Daily Roundup- Tuesday, February 3rd

It seems a morning after effect has spilled onto sports pages after quickly racing to call it the greatest Super Bowl ever, it seems America’s collective memories are beginning to focus on the fact that there was a pretty darn good game last year.

But if you want more reaction from some of America’s top minds on the matter, well here’s the place to find it.

I always manage to sneak in Jason Whitlock through the backdoor on these columns and I’ve done it again! Jason would like to personally congratulate the real MVP of the Super Bowl, Terry McAulay, the head referee.

Conspiracy theorists that were hushed to silence after the last Steeler victory in the Super Bowl are probably in uncontrollable outrage over the first three quarters of the Super Bowl which seemed to be a replay of the officiating screw job from Super Bowl XL, when the Steelers and the refs beat the Seahawks.
A lot of touchy calls that benefited the Steelers but lucky for the referees, the Cardinals ran out of magic and let the Steelers drive 88 yards on them in the final 2 minutes to clinch the Super Bowl victory when all they needed was a field goal.


While everyone talked about how wonderful the announcing job was in the Super Bowl, let’s not forget this was the second most viewed Super Bowl in history. What was number one? Yeah you guessed it, Pats/ Giants.

Not everyone was happy with the announcing teams that NBC had for its extended super coverage. The team that the NBC had for its analyst booth included former disgraced Lions GM Matt Millen who before running an entire franchise through the ground, was a pretty good analyst. Well, some Detroit stations didn’t think it was smart for NBC to hire him and had a little bit of fun at his expense.

Meanwhile Comcast is offering its Tucson customers a $10 credit thanks to this.

Seriously, I don’t know what TV execs think sometimes. Dick Ebersol is clearly a warm blooded American male who has all his body parts functioning normally I’m assuming. Why on earth would you let Matt Millen be seen on TV. Maybe the better question is, why would Matt Millen let himself be seen on TV so soon after what he did to Detroit. I think in his own warped mind, Millen may take credit for any future success of Detroit. He’ll sit 20 years from now in some retirement community, taking a drag out of a cigar and say, “I set the foundation for that team.”
Its like letting Bernie Madoff run commercials for his hedge fund that he opened up, I mean, are you kidding me? What does Matt Millen know about anything that he could possibly get the kind of respect he does? Good for Detroit that they can do this. I wonder, if everyone had a chance to do this, what would be on the ticker when ABC hires Isiah Thomas to do games and its showed in NY? Oh boy!
As for the porn mishap, I know exactly what happened, some ungrateful employee who couldn’t believe he didn’t get a day off to watch the Super Bowl decided that he was going to get revenge the only way he knows how. My next guess would be that Tyler Durden was working for Comcast that night.


The Hall of Fame has got some controversy already. The supposed half sister of Bob Hayes who read a speech that she alleged he wrote before he died is now being called fake by members of Hayes family according to several published reports.

Sadly this kind of stuff still goes on.

Going back to the Super Bowl, Tony Massarotti wonders whether the Pittsburgh Steelers have overtaken the New England Patriots as the best franchise in football.

Its fair to make that argument. Out of the ten best players on the Steelers, 8 of them are players they drafted or recovered from the scrap heap. The Steelers are an organization who’s mastered the scouting game and they have the Rooneys who always keep them honest and classy. Safe to say, the Steelers with their current record and 2 championships in four years have that title as the best franchise.


Meanwhile New Yorkers like myself in typical macho fashion are already claiming top dog status in terms of Super Bowl game winning drives with Eli’s coming in first with Ben’s coming in second according to Gary Myers of the New York Daily News.

And as a typical New Yorker I’d have to wholeheartedly agree and I’ll get into it whenever I finish my article about the Super Bowl. I agree that the drive by Big Ben was magical and deserves Top 5 status but the suggestion that their drive to close the Super Bowl was better than this drive and that Holmes catch was comparable to David Tyree’s catch is beyond ridiculous. Hopefully they were talking about the first TD catch that Tyree made and not the helmet catch because they are not even on the same planet in terms of comparison.


Speaking of New York media, they sounded off to Kobe Bryant’s 61 point explosion last night. As usual, the great ones come to MSG and showcase their tremendous talents. George Willis of the Post says, if this is what to expect for the rest of the week (they play the Cavs and the Celtics in back to back games), then perhaps this dream week could quickly turn into a nightmare.

What is it about MSG that makes these great players want to forget that he has teammates and just pour it in? Plenty of people say the reputation of MSG is all hype yet all the big named players call it a magical place to play and the promise of fame beyond compare is what awaits those who dare to dream of having a huge game at the Garden. Its an interesting dynamic, between certain stadiums and great players that I think only MSG has. The most ominous line of the article is that perhaps it gave Lebron something to shoot for.


More reaction to the new Torre book and it comes from Wallace Matthews who writes that perhaps its time Jeter stopped looking the other way on A-Rod and finally emphatically supports him.

These are the kind of articles that make A-Rod less and less like a sports icon and more like an insecure girl. He needs Jeter to come out and vocally support him? He’s not a substance abuser. He doesn’t need people coming out to say that they support him. His biggest problem is that his contract adds pressure that he is not mentally prepared to handle. A-Rod just needs to perform. The more he doesn’t, the more these arguments come up and the more this whole Jeter-A Rod feud takes a bigger shape in the minds of everyone.



One good thing about the Super Bowl, writes Les Carpenter of the Washington Post, was that Mike Tomlin’s race was never discussed.

When Tony Dungy beat Lovie Smith in the Super Bowl to be the first African American coach to win a Super Bowl, it was a great day of progress, but the fact that Mike Tomlin’s win was punctuated that he won it as a coach and not as a black coach means his victory was more important, in that it wasn’t taken to be looked at as a curiosity, he was judged by his head coaching abilities and nothing more.




Finally in Hot Stove News, the Mets resigned Oliver Perez for 3 years and 36 million and Manny Ramirez rejected a one year 25 million dollar offer from the Dodgers. What could this possibly mean? Well on the Mets side, they resigned Ollie at a pretty decent 12 million a year salary which, if he keeps being flaky can be traded off and it means that the Mets can invest in perhaps one high impact bat if need be or they can go after Ben Sheets on an incentive laden deal like many feel he is seeking.