High-level thoughts: Weak Super Bowl. Not a particularly exciting game. I’m all for chaos stemming from random turnovers, but this was too much for a championship game. Granted, the defense (for both teams) had a lot to do with it, but there’s something deflating about watching the two best teams in the league struggle to score. And what’s worse is that the Broncos were the first team in Super Bowl history to win without gaining 200 yards of total offense. Yay.

The commercials were terrible and lame. I’m not one to usually bitch about them. I don’t feel the need to hate everything that’s fun, unlike many on the online networks. But as a whole, the commercial lot was meh and saved only by singing lambs. Baaaaaaa.

Bright spot? Halftime show. I got some SCORCHING hot takes to these Tweets:

I find it difficult to understand how anyone could’ve hated that show. You may not like one, some or all of the artists (though if you dislike Bruno Mars you’re wrong), but one should be able to separate your thoughts about the participants from the actual performance itself, which I thought was very good and – gross – uplifting.

Let’s hit it!


 

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The roundup:

First things are first: Les Bowen threw some cold water on Adam Schefter’s report that the Eagles won’t franchise Sam Bradford and may pursue Nick Foles:

But fret not, long-suffering Birds followers: A league source, very close to the situation, told the Daily News that no decision has been made on Bradford, who can’t possibly be tagged before Feb. 16. And more crucially, the source said there is no chance the team will reacquire Foles, though the source acknowledged that Pederson — the Eagles’ quarterbacks coach in 2012 when Foles was drafted in the third round, though Pederson was hardly in charge of picking players — likes Nick, who made the Pro Bowl in 2013, the first year of the Chip Kelly offense.

Phew.

 

The Cam Newtown takes – on him sort of walking out of his press conference – are coming in hot and plentiful. Yahoo called him the “Incredible Sulk.” Bill Romanowski, presumably still fueled by roids and glass, told him, “the world doesn’t revolve around you, boy!” in a since-delated Tweet. Me? Overreaction city abounds, but this was weak-sauce from Cam.

 

Peter King says there was a confidence going into the game that Manning could’ve had a Manning-of-2013-game. Bullshit. Anyone who’s paid any attention to Peyton this year knew he was and is done. The insular group of football folks who are all too eager to gloss over the HGH reporting still continue to believe in the legend of Peyton, the sheriff. But it was obvious all along that if the Broncos were going to win this game, they were going to do it in spite of Manning. Which is exactly what they did.

 

Peyton Manning said at least three times on TV that he was going to have or had Budweiser. Is he a spokesman? No, as forcefully stated by Anheuser Busch marketing communicator Lisa Weser…

… but he does have a stake in all of this– he owns stake in two AB distributors in Louisiana. So while not being paid to endorse the product (yet, at least), he still benefits from its sales success. God bless America.

 

Beyonce June 5 at the Linc.

Fun:

 

From Twitter:

Voila_Capture 2016-02-08_09-31-53_AM

 

Here’s yet another media type – oddly one who transacts in clicks, hot girls and their swimsuits – not understanding the basic principle that when there are literally thousands of outlets all covering the same stories – Peyton, Cam, Von and victory – it will always be the quirky, unique ones that genuinely interest people. This has been my trope all along when people ask why we rarely do game recaps and traditional news. Why should I? Would I open a Wendy’s on a street with four burger joints? No. You find an angle and go with it. This is a lot of words for one throwaway Tweet, but all too often I see media folks on Twitter passively lament the state of their profession with stuff like this rather than acknowledging, in this case, that the beer prices story is way more interesting than another thought piece on Peyton Manning. Here it is.

 

Voila_Capture 2016-02-08_09-18-39_AM

Apple CEO Tim Cook is getting abused for the blurry photo he took on his iPhone from the field last night. Hard not to agree with the haters. For Cook, notoriously on-message, tweeting a flat-out brutal photo that highlights the limitations of smartphone cameras is a weird misstep.

 

Kevin Durant was a credentialed photographer at the Super Bowl.

 

Villanova may become the number one team in the country today. I’ll have much more on this later. Also, they’re selling their marketing rights to FOX Sports. Villanova is getting deeper and deeper into bed with FOX, and are clearly its marquee team with the Big East on FS 1. There will never be another ESPN, but this feels like a baby version of when ESPN essentially adopted Duke. The breakup of the old Big East could not have worked out any better for Villanova than it did– still a strong conference, they’re top dog, big network backing, conference tournament still at Madison Square Garden. Things could’ve gone south – they could’ve become St. Joe’s – but it not all bad on the other side, it seems.

 

Neither did I. And, quite frankly, I still don’t. WHAT DID I JUST WATCH HERE??

 

Susie Celek talks about her decision to wear a Zach Ertz jersey. “I gravitate toward the tight end position.” Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

Bus drive killed by meteor.

 

Here’s something gross:

 

CBS Sunday Morning did a piece on rabid sports fans. Look which fandom they talked about as a lead-in to sports-influenced depression:

eagles

 

Manning-face cannot be denied.

 

Evan Mathis, Super Bowl Champ:

 

Penn State’s Jordan Norwood and Lansdale (and Temple’s) Brandon McManus are also Super Bowl Champs. Sorry Cory Brown and Delco. You’ll get ’em next time.

 

Pre-game, a Panthers fan got mad at a meteorologist’s Broncos win prediction and now he looks like a fool.

 

We’re everywhere:

 

Jay-Z is a rich dad and it’s great:

 

Oh, there were also the memes:

https://twitter.com/MrsSpotRusherz/status/696518750737141761

 

I don’t wanna know what’s going through Papa John’s mind at this moment:

https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/696536147267350530

https://twitter.com/juvie_cinephile/status/696536146663362560

 

Marshawn Lynch had the most boss retirement announcement of all time:

 

Aaron Rodgers better watch what he says around the house.

 

Jim reports that you can actually taste the cheese sauce after the fry part, and he doesn’t want to know how they do it:

 

Podcast:

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