How Eli Manning can become 'elite.' And a Super Bowl prediction

What happens tonight in Indianapolis won't change my opinion of New York Giants QB Eli Manning, whose career has been no less a scramble than the one he pulled on that famous pass to David Tyree four years ago.  The Giants can win by 30 points, and he can throw for 500 yards and four touchdowns -- but even that won't make him an elite quarterback.  On the other hand, a loss won't make me think less of him.

What will put Manning among the elite is a 12-4 regular-season mark next year, followed by a win in next year's playoffs.  The Giants have done each during his tenure, but not in the same season.  If Manning does both next year, I'll call him elite.  If he keeps playing like he has recently, his chances are good.

But I can't call him elite just now.

As for tonight's game: the Giants have looked like one of those "teams of destiny," but in the last two weeks, they've been too busy talking about it.  Shut up and play, already.  Patriots, 24-16.

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"Imported From Detroit"

Generally speaking, I'm happy to report that this year's Super Bowl ads weren't as violent as last years.  The worst exceptions came from Doritos, Pepsi Max and HomeAway (what's that?).  That level of viciousness isn't just for championship football games anymore, so I'll mention them again in a later post.

I won't offer further comment on either the Skechers ad with Kim Kardashian or the GoDaddy spots. With sexism on that level, why is either company still in business?  Oh, never mind; that question pretty much answers itself.  Professor Chaos has a good overview of the worst of Super Bowl 45, none of which involved either the Packers or the Steelers.  [The game wasn't the most exciting, but it was decently played.  Both teams belonged.]

Apart from Steeler coach Mike Tomlin's mystifying decision to green-light a 52-yard field goal attempt, the on-field action actually pleased me.  So, too, did some of the ads.  Coca-Cola followed a 2007 spoof of Grand Theft Auto with a hilarious parody of Warcraft and its MMORPG cousins.  Volkswagen had a funny bit about a kid trying hard to be Darth Vader (yeah, I was that kid once).

The ad that's going to stick with me for a while, though, is this one from Chrysler:

Whatever it intended, Chrysler didn't pitch cars; it pitched the city of Detroit.  So many bad things have happened there, it's become too easy for outsiders to imagine it as a Midwestern version of Kabul.  But there are its landmarks, not just standing, but as beautiful as ever.  [Especially the Diego Rivera murals.]  Marshall Mathers is hardly my favorite performer (or person), but for an ad that was about both Detroit and defiance, his presence fit well as anyone else's could.  It's one the most emotional commercials I've ever seen.

Update (10 February):  The standard-length form of the Mathers Chrysler spot is now making the rounds.  Along with the images and phrases the they found extraneous, the producers managed edit out most of the emotional power.  That was inevitable, I suppose.

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Super Bowl XLV: Can anyone in the Metroplex actually sing? Or mix?

I don't care for "The Star Spangled Banner" as a a song; but was it really necessary to butcher it as thoroughly as Christina Aguilera did in Cowboys Stadium tonight? Or was she just part of some al-Qaeda Westboro Baptist terrorist plot to annoy Americans?

As for the halftime show, I'd much rather have witnessed a wardrobe malfunction than the sound-mixing malfunctions that marred the Black-Eyed Peas' performance.  That level of incompetence would have sunk musical ensembles that I like.

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Super Bowl XLV: Let's play!

A year ago, I had a good idea who would win the Super Bowl, but was too lazy to post my prediction until an hour before kickoff.  This year, I really had a hard time figuring it out.  The Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers are two resilient teams, blessed with skilled quarterbacks, stifling defenses and rich championship traditions.  I'm certainly not alone in my skittishness; as of this writing, the spread is still only 3.5 points in favor of the Packers.

I think the key is resilience.  Both sides have been wildly inconsistent, not just from game to game, but from one quarter to the next.  I've seen more detailed tactical analysis of the contestants than is good for me -- most of which managed to miss the fact that the winner will be the team that can string together four good quarters of football.  The Packers have done that better than the Steelers, so they'll win tonight.

It may not even be close:  Green Bay 30-13 Pittsburgh.

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Super Bowl XLIV: Some post-game scribbles

Well, my prediction was half-right.  I correctly predicted that one team would win because it kept its poise better than the other.  Alas, I thought that team would be the Colts, not the Saints.  Of course, I wanted to see New Orleans win, so I'm still happy.  Anyway, eliminating Kurt Warner, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning from successive playoff games was a neat trick.  Congratulations to New Orleans and the Saints!

Mirror, mirror

I can't recall two Super Bowls mirroring each other as closely as last night's game and the one three years ago.  Here are some eerie coincidences:

• Both Super Bowls XLI and XLIV took place at the same South Florida venue.
• In XLI, the Colts were the visiting team.  In XLIV, they were the home team.
• Both games started with devastating runs by the eventual losers.  Three years ago, it was the Chicago Bears storming to a 14-6 first-quarter lead over the Colts.  Yesterday, the Colts went out to a 10-0 lead over the Saints.
• In both games, the score early in the fourth quarter was 22-17.
• Finally, both games were sealed by late pick-sixes.  In 2007, the Colts returned an interception for the final touchdown.  Last night, the Saints returned a Peyton Manning-thrown interception for the last score of the game.

Wait 'til next year...

... before questioning Peyton Manning's legacy.  Yes, he threw some bad passes, but, frankly, his receiving corps isn't as good as, say, the ones Joe Montana enjoyed in San Francisco.  Had they played to their potential, the Colt receivers would've given the Colts a much better chance to win (and win decisively).  As it was, Reggie Wayne, Pierre Garçon and Austin Collie all dropped critical passes that would've sustained Colt drives.

Wayne's performance was especially weak.  His 14-yard reception on 4th-and-2, early in the fourth quarter, got a lot of media attention.  It was pretty, but it wouldn't have needed to happen had he run his route correctly on third down.  With less than four minutes left, he blew another route so poorly that his defender, Saints DB Tracy Porter, read it like an issue of Spider-Man.  We know what Porter did next.  Wayne can't possibly claim to be a Jerry Rice, especially when he's proven that he's not even a Marvin Harrison.

Focus on the tackling

At least now we know how advocacy groups that aren't Taliban wannabees can get Super Bowl ads.  All someone like MoveOn.org really needed to do was have Saints linebacker Scott Fujita, an outspoken progressive, tackle his mother on screen.

God, Tim Tebow sucks.

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Super Bowl XLIV: Finally, my mind made up

It took me only a day after the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts advanced to this year's Super Bowl to realize that I shouldn't spend a lot of time analyzing it myself. I could've spent hours and hours crunching the 2009-10 season numbers for the two teams, but even that would have left me no closer to deciding who would, or should, win. A few minutes of examining intangibles, by contrast, got me a lot closer to making up my mind.

I'm rooting for:  the Saints.  Usually, one or both Super Bowl teams inspires great passion.  (The Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots, loved by some and hated by others, are the most obvious examples.) Failing that, the public just likes one team more than the other.  (Last year, the Pittsburgh Steelers were much more popular than the Arizona Cardinals -- even in wide swaths of Arizona.)  This year, neither case applies.  The Colts and Saints both enjoy high degrees of likability.  The worst thing I've heard about either side is that, well, the Colts won only three years ago.  Once, since 1970.  That's not exactly a reason for hating on any team.

I'll celebrate no matter who wins, but sentiment compels me to pull, a little bit, for the Saints.  Even 53 months after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans can still use every morale boost it can get.  A Saint win would cap a truly remarkable comeback for quarterback Drew Brees, whose career obituary was being drafted when the Colts won Super Bowl XLI.  Finally, the Saints are Super Bowl debutantes, and they deserve a little love on that count alone.

The winner will be:  the Colts -- one of the most poised teams ever to take the field in the NFL.  The first pieces of evidence came back in 2007, at the end of their Super Bowl XLI run.  They didn't panic when the hated New England Patriots took a 21-3 lead in the AFC Championship that season.  When the Chicago Bears -- whose 2006-7 version won with short but devastating spurts -- made an early run, the Colts kept their heads and won solidly.  This year, nothing has panicked Peyton Manning and company, especially not the 17-6 lead they yielded two weeks ago to the Jets.  All year long, they've kept their focus.  That's true even in their two losses.  Having already wrapped up the playoff home field, the Colts treated those games as preseason-style experiments, aimed at finding and patching whatever weaknesses they had.

I don't mean to dismiss the Saints' poise.  They've also shown lots of it in their run to tonight's game.  Unfortunately for them, the Colts have been at the poise business for much longer.  Colts, 30-21.

(Done with 20 minutes to kickoff. Phew!)

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