NFL Offseason: Big Money, Big Draft, & Big Ben Follies

[judgejudy27]

Drew's baby son is so adoreable.

[Cyn]

As a lifelong Atlanta Falcons fan (ducks tomatoes), I never in my wildest thought I'd pull for the Saints in any game :rofl: , but Congratulations to them!!

After watching Atlanta get their asses handed to them by John Elway back in 1999 (in Atlanta's only trip to the Superbowl), it was great to see New Orleans succeed on their first try.

:cheer2: :cheer: :cheer2:

[Catherine M]

Well I'm alive!! Barely, but alive.

What a great game! Had a wonderful time at a friend's house. We went NUTS when first the on-side kick went our way (yay for Chris Reis to get the ball at the bottom of the scrum), Drew being his great self and finally Tracy Porter, a Louisiana native intercepting Peyton Manning and taking it back for 6!!!!! I never jumped up and down and yelled as much as I did at that moment!

Its going to be a wild week upcoming here in New Orleans. The team arrives at the airport at 2pm and then tomorrow there will be a parade downtown. Need to get off work for that. Then comes MARDI GRAS!! Its going to be insane on Sunday night when Drew is the King of the Krewe of Bacchus. He'll be crowned here at work on Friday so that's going to be wild.

Off to continue my nap at my desk!!!

[Badams]

congrats to the saints and the saints fans. i can't say i am pleased with the outcome, as a diehard colts/peyton manning fan..:( but i really can't think of a team that i would be better about them losing the superbowl to this season. it actually came down to the 2 teams that SHOULD have faced eachother, and the saints just played better and deserved this win. drew brees is such a classy and good guy. and i am sure archie manning is a little bit happy today too. :)

[genevieve]

the other commercial I liked was the one with Letterman, Leno and Oprah

[Cheylana]

Ok, I hate to kick Peyton while he's down, but reports are saying he didn't stick around to shake hands with Drew Brees or any of the other Saints. Is this normal? Because it seems like bad sportsmanship. Also, in the post-game press conference he seemed to be blaming everyone around him - receivers dropping balls, defense not making plays, special teams screwing up (I guess he means not recovering the onside kick), etc. But of course for his own big blunder - the game-sealing Pick Six - he says Tracey Porter "made a great play." Again, I'm sure he's feeling really disappointed and all, but this just smacks of a whole lot of bus-throwing.

[jenny12]

I heard that Peyton said he would contact Drew Brees after the game, but didn't want to stick around because he thought it was their moment to celebrate. Perhaps that's just an excuse though. As a fan of Peyton, I'm disappointed to hear him not taking the blame. He still does have his one ring, but he's been known to choke on many occasions unfortunately and there's no one he can blame for that but himself. Still, I hope he wins next year. I really like the intelligence (which wasn't there yesterday unfortunately) with how he plays the QB position.

[BigB08822]

With all the fuss that goes on at the end of a Super Bowl game, it is probably REALLY tough to work your way through the crowd and find the other teams QB, coach, etc. He may have realized it would be a huge waste of time and they need to get those guys ready for the trophy presentation. I won't hold this against him without knowing his reasoning. I also heard him make some really nice remarks about the Saints so he didn't seem to have sour grapes there. Maybe he is disappointed in his team but I am sure he takes much of the blame, that article may have not asked him the right questions or may have not used all of what he said. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

[susan6]

This is pretty much the only football game I watch each year and it was a doozy. Peyton has an arm like a laser, but the major props go to the other Payton involved in the game. That Saints coach is one crafty dude. Brees deserved the MVP, but I've got to give props to their kicker....kickers never get any respect, but three 40+ yard field goals in one game? Impressive.

The half-time show had me wondering....yes, they always dig up and dust off the rock superstars of yesteryear for the show. Some of them do a great job, some not so great, but they always make me wish they could have a band or artist that's a little more "now" playing. BUT....at the Super Bowl half-time show, you need to have at least 3-4 loud, rocking songs that everyone in the stadium knows, and the show has to be clean enough to be televised (thank you Justin and Janet). Quick, name me an artist that is still making relevant, chart-topping, popular music today (this rules out U2, Bruce Springsteen, the Who, pretty much all the halftime performers I can remember) who have 3-4 songs like this. Beyonce or Lady Gaga? A little too risque and not quite rockin' enough. Green Day? A little too alternative. Seriously, what are the possible choices?

The commercials were pretty dull this year. The snickers one with Betty White and Abe Vigoda was probably the best. There was a whole lot of misogyny going on for some reason. At least 3 ads had the basic premise that women are essentially boring, emasculating creatures that men tolerate for some reason. Men are sooooo put upon by bossy women; apparently asking a guy to put his dirty underwear in a hamper is just plain abusive. :rolleyes: If women are so bad, why didn't they just go ahead and air that ad for the gay dating site?

[genevieve]

There was a whole lot of misogyny going on for some reason.

um...it's football.

[susan6]

um...it's football.

It's also the one game each year where a larger than usual percentage of the viewing audience is women.

[Cheylana]

I read a blog with a theory about the misogynistic TV ads, which I thought was interesting:

Men ages 25-54 are experiencing their lowest level of employment in the United States ever. Despite the recession, women are doing compratively well: Unemployment for men of all ages is at 10.8 percent, while only 8.4 percent for women. (Black men are at 17.6 percent.) And the precipitous drop since the beginning of the recession means that there are fewer men who can fulfill the hetero-normative cultural diktat to be “master and commander” of their domestic lives. Reihan Salam's essay on "the death of macho" laid out the emotional terrain:

[A]s men get hit harder in the he-cession, they’re even less well-equipped to deal with the profound and long-term psychic costs of job loss. According to the American Journal of Public Health, “the financial strain of unemployment” has significantly more consequences on the mental health of men than on that of women. In other words, be prepared for a lot of unhappy guys out there—with all the negative consequences that implies.

In other words: These men may not be carrying lip balm, but they are out of work and mad as hell.

You have to scroll down a bit to find it, but link is http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor

[Jenny]

T BUT....at the Super Bowl half-time show, you need to have at least 3-4 loud, rocking songs that everyone in the stadium knows, and the show has to be clean enough to be televised (thank you Justin and Janet). Quick, name me an artist that is still making relevant, chart-topping, popular music today (this rules out U2, Bruce Springsteen, the Who, pretty much all the halftime performers I can remember) who have 3-4 songs like this.

Gotta argue with you on Bruce Springsteen. He continues to put out new material every other year or so, and many long time fans will tell you his recent work is the best of his career. He's still selling out concerts, still selling CDs, and while he may not have the kind of hits that Justin or Beyonce or Taylor has, he's more relevant to audiences over the age of 30, and some would say, more relevant in what he sings about and stands for than any of the above. When he performed last year, the medley of songs included several of his past hits, a new song debuting on the CD he had put out a couple of weeks early, and a more obscure song that fit the moment. And he ROCKED.

[susan6]

I know Bruce has more talent in his pinky than most of the people topping the charts today, but I honestly couldn't name one song off of his latest album. But I can name four Lady Gaga hits from the past year. I guess half-time show stadium-worthy rock is basically dead. Sorry about the thread drift; it's just kind of weird to see this every year at the Super Bowl since the whole MTV nipplegate fiasco.

[judgejudy27]

I heard that Peyton said he would contact Drew Brees after the game, but didn't want to stick around because he thought it was their moment to celebrate. Perhaps that's just an excuse though. As a fan of Peyton, I'm disappointed to hear him not taking the blame. He still does have his one ring, but he's been known to choke on many occasions unfortunately and there's no one he can blame for that but himself. Still, I hope he wins next year. I really like the intelligence (which wasn't there yesterday unfortunately) with how he plays the QB position.

I thought apart from that big interception thrown towards the end Manning played a very strong game. Sure he was outplayed probably by Brees but Brees was having an amazing game. Both defenses did a great job, and I thought considering both QBs handled it very well. It was unfortunate that the last thing people will remember though is that one big big blunder by Manning that ended any hopes of coming back and winning the game.