Super Bowl XLV -- Congratulations to Green Bay and a Look Ahead

Hail to the land of cheese. Your Green Bay Packers are the Super Bowl XLV champions and how they earned it. Despite leaping out to an early lead, the Packers had to fend off an aggressive Pittsburgh Steelers who closed within a field goal looking poised to do what they do so well closing the deal in the final moments of the game as their chief rivals like the Baltimore Ravens know all too well. Aaron Rodgers led a powerful offensive attack while the Green Bay defense kept the big bad boy quarterback Ben Rothlisberger largely under control. The result, a 31-25 victory their first Super Bowl trophy since a young Brett Favre led the Cheese over the New England Patriots in XXXI. Add this two their victories in the first two Super Bowls, the legendary franchise owned by the residents of Green Bay themselves now only have the San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, and Pittsburgh Steelers with more Super Bowl wins.

While fans might now look ahead to the 2011 season, labor/management issues loom in the near future where owners are poised to lock out their players if they don’t take an imposed settlement which could include an 18 game season and reduced compensation. While football fans might feel like they can’t get enough football, the 16 game season works beautifully. With 32 teams and 16 games a week, each team faces its division rivals at home and away, plays another conference division, and one division in the other conference. The final two games are against teams equal in standings in the other two divisions within a team’s conference putting first place teams against first place teams and so on through last place. The season starts right after Labor Day and lasts generally until around New Years, seventeen weeks with a bye.

Certainly, a pay scale which will cut down the outrageous salaries awarded high draft picks makes sense. Players who’ve never played a down should not become instant multi-millionaires. Issues regarding players’ health and safety must be addressed. Furthermore, though not in the bargaining union, owners and players must accept responsibility for retired players who received few benefits many of whom have serious medical issues.

Reports say owners have a nice war chest to endure losing part of next season. Let’s hope that never comes to pass. Get to work and solve the issues. These are great days for the NFL. Greed and shallow mindedness should not be allowed to destroy such a good thing.

.

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.




.