Tag: super bowl

Categories
NFL General

What ever happened to just watching the Super Bowl?


Are you addicted to gambling? Does the inability to wager on Super Bowl Sunday have you down? Are you pulling your hair out as you will yourself away from calling your bookie and placing a `sure fire’ bet on New England calling tails and choosing to kick? Well, if so, then we just might have a perfectly bland alternative for you to slightly get your fix. And no, we’re not talking about that stupid squares game.

Three words: Super Bowl Bingo.

We’ve [SunTimes.com] assembled 50 words, phrases, people or terms that probably will be mentioned during the Super Bowl telecast.

We’ve tried to eliminate any term that was too obvious. For example, you won’t find ”Tom Brady” listed on any of the cards. ”High ankle sprain” will be because the controversy surrounding Brady’s injury probably will be discussed. So Eli Manning, no; Archie Manning, yes.

Go to www.suntimes.com/sports and download the PDF of our bingo cards. We’ve shown a couple of card examples, but there are 12 unique cards for your participants.

Ugh. So, please tell me somebody’s bringing the beer pong table, right?

Links:

[SunTimes.com]: Super Bowl bingo

Categories
General Sports

So, have you seen the new Super Bowl ad? I SAID, HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW SUPER BOWL AD?!

You know it’s almost Super Bowl Sunday when the chitter and the chatter progresses from on-field issues to off-field satellite stories. For example, when instead of hearing about defensive philosophies, you start hearing about the cost of 30-second commercial spots then you know the big game is about a week away. And once you move from the ridiculous money changing hands for a GoDaddy.com ad and into the dark, secret realm of commercial spoilers then you know kickoff is right around the corner.

Sometimes the Super Bowl and the ads are all about noise.

But, one humorous Pepsi ad will be silent.

It’s in American Sign Language with captions.

The actors are really Pepsi employees who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

It shows a couple of guys in a car driving down a residential street in the evening looking for their friend’s house.

Both of them forgot to bring the address.

So, they think up a quick and funny way to narrow down which house does “not” belong to their friend, who’s also deaf like they are.

The ad is called “Bob’s House” and is expected to run in the pre-show before the game begins.

“Expected to run in the pre-show before the game begins”??? Oh, no, no, no. We happen to know some people who know some people who know some people and we got a hold of a pirated copy. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone where you got it, but let us know if you need some more.

Links:

[WISTV.com]: Pepsi Super Bowl ad is silent

Categories
NFL General

We’re sorry Golic, but losing to a camel is inexcusable. Turn in your Playa Card.


P.T. Barnum famously said “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Case in point, any moron who actually wagers big money on this year’s Super Bowl based on which friggin’ graham cracker Princess the camel decided to snack on first. Sadly though, we know there is some hard-luck loser out there somewhere willing to risk his family’s mortgage on a camel’s intuition. But no matter how stupid it might sound to listen to Princess for your Super Bowl advice, she gives you a helluva better shot than some so-called experts out there.

Her picks are nothing to spit at: Princess, who once belonged to heiress Doris Duke, went 11-6 during the regular season and is 8-out-of-10 in the playoffs this year. Her prowess is equal to that of some of the most famous forecasters.

“I can’t explain it, but her predictions, more often than not, are right on the money,” said John Bergmann, general manager of Popcorn Park Zoo, the southern New Jersey facility for elderly, abused or unwanted animals where Princess has lived since 2004. “I’m hoping she’s right this time because I’m a Giants fan.”

Princess’ prognostication skills flow from her love of graham crackers. Bergmann will choose a game at random during the regular season, place a cracker in each hand, and use a permanent marker to scrawl the name of a competing team on each hand.

Whichever hand Princess nibbles from is her “pick” for that week.

Her regular season mark of 11-6 comes out to a .647 winning percentage. (Since she never quite got the hang of points spreads, Princess picks the games straight-up, just choosing the winner.)

By comparison, Dave Goldberg, the Associated Press football writer who makes NFL picks each weekend, posted a .664 regular season percentage.

ESPN’s Ron Jaworski, the former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, had a .688 mark, but Princess topped Mike Golic, another former Eagle on ESPN, who came in at .584.

And in case you’re still wondering who Princes picked then you have a serious addiction and should seek professional help immediately. But put $100 on the Giants first. Princess says it’s a lock.

Links:

[KMBC.com]: Camel Picks Giants To Win Super Bowl

Categories
Denver Broncos

Broncos’ Super Bowl ring found in Sam’s Club restroom


Some people just seem to have all the luck, like David Diaz-Infante. The former Denver Broncos lineman was on both late 90s Super Bowl squads and had the rings to prove. We say “had” because the knucklehead basically gave one of `em away at a party in July of 2006.

It was a big party,” Deputy Police Chief John Ercul said. “Apparently he passed the ring around and let people look at it. It never did get back to him. The ring was reported stolen, and we did an investigation on it. A number of people were questioned.

Talk about a dumb move. “He passed the ring around and let people look at it”?!?! Does he let strangers at parties test drive his car as well? While that might be one of the stupidest things we’ve ever heard, it certainly isn’t the strangest tidbit in this jewelry caper. Luckily for Diaz-Infante, the ring was eventually recovered. Where you ask. How about in a mega market bathroom.

Ercul said a woman, whose name was not released, found it in the ladies’ room at a Sam’s Club and handed the ring, worth $50,000, over to police.

“He was very happy to get it back,” said Ercul.

Ercul said police will now focus their investigation on Sam’s Club to try find the thief. “We will follow up on that and see what we can find out. It’s going to be tough, but we’ll see if we can get to the bottom of it.

Found it in the ladies room at Sam’s Club, huh? You know if that was Larry David’s Super Bowl ring it would be going straight in the trash can.

Links:

[CBS4Denver.com]: Super Bowl Ring Found, Returned To Former Bronco

Categories
NFL General

When did "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" become a stadium anthem?

If you thought that Janet Jackson’s nip slip was the most offensive moment the Super Bowl ever produced then you ain’t seen nothing yet. Obviously, you don’t remember the “Up With People” fiasco during SB XVI. Like with Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction a few years back, if there are small children in the room, cover their eyes and ears immediately.

Links:

[The Big Lead]: Worst. Super Bowl. Halftime. Ever.

Categories
Indianapolis Colts

Colts Super Bowl Rings are pretty sweet


The Colts ring is pretty sweet if the people who designed it would just shut the hell up about it. It’s a diamond encrusted ring with a blue horseshoe prominent in the middle and it’s nice and simple. That’s probably where the description should end. But of course, here’s owner Jim Irsay on the ring his wife helped design (of course):


There’s obviously some bling. But we wanted it to have some beautiful simplicity and we wanted to feature the horseshoe. The symbol of the horseshoe is so universal, so powerful.

That’s the powerful thing about it,” he said. “In life we use symbols. .. the art of symbols and reminders are part of our culture.

Uhhh what? The horseshoe is a symbol of luck so I guess that’s the most prominent aspect of the Colts’ culture.

Oh and on one side of the ring is “Our Time” and on the other side is “Faith”. Irsay said that faith “gives you the strength to have the perseverance to move forward even after many disappointments.” Of course, the faith thing was probably demanded by Tony Dungy and his in your face Christianity. Stupid Dungy.

Finally, you know exactly where you are in the Colts organization pecking order: players and top execs got the $5,000 ring. Some employees got a scaled down version worth around $2,000. And finally the proles got a third-tier ring that is worth less than the box that the top-tier rings came in.

Links:
[USA Today]: Colts receive Super Bowl rings in private ceremony

Categories
NFL General

Odds and Ends: Will Keyshawn be any good?



Am I an asshole?

By now, you’ve heard that Keyshawn has decided to retire and join ESPN. Now, my first reaction to this is that it’s another example of ESPN just going completely down the toilet. However, if you look at Michael Irvin’s work, he wasn’t all that bad. And Keyshawn is basically just another version of Michael Irvin.

I feel like Michael Irvin really did have some decent insight into the game of football (certainly more than that Chris Berman asshole) but he simply wasn’t articulate enough to express his opinions and he also had the habit of trying to be funny by saying the stupidest. So while ESPN’s NFL coverage is all but unwatchable, having Keyshawn on the show isn’t going to make it any worse. Thank God we have the NFL on FOX.

In other news…

[buzzfeed]: Six fans who gave shout outs to their team on death row

[UPI]: Blind golfer seen reading scorecard

[DC Pro Sports Report]: 2007 Mock NBA Draft

[Bloody Long Odds]: Odds for 2010 World Cup already released

[MSNBC]: Rosenhaus supports Clinton Portis

[SI]: Ex Montana St player leader of drug ring

[Houston Chronicle]: 2011 Super Bowl could set ticket sales record at $93 million

[Seattle PI]: Jones soda pulls off Seahawks upset

[IHT]: Japanese red socks have become symbol for Red Sox

And finally, stay away from the salad at the Wheaton North High School

Categories
NFL General

About that "anti-gay" Snickers ad

An immediate outcry yesterday about the “homophobic ad” above has promoted Snickers to pull the whole campaign. You can’t find any trace of it on the website that was promoted at the end of the spot – it just redirects you to the Snickers site. A website called Americablog.com breaks down the whole campaign and explains why it “promotes violence against gays and lesbians.” A pretty compelling argument from those guys — but not so fast — a column from Outsports.com asserts that everyone is just overreacting.


All of the endings point to a rather sophisticated message. The two men in the “Love Boat” ending don’t protest or even react to the third man’s solicitation. And in the other three endings, the two men try to do something “manly” to make up for their kiss. Instead, they end up doing things – drinking motor oil and hitting each other with metal objects – that are just harmful and stupid, or they do something – ripping off chest hair – that could be considered “gay.”

The sophisticated message seemed to be that the overreaction of “straight” men to homosexual contact is completely irrational, and, in the case of the proposed threesome, maybe that contact is not entirely shunned.
…

This ad is not remotely gay-bashing. The point of the reaction of the men was so ridiculous that it made the reaction of straight men to homosexual contact the butt of the joke, not the kiss itself.

Plausible. But the problem with this argument is that it assumes any of the gay-bashing morons out there would be sophisticated enough to understand the satire of the commercial — if that was indeed the way Snickers/Mars intended it. The author is right though, Snickers got more advertising out of the controversy than they did from the $2.6M spot itself and their bottom line won’t be hurt one bit: “And if I were Mars Inc., which produces Snickers, I wouldn’t worry too much about the boycott that Aravosis is threatening: Containing a high fat content and more calories than you could burn running a 5k, Snickers bars don’t get eaten by gay men anyway.”

Categories
NBA General

Charles Barkley still doesn’t have a gambling problem


Hey, it’s only a problem if you lose! Barkley said he won about $700,000 in Las Vegas this weekend from blackjack and betting on the Super Bowl. But he also said he lost $2.5M in a six hour period last year. But Barkley still denies he has a problem.


It’s a stupid, bad habit. I have a problem. But the problem is when you can’t afford it. I can afford to gamble. I didn’t kill myself when I lost two and half million dollars… I like to gamble and I’m not going to quit.

Barkley is one of our favorite athletes. He always gives great quotes and isn’t afraid to make fun of himself. So let’s hope that someone he actually respects sits him down and tells him to cut it out. Just because you can afford to lose $2.5M doesn’t mean you should. Perhaps Ron Jaworski should tell him the sad tale of Leonard Tose.

Links:
[SI]: Charles Barkley says he won about $700,000 gambling in Las Vegas
[SC]: Charles Barkley is a big black whale

Categories
NFL General

Best and Worst of the Super Bowl Ads

We don’t know what was more boring, the end of Super Bowl XLI or the Super Bowl ads that companies paid $2.6M for. Very few ads stood out last night but we still have our picks for best and worst ad. (All the Super Bowl ads can be found at ifilm.com.

The best ad was the careerbuilder.com jungle warfare spot. Granted, this would only make sense to anyone who has ever had a corporate job but that’s probably most of you.

The absolute worst ad in the history of Super Bowl advertising goes to Salegenie.com. Most people agree that this spot was a complete waste of money… and they showed it twice! Will the Salesgenie people convince themselves that the fact that everyone is talking about how bad the commercial was makes it a successful commercial? Someone over there should be shot for wasting $5M.

And finally, a tip of the hat to the NFL Network, not for that putrid fan generated commercial but for the Chad Johnson Super Bowl Party spot. Patriots fan to David Beckham: “So you’re a professional football player. For Los Angeles. I dunno if it’s gonna fly at this party but I like it. Good angle.”

However, ads aren’t necessarily targeted to everyone so we took a sampling of Super Bowl ad critiques out there on the internet today. Here are some of them:

[Yahoo]: Dan Wetzel’s Super Bowl ads review: “Later, GMC gave us a robot contemplating suicide after getting laid off (it turned out to be a dream). This was particularly hilarious, we’re sure, to all of the recently laid off General Motors factory workers.”

[SuperAdFreak.com]: BLOGGING THE 2007 SUPER BOWL AD: “Doritos user-generated spot: I hope this commercial finally dispels the myth of user- generated content, and most importantly as a submission-based campaign. It doesn’t work. These spots aren’t good, or funny, and there is a reason people get paid to make ads for a living.”

[Salon.com]: King Kaufman’s Sports Daily: “This year’s commercials were the usual warmed-over stew, a few mildly amusing spots, a few semicreative ones and a whole bunch of obvious big budgets used to no great effect.”

[Ad Age] Bob Garfield’s Super Bowl Ad Review Text Column: “Two auto mechanics are so famished they eat one Snickers bar from opposite ends, culminating in something suspiciously “Brokeback Mountain.” This freaks them out. Viewers can go to Snickers.com to choose their favorite ending. The vote should have come at the beginning, and it should have been ‘No.'”

And if that wasn’t enough, here are some more opinions on the Super Bowl ads:

[Neurosciencemarketing.com]: Super Bowl Ads: Brain Dead

[The Opionated Marketer]: Super Bowl Ads – Play by Play

[USA Today]: How all the ads ranked in USA TODAY’s Super Bowl Ad Meter

[Know More Media]: Top 10 2007 Super Bowl Ads