January 29, 2008
The Goober Bowl
Posted by pete at January 29, 2008 12:37 AMHere commenceth what is most likely APCB's last NFL-related post of the year.
The prospect of another Manning in the Super Bowl is about as welcome a concept as a school of candiru fish interrupting my hot tub rendezvous with Carla Gugino, but there it is:
Eli, the baby of the Manning quarterback clan, finally has arrived.
And he's taking the New York Giants on yet another road trip -- to Glendale, Ariz., site of the Super Bowl.
Manning repeatedly put the Giants in position to win the NFC championship Sunday, and when Lawrence Tynes came through at last with a 47-yard field goal in overtime, New York had itself an improbable 23-20 victory over the Green Bay Packers at frostbitten Lambeau Field.
Now comes Mission Impossible: beating the undefeated New England Patriots in two weeks in a Super Bowl matchup hardly anyone saw coming.
"We haven't been given a shot, but we're here and I think we're deserving of it," Manning said. "Right now I'm excited as I can be."
[...]
Eli's arrival comes one year after older brother Peyton won a Super Bowl for the Indianapolis Colts, earning MVP honors to boot. Peyton stayed away Sunday, but father Archie was on hand for the biggest moment of his youngest son's career.
That Archie was a real trooper. On each of the 800 times the camera showed him in the box, he was burying his head in his hands. Until the Giants won, of course, when he was front and center. Sir Not Appearing On This Blog and I were able to temper our disappointment by rewinding to this point in Fox's broadcast:
Just so you know, my plans for my impending 40th birthday involve attending a Bears game in Soldier field in December. I couldn't decide if I was going to go shirtless, or make everyone with me do it, but having seen these ladies give their all in subzero temperatures, I may have to ratchet my exploits up to full nudity.
Anyway, I found myself explaining to The Wife just how Manning came to play for the Giants, following his drafting by San Diego and the subsequent trade they made with New York for Philip Rivers. Someone else commented how Archie had advised Eli that San Diego would be bad for his career. This was when I loudly opined that if there's anybody in a worse position to offer guidance on playing for a winning team, it's Archie Manning, who - in 13 pro seasons - never played for a team with a winning record. Without two freak sons, the guy would be Dan Pastorini. Obviously it hasn't worked out badly for Eli, but he certainly could've been forgiven for telling his old man to jam it crossways back in '04.
And that was after only three Dogfish Head IPAs.
And now, because the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry doesn't get enough coverage each year, we now have a Big Apple-Boston Super Bowl. I'm a guy who bitches about East Coast media bias as much as anyone, but when Boston has had two World Series titles in three years, the Patriots are one win away from going 19-0, and the Celtics are running away with the East...it's tough to complain about the relative lack of Houston sports coverage.
And so, in the interest of blatant bandwagoneering, I'm going to go ahead and root for the Pats. For one thing, I'm sick of the '72 Dolphins. For a while there I thought I might be able to just wait them out - professional football players don't have very long lifespans, after all - but I'm no longer as patient as I once was. I'll probably be eating my words when Randy Moss and Richard Seymour are popping corks on the sidelines in 2040, but for now, shut those old bastards up.
That, and the younger Flanders bores me. He has two expressions; there's Confounded Manning - which we see right before he calls a timeout because the defense has thrown a scheme at him he can't figure out, and there's Pouty Manning, who usually emerges right after he throws a pick. The guy's 6'4" and every time they show him in close-up he looks like a kid who was just told by his father that it's wrong to kick dogs.
Finally, can you imagine the sheer tonnage of Manning-related commercials if that twerp wins the championship? Those Oreo commercials are excruciating enough, but put the two of them in a Levitra ad and the football advertising circle would truly be complete.
We'll see come Sunday. In the meantime, I'll probably try to ignore SportsCenter for the next week, and limit my pregame viewing on Sunday to six hours or so.
Actually, I tell a total lie: There was a streaker (boxers, not fully nude) who made it all the way to the 30-yard line on the south side of the field before security brought him down after a very keystone-cop-like chase.
Dude, does your wife just not read your blog, or something? If I ever put up a post containing a reference to my hot tub rendezvous with Carla Gugino OR a picture of three hot chicks wearing very little, I’d hear about it for WEEKS. My wife is a wonderful, wonderful woman, but she does not much appreciate it when I extoll the physical virtues of other women, especially should I allude to some kind of sexual fantasy about any other woman but her.
I must say, though, that Carla Gugino would seem to be a good choice for a hot tub encounter, assuming, of course, that Mariah Carey and/or Katherine McPhee are both unavailable. (I say ‘seem to’ because, y’know, ya never know. Carla might be a prude in real life, or have as toxic a personality as Britney Spears.)
I took the liberty of notifying your wife about this comment.
Remember Davey, a couch isn’t that cold when you have the right kind of blanket.
I was at Soldier for the second of the Bears’ victories over the Pack this year. With two Californians. No nudity, partial or otherwise, but good times. Good times.