching a Celtics team with a big three that the pundits wondered how they would mesh when the players were put together. The three - Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett - were known as shooters, and the big question was how they would operate - one ball, three shooters, someone was bound to be unhappy. Like with the recent Patriots and Red Sox teams, Allen, Pierce and Garnett all saw an opportunity to be great...if they left the ego at the door.

On the ice, the Bruins are fifth in the Eastern Conference and playing solid hockey. They will make the playoffs, barring a catastrophic collapse.

Yeah.

It's good to be a Boston fan right now. Savor it. These things don't last.

More random thoughts...

My father's name is Lawrence Smith. He was born in 1939.

Imagine my surprise when I heard on Sports Center this morning that Larry Smith had died at the age of 68. I had that brief moment of shock until I remembered that my father shared his name with the former football coach of USC and Arizona....well that, and why on Earth would my father's death be announced on ESPN? (I will admit to being a bit of an idiot, but in my defense, it was 6:30 in the morning and my infant daughter had me up at midnight and four AM).

Still, it was weird.

Ten straight...

I forgot to address this in my last piece.

A lot has been made of the Giants winning ten straight on the road as one of the reasons that they would win (once again, I would like to reiterate that I think the Giants have a legitimate shot, and I wouldn't be surprised if they won, I just don't think it will happen). The ten road wins in a road are impressive, and 10-1 in their last 11.

Not even taking into account that the Patriots are at 18-0 (which seems to have become the "they have to lose sometime" tool to use against them in predictions), the last time the Patriots lost a road game was in Indianapolis in last year's playoffs. And including last season's playoffs, the Patriots are 11-1 in their last 12 road games.

If we want to consider them the home team, as per the Super Bowl designation, the Patriots are on a home winning streak of 14 straight since their regular season loss to the Jets in week 10 of last year.

Speculation...

Blogging, sports columnists, and all the other talking heads do an enormous amount of speculation. Really, it's what we do. We look at records, statistics, and quotes from news conferences and we speculate on what it all means.

One of the bits I have heard come up, not a popular one, but I have heard it, is that Bill Belichick will walk away if the Patriots win. The argument being, after 19-0, what's left to accomplish?

My guess...no head coach in the history of the game has five Super Bowl rings, and only one has five NFL championships - Vince Lombardi. If Belichick can win this year, giving him four SB titles in seven years, he still has an opportunity for as many as three more this decade with '08, '09, '10 seasons (unlikely, but possible).

These are the things that have never been done that he could potentially accomplish - three Super Bowls in a row, six in a decade, and the most dominant football franchise of all time in a single decade. Will he? I don't know. They have a hard road with teams like the Colts, and San Diego as perennial contenders.

Some people never learn...

23-17. That's what Plaxico Burress says that the final score will be, in favor of the Giants. It's one thing for the owner to talk like that. But Burress? Sure he's had some decent games against the Patriots in his career, but consider the following -

In 2001 Burress' Steelers team already had made reservations for New Orleans. The Steelers didn't just lose that game. They were pushed around and bullied in their own stadium.

Two seasons later in Super Bowl XXXVIII the Panthers vaunted defensive line was supposed to manhandle the Patriots offensive line made up of back-ups and street-free agents. The line didn't give up a single sack.

The following year Eagles wide-out Freddie Mitchell famously boasted he had something for Rodney Harrison. Mitchell had one catch in the Eagle's Super Bowl loss for 11 yards. Harrison, on the other hand, caught two of Donovan McNabb's passes.

This season alone, the following have mouthed off before Patriot games with the subsequent results -

LaDainian Tomlinson (...ya ain't cheatin', ya ain't tryin') - 18 rushes for 43 yards in a Chargers loss.

Terrell Owens (Getcha popcorn ready) - Six receptions for 66 yards and one touchdown in the Cowboys loss. Three catches for 31 yards and no scores in the second half.

Washington Redskins defense (they haven't seen a defense like ours yet) - 'Skins lost 52-7. 'Nuff said.

Anthony Smith (People keep asking me if we're ready for the Patriots. They should be asking if they're ready for us) - That was only the beginning of Smith's statement guaranteeing a Steelers win over the Patriots. Brady constantly picked on Smith, burning him on at least two long touchdown passes. Smith was later benched.

Igor Olshansky (New England is more worried about us...they know what's up) - Olshansky was largely quiet during the playoff game against New England, registering five tackles, two assists, and half a sack. The Chargers never led in a game that was seldom as close as it seemed, and the defensive line didn't get the pressure they needed.

And now Plax appears to be lobbying to join that list.

I'm not saying that Burress shouldn't believe that the Giants can't win - there would be no point in playing the game. However, he could have handled that...in a more diplomatic manner...say, maybe answering the question with, "yeah, I think we can win. We have our work cut out for us with that team over there. But yeah, we have a chance."

As for the people who like to say, "if they need that to get up for the game..." Let's face it. They don't need it, that doesn't mean they aren't going to use it.

Just a thought.

By the way...

Currently I am the Maryland Columnist for the Mid-Atlantic Brewing News. It's a good gig if you can get it. As such, I have started a little endeavor with some of my cohorts here. If you're a fan of micro-brews, or inexpensive wine, or like the occasional mixed drink...hell, if you're an alcoholic, then stop by.

Buying the hype, selling the fertilizer

Just some random thoughts as we go into Super Bowl week...

There has been a lot of talk about the non-story of Tom Brady's ankle. If Brady was carted off the field after his ankle was rolled on in the game against the Chargers eight days ago, I would be concerned. But today I see it as a non-story.

In 2001 Brady was lifted from the AFC Championship Game against the Steelers when his ankle was twisted under him in the first half. Drew Bledsoe came in and marched the Patriots down the field for a score and captained the Patriots to victory, creating a quarterback controversy going into the game against the Rams a week later. A WEEK LATER.

This year Brady has had two weeks to recover and never had to be removed from the Chargers game. As a matter of fact, he was 7 for 7 passing after the sprain. He was 15 of 26 before.

Thought two -

The New York Giants are the chic pick among a lot of the pundits. So much so that I think I have heard more of the national talking heads pick the Giants than the Patriots. The reasoning - they have the defense and the running game to cause the Patriots problems...or...The Patriots have to lose sometime...or...The bye helps the Giants to plan for the Patriots...or...Look who the Giants had to beat to get there. The Patriots had an easier road...or...Because of what they did against the Patriots in the final regular season game, the Giants know they can win.

I don't know that I would lay money on the Patriots, given the spread. However, I think the Patriots are the likely winners in this contest.

Yes, the Giants have a great running game, but so did Dallas, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, and Pittsburgh. And yes, the Giants D has been great, particularly in the post-season. However, the last time I checked, neither Bays - Green and Tampa - have the offensive weapons of the Patriots, and neither does Dallas (and for anyone who wants to try to argue that, tell me - who would you really rather have at QB? Romo or Brady?).

Then there's this -

In his time with the Patriots, Belichick is 24-4 when facing the same QB for the second time in a season (I might be off on that number, but I think it's right). Coughlin is 1-3 following a bye with the Giants. Belichick is 13-7 (including with the Browns) after a bye, but has won his last ten straight.

As for who the Patriots beat - the Jaguars, according to the talking heads, were supposed to be the strong defensive team with the powerful running game that was supposed to topple the Patriots from their perch. Now they're a "who did the Patriots really beat" team.

Everyone out of New England is talking about how the Colts would have given the Patriots a better game, but they struggled mightily against the banged up Chargers team that eventually faced the Pats.

As for the last point. The bottom line is that the Giants couldn't hold the Patriots off late in the game, and then Eli turned the ball over at the least opportune of times while trying to mount a late drive.

I'm not saying that the Giants don't have a chance. I just don't see solid logic behind the reasoning that I'm hearing from those predicting a New York win. I do think it's gonna be a helluva game.

Tiki the difference maker

Last season we heard from Tiki Barber - often - on how bad a coach Tom Coughlin is. It continued through this year in a book he published, accusing Coughlin as being the reason for Barber going into an early retirement.

Barber was considered by many (outside the locker room) to be the leader of the Giants. We heard and read a lot about the Giants being "Tiki's team."

Barber criticized the head coach, and his quarterback.

To a man, the Giants that have publicly responded, blasted Barber.

Under Barber, Eli Manning showed little to no signs of progression from his rookie year until...well, until Barber left. This is largely the same team that Barber left.

Yet now they click.

Interesting that not a single former Giant teammate of Barber's has come to his defense, but they have all rallied around their coach and their quarterback. Even Terrell Owens, a noted locker room cancer, still had (public) supporters in the San Francisco and Philadelphia locker rooms after burning those bridges with nuclear devices. Barber has had none. Zero. Zip. Not one former teammate has come out and said anything even vaguely like, "look, Tiki's a good guy and a friend. He's not here this season, so he doesn't know how Eli, or Coach are this season," or even, "based on his experience here the last couple of seasons, Tiki's not saying anything that's not true, but it's a different atmosphere this year."

But none of that happened.

Instead, the biggest difference that Barber has made for the Giants this season was to take his divisive, malcontent attitude out of the mix.

Interestingly enough, the team got even better when their trash-talking, injury-prone tight-end ended his season on the injury list. The two biggest trash talkers (sure, Barber didn't talk trash so much about the opponents as he did his own team) on the team either leave or have absence enforced on them and the Giants get better and are headed to the Super Bowl. Coincidence? I think not.

Much ado...and at least one answer

There's a lot being made of the Giants 9 game road winning streak going into Green Bay, and not to take anything away from the Giants who have been road warriors this season, but the Packers haven't been slouches at home, going into this game with an 8-1 record at Lambeau this season.

How about this statistic for home field advantage - the Patriots have won 13 straight at the Razor, last losing to the Jets over 14 months ago. Also, the team is undefeated in Championship games at Foxborough, and undefeated in post-season games held in Massachusetts in sub-freezing temperatures since Bill Belichick took over the team.

The hosting teams have four Super Bowl rings in five appearances and are 6-2 in this round of the playoffs, the second loss was by Tom Brady in last season's match-up in Indianapolis. Brady is 3-0 in championship games held in Foxborough.

As for the answer...

Teresa posed a question to me - has the AFC East hosted the best and worst teams in the NFL before this season? Yes. The first time the East held the dubious distinction was in 1984 when the Dolphins and a rookie Dan Marino led the league with a 14-2 record while the Buffalo Bills brought up the rear with a 2-14 record.

All of this has inspired the final note...a note on futility -

The Arizona Cardinals, the longest active franchise in professional football - actually predating the league currently known NFL - hasn't won a championship since 1947. The team was founded in 1899 under the name the Morgan Athletic Club on the South Side of Chicago. It later became the Racine (Street) Cardinals, then the Chicago Cardinals, St. Louis Cardinals, Phoenix Cardinals, and finally the Arizona Cardinals.

In 108 years this team has won two championships, an average of one every 54 years. Their last title was 20 years before the Super Bowl.

This team did Chicagoans a favor by moving from the Windy City.

The teams that haven't even made it to the Super Bowl include the Browns, Cardinals, Lions, Saints, Texans and Jaguars. As far as opportunities - All but the Texans and Jaguars were in existence at the beginning of the Super Bowl Era (technically the Saints for the second). The Texans and the Jags have been around for, combined, less than 20 Super Bowls (the Jags first year was 1995, the Texans 2002).

Then there are those who have made it to the big game only to lose - Eagles, Bills, Vikings, Oilers/Titans, Bengals, Chargers, Falcons, Panthers, and Seahawks. Unless the Chargers can get past the Patriots tomorrow, it means that the winner of this Super Bowl will come from the pool of 16 winners of the 41 previous Super Bowls.

Of the three active teams in the playoffs that previously won, all are multiple winners - the Giants with two (1986, 1990), the Packers with three (1967, 1968, 1996), and the Patriots with three (2001, 2003, 2004). Other multiple winners include with five each - the Steelers, 49ers, and Cowboys; with three are the Raiders and Redskins; and with two are the Dolphins, Colts, and Broncos.

Of the 41 Super Bowls already played, 11 teams account for 35 of the titles - if you're wondering why the math is off, I think it's because of the whole affair between the Cleveland and Baltimore with the Browns' move and subsequent name change, however, I might just be missing a team in there.

Either way, it's likely that a franchise that has already won a Super Bowl will be getting fitted for another set of rings come February.

Super Bowl advertising revisited...

According to a recent Reuters report, the PC Shocktroops are at it again...

Reuters reported that several special interest groups have demanded that certain ads never be shown again. The advertisements included GM's suicidal production line robot, the Snickers ad with the two mechanics ending up in a "Lady and the Tramp" kiss, and the Nationwide ad featuring Kevin Federline working the fries at a fast food restaurant. It also noted an issue that arose from the ad campaign for the new Hannibal movie.

Let's address each complaint:

1. "GM became the subject of sharp criticism when The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention complained about the insensitivity of a commercial by the automaker that showed a factory robot leaping from a bridge after it was fired for a making a mistake.
The group said in a statement the commercial 'is offensive to the tens of millions of survivors of suicide loss nationwide. In its carelessness, it portrays suicide as a viable option when someone fails or loses their job.'"

GM responded by saying that they did not mean to offend anyone, but they will not change the spot.

Is the criticism justified for their spot? Yes - but not by the AFSP. In their complaint the AFSP comes off as the parents that sue MTV or Warner Brothers because they haven't imbued their children with enough common sense to realize that Beavis & Butthead or Wile E. Coyote are cartoon characters. It's a frakkin' robot - and if you can't make that distinction when contemplating suicide, maybe - just maybe - you have a serious mental issue that needs 24 hour care...not an hour per week with a therapist, but serious effing observation...y'know, 24-7-365.

Now employees and the recently unemployed in Detroit's motor industry have a legitimate complaint that the spot is insensitive and in bad taste based on this little snippet reported on February 1 by David Shepardson of the Detroit News, "GM and Ford have lost more than $25 billion since 2006, while cutting more than 55,000 hourly jobs and thousands of salaried jobs. GM wants to close nine plants by 2008, while Ford is in the process of shuttering 14 factories by 2012. GM's accounting is the subject of an SEC probe." For the full story, click here.

Makes me question my desire to ever buy American again.

2. "This year's advertisement by Masterfoods, a unit of privately-held Mars, showed two auto mechanics locked in an accidental kiss while eating a Snickers candy bar, then ripping out chest hair to prove they are 'manly.'

"'The makers of Snickers and its parent company at Mars should know better,' the Human Rights Campaign said in a statement. 'If they have any questions about why the ad isn't funny, we can help put them in touch with any number of Americans who have suffered hate crimes.'"

The ad was pulled the next day.

Justified? Only if they were defending homophobes, because, and let's be honest, this ad made fun of the homophobic, not the homosexual. I guess making fun of prejudice that is without base is off-limits now as well.

Somehow, in light of their faster-than-light-speed we're so sorry to have offended response, I find myself respecting GM for not caving to special interest groups, in spite of the fact that GM had the more offensive ad. If they pulled the ad because they deemed it unfunny, or decided they didn't like it, that would have been one thing, but because you offended a few people? Hell, I do that everyday...usually by the time I've had breakfast.

3. "Even before the Super Bowl aired on February 4 on CBS, drawing the third largest U.S. television audience ever, the National Restaurant Association called an ad featuring Kevin Federline as a fast-food worker demeaning to the industry.

"The commercial by Nationwide Financial Services had not even aired when the group called for it to be dumped."

I won't even ponder whether this one is justified as it is by far and away the most ridiculous of all the complaints - unless the Restaurant Association felt Kevin Federline as a fast-food worker was demeaning to the industry, not the fall from grace that the ad implied (it is my understanding that the music industry does indeed consider it demeaning that people consider K-Fed part of that industry).

Let's take a minute to ponder the joke that is the world of, "do you want fries with that?" It is a minimum wage world with a huge profit margin. While employment in the industry is okay in high school, and it is honest work, there is a stigma that goes with working fast food world that is there not because of ads like this, but because of the refusal of mega-corporations like McDonald's and Burger King to raise salaries to living wages in order to keep prices down (in spite of the fact that people at corporate make a very comfortable living off the sweat equity of those in the kitchen making minimum wage).

4. From the ridiculous to the ludicrous, "CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves told a conference this week the network turned away millions of dollars worth of ads it deemed unfit for this year's game.

"In one case, he said, the network discussed changing the wording of a film critic's endorsement of the feature film 'Hannibal Rising' to remove the word 'terrifying.'"

When society has gotten to the point that changing a word in the endorsement of a HORROR film (for Christ's sake) from "terrifying" to something else we have gone way too far as a society.

The Weigh In and Super Bowl Advertising...

This morning I was at 179.5 - down 13.5 from the beginning of the little contest, and 14.5 overall. I have a legitimate shot at entering this year's Australian rules football season at about 165, the lowest I will have been in 14 years - might actually mean that I get back some of the speed and stamina that has deserted me in recent years. Woohoo.

Overall I thought the advertising in this year's Super Bowl was kind of weak. Here are what I thought were the best ads that aired (for my purposes, I'll eliminate ads I know I saw before, so T-Mobile's ad with Dwayne Wade and Charles Barkley is out, as is the Coca Cola Grand Theft Auto which has been playing at movie theaters)...

1. Bring our troops home - People that have been supporting Bush and his war in Iraq should pay close attention to this ad. It was powerful and affecting and it featured a whole bunch of veteran's of today's war telling our government to get the troops home. I'm waiting to see if the Republican brain trust is going to dredge up Swift Boat tactics on these people and try to demonize them for speaking out against the war like they did to Kerry.

2. Rock, paper, scissors (Bud Light) - It appeals to the Three Stooges humorist in me.

3. Hitchhiker (Bud Light) - As a horror film fan and a fan of comedies like Airplane, this ad spoke to me. And you have to love the end when the guy with the axe, in a panic says, "dude, he has a chainsaw!"

4. Emerald Nuts Robert Goulet - As I always run out of gas in the middle of the afternoon I felt that this ad explained a lot about the work place and why we're always saying, "I could have sworn that memo was right here."

5. Lady and the Tramp Snickers bar - What can I say, I like twisted humor.

6. Blockbuster I can't get online with this mouse - While I don't condone animal abuse, there is something viscerally funny about what was done to that mouse (besides, why do we laugh at Wiley Coyote's pain anyway?).

6. Doritos crash - What dude hasn't at least almost done this, nearly get into an accident while checking a woman out on the sidewalk? Once again, we descend into the slapstick.

7. Career Builder office jungle series, annual review - Why do we take so much joy in watching other's pain? Is it because of our own, or is it because we like to see others suffer...oh, never mind the deep shit, there's just something comically surreal about someone covered with binder clips. Ouch.

8. GM Carwash - I know in my household I'm in the minority on this one, but I found this damn funny, if not somewhat disturbing.

9. Career Builder office jungle series, jungle fight - I may have worked at this place, I think I knew the deliveryman at the end of the ad.

10. Career Builder office jungle series, volunteer for training/lemmings - Who hasn't felt like this? Hands? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Honorable mention -

Snapple EGCG
Chad Johnson's Super Bowl Party
Bud Light Slapping is In
Coca Cola Happiness Factory
Fed Ex Don't Judge a Book by It's Cover

The Kevin Federline ad was amusing, but not as funny as it should have been, and Garmin's Ultraman ad interesting, but not particularly compelling. I know my wife doesn't agree with all my choices, but I'm sure if she wants to discuss these choices she'll do her own blog posting, or will respond here.

To view the ads yourself, go here.