This continues our week long Super Bowl blog between our resident Patriots fan (Sean) and Giants fan (Serpico), leading up to the site’s PICKSTRAVAGANZA all day Friday.

Something is rankling me; please provide feedback. Oh, and before you start, yes, I’m well aware much of the following ultimately matters little. But it matters enough.

The Super Bowl has for forty-plus years been the pinnacle of our American pastime (sorry baseball). It’s an amalgamation of three different types of excess: swarming media coverage, with its all hours access and day-long pregame shows; football mania’s heroes and villains being built up and torn down in a single instant (plus the lore which brings back the MVPs and Hall of Famers to observe the current championship); and entertainment, be it from the glut of television commercials some find more interesting than the game itself and the opulent, insane halftime shows.

So here’s my issue and my question. It’s only two words. Tom Petty? Read More

This continues our week long Super Bowl blog between our resident Patriots fan (Sean) and Giants fan (Serpico), leading up to the site’s PICKSTRAVAGANZA all day Friday.

So this morning I woke up much too early and headed east. When I stopped heading east, the bright men and women of MIT administered an MRI. (They were measuring the amount of beeswax I had related to other peoples’, and the results, well…) As I lay immobilized in the sterile tubes, with thunderous, deep knocks rattling around the walls, I began to think about the coming week, and of Super Bowls past; anything to get the solid thumping out of my brain. What was the last Super Bowl played in Arizona? I counted backwards, year, teams and score, until I settled on it. ??????? Suddenly a lightning bolt flashed and fried through my synapses–the last Super Bowl in Arizona was this one.

Let’s put this together. In Super Bowl XXX (the raunchiest of the Big Games), back in 1996, you had on one hand the Dallas Cowboys. They were looking for their third Super Bowl in four years and trying to cement themselves as one of the great, if not the greatest, teams of all time. Under Barry Switzer the Cowboys had the best record in football and were a veteran team, perhaps put over the top by the offseason acquisition of occasionally troublesome but impossibly productive Deion Sanders as shutdown corner. (Remind you of anyone?) They blew a huge chance to win on the road in the previous year’s NFC Championship Game, putting themselves in a 21 point hole to the hated rival 49ers. They entered the Super Bowl as 13 1/2 point favorites; this had nothing to do with the opposition but just the level of respect to the approaching Team of the Decade.

And who would be on the other end of this whomping? ?? ???? ??????? A perennial AFC underachiever looking to return to the glory days of twenty years past. ???? ?????? The Pittsburgh Steelers under Bill Cowher had averaged 11 wins per year in his first four season but consistently screwed up in the playoffs. In 1992, a young team had been thumped in an “upset” at home by the mighty Buffalo Bills. No biggie. But by 1994, when an underdog Chargers team snuck into Three Rivers Stadium and snapped Terrible Towels off of Pittsburgh’s collective rear, grumbling began to surface along the Allegheny. The Steeler QB, Neil O’Donnell, was a likable enough fellow, but he was still regarded as a tad too shaky to be a big-timer. (Again, remind you of anyone?) They struggled early in ’95, with just three wins after seven games. Their solid offense and stingy defense took turns winning games over the course of the next eight in a row, holding the Browns to 3 points one week, piling on 49 in Cincinnati the next. They won their two playoff games and finally looked to get the mini-monkey off of their collective backs.

They would have, too, if not for Larry Brown being the best Steeler receiver that day, intercepting two O’Donnell ducks lobbed more or less at him. Now, this fable doesn’t match up point for point with the Pats and the Giants, but it’s a darned similar story. And to me, it’s one of the more interesting stories in Glendale, enough to keep me going as we reach the dreaded dead zone of Super Bowl week in the desert. Serpico’s got some other interesting thoughts kicking around; you’ll hear from him later tomorrow. (He’s been bragging about catching the same flu as the G-Men.) Happy Wednesday; four days til kickoff.

If you look a little further below you will see today’s main article. This continues our week long Super Bowl blog between our resident Patriots fan (Sean) and Giants fan (Serpico). ???? ??? ??? ?????

So you may have heard that this year’s Super Bowl will be decided in the trenches. Can’t argue with that. Logan Mankins, Chris Snee, Shaun O’Hara, and Matt Light headline two of the league’s best O-lines, a punishing set of brutal hand punchers and pancaking Norsemen. We’ve heard about the Pats front five since they were appearing in Visa ads years ago. ???? ??????? ????????? Maybe they won’t be the big men. See, the random nature of the Super Bowl–it’s only one game, anything can happen–has lent itself to a number of unsung heroes over the years. You might not recognize the names Timmy Smith, Doug Williams, Larry Brown, Desmond Howard or Dexter Jackson, but those mostly marginal talents played the biggest game of their lives in…the biggest game of their lives. ????? ???? ????? On Sunday, will the bright, shiny orbs in the sky align and smile upon any of the rakish brutes?

If they do, look for a bright glow surrounding Benjamin Watson, professional folk hero.

Benjamin (lengthened from “Ben” this year either to make Roethlisberger comfortable or else to make his own name appear more biblical) is a 6’3″, 255 lb beast of fury, with the mental acumen of a graduate student ninja. (Or so they say; he has an alleged 41 on the Wonderlic test.) The Pats drafted him in Round One in 2004, getting rid of their starting tight end Daniel Graham two years later. In 2005, in back to back playoff games, Watson made two of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen. Against Jacksonville, Watson took a short third down pass from Tom Brady, eluded five players while breaking three tackles, and rolled 63 yards downfield for a touchdown. The very next week Watson tracked down Denver’s Champ Bailey over 110 yards and nearly destroyed him. He’s a freak of nature who this year gained a partner in LB Adalius Thomas, a fellow fleet giant.

Of course, it could be Kevin Faulk who has a big game. Or Donte Stallworth. Or Jabar Gaffney. Or hell, maybe even Wes Welker or Randy Moss, who are pretty good, too. That’s the thing about an unsung hero; sometimes, they don’t show up because they don’t need to. But just in case, I’ll be pulling for Benjamin Watson, as he’s pulling the defense for another 20 yards.