Every Monday, either myself, or my co-managing editor Allen Kenney will look at the good, bad and sublime of the previous weekend in what we like to call “Case of the Mondays.”
And today, as you groggily show up to work, we break it all down for you. From Madonna to Darren Rovell, Michelle Beadle and back to college football, here is the Post-Super Bowl Edition!
1. The Super Bowl:
Where to begin? Fantastic game, fun time, food that will ruin my blood pressure, Madonna dressed like a Pharaoh, good times!
First off, let me say congratulations to the Super Bowl Champion, New York Giants. As you all know, I don’t watch nearly as much NFL ball as I do college ball, but I honestly just didn’t think anyone would be able to beat Brady and Belichick two times, in two separate Super Bowls. Well apparently I need to learn a thing or two about Peyton Manning’s goofy younger brother, don’t I?
In all seriousness though, my biggest takeaway is as follows: Yes, the Giants went out and won the game on their final drive. But my goodness did the Patriots made a lot of uncharacteristically bad plays down the stretch. Aaron Hernandez missed an easy catch. Deon Branch missed a tougher one up the middle. Wes Welker dropped an incredibly tough ball, but also one that he usually holds onto. Then again, Tom Brady usually would hit him right on the numbers there, rather than throwing it a few steps behind him.
Still the Giants are Super Bowl Champions, and congratulations to their fans for that! Ultimately, nobody is going to remember how they won it, just in fact that they did. And win they did.
A few other things to think about…
2. Tom Brady:
There was a very realistic argument entering this game that had Brady won Sunday it would’ve etched him in stone as the greatest quarterback of all-time. After all, a victory over the Giants would’ve been his fourth ring, in five appearances, spanning a decade. Add in Giselle Bundchen, and those flowing locks of hair, and we’re literally talking about an untouchable legacy.
Except of course Brady didn’t win, and I couldn’t help but think one thing as the confetti fell Sunday night: If the Manning family never existed, Brady might be looking at six rings right now, instead of three. Seriously, how crazy is that? Only it’s true. Eli kept him from winning in 2008 and 2012, and had the Pats not blown a massive lead in Indy against Peyton in 2006, the path was cleared for the Pats to add another ring that year, too.
Again, I cannot emphasize this enough: Tom Brady is one Archie Manning away from having six rings. Six! You know how they say “records are meant to be broken?” Yeah, that’s one that would’ve never, ever been touched.
Instead, Brady will go down with three rings (and there could still be more coming), and one Manning-sized asterisk next to his name forever. But hey, at least he’s still got Giselle, right?
3. Tiquan Underwood:
Is it too early to start calling this game “The Curse of Tiquan Underwood.” Granted, I know Underwood was the 53rd man on the roster, and likely wouldn’t have seen the field Sunday, but still. You can’t cut a guy the night before the Super Bowl and not expect a little bit of bad karma, right?
By the way, I also must admit that I enjoyed the sweet irony of Brady trying to drive the length of the field on the final possession last night, needing to hit one final deep bomb to get a wild win, and being one wide receiver short. I’m not saying Underwood would’ve caught Brady’s final pass, or even been on the field for that matter. At the same time, have one more deep guy couldn’t have hurt. Right?
4. Now, Let’s Get To The Important Stuff, Like Madonna:
Look, as a general rule, I’m a pretty easy going guy. I don’t like publicly picking on people, and I don’t say mean things just for the sake of being mean. But I can’t deny that Madonna’s Super Bowl performance did absolutely nothing for me. Zip zero. Believe me, I’m hardly the arbiter of quality musical performances, but something just seemed a bit…ahem…weird about the whole thing.
On a different note, I found the divide on Madonna’s halftime performance to be one of the most interesting sociological experiments I’ve ever witnessed. Because when I went on Twitter, it seemed like everyone either had one of two reactions to the whole thing. It was either “Oh man, that was God awful” or “Hey, whatever … she’s 53! I hope I/my wife looks like that at her age.”
Honestly, that last one seems stupid to me. Look, I’m happy that Madonna can still move and shake at 53, I really am. At the same time, when you get up on stage and bear your soul to the world, you’re either good or not… period. And if you can’t cut it, you shouldn’t be there.
After all, when Jamie Moyer loses a game as a 47-year-old starter in the Major Leagues, does everyone say “Yeah he lost, but whatever. He’s 47!” Or do they call him a bum and hold him to the same standard as everyone else? It’s the second one, isn’t it? And it should be no different for Madonna. You can either get the job done, or you can’t. And if you can’t, you shouldn’t be on stage.
By the way, would a 27-year-old, newly single Katy Perry have been the worst thing for us at halftime?
5. Another Thing:
Another interesting sociological thing I saw on Twitter was the backlash, to the backlash of Madonna’s performance. After all, if you didn’t like the performance and took to Twitter to express it, then somehow, that automatically made you an angry, trolling loser with nothing nice to say.
Wait, what? All of a sudden I’m not allowed to say something sucks? I thought this was America! And really, that’s the gift and curse of social media. It gives everyone a forum to express their opinions, which is great. Of course, no matter what those opinions are, people are always going to give backlash.
Well I’ve got news for you folks: The performance sucked. That doesn’t make me a bad person. That doesn’t make me a troll. That doesn’t mean I live in a dark basement. It just means Madonna sucked. And she did. So live with it, ok?
6. The Commercials:
No Super Bowl discussion can possibly be complete without a discussion of the commercials… which I’d love to do, except I found them mostly uninspiring this year. Other than the Jerry Seinfeld/Soup Nazi one, nothing really stuck out.
One thing I will add though is this: It was pretty cool seeing Michelle Beadle in those Bridgestone commercials. I’ve been a fan of Beadle’s since before her Sports Nation days, and it really is amazing how far she’s come.
As a matter of fact, let me give you a quick backstory on just how far Michelle and I go back.
The year was 2008, and I was freshly out of college, knowing I loved sports, knowing I wanted to cover them in some way, but just not entirely sure how. At the time, I was bartending to make money, and blissfully unaware of what a blog even was (to a degree, I still am).
Anyway, just about my only connection to the sports world at the time was listening to the Michael Kay Radio Show (broadcast out of New York), on my way into bartend every night. Michael was ok, but stubborn by nature (a lot like Colin Cowherd actually) and every single day, his 20/20 update girl would sit in studio after she was done reading the news, and argue with Michael. She never backed down, and 9 times out of 10, probably won the argument, if not at least held her own. Sadly, it amounted to what was basically the most fun 10 or 15 minutes of my day, every day, as I listened to them bicker on my way to work.
As for the identity of that update girl? It was Michelle Beadle, and even then you could tell she was headed to do some pretty big things.
The point being, you just never know what stops you’re going to take on the way to success. If you’d told me on those drives into work back in 2008 that the 20/20 girl would be one of the biggest media personalities at ESPN within four years, well, I would’ve never believed you. Hell, if you’d told me I’d be writing for a national college football blog within that same timeframe, I would’ve never believed that either.
Still, to all the younger blogger/media types out there, the point is clear: Just keep working hard, and good things will happen. Just look at Michelle Beadle.
7. The Puppy Bowl:
Final Super Bowl thought: Can we end the Puppy Bowl once and for all? I mean, seriously, other than a couple of 42-year-old housewives in Des Moines, does anybody really care at this point?
8. Moving In An Entirely Different Direction: I Think Darren Rovell’s Twitter Beef With Playboy Was More Entertaining Than The Super Bowl Itself:
It also proved beyond a reasonable doubt what the Twitter community has known for quite some time now: Darren Rovell is a tool. An educated and occasionally informed tool, yes. But a giant, massive twat, none the less.
If you don’t know the backstory on what I’m talking about, I will do my best to quickly break it down. Rovell is the sports business reporter for CNBC, yet for some reason this weekend, he thought he was judging a Miss Hawaiian Tropic pageant or something. That’s because at Saturday’s Playboy Party, he mentioned on Twitter that the girls at the event were the ugliest he could ever remember. And believe me, Darren Rovell knows these things. After all, he has been to 11 of the 12 Playboy parties at the Super Bowl.
And to add insult to injury Mr. Rovell- the purveyor of all things beauty- wasn’t done. Nope, apparently despite insulting basically the entire female population at said event, he then still decided to ask for a picture with model Jaime Edmonson… to which she gave a big, fat, “get lost, creep.”
Well apparently Rovell wasn’t happy with that response, and when Edmonson did say no, he responded by saying: “Not even for my 175,000 Twitter followers.” Yes, he actually said that. I can’t believe it myself.
It also led to one of the funniest subplots of the weekend, when people started sarcastically using their own Twitter follower numbers to justify what they are, and are not worthy of. My personal favorite comes from friend of CBR Mark Ennis, who on Saturday said:
I’m going to cut right to the front of the line at Walmart tomorrow and say “My 5,433 Twitter followers said it’s ok.”
Classic.
9. Since This Is A College Football Blog:
I suppose we should have at least one subject matter pertaining to college football, right?
Well, with my colleague Allen Kenney taking over the “Signing Day story lines” piece on Wednesday night, I never got to share my thoughts on the big day. And even with almost a week to reflect, the biggest ne to me is still this: How the hell did Stanford pull off their class?
Seriously, for those of you who don’t follow this stuff, Stanford finished with a Top 10 class nationally, and one of the best offensive line recruiting hauls in college football history. They landed three elite offensive linemen, all three- depending on the circumstances- who seem capable of starting right away. At the skill positions, they added Barry Sanders Jr., who- like his namesake father- is a future superstar.
Now, a few other things here: One, I’ll be the first to admit that when Jim Harbaugh left Palo Alto, I figured it’d only be a matter of time before the Cardinal fell off a cliff. Even if Andrew Luck returned, I still figured we were looking at a one, maybe two year run for David Shaw before things fell off a cliff.
Apparently, I was wrong. The recruiting has not only held strong, but improved, a testament to just how good the new guy might actually be. Maybe even more impressive is that unlike the guys he recruits against, Shaw has a tiny window of athletes who can play in the Pac-12, and actually get into school in Palo Alto. Let’s be real for a second, Stanford isn’t exactly Arizona State in the academics department, if you know what I mean.
So credit to David Shaw and credit to Stanford. Maybe the guy does know what he’s doing after all.
10. Finally…
Back to the Super Bowl for my final nugget, because I’m just going to throw it out there: With the Super Bowl now in the books, did you know that our next big-time, big-boy football matchup comes Labor Day weekend in Dallas, TX? That’d be Michigan vs. Alabama, and I for one could not be more excited.
If my calendar reads correct, it’s 208 days and counting…
Aaron Torres will provide his insight and annoyances into the weekend that was every other Monday at Crystal Ball Run. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @Aaron_Torres.
