NFL
By David J Cohen
Now that the year is officially over with the ending of the most meaningless game in professional sports, or the Pro Bowl, the focus of millions of NFL fans around the country shifts to next season. What changes need to be made? What can my team accomplish? How far can my team go? These are the questions of the fans as they follow their favorite teams into the journey that is the off-season.
Here’s a look of what the AFC East might look like in the 2006-2007 season.
Super Bowl XL should have been Peyton Manning’s coming out party. Instead, he was watching like the rest of us. The Steelers were on a mission.
By David J Cohen
On January 31st, Seahawks TE Jerramy Stevens made this “inflammatory” remark when asked about the Jerome Bettis story: “It’s a heartwarming story and all that, but it will be a sad day when he leaves without that trophy.” This made Steelers LB Joey Porter “thirsty for blood” (apparently he’s a vampire) and became the draw that was supposed to make the Seahawks and Steelers hate each other. Then it was finally Super Bowl Sunday, the game kicked off, and it wasn’t long before everyone outside of Pittsburgh fell asleep.
Even though Stevens’s quote was blown out of proportion, he did open his mouth, and since he is a “receiving” TE I have to say it: If you’re going to run your mouth, when the time finally comes to back up your words, CATCH THE DAMN BALL! Apparently he skipped training camp.
Listen folks, I’m not saying that the refs called a great Super Bowl and that we should be praising the ground they walk on, but here’s the bottom line: Pittsburgh won the game. They did it fair and square.
Despite my instinct to avoid the subject, I can’t help calling out a blatant misuse of the race card by one Donovan McNabb, quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. Amid the 24-hour hype of Super Bowl XL on ESPN, McNabb reared his ugly (and oversized) head on SportsCenter with a hypocritical, one-sided analysis of his feud with Terrell Owens.
That is the extent of my expert analysis, but for a Super Bowl that was XL sized those few words sum up the entire game. The Pittsburgh Steelers made a few huge plays and the Seattle Seahawks made too many tiny mistakes.
By Sean Quinn
Trix may be for kids, but tricks are still for the NFL. Gadgets are for late-night infomercials on E-TV, The Technology Channel. So when talking to your colleagues tomorrow at the water cooler, don’t call Antwaan Randle El’s 43-yard touchdown throw to Hines Ward a gadget play, declare it a trick play.
I’ll come clean. I rooted for the Seahawks. I picked them to win and I wanted them to win. (Since I’m 1-4 in rooting interest in my last five Super Bowls, it probably doomed them. I’m sorry, Seattle fans.) However, that doesn’t change the fact that this Super Bowl was handed to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Is there anyone in the world who is not a Steelers fan who thinks the game was fairly officiated? That was one of the worst officiated games in the history of the NFL. Bill Leavy just took Dick Bavetta off the hook for worst official in a championship game.
Super Bowl Forty is in less then a week. Congratulations Mike Holmgren, and of course Ben Roethlisberger and the Boys from Pitt. How could we leave them out, right? And what about Shaun Alexander in Seattle. Maybe that twenty seven straight days of rain helped a little bit, right? Maybe it just might give the Hawks the mentality to rain all over Pittsburgh for sixty straight minutes of gratifying football.
Here’s my super bowl preview.