Mo is Indy covered Super Bowl 46. The game will be referred to as Super Bowl 46, and not with any Roman Numerals, because this is America and we don't use Roman Numerals.
2:12am: I am back in Cincinnati, sitting at my dining room table. I spare you any pictures. My thoughts will be brief and probably random....
-It's not necessarily that Eli Manning has two rings, or that he has one more than his brother, it's that he's doing all this in a golden age of quarterbacking and hypercompetitiveness in the NFL that makes him stand out.
-The Eli Manning throw to Mario Manningham is one of the best I've seen. That's not an exaggeration.
-I saw three Giants fans get kicked out in the first quarter. I wonder what they are doing right now.
-The eye-opening lack of New England skill guys finally caught up to them, and will to an even larger degree next season if they don't address it now.
-That game was not a case study in how to manage timeouts.
-Apparently the commercials sucked and someone named MIA flipped off the camera during the halftime show. I have no reaction to either.
-I won my pick 'em league title. This only matters to me, but it matters nonetheless.
-This was an incredibly cool experience. Anyone who tells you that going to a Super Bowl is a pain in the ass should be ignored forever.
-If the Giants improve the offensive line and get a little better in the secondary, there's no reason to think we won't see more NYG titles.
-Whether it was the most well-played game is irrelevant. It was exciting. It was entertaining. It was among the best Super Bowls ever. It was almost like three games...the first 25 dominated by the Giants, the next ten by the Patriots, and the final 25 by the New York. The ending seemed inevitable when New York began its final drive, with the Patriots having blown an opportunity to salt the game away.
-Walking back to my car I walked past five or six bars and watched Giants fans throw back celebratory beers while wearing giddy looks on their faces. Never been more jealous. That has to be what being a sports fan is all about...those fleeting moments when you realize that all the crap that comes with being a fan finally pays off. I want that feeling. I want that celebratory beer. I want to wear that expression. Soon.
Mainly though, I want to sleep. Catch you in the afternoon on ESPN1530
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11:47pm: I just returned from the Giants' locker room. I went down there for primarily selfish reasons. I've watched hundreds of championship celebrations on TV and there's something about them that's always intrigued me. I never really got the sense that TV really captured what it's like in the locker room in the minutes after a team wins a title.
I can confirm that it doesn't.
I'll say up front that I felt a little creepy being there, sorta like I was intruding on their celebration. I know media members have bosses to satisy and deadlines to meet, but I think they should keep outsiders away for at least a few minutes right after a game like that...let the players and coaches enjoy the moment together.
That said, it was awesome. One by one, players trickled in...either from the field, from the trainer's room, or from the postgame interview room. Each wearing the same expression, each greeted by massive hugs from owners, coaches, staff, and teammates. Our jobs don't have moments like that, hell our lives really don't have moments like that.
You couldn't help but be happy for those guys.
You had some guys just sitting at their locker just beaming in disbelief. You had others reliving the game with each other. Some looked simply exhausted while others couldn't wait to get the hell out of there and get on with whatever players on Super Bowl winning teams do when the leave the stadium.
And you had lots of people with microphones and notepads interrupting them. They were doing their jobs, and the players were more than accomodating, but I couldn't help but feel like they should just be allowed to celebrate.
I can't even imagine what it'd be like if I'd been there watching a team I rooted for celebrate their title.
Absent was booze, which is an NFL rule I guess, and a stupid one. Those guys just reached the pinnacle of their profession and busted their asses to do it....they deserve a chance to pound a cold one or two while dumping the rest on each other. The kids at home, treated to dozens of beer commercials during the game, will be fine.
I shot a few short videos to try to capture the scene, which I can't do justice. Yes, I felt creepy doing this....
This is my favorite moment of the night....not Tom Coughlan talking with Michael Strahan, Coughland being greeted by Seal and the coach having no idea who he is....
The last guy to come into the locker room was Greg Jones, the Moeller product who was drafted by the Giants in April and emerged as an important special teams contributor. He sat down and was immediately told to hurry up by some Giants PR guy....nearly every other player had boarded the bus, so I had exactly 90 seconds to talk to him. He was great. I wasn't.
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10:02pm: Wow. Just....wow. Not the cleanest or most well-played Super Bowl ever, but among the most exciting...maybe the most exciting. Amazing.
If you're a New England fan, how many times will you replay the Welker drop this offseason? That wasn't a perfect throw by any stretch, but that's a ball that he has to catch. How many of those late-game throws by Brady (who seemed out of sorts in the game's final 20 minutes) will you think about all offseason?
A few quick things....the "Bradshaw shouldn't have rolled into the end zone" argument is a little overstated. Score the points, take the sure thing, rely on your defense. I know teams have been burned in Super Bowls by leaving too much time for Brady to go to work, but if the Giants don't score, and they end up flubbing a snap or turning it over, then there's no chance to win. Scoring the TD gave their defense a chance to win a game against an offense that hadn't scored since the first few minutes of the half.
How 'bout Eli Manning? Is there a QB who's more clutch in the NFL right now?
Vet move....after Manningham's grab, Eli gets his team to the line of scrimmage as quickly as possible....thus not giving Belichick's staff time to chime in on whether it was worth reviewing. He had to rely on his naked eye.
Chad Ochocinco was wide open a few times down during New England's last drive. Brady didn't even look at him.
On the Blackburn pick....Tom Brady had Aaron Hernandez wide open, but elected to throw the ball (which was a bad throw) to a tight end on a bum ankle. Tom spent a chunk of this game looking like the all-world QB he his (the two TD drives were surgical), but he made some horrible decisions tonight.
I'm gonna head downstairs and check out the scene. Here's another photo....
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8:45pm: If I was a Giants fan, I wouldn't feel so good. New York thoroughly outplayed New England for most of the half and trails by one at the half...with Brady starting to heat up.....the Brady intentional grounding pass was inexcusable....the New England secondary looks lost....Manning looks unflappable but the Giants cannot afford to have anymore good-looking drives to stall....the Giants shouldn't can't cover well enough to blitz....the Lucas Oil Stadium hot dog is pretty damn good....and Madonna is getting it done for a 53 year-old woman.
Nothing is overreacted to like the Super Bowl Halftime Show. If you like that year's artist, you'll like the halftime show. If you don't, you won't. From where I sat, it wasn't bad. I always take it for what it is...a logistic and acoustic nightmare that will normally be lip-synched, and an impossible assignment for an artist...replicate a concert while adding in the NFL's cheese factor. If in 2012 you're still offended by lip-synching then you obviously are very unfamilar with anything relating to music history. I thought Madonna did ok, I thought she looked good though they did her a solid by not using many close-ups, and if you didn't like it, chances are your expectations were already pretty low anyway.
I just wish they wouldn't have forced LMFAO on us. The LMFAO chapter is music history is one we'll look back on with regret.
Here's yet another pic, this as the audience clicked on the flashlights during "Like A Prayer."
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6:33pm: Kelly Clarkson nailed the national anthem. Of course all anyone is doing on Twitter is talking about her weight. I'm sure the people who think Kelly should drop a few lbs. are complete hardbodies. We are indeed a patriotic bunch. I took this picture right at kickoff. It varies little from the one I took an hour ago except now there's people in the stands. 
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5:30pm: We're an hour away from kickoff. I have found my seat. Here is my view of the field.
To compare this place to Paul Brown Stadium is like comparing the football careers of Eli and Peyton to Cooper Manning's. I've been here for a Bengals/Colts game, but this place looks even more incredible.
I'm pretty fired up for this. The buzz as the building starts to fill up is incredible. I really can't believe I'm here.
My seat is in the auxillary press area, which is basically in the stands, which is far better than being in a sterile press box. You get more of a sense of the atmosphere.
Of course, the drawback to sitting with media is that you get Angry Media Guy. I'm surrounded by folks who'd make you think covering a game like this was a burden. They've long forgotten that one of the reasons they got into their chosen field was to have the chance to go to games like this. There are people outside literally selling everything they have to get in this building, yet I'm listening to people gripe about their assignment.
I'm almost afraid to vebalize how cool I think this is.
I went to the media food line and stood behind some writer who spent the 150 seconds he was in my life bitching about everything. The line was too long, the service was too slow, the building was too cold, the concourses weren't wide enough....I started to tune him out. I felt bad for him that he'd been sentenced to a miserable life of attending football games for free.
One thing worth not being happy about...the price of your Super Bowl 46 beer: $11.00. Pretty sure I won't be buying any rounds.
We do have one bit of news...Chad Ochocinco is active and on the field warming up. He actually emerged from the locker room by himself and got one of the loudest ovations on any Patriot.
I figured I'd shoot some video in the concourse. Here it is...
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4:00pm: I am in Lucas Oil Stadium. Here's a picture I took that's somehow supposed to prove this...
I walked in around 3:30 after going through a labyrinth of securty checkpoints and entrances. Indy seems to be doing a really nice job with the game, as they've done a nice job employing professional hall monitors. Every five seconds someone is asking you to show your credential or identify yourself.
I spend most of the late morning/early afternoon walking around Indy. There's just a mass of people in the Super Bowl village. The bars started to crowd up around lunch time, with my favorite spot being the Indianapolis Colts Grille...
I liked this place for two reasons. 1) They played a lot of Springsteen. 2) They had windows on top of the urinals that allow you to look out into the bar as you take care of business. I'm not sure it's necessary, but it provided a different experience nonetheless.
I had lunch at one of the downtown hotels. I sat next to a ticket broker who had guys on the street doing business. After sitting next to him for 45 minutes, I needed a bath.
After lunch I walked through the Super Bowl Village. Near the south end of the village (which really isn't a village) is where ESPN set up shop for their pregame show. I got to watch Teddy Bruschi show people how to play linebacker on a mini football field.
Unless you're pregaming in one of the bars, the only thing to really do right now is kill time between now and kickoff by walking around and looking like you have somewhere to go....the weather for that is ideal today.
The vibe on the streets is pretty much what you would expect, just sheer anticpation and excitement. I watch these Giants and Patriots fans walking around downtown and I get jealous. There's not much better than the hours leading up to your team playing in a game like this. I'd like to experience it, sooner rather than later.
These videos are long and boring, but I'd figured I'd record my walk from one of the downtown hotels to Lucas Oil. If you sit through these, you have a little too much spare time. Enjoy.
More....
You're not really watching these are you?
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11:09am: I arrived in Indy around 9:00. My first order of business was to park. That only cost $80. My second order of business was to quickly walk through a tailgating lot to see if people were throwin' 'em back even with kickoff more than nine hours away.
Much to my delight, there were people tailgating pretty hard. The early morning Giants-to-Patriots fan tailgating ration was 4:1 in favor of the Giants. One man from Middlesex NJ claimed he'd been tailgating since 6:00am. He was in rough shape already. I can't imagine what he'll be like around kickoff.
Most of the bars have opened up early to serve breakfast. However, I have two rules when it comes to dining out....1) Never eat at a strip club that offers food. (For that matter, just avoid strip clubs) 2) Never eat breakfast at a bar. Thus, I am typing this blog at the downtown Indy Dunkin' Donuts.
Most of the talk right now seems to be about Hall of Fame snubs....mainly Chris Carter and Bill Parcells.
It's hard to imagine that Chris Carter will not one day make the Hall...he's fourth all-time in catches, eighth all-time in yards, and fourth in receiving touchdowns. His exclusion highlights how diluted passing and receiving numbers have become and illustrates will it will be near impossible for some of our era's best wide receivers to get to Canton. It's actually kind of interesting...among the top 20 in career receptions, ten are or have been eligible for the Hall of Fame, only two have made it (Jerry Rice and Art Monk) and most of those players won't even get a sniff.
Which is why I'm amused when Chad Ochocinco fans (a group I include myself among) get mad when I scoff at the idea of #85 making it to Canton. If Chris Carter isn't a Hall of Famer, Chad isn't either, as great as his career was.
Bill Parcells should be a Hall of Famer. The knock on him has been that he "only" won two Super Bowls and that his winning percentage isn't high enough (.570, which is actually better than Chuck Noll's). That's crap. He coached four teams...all four were rebuilding projects. He went to three Super Bowls with non-Hall of Fame quarterbacks. He actually never coached a quarterback who's in Canton, and unless Tony Romo gets in one day, he'll have coached his entire career without ever working with an enshrined QB. All four teams he took over improved exponentially from when he took them over. He won eight division titles...many of them when winning a division meant something. He had coaches who worked under him go on to become very successful (Some have argued that the success of Belichick and Coughlan works against his case. I say that's BS) He beat Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs in an NFC Title Game and Hall of Famer Marv Levy in a Super Bowl. He knocked Bill Walsh out of the playoffs twice.
Halls of Fame exist to tell the story of a sport. Good luck telling the story of the National Football League without spending a fair chunk of time talking about Bill Parcells.
Maybe the voters are holding this look against him...
-Drew Brees is the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year while Aaron Rodgers is the MVP. That's like a pitcher winning the MVP but not the Cy Young.
-I spent yesterday watching and attending college basketball games.
*It's scary to think about how good UK can be. No one is playing at their level.
*XU is running out of opportunities for good wins. The Muskies have a lot of problems, but the lack of killer instinct might be most troubling.
*Cashmere Wright bailed the Bearcats out again on a night where UC couldn't shake a pesky DePaul team. If the Justin Jackson we saw last night is what we get down the stretch, this team will win more than they lose and they'll get back to the tournament. What the win shouldn't obscure however, is that DePaul, with a lot less to play for, played a lot harder.
*I can't watch Paul Williams play anymore. He might be my least favorite Flyer ever. And the list of least favorite Flyers is long.
*The mark of a great player is how he does when defenses do absolutely everything they can to stop him. Exhibit A is Jared Sullinger against Wisconsin.
-Oh yeah. Today's game.
Patriots v. Giants
Has any Super Bowl favorite ever pulled off an upset?
Vegas has New England at anywhere from a 2.5 to 3.5 point favorite, yet the story of this week has been about how New York is the more complete team and the hotter team. And it is hard to pick against the Giants after watching them torch Atlanta and Green Bay, then win at San Francisco. It's hard to imagine their pass rush not getting to Brady, it's tough to pick against Eli Manning, as hot as he is, and the Gronkowski injury has been talked about so much that I've actually turned to Presidential debate coverage to get away from it.
But the Patriots are hot too. Like, scorching hot. They've won ten straight, by an average of more than 17 points a game. They've scored 30 or more in eight of those wins, and while many of those wins have come against some of teh dregs of the NFL, they did hang 40+ twice on a good Denver D, scored 37 on a top-five Jets defense, dropped 27 on a quality Miami unit, and put up 38 against a Philly defense that's better than they're given credit for.
My initial inclination was to pick NEw York, because they've been really impressive these last five games....but they were still a 9-7 team, and if we're gonna pick apart the New England wins, let's look at who the Giants beat down the stretch....
*An imploding Jets team
*A Jeckyll and Hyde Cowboys squad
*A soft Falcons team
*The Rusty Packers
*A San Fran team that made two huge special teams mistakes and has an extraordinarily ordinary group of wideouts.
The Giants have been great, and Eli has played his way into the elite QB conversation with some clutch performances, but I don't think they've gotten many teams' best shots and the 49ers overachieved.
I have no dog in the fight. No reason to dislike either, no real reason to really root for either, but as the week has wore on (slowly), I keep thinking if people are overlooking New England just a little too much.
And when you think of their season, that's kinda been the story. This might have been the least talked-about Patriots team of the Brady/Belichick era. Early on the stories were all about Buffalo and Detroit, the middle of the season was dominated by Green Bay and San Fran, and the focus down the stretch was on Tebow's Broncos and Brees' Saints. Think back to the season, the only thing you really heard about New England was about how bad they were defensively.
And I don't think they're as awful on D as they're made out to be.
I think Belichick and his two offensive coordinators (an unfair advantage by the way) find some new wrinkles, I think we overstate the quality of New York's secondary, and I think Brady takes what the Giants defense gives them....
....and I think Chad Ochocinco does something.
Chad is likely to dress after New England whacked Tiquan Underwood (That's cold, cutting someone the night before the Super Bowl. Bill Belichick would make a great radio exec) and I'm guessing he sees the field, at least a little.
Unlike many Bengals fans, I have no issue with #85 winning a ring. In fact, I think it'd be awesome if he did. Chad Ochocinco is one of the best ten players to ever play for my favorite franchise. He made rooting for the Bengals cool again, and he personified my favorite Bengals team in my lifetime. There was bad, and maybe his time in Cincinnati didn't end so well, but there was a ton of good as well.
I hope he gets a chance tonight, and I think he does. The knock on him has been that he can't learn the playbook, but this is a one-game scenario...they simply need him to learn a handful of plays, point out which routes to run, and ask him to run them. Chad, even at this stage in his career, can still do that.
And the Patriots can win this game. I think we get a great one tonight, and while a New York win would hardly surprise, I say the Patriots win number four. Patriots 27 Giants 24.
© 2012
