Packers 31 Steelers 25
We love Swiss Cheese, Bratwurst, Miller Lite and...Government Motors!
Congratulations to the Green Bay Packers, who won their 4th Super Bowl (I, II, XXXI, and XLV) and 13th overall NFL Title. Vince Lombardi can rest in peace for at least one year. Here are some final thoughts on the game.
-The game was OK. It wasn't great. It wasn't terrible. It was just OK. In fact, it was pretty much exactly the way I thought it would turn out. I figured that the Packers would immediately attack the Steelers secondary (especially Troy Polamalu) by stretching the field. This exactly what the Packers did. Game MVP Aaron Rodgers tossed 3 TD passes (opposed to zero picks), 2 of which came from more than 20 yards out. There were several more downfield attempts dropped (including at least 2 by Jordy Nelson that would've been huge gainers if not TDs). What made the game OK was that the Steelers kept it close...but never could quite pull even.
-JerryWorld will not be getting the Super Bowl again any time soon after this week's disasters, at least they better not. First, the ice storm cancelled several of the pre-game celebrations. Then, today, 400 fans were given refunds (triple face value) and Super Bowl Tickets for next year (assuming there is a next year) after they were refused seating after paying $800 for temporary bleacher seats that were not constructed properly in time for the game. The NFL handled this properly, but if you sold the tickets for the seats, don't you think you would want the seats built well in advance of the game, instead of rushing to finish it on game day?
-Why did Nick Collins get a celebration flag (or 4) after he returned a Ben Roethlisberger pick 37 yards for a score that made it (at the time) 14-0? I'm sorry if the NFL wants everyone to play nice and be friendly to each other, but give me a break. He just scored a pick 6 in the Super Bowl! What is he supposed to do, hand the ball to the ref, go over to Big Ben, pat him on the rearend, and tell him that it's going to be OK? Should the entire Packers sideline salute the Steelers for trying hard and giving it all they got? IT'S THE SUPER BOWL. NFL, lighten up. You want some bargaining power in the CBA negotiations? Let the boys have some fun out there. Stop being prudes, especially in the championship game. More thoughts after the jump.
-Why did Shaun Suisham even attempt a 52 yard field goal? Why? I called that thing going wide left, but even I couldn't imagine HOW FAR wide left it would go.
-My score prediction would've been DEAD ON if it were not for the fact that Pittsburgh went for 2 late in the 4th quarter. See the very bottom of the post for the proof. I wonder how the rest of my prop bets predictions did.
-The ads disappointed. Doritos keeps trying, but I'm sorry. I don't see the humor in ripping people's pants off just so they can smell the Doritos. Finger licking is just disgusting. Even the first ad with the dog running through the door...who didn't see that coming? Keep wasting your money, Doritos, just keep wasting it. Oddly enough, my favorite ad of the night was the flowers ad featuring Faith Hill telling that guy to "speak from the heart." "I think you got an awesome rack." That's from the heart alright.
-I have no comment on the halftime show, other than to say that during halftime, I was playing Madden. Although from what I heard, everybody thought Fergie was a dude. Slash attempted to save it, but couldn't, and the best part of the show was when it ended. I believe that.
-Check out Josh's piece over at Lattanzi Land. Many of his thoughts echo mine as we enter a very uncertain future for the NFL. I don't think I will get quite as psyched about baseball season as he will be, but hey whatever floats your boat.
-It was a bad day overall for Pittsburgh as the Caps shut out the Pens (I know, I know, sans Crosby and Malkin...see you in the playoffs).
-In order to get myself through the abyss that is the football offseason, I try to take TMQ's advice: engage in spiritual and emotional growth. The only time you see me read for fun is during the summer on the beach. Otherwise, I try to keep up on current events, write on the blog, and follow other sports. I will be fully into what's left of both hockey season and college basketball season. I always do a free NCAA basketball pool (did I mention that it was free?) in March. I will also be doing a small pay-tournament for the risk takers in this crowd. More details will be forthcoming as we get closer to the tournament.
-Basketball season gets me through March. Hockey season gets me through at least April (hopefully longer), the draft is at the end of April, and then after that the countdown truly begins until the opening of training camp 2011. One of my "summer projects" this year is to hopefully pull off a tour of all of the minor league baseball stadiums in the DC/Baltimore area. There are lots of places to go...and it's cheap!
-Pay attention to the CBA talks. Hopefully, news outlets (and not just ESPN and NFL Network) will keep it in the forefront. This is something that needs to get done...and soon. The NFL doesn't want to lose any time in the 2011 season. Call me an optimist, but I feel like something will get done before March 3rd. It probably will come down to the 11th hour as it did last time, but I feel like it will get done. Yes yes, the Redskins are perfect in strike years, but we also went 14-2 in 1991 and steamrolled the Buffalo Bills. I'd like to see us win the Super Bowl that way (although, I'll take a Super Bowl any way, but I digress).
BASEBALL!!! 7 more days until Pitchers and Catchers report! Down with NFL!!
ReplyDeleteIt was William Gay and a gimpy Bryant McFadden that the Packers attacked, not Polamalu. If you attack Polamalu, you get picked. This might be the dumbest thing you've ever written.
ReplyDeleteI know you're a Redskins fan and all, but I don't know how you can blame Jerry Jones for an ice storm. Such is the plight of playing the championship game of a fall sport in the bleak midwinter. And the NFL made HELLA-right by those fans that didn't have seats - they got to watch the game from elsewhere (apparently they booted a section of NFL relations for them), got comped everything, went on the field after the game, got triple their face value, AND free tix to next year's game that they can probably sell for another grand or more.
Collins got flagged for going to the ground. It's apparently a pretty clearly-written rule, and is not the officials fault (three or four of them threw their flags simultaneously, so THEY obviously knew the rule). Is the rule bad? Maybe. But this isn't one of those "letter of the law/spirit of the law" things - the rule is written how they want it to be enforced. You can't go to the ground and celebrate.
The funniest commercial of the night was a Doritos ad. You might have missed it, since you didn't mention it in your mini-anti-Doritos rant. It's called "House Sitting," and it's hilarious. The only one that compares humor-wise was the Careerbuilder parking lot monkeys ad.
Finally, I for one DON'T want news outlets (aside from ESPN/NFLN) to report on the NFL CBA talks. There's *important* stuff that they should be covering - Africa on fire, for example. ESPN/NFLN are MORE than enough to keep up with 32 billionaires trying to gyp the providers of their fortune out of the profits to which they're entitled.
Why do you have such a man-crush on Polamalu? Yes, he's a hard hitter and a ball hawk, but that's usually because he finds a place in the zone and he reacts to the routes. In the Super Bowl they did attack him...they wen't right after him. It was brilliant. Polamalu's the kind of safety that doesn't react well when you give him a dose of his own medicine. If it was Gay and McFadden who were getting undressed all night, why didn't Troy save the day? I do believe that Rodgers threw zero picks, and he might have had a perfect rating on the night if it weren't for the drops. I know you're just a bitter New England/Baltimore hater just trying to make excuses for why your pick turned out to be mush, but you got to face facts that Pitt just got outplayed. Hard.
ReplyDeleteOn a similar note, why do you have such a man crush on Jerry Jones all of a sudden. Yes, I am aware that he does not have control over the weather, but from day one, the whole reason he built that palace was that he could set the attendance record. You can't dispute that. It was the Cowboys staff that flubbed the seats issue. It was the NFL that saved face by giving them 3X the refund and tickets for next year. I said that in the post. Look, I'm not saying Jerry's Super Bowl was a failure, I was just poking fun at him for not achieving the goals that he himself had said he wanted to achieve by building that stadium, none of which came to fruition.
They did get outplayed. Because the Packers do what good teams do against the Steelers - they threw away from Polamalu. I've said for years that the Ravens and Steelers secondaries are identical: they have one all-world safety and a bunch of scrubs who can, and usually do, get burned time after time. The only reason they have tremendous defenses every year is because they both have very good front sevens, and the safety to cover up most of the crap in the secondary. But against good teams with good passing games - Patriots, Colts, Chargers, Packers on this night - they get torched, provided they don't go at Polamalu. And good teams don't go at Polamalu.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you need to stop taking criticism so damn personally. Yeah, my pick was wrong. Big fuckin' deal. But I'm not bitter - remember, I'm not a Redskins fan.
As for your boy Jerry Jones, I don't know how me pointing out that he can't control the weather equals having a "man crush" on him. I hate ALL of the greedy owners (except Irsay, who is an exceptional human being and a righteous defender of all that is good - tongue very much in cheek). And until you mentioned it, I had no idea your boy was going for the Super Bowl attendance record. Nor do I care. Why WOULD I care? Are the prospects of football happiness so dim for you that your only saving grace from this past season is that Jerry Jones screwed up a few hundred ad hoc bleacher seats and couldn't set some stupid attendance record? And _I'M_ the one that's bitter?
BTW, those 400 fans were in attendance, so that's not why he didn't set the record. If they didn't set the record, they weren't going to anyway. There were no fans that had tickets that didn't get to see the game, so you can't really blame the bleacher flubbing for the failure to set the attendance record. Maybe the Jones-generated ice storm...
Me? Bitter? Nah. Amused? Absolutely. First, read this piece http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/news/story?id=6096358
ReplyDeleteTurns out even if the 400 had been seated, he still wouldn't have made the record, but they were NOT counted in the final attendance figure.
And I will agree that teams who play the Steelers usually pass more than they run. The Packers didn't even fake any sort of running game because they knew they'd be running into the likes of Hampton, Harrison, and Kiesel. There is nobody in the Steeler front 7 that you can "run at." And you might not want to believe that the Packers were throwing at Polamalu, but Rodgers throws were so on-target (he was literally threading needles), that I don't think there was a safety in the world who could have broke it up, but they did go after Polamalu because he can be beaten with speed. Polamalu's strength is in closing speed, but if you blow by him on the initial route, he's playing catch up, and from the looks of it he wasn't catching anybody on Sunday.
BANG! Thank you, Matt Mosely
ReplyDeletehttp://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast/post/_/id/25014/page/espntexas/the-packers-silence-polamalu&page=espntexas
"Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings caught both of his touchdowns against Polamalu. Jennings said that on the first score the Steelers were in a Cover 2 scheme and Polamalu was forced to choose between covering two receivers running similar routes. "
If that isn't GOING RIGHT AFTER HIM, then you tell me what is.