Manning brothers highlight today's Pro Bowl in Hawaii
HONOLULU -- Peyton Manning's first Pro Bowl experience came when he was just 3 years old.
He watched his father, Archie, from the stands of Aloha Stadium in the NFL's first all-star game in Hawaii. And little brother, Eli, wasn't even born yet.
This time, dad is the one proudly cheering on his sons in the final game in Honolulu - at least for now, as the NFL experiments with moving the game to the mainland.
"We're very proud," Archie Manning said.
The Manning brothers are on opposite sidelines and the first quarterback-playing brothers in Pro Bowl history. Peyton, of the Indianapolis Colts, is making his ninth appearance in Hawaii in 11 seasons and will start for the AFC. Meanwhile, Eli is representing the New York Giants and making his Pro Bowl debut as a reserve for the NFC.
So who's dad pulling for?
"No. No. No. No. It doesn't matter," Archie Manning said. "I just don't want anybody to get hurt in this game. I don't care if they play for the Colts or Giants or Patriots or Titans, I don't want anybody to get hurt."
shreveporttimes.com
Two big toes point Steelers to victory
TAMPA -- The dateline on this has got to be a mistake, right? This wasn't Tampa. This was a Pittsburgh Steelers home game in the Super Bowl on Sunday night. This was Heinz Field-South, in numbers, decibels, Terrible Towels -- in everything but Iron City beer on tap.
All the scene lacked for authenticity was icy wind blowing in off the Allegheny River as silver confetti fell over a golden blizzard of towels after maybe the greatest game in the 43 years of this singularly American spectacle.
So rarely in sports does a game live up to hype and stage.
This one did. And then some.
The Steelers won their record sixth Super Bowl championship in a 27-23 triumph over the underdog Arizona Cardinals, and they won it by this much: Santonio Holmes' two big toes.
It was Holmes, the pride of Belle Glade, who tightroped those toes just inside the edge of the end zone as he fell cradling the football for a 7-yard scoring catch with 35 seconds left in the game -- a seemingly impossible catch that withstood the scrutiny of an officials' review.
It was enough to make a Terrible Towel waver believe in miracles.
''I definitely asked the Lord to help me today,'' Holmes said. 'I asked Him, 'Can I be the guy to win this game?' ''
We knew President Barack Obama was rooting for Pittsburgh. But the Lord, too?
Obama phoned in congratulations to winning coach Mike Tomlin.
''Actually, I couldn't hear him,'' Tomlin admitted.
The huge crowd of black-and-gold-clad Steelers fans was too afraid to cheer as the winning catch was being reviewed. As Pittsburgh fans sat praying and red-draped Cardinals fans sat stunned, the noise in the stadium sounded like the high drone of a million bees.
''I knew he had caught the ball,'' Cards cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie said. "I was right there.''
It was quarterback Ben Roethlisberger who put the winning desperation pass where two Cardinals defenders could not get -- and his own man barely could.
An inch wider, a tad higher, just a bit more flutter on that ball, and maybe Arizona is celebrating its improbable first Super Bowl win today.
Instead, Pittsburgh gets to lay claim to being the greatest, most successful franchise of the National Football League's modern era, with its second Super Bowl win in the past four years to augment the four it won in the 1970s.
''Going for the Six-Pack!'' read Steelers fans' placards, fitting for a city with a tough, hard-hat mentality.
Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner had been presented with the league's Man of the Year award before the game for his off-field works.
The Steelers topped that, though. They had the two Men of the Hour, the two Men of the Moment, in Roethlisberger-to-Holmes. They had the two Super men.
Holmes was named the game's most valuable player, and it was hard to argue, considering that he had just written one of the astounding endings in Super Bowl history.
One year earlier, the Super Bowl saw the unbeaten New England Patriots lose their chance at perfection, at immortality, to the delight of Dolfans everywhere.
''I never thought we could have topped last year's Super Bowl,'' said league Commissioner Roger Goodell after this one. "We might have just done it.''
Instant hyperbole? Maybe not.
Arizona had erased a 13-point deficit to lead 23-20 with 2:37 left after Larry Fitzgerald's 64-yard scoring play -- poised to win the franchise's first NFL title since 1947. When a new car cost $1,500 in the black and white days before TV.
Copyright 2009 Miami Herald Media Co
New Browns GM preaches team concept
General Manager George Kokinis was affable and pleasant at his first news conference with the Browns today, but he didn't offer a lot of specifics in terms of his personnel department and the team's roster.
He did say that he will have final say on the 53-man roster, which is significant. Of course, he also talked about consensus and working together and the fact that he does have final say not being important.
"Once we get all the information and hear everybody's opinion about it, we're going to come to a decision on what is best for this football team," Kokinis said.
Browns President Mike Keenan introduced Kokinis and talked about Kokinis' passion for the city and the Browns. We hear that a lot about people these days.
Kokinis started by saying owner Randy Lerner cares about the team. Kokinis thanked the Ravens, where he spent 13 years, then thanked his parents for their life lessons and thanked his wife.
He said: "I do believe in this owner. He loves the Browns. He wants them to be great. And that's important. I believe in this head coach. . . . And I believe in the fans of Cleveland. The fans of Cleveland care about football, and it doesn't really matter what level."
He said he had no timetable on things, and did not want to get into the specifics of the roster. He used a lot of clichés, which is appropriate probably at this forum. Work ethic. Hard work. Get better every day. That kind of stuff.
It does not sound like there will be major changes in the scouting department for the short term. Kokinis said he would run college scouting meetings and seemed to defer any possible changes until down the road, if then.
On the final roster, Kokinis said: "In the end I'll have final say on the 53. It's not what's important here. What's important here is getting together, being on the same page and doing what is best for the Cleveland Browns."
Kokinis said former Browns and Giants GM Ernie Accorsi was involved in the process of his hiring.
Asked about the Browns' inability to beat the Steelers, he said: "I don't think the Steelers are any more of a task than any other team."
He said the Browns will be built from the draft. "That's what I believe in," he said.
Finally, asked about the fact that Mangini was hired prior to the GM, Kokinis said: "In the end the owner is in charge of hiring the coach. (In Baltimore) we gave as much information to Steve Biscotti as we could. In the end I think he nailed it in John Harbaugh. Coming here, I think Randy gained as much information as he needed. I think he nailed it."
(c)2008 The Akron Beacon Journal
Give Cards credit for pulling off Super surprise
There aren't enough crows in the world for all the humble pies that all of us in the expert analysis business are going to have to eat. And there aren't enough words in Webster's lexicon to give sufficient credit to the Arizona Cardinals for what they did Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl.
I'm not sure the sentence exists that was less likely to be written than that one. Until Sunday, I would have been less surprised to read, "Lasting peace comes to the Middle East," "Ann Coulter endorses Hillary Clinton for President," "Keith Olbermann says, 'Dick Cheney is one of the finest gentlemen I've ever met,' " or all of the above.
By comparison, the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004 after 86 years of torment was child's play. The Tampa Rays getting to the World Series? A big ho-hum.
Forget taking your hats off to these guys. Take off everything and run naked down Broadway and you'd be close to the proper celebration for this one.
But this can only go so far. The Cardinals won't beat the AFC's finest in the Super Bowl. It's not that I don't believe it's possible. History's best 9-7 team could stretch credulity even further than it already has, but I think the Cardinals and their fans want to be the underdogs. They've gotten here by riding the we-don't-get-no-respect express, and there's no sense derailing them now by installing them as favorites - or even suggesting they have a shot.
Let them continue to find inspiration in the knowledge that no one believes in them. It's worked so far. Who knows? It could work for one more game. Nothing they do should amaze us anymore.
After three playoff wins, the reasons for Arizona trip to the Super Bowl are clear enough.
Kurt Warner, the two-time MVP who had fallen off the NFL map, came to Arizona to back up Matt Leinart. In the process of moving, he found the Superman cape he'd lost years earlier in St. Louis, put it on and led the Cards to the NFC West title. His partner in awesome offense is Larry Fitzgerald, who has established himself as the NFL's new state-of-the-art receiver.
Those are the two impact players who have put the Cardinals over the top. Kudos, too, to running back Edgerrin James, another recycled former star who moldered on the Arizona bench until he was thrown into the breach in the playoffs.
Coach Ken Whisenhunt didn't do much of a job motivating his team through November and December, but he's made up for it by getting this team ready for the playoffs. Assistant head coach Russ Grimm, offensive coordinator Todd Haley and defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast deserve a lot of credit, too.
It's been a total team effort. The Cardinals' offensive and defensive lines have dominated through the playoffs. A team whose entire history - except for 1947 - has been a catalogue of failure rose up on Sunday after falling behind the Eagles in the fourth quarter and got the touchdown they needed to punch their ticket to Tampa.
But in the end, it all comes back to the ancient Warner and to Fitzgerald, a rising young star who has already eclipsed Terrell Owens, Steve Smith, Randy Moss and everyone else as a receiver.
Warner has more incarnations than CSI. Warner is the guy who bagged groceries to pay the bills, who played in the Arena League and in Europe trying to prove he deserved a shot at the NFL. When he got it, he led the Rams to two Super Bowl appearances and one victory. But no sooner had he arrived at the top than he was discarded in favor of Marc Bulger.
He landed in New York, where he's known as the guy who lost the Giants' starting quarterback job to then-rookie Eli Manning. At the time, nobody said he didn't deserve to be benched. And when Arizona picked him up in 2005, he went from starter to back-up and starter again.
There was a sign hanging during the game that advised the Cards to "Shock the World." That's a tired line that has never been used without shameful hyperbole. Nothing that happens in American professional sports is ever going to shock the world, and I'm confident that the vast majority of the planet's 6.6 billion inhabitants went to bed Sunday night blissfully unaware that a professional football team in Arizona had done something that rattled the NFL to its foundations.
And that's all that matters. The Cardinals shocked the experts, shocked the fans, shocked the league in a way few teams ever have. Give them credit. They earned it.
Just don't call them favorites to win the Super Bowl. They've done just fine as everybody's underdog. They've hit on a formula, and I, for one, am not going to mess with it.
(c) 2009 NBC Sports.com
Did the Broncos make the right choice in McDaniels?
Folks, I'm nervous. I'm real nervous. Nervously excited. Broncos owner Pat Bowlen wanted to take the Broncos in a new direction. He's certainly done that by hiring 32-year-old offensive guru Josh McDaniels as his new head coach. Was it the right thing to do?
I'll skip to the conclusion: I have no idea. There is nothing to go on here. McDaniels is younger than some of his players. He was a high school teammate with Broncos defensive end Kenny Peterson. But this isn't about age. It's about experience. The Broncos' job is McDaniels' first head coaching job. Ever. To quote Michael J. Fox from the 1980s masterpiece "Secret of My Success": That has me more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
According to the advanced metrics at Football Outsiders, the Patriots ranked 6th, 1st and 9th in McDaniels' three years as Bill Belichick's offensive coordinator. The 2006 Patriots didn't have a great group of wide receivers. The 2008 group didn't have Tom Brady. The 2007 version was at full strength and posted perhaps the best offensive performance of any team in NFL history.
Here's the thing: Offense is not the Broncos' problem. In those same advanced rankings that placed New England ninth in offensive efficiency, Denver was fifth. The Broncos have a 32-year-old offensive coordinator in-house, Jeremy Bates, who has a terrific rapport with Jay Cutler. Hiring either a 1) a proven coach like Bill Cowher or 2) a defensive coach like Steve Spagnuolo or Leslie Frazier makes more sense, at least in the here and now.
However, Bowlen is thinking big picture with this hire. He's looking for a new face for the franchise and McDaniels could be the Broncos boss for the next 20 years. Who knows? He'll bring the Patriots' philosophy with him, which is all about versatility and adaptability, with players judged more on production than potential. The defense, which will reportedly be led by former 49ers coach Mike Nolan, will shift to a 3-4 scheme that will harken back to the days of the Orange Crush defense in the Randy Gradishar/Tom Jackson era. And since the Broncos can't find decent defensive linemen anyway, that's one less they'll have to employ.
McDaniels is the 12th coach in Denver history, but only the fifth since the franchise's first Super Bowl season in 1977. Historically, Denver has alternated between defensive and offensive coaches: Red Miller to Dan Reeves to Wade Phillips to Mike Shanahan. McDaniels breaks that pattern. He joins former Belichick coordinators Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini and Charlie Weis that have graduated to head-coaching jobs. The results have been mixed, to say the least. Maybe the law of averages works in McDaniels' favor. What we do know is that as long as Belichick runs the Patriots, he is the master of everything that happens. His assistants, even his personnel staff, are there to do his bidding. This is not like a Mike Leach at Texas Tech, who doesn't even watch his defense. We don't know exactly what Patriots staffers have to offer because Belichick doesn't let them flower. We know that Belichick has an eye for talent, both in players and coaches. That's about all we know.
I guess the key question for Denver fans is how much do you trust Pat Bowlen? I suspect that Broncos faithful trust their owner a great deal, which is somewhat anamolous for any professional sports owner. McDaniels is his guy, handpicked to take the Jay Cutler Broncos to the same heights to which Mike Shanahan lifted the John Elway teams. I don't know if it's a good choice. It may be a great choice. I'm just nervous. And excited.
For Chiefs fans ...
As Clark Hunt continues to creep along in his search for a new general manager, consider this: Bowlen will now be hot on the trail for a personnel boss to team with McDaniels. Any thoughts about whom McDaniels might endorse? Hunt better get moving.
uponfurtherreview.kansascity.com
Chris Mortensen And Oakland Raiders Are Having The Biggest Fight Ever
The most important facet of any relationship is communication, and ESPN's crack football writer and the NFL's angriest franchise are apparently lacking in that department.
Late last night, ESPN.com posted a story by Chris Mortensen - that has since been removed from the front page - saying that the Oakland Raiders were in talks to sell a controlling stake of the team to a billionaire investor who has allegedly tried to buy other NFL teams so that he can move them to Los Angeles. (As if anyone in L.A. wants them.) The Raiders furiously denied such a tale, and included some pointed jabs at Mortensen's fabled "reporting."
"Chris' report is not true," Trask told The Associated Press. "We are not negotiating with this group. We know who they are and that they want to purchase the controlling interest in a team. This team is not available to them. They are unhappy about that and have turned to Chris to assist them in their efforts, which is easy to do since Chris contacted no one with the Raiders to ascertain if there was any truth to his report. There is not. It would have been so easy for him to contact us and ask if we are negotiating with this group. We are not."
Well, okay then. Mortensen responded to that claim in an email to Associated Press, which he quoted in an ESPN.com story that he apparently wrote about himself. (His byline was removed from the top of the story, but his bio remains at the bottom.)
"The Raiders have lost the privilege with me of running stories past them for comment," the e-mail stated. "This stems from their history of denials to most stories I have reported - as well as others in the media - when those stories have eventually proven to be true. The latest example is I reported that Al Davis planned to interview Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride and, of course, the story was trashed by a team spokesman."
Lost the privilege? This is delicious. Oh, wait, Chris would like to clarify.
"Upon further review, I should not have qualified any potential communication with the Raiders as a 'privilege.' I'd say they have repeatedly diminished and discouraged efforts to reach out for an official comment based on the repeated denials of prior stories," Mortensen said. "It also would be an assumption on their part that I have not had any contact with the Raiders while reporting on this story."
Aww, don't back down. PR/reporter hissy fits are the only reason to care about anything that happens at the Coliseum these days. I nominate "Raiders get sold" for most boring story of 2009, but think "Head of ESPN reporter tossed around Oakland tailgate like beach ball" would be a great news peg for the start of next season.
deadspin.com
Miami Dolphins sell out playoff tickets
Sold out.
Thousands of Miami Dolphins fans flocked to the Internet and Dolphin Stadium Monday morning and snapped up some 25,000 remaining tickets to the team's playoff game Sunday, when they host the Baltimore Ravens.
Some fans, like Carol Pulido, had gotten in line early at Dolphin stadium. She showed up more than two hours before the ticket office opened at 9 a.m.
The mother of two waited eagerly outside Gate F to score two tickets: one for her husband Richard, vice mayor of Miami Lakes, and another for her 8-year-old son, Jason.
''He's the biggest 8-year-old Dolphins fan there is. He watches the NFL channel all day long,'' she said.
By 9:30 a.m., 10,000 tickets had been sold -- about half of what was available, according to George Torres, senior director of marketing and communications for Dolphin Stadium and the team.
By midday, they were gone.
Zip. Nada. Zilch. Not one left.
About 50,000 already belong to season ticket holders, Torres explained. The other 25,000 or so were for sale.
''We expected a turnout, but not so much because of the Internet,'' Torres said. "It's emblematic of the enthusiasm of the fan base.''
As South Florida fans waited at the stadium Monday morning, entrepreneurial types had already put tickets up for sale on eBay and Craigslist. Bidding was hot, and asking prices varied wildly, from nearly $100 to over $1,000 for Club Level seats.
At Gate F, tickets were still starting at $46.
But Eddy Navarro didn't race to get in line Monday morning for the prices. He wanted the atmosphere -- especially given the rapid comeback achieved by a Dolphins team that looked quite different a year ago.
''Everyone would have been happy if we were 4 and 10,'' he said. "Now we're 11 and 5. We couldn't be any happier.''
The air conditioning mechanic was one of several in line willing to arrive at work a few minutes late, including a Budweiser beer truck driver and others.
Unlike them, Johns Hopkins University student Scott Goldsmith was on winter vacation.
That's right. From Baltimore.
No worries, he said. Although he played offensive line for his college team, he's a Coral Springs native and a Dolphins fan at heart.
He said he looks forward to seeing Sunday's game now that the team is in better shape than last season.
''When you bring people who know how to run a football team, get a good offensive line and utilize your players, [Miami] stands a chance,'' he said. "We're on a roll.''
Dave Pein, a debt collector living in Coral Springs, thought so too -- the minute Jets quarterback Brett Favre threw his first interception Sunday.
That's when he knew he'd be waiting outside Dolphin Stadium the next morning, he said.
Navarro stood by as Pein discussed what he thought the Dolphins needed to make this season so different from last year.
''The coach,'' Pein said. All the fans around him nodded.
''Someone who cared,'' Navarro chimed in.
As Pein and his wife, Susan, neared the ticket window, Pein seemed nervous. With so many tickets already sold, he didn't seem sure he would get the six he'd hoped for.
After all, there were fans like Cindy Schwartz, who had just walked away from the ticket booth with more than 90 tickets in hand.
Sunday night, 12 of her daughter's friends decided to buy between four and eight tickets each. The end result: Schwartz became a messenger, carrying six envelopes stuffed with almost $12,000.
Suddenly, a stadium employee ushered Pein through. The electronic voices of 11 people behind counters answered the excited cries of a dozen fans.
Seconds before Pein reached his ticket window, his brother, Eddy, gave him a call.
''You didn't get to the window, did you?'' Eddy asked his brother.
''No, we're here now,'' Pein said.
''It's now or Ebay,'' Pein added.
A few minutes later, Pein walked out toward the parking lot, holding his tickets as if he were holding a poker hand.
''Worth every penny,'' he said. "Worth the sweat. Worth the money.''
Copyright 2008 Miami Herald Media Co. All rights reserved
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