If you are what you say you are, a Superstar

A plethora of Random Thoughts on all sorts of subjects, starting with one super Super Bowl.


1-First and foremost, congrats to the Steelers. Championships are won by teams that look adversity in the eye, never blink, and proceed to take out their challenger. I watched it first-hand for many years with Michael Jordan and the Bulls, and I saw it again Sunday night with Pittsburgh. Every time the Steelers looked vulnerable, such as when the Cardinals had the ball inside the five near the end of the first half or after Larry Fitzgerald’s potential game-winning TD with just over two minutes left in the fourth quarter, the team wearing the black helmets, white shirts and gold pants responded. First it was James Harrison’s 100-yard pick six, the second-most memorable defensive play in my Super Bowl history after Mike Jones’ (who?) tackle on Kevin Dyson at the end of the Rams-Titans clash. Then, after the Fitzgerald score on a perfectly thrown crossing-route through the seam that carved up the Cover-2, Big Ben drove Pittsburgh down the field to win the game, eventually finding Santonio Holmes in the back-right corner of the end zone. Real champs don’t care about momentum or what happened in the past three quarters, their only concern is finishing the job. That’s what the Steelers did and it’s the reason they are hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.

2- Despite the loss, major props go to Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald. I didn’t really give Arizona much of a shot heading into that fourth quarter, but those two guys turned it up and put the Cardinals in the position to taste victory. Warner stood in the face of constant pressure to make throw after throw, completing 10 consecutive passes at one point. And what is there to write about Fitzgerald that hasn’t already been published. The man has the hands of God, runs perfect routes and oh yeah, can jump pretty high for fade routes. He didn’t make a single memorable play in the games first three quarters and still finished with seven catches, 127 yards and two scores. Rarely have I been more impressed with players on the losing team than I am with Warner and Fitzgerald.

3- People love to hate on Ben Roethlisberger for whatever reason. He holds on to the ball too long, he takes a lot of sacks, he’s not the most accurate on the deep ball, blah blah blah. The fact is, the man wins football games and does it with his team on his back. He extends plays longer than anybody else in the NFL, one of the reasons he’s sacked a lot, but also the reason he finds open receivers eight, nine, sometimes ten seconds after the snap. The difference between Roethlisberger and Kurt Warner on Sunday was not large, as both quarterbacks played great games. But when Warner really needed to be careful with the ball, at the end of the first half, he ended up throwing an interception in the end zone that was ultimately a 14-point swing. Roethlisberger’s time came at the end of the second half, needing a score to either tie the game or take the lead. After taking his team from his own 12 to the Arizona six, Big Ben calmly kept the drive alive near the goal line, first throwing a pass that sailed through Santonio Holmes’ hands, then finding Holmes in the back of the end zone to give the Steelers the lead. It wasn’t as pretty as Joe Montana or Tom Brady, but Roethlisberger’s game-winning drive was every bit as successful as the others.

4-My personal rankings of the five best Super Bowls I’ve seen (every SB since Steelers/Cowboys in 1995), counted down in true Super Bowl fashion--with Roman Numerals.

V: Broncos over Packers, 1998: John Elway finally wins the big one with a fourth-quarter comeback. #7’s scramble and helicopter dive for a first down one of the all-time great SB plays.

IV: Rams over Titans, 2000: Kurt Warner’s big pass to Issac Bruce gave St. Louis the lead, and then Mike Jones made the game-saving tackle on the 1-yard line to win it all for the Rams.

III: Giants/Patriots, 2008: Going for perfection, New England is denied thanks to a great NY pass rush and some magic courtesy of Eli Manning, David Tyree and Plaxico Buress.

II: Steelers/Cardinals, 2009: Memorable plays from start to finish, and amazing performances from Roethlisberger, Holmes, Harrison, Warner and Fitzgerald. In my book, Holmes’ game-winning catch was as (and possibly more) impressive as Tyree’s last year.

I: Patriots/Rams, 2002: Coming out of nowhere, New England shocked the Greatest Show on Turf by using a combo of smart offense and tricky defense. Add to that a young QB named Tom Brady and clutch kicker Adam Vinatieri and the last-second win ranks as my all-time #1.*

*How crazy is it that Kurt Warner, who should go in the Hall of Fame for his accomplishments, is the losing quarterback on my two greatest Super Bowl’s ever?

5- Not a great year for commercials, but here was one of my favorites:


6- Moving to basketball, and it’s nice to see the Bulls finally playing well on the road. Three wins in a row, albeit against the weak defenses of the Clippers, Kings and Suns, is impressive for this young team. Derrick Rose got off to a great start in November and early December, fell off a bit at the end of 2008 and early ’09, but is starting to rise up again. Rose is obviously the key to this team, and the entire goal of this season- in my opinion- is to determine who plays well with #1 and who should hit the road. Coach VDN still doesn’t understand that all the way, one of the reasons I think he may be on his way out if there is no sense of progress at the end of the year. The win streak is unlikely to continue for much longer, with the Rockets, Hornets and Mavs all coming up on the road trip. But as long as #1 continues to mature as a player, the Bulls will be all right.

7- So I finally ended up seeing ‘Notorious’. Not horrible, but could have used some work. As expected, the movie sounds great, but then again, any movie using the instrumentals to “Machine Gun Funk”, “Hypnotize”, “Sky’s the Limit” and “Big Poppa” is going to sound great. The plot is predictable for anybody who knows Biggie’s story, though they made some minor changes to make it more movie-like. The actor who played B.I.G., Jamal Woolard, was respectable, especially since finding a 300-pound actor who has the grace and flow of the real Biggie is probably quite tough. My biggest problem with the movie was how quickly things done changed. (pun intended) Because the filmmakers wanted to cover his entire life in two hours and not just a certain section (either dealing drugs in Brooklyn or after he signed to Bad Boy or even the East/West beef after ‘Ready to Die’ came out), everything happens so fast. Based on the film, it appears Biggie went from A-student to drug dealer to underground rapper in about a week. He went from a meeting with Puff to the top of Billboard in two weeks. And he went from being good friends with Tupac to hating him in about ten minutes. ‘Notorious’ had some strengths- the concert scenes were cool and I liked Angella Bassett playing B.I.G.’s mother- but it didn’t add up to a great all-around movie. (Also, the guy who played Biggie’s friend Lil Cease distracted me, mainly because he was supposed to be the same age as B.I.G. but looked like he was 12.) I’d recommend it to fans of the late, great rapper, but wait for it on DVD.

8- No football for seven more months. March Madness, you can’t come soon enough.