SUPER BOWL XLV

This year's Super Bowl was poised to outdo the hype and excess like never before. The simple reason, Cowboys' Owner, Jerry Jones is the host. He has a new stadium. Texas never does anything on a small scale. Jerty Jones has a monsterous big ego and loves excess to the extreme as is shown in every detail of Cowboys stadium -- the gawdy, decadent palace of American big time lavish hoopla.

This is a stadium that has female dancers in elevated cages above the audience -- SICK!!! Amazingly such sexploitation hasn't created much of a furor.

Look at the cost of everything from hundreds of dollars for standing room access to stadium grounds to one thousand dollars for parking.  Does anybody wonder how much a beer might cost? It's probably more than a bottle of decent wine at the liquor store for sure.

The Black Eyed Peas will play at half time. Bill O'Reilly wil interview Barack Obama before the game. Hoopla-Hoopla-Oink-Oink!!!!

Naturally, the advertisers paying more per spot than any event on television by a long shot will roll out their most exotic ads -- some quite clever, others tasteless and inane.

Oh yes, the Green Bay Packers will play the Pittsburgh Steelers and it is a damned good matchup. These are not glamour pretty boy teams. They're both tough, workman like bullies and studs who play football like a game not a business. Strip away the distractions and the potential exists for a fine game. Vegas has the Packers installed as a 2 1/2 point favorite with a 45 point over under. That would mean a Green Bay win of about 24 to 21. Oh really?

Green Bay may have been more dominant in the playoffs, but Pittsburgh had a rougher road to the big game even though the Jets eliminated New England. That the Steelers faced a team tough enough to Humble the Brady Bunch is verification in an off itself. Pittsburgh also beat their arch-rivals, the Baltimore Ravens. Green Bay beat Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Chicago. It wasn't easy for either team.

While being a Batlimore fan, speaking favorably of the Steelers comes tough, but is there a meaner tougher team than Pittsburgh.  We'll expect the Steelers to win a tight one with each scoring effort for both teams being a most difficultl enterprise.

The game is what matters and ten years from now, the only thing that will matter is which team won the game. For the Steelers it would be their third victory in five years. For Green Bay, a win would finally close the book hard on the Brett Favre era, their fourth overall, a connection to their first two wins and the Vince Lombardi legacy when the team from the tiny team off on a bay off of Lake Michigan had sports greatest dynasty of the 1960's.

Bring on the game. The rest of the nonsense will take care of itself.




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