Gut Reaction

Superbowl XLI is in the books; Peyton says goodbye to his little friend; that game was "meh."

The following are instant, unadulterated reactions to tonight's game from your correspondent:

--Is it really necessary for the NFL to refer to the Superbowl with Roman numerals? I'm putting the over/under on how many people actually know what the fuck "XLI" means at 2% of the watching public ... and I'm taking the under. Why can't we just refer to the Superbowl by the year in which it was played. I know that in the 2000 Superbowl (excuse me, Superbowl XXXIV) the Rams won and the Titans came up a yard short and I spilled a bunch of beer on the Mule's dormroom floor during the game and Crackhead John got punched in the face more than once by Big Dan and some random Pike rush showed up and ate all the microwavable taquitos, an act which directly led to Crackhead's imminent and unfortunate demise. I associate these occurrences with that game not because of some lame-ass Roman numerals, but by the year. So let's be done with the X's, L's and V's already.

--Isn't Peyton Manning guilty of a false-start on every play that he's in shotgun with that little step forward of his? Goddamn NFL conspiracy.

--Rex Grossman sucks.

--Prince's halftime show was actually kinda okay ... I think.

--Either I wasn't drunk enough or they didn't ignite enough pyrotechnics during Prince's "set", but the lackluster second half surely has something to do with the lack of smog that needs to descend on the field for a competitive and dramatic ending to the Superbowl.

--The Bears really aren't that good. This means that the NFC totally sucked ballz this year.

--Phil Simms is a douche of a "color guy."

--Considering the Colts are clearly God's team led by a "christian coach," was there any doubt they'd beat a team that starts a guy named Muhsin Muhammad at wide receiver?

--I busted out my Crayola 64-pack and then crunched the numbers, and I've found that not only is Tony Dungee the first black headcoach to win a Superbowl, but the coach of the losing team is also black. Holy fuck!

--The commercials were awful. The only good one (and it was pretty freakin' good) was the Bud Light slap yer face one. Nice work. I was kind of hoping for a sequel to the Dodge robot wars, but instead we got that super-weird Godzilla/Mighty-Morphin Power Rangers thing for the GPS device. Fart.

--Bears kicker Robbie Gould pronounces his last name "gold"--no f'n way; the "U" is in there for a reason.

--That game was kind of weak sauce.

That's it for now. No more football for 8 months. At least we don't have to wait two more excruciating weeks for the Pro Bowl. My prediction: 27-23 NFC.

Do people actually watch the Pro Bowl? I have never seen even a second of it. I'm that cool.