Saturday, February 27, 2016

Super Bowl Hangover

I hope y’all are filling your down time productively. This is definitely the slow time for the NFL. It does afford time to try to figure out how Commissioner Roger Goodell has made around $35 million dollars in each of the past 4 seasons. Those numbers help further put into perspective exactly how big of a business the NFL is nowadays.

The only other news right now is about retirements and contract discussions and far too many Mock Drafts. Good Lord, there are 10 more weeks of interviews with Mel Kiper and Todd McShay ahead to rehash the same discussions about the upcoming, yet far away, draft. Yes, the NFL Draft is a huge event but we do not need to be bombarded with talks about it from the days following the Super Bowl to the event itself.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, it is comical to hear Denver’s defense talk about their place in history among the best defenses of all time. Ha! Far from it. They were very good against Carolina and for the majority of the year but I don’t even think that they were much better than Kansas City’s defense this year let alone anywhere close to the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, the 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers or the 1985 Chicago Bears. I know the current players are a bit too young to have seen these teams in the 70s and 80s play but the Chicago Bears? Ha, not even close.

In 1985, the Bears gave up more than 19 points three times that season and only once after Week 3 and that was to Dan Marino and the high-powered Miami Dolphins. The Broncos gave up more than 19 points seven times this season, including 23 to a Cleveland Browns team powered by the likes of Josh McCown, Isaiah Crowell and Travis Benjamin. The 1985 Bears may have held the Browns scoreless with negative yardage if they played in 2015. The Broncos cite holding an Antonio Brown-less Pittsburgh Steelers and the one-dimensional Patriots and Panthers to less than 19 points each. Well, aside from the possibility of New England beating them if Stephen Gostkowski aside doesn’t miss an extra point, let’s just focus on the Bears giving up a TOTAL of 10 points in three playoff games. TEN points….and the one touchdown that they gave up was when they were ahead 44-3 in the Super Bowl. That is domination like this generation will likely never see again. The icing on that cake is that they held the Patriots to 7 yards rushing and 177 yards passing. 184 total yards.  

Congrats to the defense of the Denver Broncos for a nice win, but please find a bit of sanity and not make a laughingstock out of yourselves.

While I found their boasting funny, it doesn’t top how hysterical Eli Manning’s face was when caught on film not enjoying a Denver TD. He can make all the excuses that he wants but you know it was him being upset that he just lost his career-defining achievement of having more Super Bowl wins than Peyton. When it comes to that look, it was shared by all Panthers and Panther-backers when Cam made “a business decision” to not attempt a fumble recovery when they could least afford a turnover. And we thought he put all he had into the game. 

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