Giants/Pats: The game named after a bouncy ball and obfuscated with a roman numeral

[MarkGrace]

Some dude won 50K on Brady's safety.
http://deadspin.com/5882520/lucky-ps...-bradys-safety

[SeattleUte]

Wow. 34 teams? That is insane. And it relies on LA having 2 teams again. Not going to happen.

Everyone, what are your thoughts on NFL expansion? I'm opposed but I'd love to hear more viewpoints.

Also, predictions for next season? I think the Raiders are still going to struggle

Why not two teams in LA? LA can support two National Basketball Federation teams.

[scottie]

Some dude won 50K on Brady's safety.
http://deadspin.com/5882520/lucky-ps...-bradys-safety

That someone risked $1K on that play tells me $50K isn't a big deal to him.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Reading my FB last night was kind of funny, if you were 40+ you most likely thought Madonna rocked the house and still has it. If you were under 40 you most likely thought she was pretty awful, often wishing for the end of either her life or your own.

I saw a tweet last night from somewhere that read: "who knew that Maggie Smith could sing like that!"

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Why not two teams in LA? LA can support two National Basketball Federation teams.

As someone said above, the NFL doesn't need a team in LA. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be nice for the NFL to have a team there. But the NFL owners have been using the LA ruse to extract public money to build stadiums.

With that said, I think the NFL has found a market where the population simply can't support the team -- Jacksonville. They need to change the name and move out to LA once a stadium is built. I'm not sure how that would work out with a team in LA being in a division with a team from Houston (that actually wouldn't be that bad) and teams in Indy and Tennessee. I say put Miami in the South (does anyone really care about any perceived rivalries between the Dolphins and any of those AFC East teams? Why were they put in the AFC East in the first place). Put Indy back in the East and then put KC in the South. Does anyone care about any of KC's rivalries in the AFC West?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Reading my FB last night was kind of funny, if you were 40+ you most likely thought Madonna rocked the house and still has it. If you were under 40 you most likely thought she was pretty awful, often wishing for the end of either her life or your own.

I never was much of a Madonna fan. But I enjoyed the halftime show.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

If the NFL were to expand to London, they'd have to put two teams in Europe -- not just one. Furthermore, they'd have to probably also give teams two byes during the season to accommodate the teams that would be traveling to Europe.

I know the 49ers this year stayed out East when they had consecutive games against the Bengals and Philly -- they won the second one by the way. With the way the NFL schedules, they could certainly schedule consecutive games against the European teams. I think at least for the teams in the two western time zones, they would have to give them a bye after playing the Euro teams (which would probably mean all West Coast to Europe games would have to take place in the first 10 games of the year).

Where to put a team besides London? The choice is between another team in England or a team in Germany and that's pretty much about it. The Spanish, French and Italians won't take to the game. London has already shown that it will sell tickets to the limited number of games that take place there. I'm not sure England could support another team right now however. Which means Germany's the place. When I was in Frankfurt on the mish, the Germans actually gave a damn about their NFL Europe team. IIRC it was the most successful team in that league. The issue would come down to stadiums -- and Frankfurt doesn't have one suitable for an NFL team. But Munich certainly does. Berlin has the stadium the Nazis built which is still in use, but I'm not sure if the renovations have been enough to make it an NFL stadium.

[SeattleUte]

What are everyone's thoughts about the intentional give away touchdown? What an interesting situation. I thought Bradshaw's hesitation at the goal line captured the ambivalence perfectly. How are you not going to take it over the goal line for the go ahead touchdown with a minute to go in the SB? There are a few things that can go horribly wrong from the one foot line, even with chip shot field goals, especially with everying on the line. You must weigh that against the defense's abilty to stop Brady with less than a minute left. Bradshaw tipped into the end zone of his own inertia but racked by indecision. It was a cool play.

[Flystripper]

I'm no Rush apologist, but that looks more like he's on his cell phone.

probably on a cell phone talking to Jacob about Bligh people.

[Flystripper]

I thought it was excellent, very non-boring actually.

It went down to the last possession. Much better than most Superbowls. The only part that was boring for me was that I am not a fan of the Giants or Pats...

[Donuthole]

What are everyone's thoughts about the intentional give away touchdown? What an interesting situation. I thought Bradshaw's hesitation at the goal line captured the ambivalence perfectly. How are you not going to take it over the goal line for the go ahead touchdown with a minute to go in the SB? There are a few things that can go horribly wrong from the one foot line, even with chip shot field goals, especially with everying on the line. You must weigh that against the defense's abilty to stop Brady with less than a minute left. Bradshaw tipped into the end zone of his own inertia but racked by indecision. It was a cool play.

Statistically it was the right call, as NYG's chances of winning dropped from 96% before the TD to 85% after the TD.

[SeattleUte]

Statistically it was the right call, as NYG's chances of winning dropped from 96% before the TD to 85% after the TD.

How cool is that. I live that kind of irony.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

It went down to the last possession. Much better than most Superbowls. The only part that was boring for me was that I am not a fan of the Giants or Pats...

Much better than most (almost all) Superbowls in the 80s and the first six or seven of the 90s. There were two decent Superbowls I could remember watching that occurred before my mission -- San Francisco v. Cincy and the Bills v. Giants.

During my mission, Denver beat Green Bay and that looked like a good Super Bowl.

After the mish -- more than half have been good to great Super Bowls:

1999 Tennessee v. St. Louis
2001 New England v. St. Louis
2003 New England v. Carolina
2007 New England v. NY Giants
2008 Pittsburgh v. Arizona
2009 Indy vs. New Orleans
2010 Pittsburgh v. Green Bay
2011 New England v. NY Giants

Notable exclusions:

2004 New England v. Philly -- I almost put this game in the good to great game category. It's probably at least good, but I just remember Donovan McNabb barfing and huddling the offense up down two scores with about 2 and a half minutes left in the game. They scored to draw within 3 but, shockingly, they didn't have enough time to get the ball back because McNabb and Reid took too much time off the clock.

2005 Pittsburgh vs. Seattle -- a somewhat competitive game, but also ugly and poorly officiated.

2006 Indy vs. Chicago -- the Superbowl where they couldn't figure out who to give the MVP to so they just settled on the QB. Again, not a blowout but a cruddy game nevertheless.

[Eddie]

Kind of a boring Super Bowl. And the commercials sucked big time this year. I don't recall any that were great.

My kids laughed all night at the M&M ad that was early in the game. "I didn't know this was THAT kind of party."

My wife and I both got a chuckle out of Matthew Broderick calling in sick. The slowmo of the valet jumping his 4 door compact was a pretty good conclusion to the ad.

I didn't think any of the ads were "great". But there were some that were pretty good.

What are everyone's thoughts about the intentional give away touchdown? What an interesting situation. I thought Bradshaw's hesitation at the goal line captured the ambivalence perfectly. How are you not going to take it over the goal line for the go ahead touchdown with a minute to go in the SB? There are a few things that can go horribly wrong from the one foot line, even with chip shot field goals, especially with everying on the line. You must weigh that against the defense's abilty to stop Brady with less than a minute left. Bradshaw tipped into the end zone of his own inertia but racked by indecision. It was a cool play.

I found the indecision and ambivalence about scoring versus downing the ball at the one humorous. I'll bet his whole career if his team has been down he's been told to get into the endzone and score. And now, on the biggest stage of his life, they want him to quit running for the endzone even though his team is behind? That's crazy talk!

On top of that - who knows if he'll ever be in the game again. Here is his one known chance to score a TD in the Superbowl. The biggest game every year that EVERYONE is trying to get to and most never do - and the coaches want him to sit on his can instead so that they can kick a FG at the end of the game. That really is crazy talk!

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I read this in Bill Simmons' column and it's a thought I had last night.

Did Tom Coughlin intentionally have 12 guys in the game on the second to last play? You give up a five yard penalty but you have a better chance at stopping the Pats' offense and you take time off the clock. With such little time left and downs not being an issue, why not just "accidentally" put 12 guys on the field?

I think all defensive penalties inside two minutes should require the time be put back on the clock after the play has been run.