Friday, January 19, 2007

A Super Idea











You hear it every season. Does the NFL want certain teams to win and instruct its referees to favor the desired franchise? Troy Polamalu’s overturned interception in last season's AFC divisional playoff game. A very late false-start flag on the Eagles' Scott Young in last week’s NFC divisional playoff. The "facemask" penalty on Bronco Nagurski in the 1934 NFL Championship game, which predated the invention of the face-masked helmet by nearly twenty years.

Perhaps league preference is merely fan paranoia. But if it isn’t and the NFL really does pull the strings, then I urge Commissioner Roger Goodell to finagle a New Orleans–New England Super Bowl.

Why?

Because nothing in the history of professional sports would lend cause to party like a Saints-Pats showdown.

Saint Pats

Should that match-up come to fruition this weekend, Goodell must postpone the big game until March 17. Sure, this would be a dangerously unpopular move and hand everyone a ridiculous six-week wait that would drain every last drop of anticipation and excitement from the event. But the payoff! A Saints-Pats Super Bowl on St. Pat’s Day. Drinking on a scale never before seen. Excessively intoxicated fans everywhere—many of them female and eager to relieve themselves of clothing. New Year’s Eve 1999 in Times Square would be a Women's Christian Temperance Union meeting held on a Sunday in Pennsylvania during Prohibition by comparison.

And when better to celebrate a Super Bowl featuring superlative Irish players named Brady and McAllister than on St. Patrick’s Day?

Commissioner Goodell would do well to take a page from Pete Rozelle, the visionary progressive who brought the National Football League to national television, negotiated the NFL-AFL merger, and ensured that O.J. Simpson would not kill anyone in the stadium by enacting a harsh loss-of-down penalty for homicide.

Let’s hope that Commissioner Goodell has the good sense and the gumption to see this through—and we’ll all share the record for the longest bomb in Super Bowl history.

Erin Go Brees!
Erin Go Brady!

7 comments:

Rich said...

Oh god no...the Colts won...please....no more "Cut that Meat!" type commercials...

Dave said...

I dunno.

I kinda like watching that one guy get blasted in the face with the cappucino machine steam.

Randy said...

If the Colts win the Super Bowl, Peyton Manning's stock will be so high that he'll become the pitchman in every commercial on television. He'll be telling us how many thousands he made in just a week of real-estate investment. He'll become the manic tax-savings guy with the question marks all over his suit. He'll even be hawking Victoria's Secret lingerie and feminine-hygiene products.

An entire generation of kids will grow up thinking Peyton Manning is some kind of omnipresent deity.

Frankly, I don't care how ubiquitous Manning becomes -- he won't be Great Benevolent Father until he wins at least three rings.

Pat said...

Rex Grossman is going to go down as one of the worst QBs to ever get to the Superbowl. He is going to be out of the NFL in 3 years and you can QUOTE ME ON THAT. Sorry for the caps there but I had to MAKE MY ANGER KNOWN.

Randy said...

Fellas, be sure not to mention T-R-E-N-T-D-I-L-F-E-R or D-A-V-I-D-W-O-O-D-L-E-Y to Pat, else he's liable to bust a J-O-E-K-A-P-P in yo' ass.

Dave said...

"and you can QUOTE ME ON THAT"

You should write your own book of quotes... Like the Analects of Confucious... Call it "Manley's Mental Manifesto"

Pat said...

M cubed