Packers!

YES! The Packers won the Super Bowl, for the second time in my lifetime. It was the Packers' fourth Super Bowl title (trailing the Steelers with 6, and the Cowboys and 49ers with 5 each). But it was their league-leading 13th NFL title, if you add in the the championships won before the Super Bowl era. It is also fitting that the Vince Lombardi trophy, given to the Super Bowl winner, returns to the place where Lombardi had his most success as a coach.

Why did I select that particular picture? If you've watched the Packers at all this year, you've seen Rodgers pose with an imaginary championship belt after making a big play. Like in this shot:

Apparently Rodgers was a huge professional wrestling fan growing up. So I loved it when Clay Matthews brought up a real belt during the victory celebration after the win. I'm sure Kevin Greene, Packers linebacker coach, former NFL linebacker, and former professional wrestler, also had something to do with it!

And let's not forget that this is 2011. Would it surprise you to know that there is a Facebook page called "Aaron Rodgers Championship Belt"? Of course not.


Back to the game. Here are some video clips, from ESPN:
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6097567

And an ESPN write-up:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2010/news/story?id=6097828

Aaron Rodgers was brilliant, and fully deserved the MVP trophy. Don't forget, his statistics would have looked much better AND the game wouldn't have been so close if the Packers receivers had not had so many dropped passes. Jordy Nelson and James Jones dropped multiple passes, including possible touchdown passes. I mean, sometimes the passes are difficult to catch. But Rodgers was on fire and he placed the ball perfectly on many of those drops. Just embarrassing drops, and don't forget that Jones has a history of such drops (including recently in the Packers' first playoff game this year, against Philadelphia). Donald Driver's injury hurt the Packers here, because if you watched the game closely, very closely, you could pick out the key to being a receiver in the NFL--or at any level, really. You would have noticed that when Aaron Rodgers hit Driver or Greg Jennings in the hands with perfect passes, they ... [wait for it] ... CAUGHT THE DAMN BALL!

An even bigger story was the injuries to Packer defensive backs Sam Shields and Charles Woodson. Again, a story from ESPN:
"XLV: Packers move Woodson to tears" by Kevin Seifert
http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_/id/24063/page/espntexas/xlv-packers-move-woodson-to-tears

There is a graphic in the article that shows how much more success the Steelers had on offense once Woodson (Shields was also out for most of the time Woodson was) was out of the game. The Packers were not able to stop the Steelers once Woodson and Shields were injured. If they had not been injured the Packers might have dominated the game (as I see it from my green and yellow tinted glasses, anyway).

Congratulations, Packers!!!


What about the Super Bowl ads? I thought it was a pretty weak bunch. The VW Darth Vader ad was probably the one I liked the most.

The Government Motors ads were the weakest. Old people muttering about a Chevy Cruze? What the hell are they thinking? In fact, all the car ads were weak.

And the Doritos ad where the dude went around licking people and pulling their pants off was just plain creepy. No Doritos for me, thank you. Also scary was the GoDaddy ad with Joan Rivers.

Bridgestone had some nice ads, with the beaver repaying a favor and with the dude driving all over like crazy to minimize the damage from a "reply all" e-mail message.

The Skechers ad with Kim Kardashian was also good, for obvious reasons! For some reason I can't remember what they were advertising, though!

The Best Buy ad with Ozzy Osbourne was mildly funny. I think he captured the thoughts of many people when he asked (I'm paraphrasing here), "How many bloody G's are there?" Not to mention this gem: "What the hell is a Bieber?"

By the looks of the ads, we are in for some really, really bad movies this summer.

Finally, was that Eminem in a Chrysler ad? Really? I don't know quite what to make of that! Doesn't make much sense to me but it wasn't a bad ad.


The Black Eyed Peas (with Slash and Usher) put on a nice halftime show. Not great, but much better than average by Super Bowl standards. For my money, I think Prince's 2007 performance was the best I've seen. And he did it in the rain--not sure if the rain was purple or not, I couldn't tell on TV. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfNeoKv8qzk

Here is one list of the best halftime shows. From Nerve:
"Ranked: The Super Bowl Halftime Show from Worst to Best"
http://www.nerve.com/entertainment/ranked-the-super-bowl-halftime-show-from-worst-to-best

This list was done before the Peas played. They rank Prince as second-best, which I can live with. Hard to top Michael Jackson, I guess. I still like Prince's show better. I also happen to like U2.