Tom Brady's Third Triumph

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Last weekend, Tom Brady joined the most elite of NFL quarterback groups, the QBs who won four Super Bowls in their careers. Brady was the third to achieve that feat.

The other two are Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana.

There were plenty of times in the last decade when Brady must have wondered if he would ever win his fourth Super Bowl ring. In fact, he did get a couple of opportunities in the last 10 years, but the Patriots lost both to the New York Giants.

Brady has now played in six Super Bowls, more than any other quarterback. But the gap between his most recent victory and his triumph last Sunday was almost exactly 10 years.

Ten years ago today, the Patriots took on the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX in Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. It was New England's third appearance in four years.

The Eagles were playing in a Super Bowl for the first time in a quarter of a century. The Patriots were back after being absent from the big game the year before.

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Brady had a good game, completing 23 of 33 passes for 236 yards and two touchdowns, but he wasn't named the MVP. That went to receiver Deion Branch, who caught 11 of those passes for 133 yards.

It may have been the most consistently close Super Bowl ever played. Neither team scored in the first quarter, and both teams managed to score a touchdown in the second and third quarters. Heading into the fourth quarter, it was 14–14.

The fourth quarter began with the Patriots marching downfield. The drive began at their own 34 with 3:35 left in the third quarter and concluded at the 13:49 mark of the fourth quarter with Corey Dillon scoring a touchdown from two yards out. Dillon was in his first season with the Patriots after seven fruitless years in Cincinnati, and he led all rushers in this, his only Super Bowl appearance, on this day 10 years ago.

New England padded the lead a few minutes later with Adam Vinatieri's 22–yard field goal. Nearly midway through the final period, one of the teams finally had a two–score lead, but it wouldn't last. Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb led Philadelphia downfield for a touchdown with just under two minutes to play, and the Eagles were within a field goal of tying the game and sending it to overtime.

But New England recovered the onside kick and went on to claim its third Super Bowl title.

Dillon was on the winning side, and that is almost always where you'll find the Super Bowl MVPs. (Chuck Howley of the Dallas Cowboys took home the MVP in spite of losing Super Bowl V to the Baltimore Colts, but he is the only exception to the rule.)

That being the case, it is only natural to wonder who would have been the MVP if the Eagles had won.

McNabb is as likely a candidate as any. He completed almost as many passes as Brady did (30 of 51) for 357 yards and three touchdowns. But he also threw three interceptions, two of which came on New England's side of the field.

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Try as he might, McNabb just couldn't lift the Eagles past the Patriots. They lost by three points — just as the Rams and Panthers did before them. By comparison, last Sunday's four–point win over the Seahawks was a breeze.

Actually, in the Tom Brady era, the Patriots have played in six Super Bowls, and each was decided by less than a touchdown. New England's two losses to the New York Giants were by four points or less.

That Was a Boneheaded Call

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Sunday's Super Bowl had no real attraction for me — which is ironic, I suppose, since the overnight numbers indicate that it was the highest–rated Super Bowl ever. Obviously, it had an attraction for some people.

But I was a disinterested observer, watching only because there really was nothing else to watch. That is one of the things I remember from my days on the sports copy desk. Super Bowl Sunday was all about the Super Bowl. There might be a few basketball games earlier in the day, but they were just to fill the time. Once the Super Bowl began, nothing else was happening.

I also discovered that nothing competes with the Super Bowl on TV, either. Maybe there was a time in the last 50 years when the networks tried to compete with whichever one had the broadcast rights, but they must have learned quickly that was pointless. People throw parties on Super Bowl Sunday. You can't compete with that.

Once video recorders became a part of American households, it was possible to have quality options. Before that, though, it was the Super Bowl or nothing. On the sports desk, ever mindful of our deadlines, we kept one eye on the game and the other eye on the clock.

I stopped working on sports desks several years ago, and Super Bowl Sunday means something entirely different to me now. Sometimes the Super Bowl has had great meaning for me — like when the Green Bay Packers are playing in it. Most of the time, though, to borrow an expression I heard often when I was growing up, I haven't had a dog in that hunt.

That was the situation in which I found myself Sunday. I didn't really care for either team so I was able to watch with a complete sense of detachment. Being a Packer fan, my attitude would have been entirely different if the Packers had beaten the Seahawks in the NFC championship game. But they didn't so I was free to be just a football fan. That was kind of nice. It meant I could second–guess strategy — which I guess I can do anyway, but it is different when the Packers are playing. I always feel like I am being disloyal if I second–guess the coach's strategy. After all, he works with the players every day. He knows their strengths and weaknesses better than I do — even though I like to tell myself that I know those things, too.

When I have no emotional stake in the outcome, it is easier in some ways to watch the game and more difficult in others.

But I don't have a problem with calling 'em the way I see 'em — and that was a boneheaded call by Seattle's Pete Carroll.

One yard from the end zone. Seattle needed a touchdown to win the game. Carroll has, perhaps, the most punishing running back in the NFL today on his roster, a man who is certainly capable of picking up a single yard. And if he doesn't get it, you've still got time and a timeout to use. You can try again.

Sure, it's playing the odds. Sure, it's predictable. It's even boring — except that it probably would have worked. The Seahawks had the top–rated rushing game in the NFL this season. New England had the ninth–best run defense in the entire NFL — good but not great. How can it be great when the New York Jets were rated ahead of the Patriots in run defense?

Fact is, the Patriots were worse against the pass than they were against the run. They ranked 17th in the NFL. But when you're talking about the passing game, New England's pass defense has the edge against Seattle's pass offense, which ranked 27th in the entire NFL.

"You dance with who brung you," Darrell Royal used to say. The Seahawks relinquished their NFL title because they forgot to dance with who brung 'em.

The Imperfectionists

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Later today, the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens will meet in Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans.

As you have no doubt heard, there are many dramatic storylines in this year's Super Bowl — the first time brothers will be coaching against one another, the final NFL game for Baltimore's Ray Lewis, etc.

And CSNCalifornia.com's Lee Siegel writes that, if they win today, the 49ers will be 6–0 in the Super Bowl, matching Michael Jordan and the Bulls in the NBA.

As dynasties go, I guess Jordan's Bulls have become the gold standard.

But the comparison of the Bulls and the 49ers is a bit of a stretch. Jordan really did participate in six championship–winning efforts in Chicago. The 49ers won their first four Super Bowls in truly Jordanesque style — behind the leadership of Joe Montana. But the fifth was won behind Montana's successor, Steve Young, and today's squad will be led by a fellow who was in elementary school the last time San Francisco hoisted the Lombardi Trophy. He hadn't been born when Montana won his first two Super Bowls.

And Siegel acknowledges that fact — albeit somewhat grudgingly — when he writes that, even though it will have taken three quarterbacks to accomplish it, a victory today still will be "yet another feather in the cap of this area and this franchise."

The game's final outcome will determine which storyline is the most relevant and the most intriguing, I suppose.

But today's Super Bowl will have to go some to match the drama of the Super Bowl that was played five years ago today.

On that day, the New England Patriots were the first team in 35 years to enter the Super Bowl with a perfect record — and, if they won the game, they would be only the second team to win every regular season and every postseason game — the first since the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

That alone probably rendered that game more dramatic than the one that will be played today.

But then the Giants, who were 12–point underdogs, snatched history away from the shocked Patriots, who had become the Dolphins (well, perhaps, more like the Steelers — or even the 49ers) of their generation with three Super Bowl appearances in the previous six years.

The Patriots had won all three of those Super Bowls, including a last–second triumph over the St. Louis Rams, widely regarded at the time as the NFL's greatest franchise.

Considering how Tom Brady and the Patriots had ruled the NFL in the first decade of the 21st century (not to mention the AFC's Eastern Division), it was logical to assume that an unbeaten New England team, with all that postseason experience on its roster, would crush the Giants, a mere wild–card entry.

Wild cards, of course, weren't part of the NFL's postseason landscape in the 1960s, but ever since 1970, there has been at least one in every playoff picture. In those 37 seasons, only eight wild cards had ever made it as far as the Super Bowl — only four had won it all.

It's safe to say that nearly everyone (with the noteworthy exception of Giants fans) assumed New England would win — and most probably assumed Brady would win his third Super Bowl MVP as well.

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Not only had wild cards rarely prevailed in the Super Bowl, but there had been relatively few Super Bowls that were truly competitive — at least in the first 30 or 35 years of its existence — regardless of whether a wild card played in them.

Football fans in the 21st century have grown accustomed to close scores in Super Bowls — thanks largely (but not exclusively) to the Patriots, who may have dominated their conference but won each of those three Super Bowls by three–point margins. Perhaps, in hindsight, that was something of a warning of what to expect.

For decades, the Super Bowl was frequently seen as a rather anticlimactic championship game in which one team dominated the other. There were some competitive games — but they were considered the exceptions to the rule.

The first decade of the 21st century produced more single–score margins than any decade since the Super Bowl era began yet, when the game began five years ago today, the two most recent Super Bowls had been won by more than a single score.

Those scores hadn't been nearly as lopsided as many Super Bowls that were played in the 20th century, but they were sufficient to make some people (especially football people, not just casual fans) wonder if the NFL was returning to a time when wide margins were the norm.

What happened on this day five years ago drove such thoughts far from observers' minds. What happened five years ago today was probably one of the most astonishing upsets in football history — more astonishing than when Broadway Joe led the Jets past the Colts in Super Bowl III.

I guess it took a team from Broadway to do it.

It was dramatic from the start. The Giants opened the game with the longest drive in Super Bowl history (including a record four third–down conversions). The drive consumed nearly 10 minutes, but the Giants ultimately had to settle for a field goal.

After taking a 3–0 lead in the first quarter, the Giants fell behind at halftime, 7–3. That was still the score when the fourth quarter began. It's safe to say that few who were watching that day, either at University of Phoenix Stadium or on TV, anticipated what happened in the fourth quarter.

There were three lead changes in that fourth quarter — first, Eli Manning led the Giants down the field for a touchdown, giving New York a 10–7 advantage. Then Brady retaliated with a touchdown pass to Randy Moss (who will participate in the Super Bowl later today), giving New England a 14–10 lead with less than three minutes to play.

But then came the kind of moment that can define a football player's professional career, for good or ill.

And, in the case of Eli Manning, it was for good. He drove the Giants more than 80 yards and threw the winning touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with about 30 seconds to play.

But he might not have been in the position to throw that pass if he had not completed an improbable third down pass to David Tyree, who caught the first go–ahead TD pass earlier in the quarter.

In a catch that really defied description, Tyree outleaped the defender and made a one–handed grab in which the ball appeared to be stuck between his hand and his helmet.

The catch gained more than 30 yards for the Giants, who scored the go–ahead touchdown a few plays later. Manning, who completed 19 of 34 passes for 255 yards and two touchdowns, was named the game's MVP.

When Manning and the Giants beat the Patriots again four years later, he eclipsed his older brother Peyton, who, to date, has one Super Bowl title.

But even if Peyton matches his brother in Super Bowl victories, he will probably never match what his brother did five years ago today ... when Eli denied the Patriots their bid for perfection.

Eli's Coming

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When I was a boy, Three Dog Night was one of the most popular bands around, and one of its earliest hits was a tune called "Eli's Coming."

That song wasn't related in any way to football, but, nevertheless, the title sprang to mind as I watched, for the second time in the last five years, Eli Manning lead his New York Giants to a come–from–behind victory over Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

On Saturday, I observed that it was the fifth anniversary of Eli's brother's one and only Super Bowl triumph — and I also noted that, with another win over the Patriots, Eli would notch his second title "and, in the process, probably secur[e] his spot in the NFL's Hall of Fame."

That's how it tends to be with multiple Super Bowl–winning quarterbacks, I wrote, and, in the aftermath of Sunday's game, I see I'm not alone.

Don Banks of Sports Illustrated wrote of the "pretty select club" Eli joined with his victory.

"Quarterbacks with multiple Super Bowl wins have a cache all their own in NFL history," Banks wrote, "and we best start wrapping our minds around the reality that Peyton Manning's little brother is in the fraternity, and the Colts' long–time great isn't. That last shall be first stuff really does come to pass sometimes."

Banks reeled off the names of the multiple winners and observed that nearly all of them are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. That certainly improves the odds that Eli will wind up in Canton as well.

Lord knows he wouldn't get in on the strength of his regular–season numbers. For that matter, his numbers on Sunday were good but not great. He completed 30 of 40 passes for just under 300 yards and one touchdown.

Good enough to get the job done, but not eye popping.

Of course, unlike his older brother, Eli's life is hardly at a crossroads. He's a hot property, having won not only his second Super Bowl but his second Super Bowl MVP award as well. And that makes up for a lot of things.

Success is fleeting in the NFL — just ask the last three quarterbacks who won the Super Bowl — and someone else may well be on the mountaintop in the space of another year.

But today it is Eli who stands astride that mountaintop, surveying the NFL's terrain below and basking in the praise that comes his way for his achievements.

That praise is certainly deserved, but I can't help thinking of how slender the gap between winning and losing a Super Bowl can be. After Manning's Giants opened the game with an impressive and workmanlike — but ultimately futile — possession, they had to punt and succeeded in pinning the Patriots deep in their own territory.

On the first play from scrimmage, Brady threw a pass that went 45 or 50 yards in the air easily — but the officials ruled that no eligible receivers were in the vicinity of the pass, which is the definition of intentional grounding, and threw a flag.

Ordinarily, the penalty for intentional grounding is loss of both yardage and down. Since Brady was in the end zone when he threw the pass, it resulted in a safety and a 2–0 Giants lead.

It has been my experience that some people believe that, for intentional grounding to have occurred, a quarterback must be in the grasp of a defender — and clearly in danger of being tackled for a loss — and throws the ball away to avoid the lost yardage and/or to preserve time on the clock.

But it is not essential for the quarterback to be under duress. It is only necessary for no eligible receiver to be in the vicinity of the pass — whether that pass is short or long.

An old friend (a colleague from my sports desk days) observed on Facebook that it was "the longest intentional grounding play I've ever seen," and I had to agree.

It also seemed to me that, given the fact that Brady's pass covered about half the length of the football field, it was unreasonable for anyone to expect him to be precise about his target — or whether the receiver would stay in the vicinity of the pass in the time it took for the ball to reach its destination.

But that is how the rule is written — currently. I think it would be wise to revisit that rule during the offseason.

Anyway, the game proceeded with the usual scoring — touchdowns and field goals — until late in the game, when the Patriots led, 17–15, and the Giants scored what proved to be the winning touchdown. They went for two on the conversion and came up short, making the final score 21–17.

Now, imagine if the Patriots had not been penalized for intentional grounding but failed to put together a scoring drive on their first possession and wound up punting.

And everything else unfolded as it did (which you really can't assume because everything that happened after the penalty was predicated, to some degree, on the fact that it did, in fact, happen).

That would have made the score 17–13 when the Giants began their game–winning drive.

As it was, the Giants were under no pressure to score a touchdown. All that was needed to take the lead was a field goal, and perhaps that made a difference in the way they played in those final minutes.

But, in the alternate scenario, a touchdown would have been necessary. Under the additional pressure, would the Giants have crumbled? Would they have called different plays? Would the Patriots have followed a different strategy on defense? We'll never know.

If we assume, however, that the Giants would have scored the touchdown, as, of course, they did, it would have made the score 19–17, and my guess is the Giants would have settled for one point on the conversion instead of going for two.

Extra–point kicks are almost always successful, and this one would have given the Giants a 20–17 lead — nearly the actual final score but with a crucial difference. That one–point variation could have made all the difference for New England.

The Patriots' strategy would have been to get within field goal range and try to force the game into overtime, not to get into the end zone, and their play calling would have reflected that.

But the game turned out the way it did — and that first–quarter safety made it possible for the Giants to gamble on a two–point conversion. Whether it was successful or not, they knew the Patriots would have to score a touchdown, they didn't have much time and they were almost out of timeouts.

Eli Manning certainly contributed to the victory, but so did everyone on the team — and, indirectly, Brady did, too. I'm not sure if he deserved to be named MVP.

But he got his second title, and that may be what matters most. Eli is in his prime and could still win another title or two before time catches up to him as it has his brother. He might not, though. You never know.

Eli's coming? He's here. But he might not be back.

Time will tell.

One For The Books

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Such a thing is frequently said of a championship game, but Super Bowl XXXVI, which was played 10 years ago today, really was one for the books.

• It was the first Super Bowl ever played in February.
  
  If you're under 20, you might not have a clear memory of a time when Super Bowls were always played in January, but in the decade since Super Bowl XXXVI was played, only one Super Bowl has been played in January. The rest — including the one that will be played this Sunday — have been in February — and it certainly has the look of a permanent change.
  
  The fact that the Super Bowl was played in February 10 years ago was completely unintentional. It was a consequence of the Sept. 11 attacks and the fact that the NFL postponed all the games that were scheduled for the weekend after the attacks.
  
  Those games eventually were made up the weekend after the regular season was scheduled to end, pushing the start of the playoffs back by a week. The Super Bowl originally had been scheduled for Jan. 27, but it was moved instead to Feb. 3.
  
  Super Bowl host cities are chosen years in advance, and other events are often planned for the week leading up to the game. Local businesses plan to cash in on all that Super Bowl windfall — which is never limited to game day alone.
  
  (Here in Dallas, for example, where last year's Super Bowl was played, there were stories of private citizens who were renting out personal property for up to two weeks — for thousands of dollars per day. And, in spite of an ice storm that virtually crippled the area in the week leading up to the big game, hotels, restaurants and transportation providers still did a thriving business. Some reportedly raised their fees just for the occasion.)
  
  There wasn't any wiggle room for adjusting the schedule to allow for something like a terrorist attack a decade ago.
  
  In the past, there had been a bye week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. If a bye week had been scheduled 10 years ago, it could have been sacrificed to make up the lost regular–season games, and the Super Bowl still could have been played on Jan. 27.
  
  But the bye week had been temporarily dropped during a transition period in which the start of the NFL season had been moved to the weekend after Labor Day. That meant there was no bye week to drop in order to accommodate the lost games and keep the Super Bowl on its original schedule.


• It was the first time that the lead changed on the final play of the Super Bowl.
  
  There have been a few Super Bowls in which the outcome was unknown until sometime in the final minute, and sometimes it went down to the last seconds. But Super Bowl XXXVI was the first — and, so far, only — one that had a lead change on the final play.
  
  In fact, there was no leader when the teams lined up for that final play. The score was tied, and just about everyone must have assumed we were about to witness the first Super Bowl to go into overtime.
  
  But the New England Patriots engineered a remarkable drive, capped by an even more remarkable field goal by Adam Vinatieri to beat the heavily favored St. Louis Rams as time ran out.


• Even though he was on the losing side, Rams quarterback Kurt Warner had the second–most productive passing day in Super Bowl history — second only to the day he had two years earlier when the Rams beat the Tennessee Titans.
  
  Warner's numbers (365 yards in February 2002, more than 400 yards in January 2000) seemed appropriate for a team that had been dubbed "The Greatest Show on Turf." The Rams of those years piled up big yardage and incredible scores almost every time they played and are remembered by many as one of the greatest offensive units in pro football history.
  
  But, for some reason, they seemed to encounter immovable objects when they got to the Super Bowl.

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• The reputation of the Patriots' Tom Brady had not yet been established 10 years ago.
  
  When the 2001 regular season began, Brady was the team's #2 quarterback behind Drew Bledsoe, but he was pressed into full–time service when Bledsoe went down with an injury in the second game of the season.
  
  It's safe to say Patriots fans never missed him.
  
  New England was 0–2 following the game in which Bledsoe was injured. The Patriots were 11–3 the rest of the way with Brady at the helm, even though he was only in his second year and had thrown just three passes on the pro level before Bledsoe was hurt.
  
  Warner finished the game with gaudier numbers, but Brady won a ring.

He's added two more to his personal collection since then, but this Sunday he will be seeking to avenge the one time when it got away.

And, when he takes the field against New York, he will be starting in his fifth Super Bowl. That's as many as John Elway — and more than Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw or Roger Staubach.

It's hard to remember when Brady was a relatively unknown quarterback who had never even played in a Super Bowl, much less won one.

But it all began 10 years ago today.

Return to Titletown

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I remember, as a child, watching the Green Bay Packers play on TV.

Vince Lombardi was their coach, and I was becoming interested in football cards. My cards of Bart Starr, Ray Nitschke, Willie Wood, Donny Anderson and all the others were my prized possessions.

I believed the Packers were the best in football — and they were. But I believed it would always be that way — and it wasn't.

Frankly, it seemed like kind of a dirty trick to me, hooking me as a Packers fan at an early age and then reducing the Packers to NFL bottom feeders for many years.

I can't tell you how often I longed on Super Sunday — as I watched the Dolphins or Steelers or Cowboys or 49ers win it all time after time — for the Packers to just get to a Super Bowl.

I always told myself I wouldn't mind if they lost the game. I just wanted them to play in the Super Bowl, the game everyone watched.

Of course, that wasn't true. The longer I waited, the more I wanted to see the Packers win. Just getting there wouldn't be enough. Eventually, I had to acknowledge that.

But, for a long time, the possibility of the Packers being in the Super Bowl was extremely remote. The Packers usually failed even to make the playoffs. In fact, they typically did so spectacularly. They were frequently among the first to be mathematically eliminated from the playoff discussion.

A Packers Super Bowl appearance was strictly hypothetical for Green Bay fans.

That changed 20 years ago. With a few exceptions, the Packers have become fixtures in the NFL playoffs, and they have actually been to three Super Bowls in those two decades, winning two and losing the NFC Championship game on two other occasions.

It changed when Brett Favre took over as the Packers' quarterback. Not right away. Favre led Green Bay to the playoffs almost from the start, but the Packers in those days reminded me of the Tin Woodman in "The Wizard of Oz" — a little creaky at first but gradually picking up speed as the oil spread to its extremities.

The Packers of the early '90s returned to the playoffs as a wild–card team in 1993 and 1994, then won their division in 1995 and made it to the NFC title game, where they lost to Dallas.

It was 15 years ago that the Packers finally returned to the Super Bowl for the first time since Lombardi's day. Their opponent in the New Orleans Superdome was the New England Patriots.

That might seem rather unremarkable to modern football fans, who have seen both teams in multiple Super Bowls in recent years, but it certainly made Super Bowl XXXI intriguing. At the time, the Patriots had only been to one other Super Bowl more than a decade earlier and had lost in rather spectacular fashion to the Chicago Bears. And the Packers, of course, hadn't been to the Super Bowl in three decades. On the basis of that, I wasn't sure that either team had an advantage.

The Packers, however, had made an impression on the guys who determine the point spreads in athletic contests, presumably based on Green Bay's recent upward trajectory in the playoffs. New England, on the other hand, was considered something of a flash in the pan, having rarely been seen in the postseason since losing the Super Bowl to Chicago.

Anyway, the Packers went into the game favored by 14 points. As a lifelong Packers fan, I felt a certain amount of gratification, naturally, but I also felt a bit anxious as Super Sunday approached. Everyone was treating the outcome as a foregone conclusion, and the last thing I wanted the Packers to do was to treat the game as if victory was assured.

Initially, it seemed my fears were justified. At the end of the first quarter, New England led, 14–10, but the Packers scored 17 unanswered points in the second quarter and went to the locker room with a 27–14 halftime lead.

In hindsight, I needn't have worried. As it turned out, the Packers won by precisely 14 points, thanks to a jaw–dropping 99–yard third–quarter kickoff return for a touchdown by Desmond Howard, who became the first special teams player to win the Super Bowl MVP.

Howard's return certainly deserved recognition, but I always felt that Green Bay's victory on that day was more of a team effort, with many people making significant contributions.

Howard's return did, in fact, stop New England's momentum dead in its tracks. The Patriots had just scored a touchdown that brought them within six points of the Packers, and Howard's return took all the wind from their sails.

But defensive lineman Reggie White did his part as well, setting a Super Bowl record for sacks. I can vividly remember seeing White pick up Patriot offensive linemen and toss them aside as if they were rag dolls.

And Favre, who is considered by nearly everyone to be a lock for the Hall of Fame, threw for two touchdowns and ran for another. He was the first Super Bowl–winning quarterback to account for three touchdowns or more and not be named MVP.

That didn't seem to bother Favre at the time. "We etched our place in history today," he said after the game, putting the team's accomplishment over everything else.

Favre, like most observers, probably figured he would have other opportunities to be named the Super Bowl's MVP. But he didn't.

He did play in another Super Bowl — the following year — and lost it. Only once has the Super Bowl MVP come from the losing team — and it wasn't Favre.

When Favre is inducted into the Hall of Fame, there will be many achievements to be listed beneath his name — but Super Bowl MVP will not be among them. And, in some ways, that seems unfair. All the other Green Bay quarterbacks who took the Packers to the Super Bowl were named Super Bowl MVP — including Aaron Rodgers, Favre's successor.

But Favre has a special distinction that may not always get the attention it deserves. He revived a proud but moribund franchise — as did Bart Starr in the 1960s — and is responsible for the virtually dynastic status the Packers enjoy today.

It sure is a different world from the one in which I grew up.

Ditka's Disgrace

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Yesterday, I wrote about the 30th anniversary of the first wild card to win a Super Bowl — and I suggested that it might have been appropriate if the Jets had won the AFC title on Sunday because that would have put two wild–card teams in this year's Super Bowl.

But it might have been more appropriate if the Chicago Bears had beaten the Green Bay Packers for the NFC title.

(That isn't an easy thing for me to say, being a lifelong Green Bay fan. But hear me out on this one.)

It was a quarter of a century ago today that the Chicago Bears played in their first Super Bowl. Their opponents were the New England Patriots — and, while it is probably hard for the current generation to believe, that was the Patriots' first Super Bowl, too.

Football fans had rarely seen two teams playing in their first Super Bowl at the same time. Granted, the most recent such game had been only a few years earlier, when the San Francisco 49ers faced the Cincinnati Bengals. But it had only happened twice before that — when Broadway Joe followed through on his famous "guarantee" in Super Bowl III and in the very first Super Bowl (when it was a sure thing that both teams were making their first appearance).

There was never a chance of a team appearing in its first Super Bowl this time. But, until Sunday, there was a chance that the Bears might be able to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their first trip to the big game with a return trip.

It wouldn't have been the Bears' first trip back to the Super Bowl since that day in January 1986. They made it back to the Super Bowl a few years ago — and lost to the Colts.

Even so, it would have made an interesting story line — not that the Super Bowl ever lacks for interesting story lines. In fact, sometimes the story lines have been better than the games themselves.

For awhile, it was even possible that the Bears and the Patriots could mark the anniversary with a rematch. But that possibility ended when the Jets defeated the Patriots in the divisional round.

It remained possible — for a week — that the Bears could observe their silver anniversary with an appearance in Dallas. The odds of that happening dwindled rapidly after Jay Cutler went down with an injury.

But, really, how could you commemorate that anniversary? It was Walter Payton's only Super Bowl after a career of toiling for mostly bad Bears teams — but he really did nothing special when he got there. He didn't even score a touchdown.

That would be understandable, I suppose, if the game had been a defensive struggle. But the only defense that struggled that day was New England's.

I felt it was disgraceful that Payton didn't score on a day when the Chicago Bears set a Super Bowl scoring record with 46 points.

I guess you could call Payton the consummate professional. While no one could have known that Super Bowl XX would be his only Super Bowl, he had been in the NFL for a decade, and that is a long time for a running back.

Seems to me that any reasonable football fan would have to at least suspect that it would be his only one. And, in fact, Payton only played two more seasons after he went to the Super Bowl. The Bears made the playoffs both years, but they were one and done both times and Payton never scored a touchdown in either of his last two playoff games.

He should have scored a touchdown in Super Bowl XX.

The Bears were deep in New England territory late in the third quarter. Realistically, the game had been over for a long time. Chicago led New England, 37–3.

With the ball at New England's 1–yard line and what amounted to a five–touchdown lead, the Bears were imposing their will. But instead of calling for quarterback Jim McMahon to give it to Payton, coach Mike Ditka chose to go with the novelty act he had unveiled earlier in the season in a Monday night game — in which 300–pound defensive lineman William "The Refrigerator" Perry came in, took the handoff and made his roly–poly way into the end zone.

For a time there in the mid–1980s, the "Fridge," as he was known, became something of a cult hero.

But not to me.

I felt it was shameful that someone like Payton was denied the satisfaction of finally scoring in a Super Bowl. His team was about to do something no team had done before — exceed 40 points in a Super Bowl — and Payton's touchdown would have been the one that made that a reality.

Ditka told a Payton biographer that Payton was the greatest football player he ever saw but an even better human being.

It was too bad he didn't give him the ball from a yard out and let him get his name in the Super Bowl history books for doing more than averaging 2.8 yards per carry that day.

Payton achieved many things in his life, which ended far too soon. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame several years before his death. He ran for more than 100 touchdowns in his professional career, but he refused to celebrate when he scored; he just handed the ball to an official or a teammate and went back to the sideline in his quiet, low–key way.

He was over 30 when he got to the Super Bowl. He had given everything he could to help the Bears get there. He ran for more than 1,500 yards that season but stood back and allowed the others to take the credit.

There were many stars on that team, to be sure. And most of them were given their moment in the spotlight.

But not Payton.

Wild-Card Weekend Is Upon Us

As I have mentioned here before, I admire the writing of Sports Illustrated's Peter King. He writes very insightful articles about pro football, and he asked an intriguing question in his preview of this weekend's wild–card games:

"When's the last time you recall all four wild–card games being so competitive you wouldn't be surprised to see the road team win any one?" He then proceeds to pick the road teams in two of this weekend's games. I'm with King on that one. In fact, as you will soon see, I have picked three of the four road teams to win this weekend.

Personally, I have often felt that home field was overrated, and King kind of affirms that in his piece. "Two roadies won last year," he writes, "and three won in 2005. This year, I don't care what Vegas says. It's even–steven across the board entering the weekend."

The New York Giants won the Super Bowl two years ago after beating Tampa Bay, Dallas and Green Bay on the road in the NFC playoffs. In 2005, the Pittsburgh Steelers became the first team in two decades to win three road games en route to the Super Bowl (which they also won).

In fact, I have wondered if the practice of giving a first–round bye to the big winners during the regular season hasn't been a detriment, not a benefit. Consider the recent teams that have advanced to the Super Bowl (whether they won or lost) in spite of having to play in the first round: Arizona had to play on wild–card weekend last year. As mentioned previously, the Giants were a wild card two years ago and won it all. So did the Indianapolis Colts, who were not a wild card but had to play one in January 2007. I mentioned the 2005 Steelers. Carolina played in the wild–card weekend following the 2003 season. The 2001 Ravens had to play in the first round. So did the 1999 Tennessee Titans.

Seven of the last 10 Super Bowls have featured a team that did not get a first–round bye. Four of those seven were won by the team that didn't get the bye week. When you consider that four teams get a first–round bye every season, and they get that bye because they are one of the top two winningest teams in the conference, it logically follows that they probably went into the playoffs among the favorites to at least play in the Super Bowl, if not win it all.

That means that, in the last 10 years alone, at least 16 teams that probably were considered one of the favorites to win a Super Bowl did not, and at least 28 teams that were favored to at least play in a Super Bowl did not.

Why do I believe having to play in a wild–card game is not the kiss of death that many seem to think it is? Because I believe a bye week at this stage of the season is useful only if a team is banged up and needs a little extra time to get over its bumps and bruises.

If the team is in fairly good health, my thinking has been that a bye takes a team out of its rhythm. It retards a team's momentum. And I believe New Orleans and Indianapolis, who rested their starters when there was nothing left to play for, may pay a price for doing the smart thing and protecting their top producers.

But that's a subject to be addressed as we go deeper into the playoffs.

TODAY

• New York Jets (9–7) at Cincinnati (10–6) — Of the three playoff games that are rematches of games played last week, this one seems to be the most likely to produce a duplicate result. By the time last Sunday's game between the Jets and the Bengals began, the results of all the other games were known, and the Bengals had nothing to play for. The Jets did, and it showed in the final score — a 37–0 triumph. The game provides an intriguing contrast. When the season began, the Bengals had the hot hand, winning seven of their first 10 games. But, at season's end, the Jets were the hot team, winning five of their last six. Since Thanksgiving, Cincinnati lost to three playoff teams and only managed wins over Detroit and Kansas City. The last time the teams played in Cincinnati was on Oct. 21, 2007. The Bengals prevailed, 38–31, but the Jets have won two in a row at home against the Bengals since then. Can they win at Cincinnati for the first time since September 1997? I think they will.


• Philadelphia (11–5) at Dallas (11–5) — As members of the same division, these two teams are familiar foes. They play each other twice a year, and they just played at Cowboys Stadium last Sunday. In that game, Dallas won, 24–0, giving the Cowboys two victories over the Eagles during the regular season. Now they must try to make it three victories, which is a difficult task. And the Cowboys need look no further than their own postseason experience for examples of just how hard it can be. Two years ago — the last time Dallas was in the playoffs — the Cowboys faced the New York Giants in the playoffs after beating them twice during the regular season. The Giants won, 21–17, and went on to the Super Bowl, where they upset the previously unbeaten New England Patriots. And, in 1998, the Cowboys beat the Arizona Cardinals (who were in their division at the time) twice during the regular season, then lost to the Cardinals in the playoffs, 20–7. Until this season, there was considerable talk about the Cowboys' "December jinx," although that talk seems to have been dispelled by Dallas' 3–2 record last month (including a victory over previously unbeaten New Orleans). Nevertheless, some folks in Dallas will remind you that the Cowboys haven't won a playoff game in more than 10 years. I predict the Eagles, who had won six in a row before tumbling against Dallas last Sunday, will bounce back and win the game.

SUNDAY

• Baltimore (9–7) at New England (10–6) — The way I see it, there are three things to keep in mind in this game. First: Location, location, location. The Patriots have been absolutely awful on the road, which is where they will have to play next week if they beat Baltimore. But, against the Ravens, New England is playing at home, where the Pats are 8–0. Baltimore, meanwhile, is 3–5 on the road, and the Ravens lost at New England earlier in the season, 27–21. So, on the basis of location, the Pats should be favored. Second: Statistics. The Patriots are third in the NFL in total offense (the Ravens are 13th) and pass offense (the Ravens are 18th). Baltimore does have the advantage in rushing offense, ranking fifth in the NFL while the Patriots are 12th. Baltimore has the edge in team defense (third in the NFL, compared to 11th for New England), passing defense (eighth in the NFL while New England is 12th) and rushing defense (fifth in the NFL; Patriots are 13th). New England's margin on offense is more pronounced than Baltimore's is on defense — although, if Baltimore has the lead late in the game and needs to run the ball to control the clock, the Ravens seem to be in a better position to do so than the Patriots. That doesn't seem likely to me, though, so I'll give the edge to New England. Third: Postseason experience. It can be argued that today's Ravens have more recent postseason experience than the Patriots. New England, after all, did not qualify for the playoffs last year while Baltimore, in spite of being the sixth seed, defeated Miami and Tennessee on the road and stayed within striking distance of Pittsburgh in the first half of the AFC title game. Will the weather be a factor? Well, it's expected to be cold (predicted high of 24°) and windy (the wind chill could be as low as -1°) but sunny. That's a little colder than it is expected to be in Baltimore tomorrow (28°, sunny, not as windy). The Ravens may notice the weather, but I doubt they will be affected by it. I think they are more likely to be affected by the atmosphere. History has shown that it is very tough for the visiting team to win at New England, especially in the playoffs, and I'll give the home team the edge in this one.


• Green Bay (11–5) at Arizona (10–6) — Pat Kirwan of NFL.com says the key to this game is the ability to get to the quarterback, and he may have a point. Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers did get sacked 50 times this season, and he was sacked more than twice as often in games the Packers lost. But bear in mind that Green Bay's defense appears to be better than Arizona's. The Packers have the best team defense in the NFC and the best run defense in the NFL. And, while the Green Bay pass defense is ranked second in the NFC, Arizona's is ranked 11th. Add to that the fact that Green Bay has beaten Arizona severely twice this year — once was in the third week of the preseason, so it didn't count in the standings, and the other was last weekend. This is the playoffs, and the Cardinals may have Anquan Boldin back from injury — although NFL.com suggests that it is unlikely he will play. Apparently, he's still hobbling around, but he's a factor whenever he is in the lineup. I think the game will be closer this time, but I'll stick with the Packers, who are probably the hottest team on the NFC side of the playoffs.

So, if my predictions are correct, next week's playoffs will be:

• In the NFC, Green Bay will play Minnesota for the third time this season, and Philadelphia will travel to New Orleans in a rematch of their Week 2 meeting.


• In the AFC, the top–seeded Indianapolis Colts will play host to the New York Jets, who handed them their first loss of the season a couple of weeks ago, and San Diego will play host to New England in what would be the first postseason game that is not a rematch of a regular–season contest.

Last week: 9–7.

Season: 180–78.