Tuesday, February 03, 2009

My Take

Super Bowl
  • I was pulling for Kurt Warner more than the Cardinals. Its amazing to me that Kurt has played in three Super Bowls and in all three has managed to lead his offense to a late score to take the lead. In two of the three his defense has surrendered the victory to the opposition. In the third, Mike Jones made the tackle at the one yard line to save the championship. Kurt's big problem has been getting his team a touchdown with too much time left on the clock... and playing for teams with so-so defenses, or defensive coordinators.
  • In that vein...How much evidence do D-coordinators need to understand that the prevent defense is the obvious way to cough up a victory in the last 2 minutes of a game? It happens almost every time they try it. 10 yards here, 20 yards there and in a few seconds the opposition is in the red zone with a chance to win. One sack or bad throw based on a little pressure and you win the game. The Cardinals were dominating the game on defense until they tried "not to lose" in the last couple of minutes.
  • I'm not a big Springsteen guy, but I enjoyed his half-time show. At least the guy puts some thought and effort into it. Not like the 'Stones who seemed to stumble and mumble through their show a couple of years ago.
  • Did John Madden offer a cogent piece of analysis in the whole broadcast? Seemed to me he just stammered his way through the obvious.

Warner

  • There was a lot of talk about Kurt Warner qualifying for the Hall of Fame with a win in this game. Whoever doesn't believe he's already qualified for The Hall should look at some of the quarterbacks who are already there. Just leading the Rams (who were supposedly nothing after Trent Green got hurt) to the Super Bowl championship...and this year taking the usually pathetic Cardinals to the SB should be proof enough. But if that doesn't do it for you, how about having the three top passing yardage games in Super Bowl history? If Kurt wasn't such a nice guy nobody would question his credentials. Because he's always pleasant, and defers credit to a higher being, some believe he doesn't have the grit to be a great quarterback. If he had led one great team, or marquis franchise, in three consecutive seasons to a Super Bowl, instead of spreading them out with pedestrian under-achievers as he has, he'd get mis-directed credit for being part of a dynasty. But it has to be tougher to do what he's done than what Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach or Bart Starr did...doesn't it? I say it takes a greater quarterback to lead a so-so team to high achievement than a great team to accomplish what's expected.

Blues

  • In light of Manny Legace's "I was the worst player in the NHL" quote after being pulled in last night's shootout loss to Detroit, I'm wondering what his future in St. Louis holds. Here's a guy who is coming off an All-Star season and is playing for a new contract. With that credential and incentive he should be having the season of his life. Instead, he's been so-so at best most of the season. The fans love him...but John Davidson and Larry Pleau can't decide a roster based on who's a fan favorite. As the March 4th trade deadline approaches, it will be very interesting to see if Manny is trade bait, and if there are any interested teams in a goalie-rich NHL.
  • As the current season progresses, I'm getting increasingly excited about what next season may hold. Berglund and Oshie both look like "real deal" stars, if not superstars, in the making. David Perron is beginning to show signs of being a more rounded player besides just having amazing talent. David Backes is proving that matching Vancouver's offer sheet in the off-season was a very smart move. The young support staff of Crombeen, Winchester, Polak, Strachan, Janssen and others have given terrific cause for optimism too. If McDonald and Kariya are part of next year's mix and can stay healthy...throw in Erik Johnson, Alex Pietrangelo and two or three of the budding stars that haven't even played in the NHL yet...and you begin to see the makings of something great happening. That's not even counting Keith Tkachuk in the mix. And he's been awesome no matter what age. Exciting...very exciting.

Oops

  • As soon as he said it in the Matt Lauer Super Bowl pre-game interview, I knew people would think that President Obama was putting in a dig at Jessica Simpson's apparent weight problem. If you missed it, Lauer held up a copy of a magazine cover that showed the Obama family with the President being covered up by a pic of Simpson. Lauer was looking for a reaction to Mr. Obama being edited out. Instead he got a comment from The Prez...paraphasing here..."Yeah...and it looks like she's having a weight problem." Well....it was obvioius to me that he could have phrased it better and wasn't really taking a shot at Simpson. But, of course, the gossip mill press had to seize on it as a comment by The Chief on poor Jessica's poundage difficulties. Had he said..."I don't mind being upstaged by Jessica...even though the article seems to be negative toward her"...nothing more would have come of it. But even the most eloquent among us, if given enough face time, will put at least part of a foot in our mouth.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The key here is Obama was reading the headline on the cover of the magazine. It says Weight Battle. Those were the words he said. So, he was not judging Ms. Simpson but merely reading the headline from the magazine he was looking at. And said "apparently" in a weight battle, or something to that effect. Maybe he would like to reel it back in but it was not as though he was looking at a photo and making a comment. I sincerely trust that the only women he was looking at on the cover of that magazine were his wife and daughters.